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Category: classical

2015

Saturday, January 17th

If your appetite for new music is insatiable, what better time to be alive?

Tyshawn Sorey (1980-), Quartet for Butch Morris (2012); International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), featuring Erik Carlson (violin); Joshua Rubin (bass clarinet), Eric Lamb (flute), Cory Smythe (piano); live, New York, 2012

Six decades of listening and, until yesterday, I’d never heard this particular combination of instruments. You?

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art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

James Ensor (1860-1949), Rooftops of Ostend, 1884 (Temptation: The Demons of James Ensor, through January 25th)

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Nature, the sky above us, is conducting no mean politics when it presents beauty to all, without discrimination, and nothing old and defective, but fresh and most tasty.

—Robert Walser (1878-1956), “Snowdrops,” excerpt (translated from German by Tom Whalen and Trudi Anderegg)

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2015

Wednesday, January 14th

sounds of Chicago (day two)

Sometimes encountering a new piece of music can turn your whole day around, which is what happened to me the other day when I bumped into this.

Georg Friedrich Haas (1953-), In Vain (2000)
Ensemble Dal Niente, live, Chicago, 2013

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art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Claude Monet (1840-1926), Cliff Walk at Pourville (1882)

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Seascape (1879)

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random thoughts

Eyes taste paintings no less than mouths taste food.

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2015

Monday, January 12th

from my desert-island list

No matter how many times I hear it, this recording, made over 80 years ago, never fails to sweep me away.

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Preludes, Op. 28
Alfred Cortot (1877-1962), piano, 1933

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2015

Saturday, January 10th

alone

This guy breathes life into whatever he plays. The other day we heard a Beethoven performance from 1993. Here he is in 1964.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue; Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000), piano, live, 1964

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‘[O]ur days on Earth are numbered, and the numbers are not that big.’

—Samantha Harvey, Dear Thief

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2015

Tuesday, January 6th

Three more takes.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, excerpt (third movt.)

Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000), live, Japan, 1993

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Maurizio Pollini (1942-), live


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Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991), piano, live, 1987


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‘A book is a device to ignite the imagination.’

—Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

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2015

Monday, January 5th

There are a handful of pieces I can’t imagine living without—this is one.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, excerpt (third movt.); Igor Levit (piano), live, Amsterdam, 2013

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To say she is dead is senseless, just as senseless as it is to say I myself am alive.

—Samantha Harvey, Dear Thief

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2014

Wednesday, December 31st

Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Patterns in a Chromatic Field (1981)

Arne Deforce (cello) & Yutaka Oya (piano)
Live (excerpts), Belgium (Kortrijk), 2013

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Charles Curtis (cello) & Aleck Karis (piano)
Recording, 2004


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random thoughts: New Year’s resolution #4

No matter how much I get out, it never fails. Whenever I experience live music, as I did Sunday when I heard this otherworldly piece played, wonderfully, by cellist Mira Luxion and pianist Andy Costello (Constellation, Chicago), I leave with the same thought—you really ought to do this more often. 

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2014

Tuesday, December 30th

Bela Bartok (1881-1945), Piano Concerto No. 1 (1926); Orchestre de Paris (Pierre Boulez, cond.) with Maurizio Pollini (piano), live, Paris, 2001

1st movt.

 

2nd movt.

 

3rd movt.

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musical thoughts

In this city there is no segregation: Bela Bartok lives down the block from R. H. Harris, Morton Feldman around the corner from D’Angelo.

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2014

Saturday, December 27th

Five hours?

As far as I’m concerned, this could go on forever.

Morton Feldman (1926-1987), For Philip Guston (1984); Claire Chase (flute, alto flute, piccolo), Steven Schick (percussion), Sarah Rothenberg (piano, celesta), live (3:50-), Houston (Rothko Chapel), 11/2/14

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random thoughts: New Year’s resolution #1

Quit thinking other people should be more like me—if anything, be thankful they aren’t.

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2014

Saturday, December 20th

Ever feel you can’t find a foothold?

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), Piano Concerto (1942); Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (Jeffrey Tate, cond.) with Mitsuko Uchida (piano), live

 

 


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Aspen tree, your leaves glance white into the dark.
My mother’s hair was never white.

Dandelion, so green is the Ukraine.
My yellow-haired mother did not come home.

Rain cloud, above the well do you hover?
My quiet mother weeps for everyone.

Round star, you wind the golden loop.
My mother’s heart was ripped by lead.

Oaken door, who lifted you off your hinges?
My gentle mother cannot return.

—Paul Celan (1920-1970; translated from German by Michael Hamburger)

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