Some folks are intimidated by this stuff. Part of the problem is the label: “classical” music. That sounds like something for graduate students. Nonsense. You don’t need to know anything—anything at all—to connect with this. All you need are two ears, a mind, and a heart.
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903), first movement; Chiara String Quartet, live, University of Nebraska, 2013
alone
This is something I would never tire of hearing, not even if I were to live a thousand years.
Johann Sebastian Bach, Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, 2nd movement (fugue)
Henryk Szeryng (1918-1988), violin
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music offers a respite from the mind’s incessant chatter.
alone
Jürg Frey (1953-), A Memory of Perfection (2010)
Mira Benjamin (violin), live, London, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
Two more words from Seamus Heaney, who died Friday in a Dublin hospital:
noli timere
[don’t be afraid]—text message to his wife minutes before his death
alone
If you’re in the mood for his music, as I often am, nothing else will do.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Triadic Memories (1981); Louis Goldstein, piano
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lagniappe
reading table
In the summer rain
the path
has disappeared.—Yosa Buson (1716-1783; translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)
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musical thoughts
What would it be like to live in a world without sound?
alone
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Suite No. 1 in G major for Unaccompanied Cello; Anner Bylsma, live, Germany (Dornheim), 2000
#1
#2
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As I’ve said, I first encountered Bach’s cello suites in the ’70’s, when I was in college. Since then they’ve lost none of their magnetic power—it’s only increased. Living without them is unimaginable.
MCOTD mailbag
Dear MCOTD,
I need your advice. I’ve developed this mad crush on a musical instrument—the viola. It’s so dark, so mysterious. I’m obsessed! What should I do?
Sincerely,
Desperate in Denver
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Dear Desperate,
There’s only one thing you can do—give in.
Yours,
MCOTD
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Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), Lachrymae (1950; arranged for viola and string orchestra, 1976); New York Classical Players (Dongmin Kim, cond.) with Kim Kashkashian (viola), live, New York (Church of the Heavenly Rest), 2011
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Four things are needed to survive: air to breathe; water to drink; food to eat; music to hear.
alone
Soundtrack to a dream I wish I’d had last night.
Tristan Murail (1947-), “Comme un oeil suspendu et poli par le songe . . .”; Mireia Vendrell, piano, live
alone
John Cage (1912-1992), Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1946-1948); Louis Goldstein, piano, live, Winston-Salem, N.C. (Reynolda House Museum of American Art), 1982
What I love about this performance is its directness. He doesn’t treat these pieces as arty exotica. He plays them as simply and naturally, as musically, as one might play Bach, or Mozart, or Chopin.
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love.
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A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has not time for any consideration–it is occupied with the performance of its characteristics: before it has died away it must have made perfectly exact its frequency, its loudness, its length, its overtone structure, the precise morphology of these and of itself.
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They say, “you mean it’s just sounds?” thinking that for something to just be a sound is to be useless, whereas I love sounds just as they are, and I have no need for them to be anything more than what they are. I don’t want them to be psychological. I don’t want a sound to pretend that it’s a bucket or that it’s president or that it’s in love with another sound. I just want it to be a sound.
More sounds from the shadows.
György Kurtág (1926-), 12 Microludes for String Quartet (Hommage à Mihály András) (1978), Maxwell Quartet, live, Scotland (Argyllshire), 2012
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“Chartres”
By George Oppen (1908-1984)The bulk of it
In airIs what they wanted. Compassion
Above the doors, the doorwaysMary the woman and the others
The lesserAre dreams on the structure. But that a stone
Supports anotherThat the stones
Stand where the masons locked themAbove the farmland
Above the willBecause a hundred generations
Back of them and to another peopleThe world cried out above the mountain
alone
The world seems, sometimes, like an uncatalogued collection of miracles.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Partita No. 6 in E minor; Glenn Gould (1932-1982), piano
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