Monday, June 13th
Need a change of scene?
Tristan Murail (1947-), Le Lac (2001); Chimera Ensemble (John Stringer, cond.), live, England (York), 2013
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: classical
2016
Thursday, June 9th
never enough
Two days ago I’d never heard of him; last night he took my breath away.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Partita No. 2 in D minor for Solo Violin, excerpt (Sarabande); Leonidas Kavakos, live, France (Annecy), 2015
**********
lagniappe
reading table
The Poets light but Lamps –
Themselves – go out –—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), 930 (Franklin), fragment
2016
Monday, June 6th
yesterday in Chicago
At the Art Institute—next to Millennium Park, site of Saturday’s Gospel Fest—I heard this piece for the first time, played by three Chicago-based musicians (violinist Yuan-Qing Yu, clarinetist J. Lawrie Bloom, pianist Adam Nieman). It, too, sang.
Charles Ives (1874-1954), Largo for Violin, Clarinet, Piano (1901-02); Lucy Chapman-Stoltzman (violin), Richard Stoltzman (clarinet), Richard Goode (piano), 1990
2016
Saturday, May 28th
three takes
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor
Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997), live
#1
#2
***
Artur Schnabel (1882-1951), 1939
#1
#2
#3
***
Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), live, France (Besancon), 1950
***
The A minor sonata is the first of only two Mozart piano sonatas in a minor key . . . It was written in one of the most tragic times of his life: his mother had just died.
2016
Monday, May 23rd
I love his approach to Mozart. He’s never fussy or mannered. He plays simply, directly—like a bird flying from tree to tree.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Piano Sonata No. 12 in F major (:07-), Fantasia in C minor (22:42-), Sonata No. 14 in C minor (39:54-); Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000), live, Germany (Munich), 1990
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
Mozart was a kind of idol to me—this rapturous singing . . . that’s always on the edge of sadness and melancholy and disappointment and heartbreak, but always ready for an outburst of the most delicious music.
—Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
***
reading table
If, instead of the words ‘good’ or ‘right’ (or ‘sacred’) we use the words ‘beautiful’ or ‘pleasurable’ or ‘enlivening,’ . . . how would our lives be different?
—Adam Phillips, Unforbidden Pleasures (quoted in yesterday’s New York Times Book Review)
2016
Saturday, May 14th
If I learned I had a week to live, one afternoon, sunlight streaming through the windows, I’d listen to Mozart.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Adagio in B minor, K. 540
Mitsuko Uchida, live
**********
lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Entrance to the Public Gardens at Arles, 1888
(Taking a break—back in a while.)
2016
Saturday, April 30th
This is a sound-world I’d be happy to inhabit all day.
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir (1977-), Ró (2013); Esbjerg Ensemble, live
2016
Thursday, April 28th
MCOTD Hall of Fame
Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Durations I (1960); Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, live
**********
lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago (Columbus Park)
2016
Wednesday, April 27th
sounds of Chicago
Ralph Shapey (1921-2003), Three for Six (1979); Oerknal!, live, Netherlands (The Hague, Amsterdam) 2014
**********
lagniappe
reading table
He ate and drank the precious Words—
His Spirit grew robust—
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust—
He danced along the dingy Days
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book—What Liberty
A loosened spirit brings——Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), 1593 (Franklin)
music clip of the day 