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Category: piano

2020

Saturday, April 18th

never enough

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Piano sonata K.281, 0:00; Variations on “Salve tu, Domine” K.398, 21:14; Variations on “Unser dummer Pöbel meint” K.455, 29:51; Fantasy K.397, 44:27; Piano sonata K.310, 50:52), Robert Schumann (Arabeske op.18, 1:14:05; Toccata op.7, 1:21:05); Emil Gilels (1916-1985, piano), live, Moscow, 1970

 

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Mozart was a kind of idol to me—this rapturous singing . . . that’s always on the edge of sadness and melancholy and disappointment and heartbreak, but always ready for an outburst of the most delicious music.

—Novelist Saul Bellow, 1915-2005

*****

random sights

yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.

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2020

Tuesday, April 14th

more

Tatiana Nikolayeva (1924-1993, piano); Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books I & II

 

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.

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2020

Saturday, April 11th

How about a little vacation from your little self?

Tatiana Nikolayeva (1924-1993, piano), live, Moscow, 1990 (program: 00:40: Ravel, Miroirs, Oiseaux tristes//04:15: Ravel, Miroirs, Une barque sur l’océan//11:52: Scriabin, Prelude and Nocturne for the left hand, op. 9//19:41: Scriabin, Poeme Tragique, Op. 34//24:51: Borodin, Petite Suite, In the Monastery, Au couvent//30:25: Mussorgsky, Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks//33:03: Prokofiev, Prelude op. 12 no. 7, Harp)

 

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.

 

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2020

Monday, April 6th

passings

Ellis Marsalis, pianist, composer, educator, father, November 14, 1934-April 1, 2020

Ellis Marsalis (piano), Branford Marsalis (tenor saxophone), Wynton Marsalis (trumpet), Delfeayo Marsalis (trombone), Eric Revis (bass), Jason Marsalis (drums), “Tell Me” (E. Marsalis), live, New Orleans (New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival), 2019

 

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday morning, Chicago

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2020

Thursday, April 2nd

alone

Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou (b. 1923 [Ethiopia], piano), live, Jerusalem (where she moved in 1984), c. 2014

 

*****

More.

 

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.

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2020

Monday, March 30th

like nobody else 

How about time-traveling to 1961 Paris?

Blossom Dearie (1924-2009, vocals, piano), “C’est le Printemps” (“It Might as Well Be Spring,” R. Rodgers, O. Hammerstein II; adaptation, J. Sablon), “Plus je t’embrasse” (“Heart of My Heart,” B. Ryan; adaptation, Max François), live, Paris, 1961

 

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lagniappe

art beat: other day, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Isa Genzken (1948-), Rose II (2007)

*****

reading table

The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on
and the horse looks at him in silence.
They are so silent they are in another world.

—D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), “The White Horse”

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2020

Tuesday, March 17th

passings

Charles Wuorinen, composer, June 9, 1938-March 11, 2020

Flying to Kahani (2005); Orchestra of the League of Composers (C. Wuorinen, cond.), live, New York, 2016

 

In 2011, jazz composer Carla Bley called Mr. Wuorinen ‘the greatest composer working.’ And the proudly poly-stylistic composer John Zorn, who has worked in forms ranging from klezmer to punk rock, recently called Mr. Wuorinen ‘a true artist whose intense and uncompromising vision produced work of remarkable beauty and drama.’ ‘He never wrote an insincere note in his life,’ Zorn continued. ‘He was a powerful role model and I loved him dearly.’

—Tim Page, obituary, Washington Post, 3/14/20

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lagniappe

random sights

early yesterday morning, Oak Park, Ill.

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2020

Monday, March 16th

Want to be swept away?

Alexander Scriabin (1871-1915), Etude in D-sharp minor, Op. 8, No. 12 (1894); Daniil Trifonov (1991-, piano), live, Berlin, 2019

 

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.

*****

reading table

And I Was Alive
by Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938),
translated from Russian by Christian Wiman

And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear,
Myself I stood in the storm of the bird-cherry tree,
It was all leaflike and star shower, unerring, self-shattering power,
And it was all aimed at me.

What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth?
What is being? What is truth?

Blossoms rupture and rapture the air,
All hover and hammer,
Time intensified and time intolerable, sweetness raveling rot.
It is now. It is not.

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2020

Tuesday, March 10th

more

John Coltrane Quartet (JC, 1926-1967, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, 1938-2020, piano; Jimmy Garrison, 1934-1976, bass; Elvin Jones, 1927-2004, drums), live (“Vigil,” Naima,” “My Favorite Things”), Belgium (Comblain-la-Tour), 1965

 

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lagniappe

random sights

other day, New York

*****

radio

Today WKCR (Columbia University) celebrates the birthday of cornetist Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931)—all Bix, all day.

*****

reading table

In the dark we disappear, pure being.

—Stanley Plumly (1939-2019), from”Wight”

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2020

Monday, March 9th

passings

McCoy Tyner, pianist, December 11, 1938-March 6, 2020

John Coltrane Quartet (JC, 1926-1967, tenor saxophone; MC, piano; Jimmy Garrison, 1934-1976, bass; Elvin Jones, 1927-2004, drums), “Impressions” (J. Coltrane), live (TV show), San Francisco, 1963

 

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lagniappe

art beat: other day, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Dance (I), 1909; Jeannette, c. 1910

*****

radio

Today, Ornette Coleman’s birthday (b. 1930), it’s all Ornette all day on WKCR (Columbia University).

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