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Category: classical

Saturday, February 11th

If I knew I had a week to live, this is one of the recordings I would want to hear.

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), 24 Preludes
Alfred Cortot (1877-1962), piano, 1933/34


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langiappe

reading table

dizzying, adj. making you feel dizzy. E.g., reading a John Ashbery poem.

Listen to it the way everybody
here was naughty today,
of how broad it is.

Foreign man with an affluent cigar,
he used to live on top of this bed
on the local rails he was so proud of
among the recyclables, this morning,
spouting words that I thought were other.
Yes, and they became addictive. Oh,

make me a boy again! Do something!
But the little candle just stood there,
reflected in its lozenge-shaped mirror.
Maybe that was “something,”
a lithe sentence.

He’s only going to do it for the first time.
It’s snowing hard.

Hand me the orange.

—John Ashbery (1927-), “Just So You’ll Know,” New Yorker, 2/13 & 20/17

Friday, February 10th

Quiet, beauty—sometimes they seem to have all but disappeared.

Valentin Silvestrov (piano), live, Ukraine (Kiev), 2012


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lagniappe

random thoughts

I’ve been a criminal defense lawyer for over 30 years. Week in and week out, I’m in federal and state courts. I have deeply mixed feelings about our legal system. But last night, as I read the Ninth Circuit’s 29-page ruling, I felt enormous gratitude for the one branch of government that currently seems capable of—or even interested in—thoughtful analysis.

Saturday, February 4th

never enough

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Partitas No. 1 (B minor), 2 (D minor), and 3 (E major) for solo violin; Gidon Kremer (violin), live, Austria (Lockenhaus), 2006


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lagniappe

art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Grapes, Lemons, Pears and Apples, 1887

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Thursday, February 2nd

Last night, in Chicago, worn out by work and the world, I walked from my office to Symphony Center, where I heard these folks perform pieces by, among others, this composer—and I’m so glad I did.

Kremerata Baltica with Gidon Kremer (violin), live; Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996), Sinfonietta No. 2, excerpt (3rd mvt., Adagio)


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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Chicago

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Wednesday, February 1st

more

Wet Ink Ensemble, Pendulum V (Alex Mincek), live, New York, 2009

 

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langiappe

reading table

in such an ugly time the true protest is beauty

Phil Ochs (1940-1976), Pleasures of the Harbor (1967), liner notes

Tuesday, January 31st

Sunday night, in Chicago, I heard these folks perform at Constellation. Afterward, as I walked out the door, the night air seemed clearer, lighter, as if it had just been washed.

Wet Ink Ensemble, Pendulum VII (Alex Mincek), live, New York, 2013

 

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lagniappe

art beat: other day, High Line (New York)

Tony Matelli (1971-), Sleepwalker, 2014

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Tuesday, January 25th

This I could listen to all day.

Jürg Frey (1953-), Sam Lazaro Bros (1984); Dante Boon, piano


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

As with breaths, so too with sounds: one after another—each new.

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art beat: other day, The Guggenheim (New York)

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Tableau No. 2/Composition No. VII, 1913

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Tuesday, January 24th

In a world so noisy what’s more precious than sounds so quiet?

Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame), Piano and string quartet (1985), Sed Contra Ensemble, live (performance begins at 4:11), Ukraine (Lviv), 2016


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lagniappe

art beat: other day, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)

Edward Hopper (1882-1967), A Woman in the Sun, 1961

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Friday, January 20th

Something small, quiet, mysterious for this most unimaginable day.

Erik Satie (1866-1925), Gnossienne 1 (c. 1890); Alessio Nanni, piano


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lagniappe

reading table

The only choice we get is what to worship.

—David Foster Wallace (1962-2008), This Is Water

Saturday, December 31st

more

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Partita in A minor for Solo Flute; Sandra Miller (flute), live, New York, 2013


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lagniappe

radio

Bach Festival, WKCR-FM (see 12/22/16 post): Day Nine (alas, the last).

*****

reading table

The only response
to a child’s grave is
to lie down before it and play dead

—Bill Knott (1940-2014)