Last night, at the University of Chicago (Mandel Hall), they opened with this piece, which was followed by Shostakovich (String Quartet No. 4 in D Major), Brahms (String Quartet in A Minor) and, in an encore, Webern (Langsamer Satz). One-word review: spellbinding.
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), String Quartet in D Major, Op. 20, No. 4 (excerpt); Takács Quartet, live, New York, 2018
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
My kind of “genius.”
Vijay Gupta, violinist, educator, social-justice advocate, 2018 MacArthur Fellow, talking and playing
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Filled with music, we’re free of all else.
more
Jürg Frey (1953-), Klavierstück Arrangement Nr. 1-3 (1991); Keiko Shichijo (piano), live, c. 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
On a journey, ill:
my dream goes wandering
over withered fields.—Matsuo Basho, 1644-1694 (translated from Japanese by Yoel Hoffmann; Japanese Death Poems, Yoel Hoffmann, ed.)
Need a break from the incessant noise?
Jürg Frey (1953-), Canones Incerti (2010), Jürg Frey (clarinet), et al., live
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lagniappe
baseball
Baseball is such a perfect game in some ways that it takes 162 to decide nothing.
—Cubs manager Joe Maddon on the Cubs/Brewers tie
otherworldly
This I could listen to all day.
John Cage (1912-1992), Three Dances for Two Prepared Pianos (1944-45); Seba Ali (piano) and Jacqueline Ching-Ling (piano), live, Stony Brook, N.Y., 2015