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Category: classical

2013

Monday, February 18th

yesterday afternoon 

I took a journey that began in late 18th-century Austria, proceeded to mid-20th-century Russia, and concluded in early 20th-century France. Joseph Haydn, Dmitri Shostakovich, Maurice Ravel—they were the hosts. These folks, playing at the University of Chicago’s new Logan Arts Center, were the guides. If one day I learned that my life would be over at midnight, I’d be happy to spend the afternoon, after lunching at a Mexican restaurant (maybe Nuevo Leon on 18th Street), listening to a string quartet.

Pacifica Quartet, New York, 2009; Leo Janacek (1854-1928), String Quartet No. 2 (“Intimate Letters”), first movement

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2013

Saturday, February 16th

alone

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

A world where Bach could be heard via the internet by anyone, anywhere, anytime, could seem, so long as other things were overlooked, a paradise.

***

From an interview with composer and conductor Pierre Boulez:

Q. What is the main problem with young conducting students?

A. They think too much or too little.

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2013

Thursday, February 7th

1 + 1 = infinity

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), Sonata for Viola (1975); Yuri Bashmet (viola), Ksenia Bashmet (Yuri’s daughter, piano)


This is the last thing Shostakovich composed before he died.

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lagniappe

Here’s another take on the last movement, with a younger Yuri Bashmet and Sviatoslav Richter.

#1


#2

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2013

Tuesday, February 5th

serendipity

This guy I stumbled upon yesterday afternoon, listening to the radio.* It had been a hard weekend; my 88-year-old mother-in-law died Saturday. These were just the sounds I needed, though I didn’t realize it—spare, precise, open.

Jesse Stacken Trio,** “Bagatelle No. 4,” recording session (Bagatelles for Trio, 2012)

*WFMU-FM (Give the Drummer Radio, webstream), Destination: Out.

**JS, piano; Eivind Opsvik, bass; Jeff Davis, drums.

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2013

Saturday, 1/26/13

last night

I heard these guys at the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall, where the program ranged from Felix Mendelssohn to John Zorn.

Philip Glass, Mishima (1984-85, excerpt); Brooklyn Rider, New York, 2006

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2013

Monday, 1/21/13

last night

I went back to Northwestern’s Pick-Staiger Hall—they’re in the midst of a Winter Chamber Music Festival—where I heard this string quartet, along with this clarinetist, play this piece.

Aaron Jay Kernis (1960-), Perpetual Chaconne (2012); Calder Quartet with John Bruce Yeh (clarinet), 2012

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

When we go out to hear live music, we realize, again, something that seldom occurs to us when we listen at home: the world, in its messy unpredictability, its insistent particularity, is way more interesting than we are.

*****

the music of words

Martin Luther King, Jr., Shreveport, La. (Galilee Baptist Church), 1958

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2013

Saturday, 1/19/13

last night

I heard these folks at Northwestern University’s Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, where they played another piece by this composer (Last Round), a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient.

Osvaldo Golijov, Tenebrae; A Far Cry, Boston, 2011

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lagniappe

Here’s another take (four players, no conversation).

*****

musical thoughts

Nobody sits down and thinks, “I’m going to create some classical music.”

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2013

Wednesday, 1/16/13

Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996), And then I knew ’twas wind (1992)
Aureole Trio, New Hampshire (Monadnock Music), 2011

My life sometimes seems to consist of a series of trips, back and forth, between the sublime and the wretched. Yesterday afternoon, for instance, I stumbled upon this—a piece I’d never heard before—during a break from work. What was I working on? An oral argument I’ll be presenting this morning before a three-judge panel of the federal court of appeals in Chicago, on behalf of a guy, now in his mid-50s, who spends each day, as he has for decades, in a cell about 45 miles southwest of the city, where he’s serving a sentence of “natural life.”

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2013

Monday, 1/14/13

John Cage, Third Construction (1941)
So Percussion

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Is anything more familiar—or mysterious—than sound?

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2013

Saturday, 1/12/13

the other night

Clarity.

Power.

Spaciousness.

Immediacy.

There is nothing in this world—nothing at all, not even remotely—like hearing a great orchestra live, as I was reminded Thursday night as I sat in Chicago’s Symphony Center (across the street from the Art Institute) with my son Alex, listening to this played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, along with Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 1 and Piano Concerto No. 1 (with pianist Radu Lupu).

Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 (Eroica)

Philadelphia Orchestra with Riccardo Muti (cond.), live, c. late 1980s

***

NBC Orchestra with Arturo Toscanini (cond.), recording, 1939

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