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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Piano Concerto No. 26 in D major (“Coronation”); Munich Philharmonic Orchestra with Friedrich Gulda (conducting, piano), live, 1986
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lagniappe
reading table
How I wish I’d been a painter . . . that must really be the best profession—none of this fiddling around with words—there are a couple of Daumiers at the Phillips that make me feel my whole life has been wasted.
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), letter, 1977
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Piano Sonatas 9 (D major; K. 311) and 12 (F major; K. 332); Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000), live
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago (Rookery Building)
never enough
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor; Munich Philharmonic Orchestra with Friedrich Gulda (conducting, piano), live
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lagniappe
random sights
today, Oak Park, Ill.
Saturday night, in Chicago, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, I heard the Spektral Quartet. They performed a single piece, this one, which lasted not one, or two, or three, or four, but five hours. Awash in sounds and silences, I got up out of my metal chair, I looked at my watch, I checked my text messages, my email, not once.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame*), String Quartet No. 2 (excerpt), Flux Quartet, live, 2013
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
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*With saxophonists Von Freeman and Henry Threadgill; trumpeter Lester Bowie; drummer Hamid Drake; gospel singer Dorothy Love Coates; poets John Berryman, William Bronk, and Wislawa Szymborska; and photographer Helen Levitt.
can’t wait
Tonight he’s conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra—Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, John Adams’ Scheherazade.2, and this.
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), The Rite of Spring (1913); Los Angeles Philharmonic (Esa-Pekka Salonen [1958-], cond.), live, Los Angeles
never enough
This took my breath away—more than once.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Violin Concerto; Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (Philippe Herreweghe, cond.) with Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), live, 2014
A handful of pieces I never tire of, no matter how many times I hear them. This is one.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987; MCOTD Hall of Fame), For Bunita Marcus (1985); Stephen Drury (piano), live, Boston, 2016
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Jasper Johns (1930-), In Memory of My Feelings—Frank O’Hara, 1961
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Miranda Cuckson, violin; Michael Hersch (1971-), Fourteen Pieces for unaccompanied violin, excerpt; live, 2009
Yesterday, in Chicago, at the Art Institute, I heard this woman play the violin. She played for well over an hour, by herself, without intermission. She performed seven pieces: the earliest, by Pierre Boulez (Anthèmes 1), was composed in 1992; the latest, by Steve Lehman (En Soi), this year. When a performer surrenders to the music wholeheartedly, she invites you, the listener, to do the same. And I did, gratefully.
Miranda Cuckson, violin
Ralph Shapey (1921-2002), Etchings (1945; excerpt), 2009
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Playing and talking, 2015
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
music clip of the day 