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Category: classical

2014

Tuesday, May 27th

the other night

The sky’s all thunder and lightning, and it’s almost midnight, and I’m sitting in a Walgreens parking lot near Midway Airport, waiting for my son Alex’s long-delayed flight to arrive, and if it weren’t for Rubinstein’s recordings of Chopin’s nocturnes, which I keep playing over and over amidst the rain and the neon, I’d be going absolutely bonkers.

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1; Arthur [Artur] Rubinstein (1887-1982), piano

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lagniappe

random thoughts

Listening to Chopin, reading Chekhov: if I ever retire, maybe I’ll relocate to the 19th century.

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2014

Monday, May 26th

This piece had its world premiere in 1941; the venue wasn’t fancy—a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time), live, ChamberFest Cleveland (Franklin Cohen, clarinet; Yura Lee, violin; Gabriel Cabezas, cello; Orion Weiss, piano), 2013

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2014

Tuesday, May 6th

soundtrack for a dream

Marcos Balter (1974-), Frisson (2011); Chicago Composers Orchestra (Matthew Kasper, cond.) with Eric Lamb (flute), Chicago, 2011


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lagniappe

reading table

Speculative, imaginative writings—texts that ‘open possibility’—help us to live because the definitions by which we live are themselves productions of the cultural imaginary.

—Frances Richard, “Multitudes” (Poetry, May, 2014)

 

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2014

Saturday, May 3rd

never enough

Three more takes on what we heard Thursday.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor (2nd Movt.)

Henryk Szeryng (1918-1988), live


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Arthur Grumiaux (1921-1986), recording


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Yoojin Jang (1990-), live


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lagniappe

reading table

[A] mad person not helped out of his trouble by anything real begins to trust what is not real because it helps him and he needs it because real things continue not to help him.

—Lydia Davis, “Liminal: The Little Man” (The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis)

 

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2014

Thursday, May 1st

It never fails. Never. Listening to Bach, no matter what my mood, I feel lighter. And clearer. And more open.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor (2nd Movt.); Kristóf Baráti (1979-), live, Moscow, 2008

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2014

Thursday, April 24th

never enough

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor
Rafal Blechacz (1985-), piano, live

1st Movement

2nd Movement

3rd Movement

4th Movement

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can’t wait 

Tomorrow Blechacz (pronounced, I just learned, BLEH-hatch), who recently won the 2014 Gilmore Artist Award,* will be at the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall, playing Bach and Beethoven and Chopin.

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*New York Times (1/8/14):

[O]ne of the great windfalls of the music world . . . the $300,000 Gilmore Artist Award . . . is given every four years to an unsuspecting pianist deemed worthy of a great career by a panel of anonymous judges who conduct their worldwide talent search in secret.

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2014

Tuesday, April 15th

Yesterday this piece, by a composer often heard here, won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for music.

John Luther Adams (1953-), Become Ocean (2013); Seattle Symphony

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taking a break

I’m taking some time off—back in a while.

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2014

Monday, April 14th

never enough

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23
Krystian Zimerman (1956-), piano, live

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2014

Wednesday, April 9th

alone 

Clarity, mystery: they often act like strangers—not here.

Anton Webern (1883-1945), Variations for Piano, Op. 27 (1936)
Andy Costello (piano), live

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2014

Saturday, April 5th

alone

Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006), Piano Etudes (Book 1), No. 6 (Automne a Varsovie [Autumn in Warsaw]); Susanne Anatchkova (piano), live

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lagniappe

reading table

[N]othing has ever been—nor will it ever be—the way it used to be.

—Aleksandar Hemon, The Book of My Lives

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yesterday

Some things cannot be planned for, nor can they be explained. Such was the case this week when a friend of my son Alex—someone who was in our house, full of conversation, just a few weeks ago—killed himself. The funeral was yesterday. Before it began Alex and I talked briefly with the mother and father, whom I had never met. I told them one of the things I appreciated about their son was that he wasn’t merely polite to me, his friend’s father. He wanted to connect. A greater sorrow a parent could not know.

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