Claude Debussy (1862-1918), String Quartet in G minor (1893), first movement; Cypress String Quartet, 2006
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
I wouldn’t want to listen to the same kind of music every day any more than I’d want to eat the same kind of food.
They play each note as if, at that particular moment, nothing in the world is more important.
György Kurtág (1926-) and Márta Kurtág, live, Kurtág (Játékok [Games]) and Bach (miscellaneous transcriptions), Paris, 2012
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lagniappe
musical (and other) thoughts
Q. One last question—are you a believer?
A [G. Kurtág]. I do not know. I toy with the idea. Consciously, I am certainly an atheist, but I do not say it out loud, because if I look at Bach, I cannot be an atheist. Then I have to accept the way he believed. His music never stops praying. And how can I get closer if I look at him from the outside? I do not believe in the Gospels in a literal fashion, but a Bach fugue has the Crucifixion in it—as the nails are being driven in. In music, I am always looking for the hammering of the nails. . . . That is a dual vision. My brain rejects it all. But my brain isn’t worth much.
—Alex Ross, New Yorker blog, quoting György Kurtág: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages (2009)
what’s new
I don’t understand a word of German. No matter. Commitment and passion don’t require translation.
Carolin Widmann (violin), playing and talking; Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Violin and Orchestra (1979); CM, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (Emilio Pomarico, cond.), ECM Records, 5/13
Speaking of Bach, last night, as I was working on the closing argument I’ll be giving today in a federal bribery-conspiracy trial, it was a great joy—and a great comfort—to be able to listen to this.
Johann Sebastian Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I; Andrei Gavrilov (piano), playing and talking (Preludes & Fugues Nos. 1-12); Joanna MacGregor (piano), playing and talking (Preludes & Fugues Nos. 13-24); TV (BBC), 2000
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lagniappe
reading table
[L]istening to music for an hour or two every evening doesn’t deprive me of the silence—the music is the silence coming true.
—Philip Roth, The Human Stain
musical logic
1. No day that includes a Bach cello suite can be all bad.
2. Any day can include a Bach cello suite.
3. Therefore a day that’s all bad can always be avoided.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Suite No. 1 in G major for Unaccompanied Cello; Pablo Casals (1876-1973), live, France (Abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa), 1954
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lagniappe
reading table
[T]here really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.
—Philip Roth, The Human Stain
the other day
I heard this ensemble play this piece, along with works by Smetana* and Janacek,** at the University of Chicago’s Logan Arts Center. As I said a while back, if one morning I were to learn that my life would be over at midnight, I would be happy to spend the afternoon as I did the other day—listening, with loved ones, to a string quartet.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), String Quartet No. 16 in F major, op. 135, excerpt (2nd movement); Pacifica Quartet, live, 2012
*String Quartet No. 1 (“From My Life”).
**String Quartet No. 2 (“Intimate Letters”).
Here, following Hélène Grimaud’s the other day and Rudolf Serkin’s a while back, is another take.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110, third movement, Maurizio Pollini (1942-), live
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lagniappe
reading table
I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch —
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Some instruments just seem made for each other.
Ned Rothenberg (clarinet), Mivos Quartet, Clarinet Quintet (N. Rothenberg), excerpt, live, Ann Arbor, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
Let there be physical suddenness.
—Michael McClure
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random thoughts
This morning, before sunrise, when I was out walking my son Luke’s dog, Roscoe, he stopped to inspect each blade of grass, carefully.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110; Hélène Grimaud (1969-), live, Germany (Berlin), c. 2001
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Each performer plays this piece differently, and each performance is different. Each listener hears it differently, and each listen is different. This isn’t one piece; it’s many.
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random thoughts
Two sons, two fathers. Saturday evening, as we were driving back to Bloomington from Indianapolis, where we’d celebrated his graduation from Indiana University at a grand old steakhouse, Luke got a call from a friend. A guy he knew, who grew up in the town right next to us and was a couple years behind him at IU, had just been in a terrible car accident—north of Indianapolis, on the highway to Chicago. He was on his way home for the summer. Now all I could think of was his father, whom I had never met. He would be getting into his car. He would be driving into Chicago on the Eisenhower Expressway, then going south on the Dan Ryan. He would be taking the Skyway into Indiana, then heading toward Indianapolis on Interstate 65. He would be going to get his son. For the last time.
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