piano | music clip of the day

Thursday, August 22nd

MCOTD Hall of Fame

Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame), For Christian Wolff (1986); Eberhard Blum (flute), Nils Vigland (piano, celesta), 1992

It can be hard to recall, after an hour or two, what the world sounded like before this began.

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lagniappe

listening room

Clear, open, luminous: pianist Aki Takahashi’s recently released recording of For Bunita Marcus (1985), available on Spotify, is one of the finest renderings of Feldman’s unique sound-world that I’ve ever heard.

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2019

Wednesday, August 21st

another take

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne No. 8 in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2; Martha Argerich (1941-, piano), live, Germany (Saarbrücken), 1972

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.

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2019

Tuesday, August 20th

never enough

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne No. 8 in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2; Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950, piano), 1947

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lagniappe

reading table

Consonants are the body; vowels are breath.

—Sadiqa de Meijer, “The Ebbing Language,” Poetry, 9/19

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2019

Monday, August 19th

MCOTD Hall of Fame

Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame), For Philip Guston (1984); S.E.M. Ensemble, 2000

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2019

Wednesday, August 7th

If I were to count, on my fingers, the number of times I have listened to this over the years, I would need an awful lot of hands.

Bill Evans (piano, 1929-1980), “Never Let Me Go” (J. Livingston, R. Evans), 1968 (Alone)

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lagniappe

random sights

this morning, Oak Park, Ill.

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2019

Monday, August 5th

spellbinding (part two)

Why not begin the week with something beautiful?

Daniil Trifonov (1991-, piano), live (Chopin, Prelude No. 15 [“Raindrop”])

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2019

Saturday, August 3rd

spellbinding

Daniil Trifonov (1991-, piano), live (Chopin: “Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. 66”; Schumann: “Chopin. Agitato” (from Carnaval); Grieg: “Hommage à Chopin, Op. 73, No. 5”; Chopin: “Variations on ‘Là ci darem la mano’ (from Mozart’s Don Giovanni) – Coda. Alla Polacca”), Washington, D.C., 2018

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lagniappe

reading table

the rice planter’s
sunshade . . .
billowing cloud

—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)

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2019

Tuesday, July 16th

He played as if his life depended on it.

Glenn Gould (1932-1982, piano), playing Bach’s Partita No. 2 in C minor (The Art of Piano, 1999)

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lagniappe

reading table

Happiness has never been one of my great aspirations.

—poet W.S. Graham (1918-1986, quoted in London Review of Books, 7/18/19)

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2019

Tuesday, July 9th

never enough

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Partita for keyboard No. 6, excerpt (Toccata); Glenn Gould (1932-1982, piano), live (studio)

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2019

Thursday, July 4th

Happy Fourth of July!

Professor Longhair (1918-1980), “Big Chief,” live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1973

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Charles Ives (1874-1954), A Symphony: New England Holidays, Third Movt. (“The Fourth of July”); GSW Orchestra (Orlando Cela, cond.; Alex Blake, guest cond.), live