Monday, November 16th
Sounds for a strange, scary, sad world.
Georg Friedrich Haas (1953-), String Quartet No. 8 (2014); JACK Quartet
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: string quartet
2015
Wednesday, November 4th
two takes
“I Never Learnt to Share” (J. Blake)
Spektral Quartet (arr. Chris Fisher-Lochhead), live, Chicago, 2015
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James Blake, live, Berlin, 2011
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
When we’re full of music, we’re free of everything else.
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random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
2015
Saturday, October 10th
tonight in Chicago
These folks will be playing at Curtiss Hall.
Christopher Fisher-Lochhead (1984-), Dig Absolutely (2010); Spektral Quartet, live, Evanston, Ill., 2011
2015
Monday, August 10th
Why not start the week with something strange?
Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), Tetras (1983); JACK Quartet, live, Philadelphia, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
Trust in the Unexpected —
—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), #561 (Franklin)
2015
Thursday, July 2nd
string festival
day four
Alfred Schnittke (1934-98), Piano Quintet (1972-76), live (Katya Apekisheva, piano; Boris Brovtsyn, Julia-Maria Kretz, violins; Amihai Grosz, viola; Torleif Thedéen, cello), Netherlands, 2010
2015
Wednesday, July 1st
string festival
day three
Wolfgang Rihm (1952-), String Quartet No. 13
Arditti Quartet, live, London, 2012
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lagniappe
reading table
One peers down into regions where one’s feet would never, never have trod, because in certain regions, indeed in most, one has no purpose whatever.
—Robert Walser (1878-1956), “Balloon Journey,” 1914 (translated from German by Christopher Middleton)
2015
Thursday, April 16th
astonishing
Lee Hyla (1952-2014), String Quartet No. 4 (1999); Spektral Quartet, live, Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.), 2011
2015
Monday, April 6th
Need a jolt?
Felipe Lara (1979-), Corde Vocale (2006)
Mivos Quartet, live (studio performance), New York, 2013
This I listened to for the first time yesterday. Then I listened again. And again.
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lagniappe
radio
Tuesday is the centennial of Billie Holiday’s birth and WKCR (Columbia University) is celebrating in the best possible way, featuring her music all day tomorrow and, because twenty-four hours just aren’t enough, the next day too.
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taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
2015
Thursday, March 19th
otherworldly
Turgut Ercetin (1983-), String Quartet No. 1 (“December”); The Jack Quartet, live, Stanford University, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
Lacan said that there was surely something ironic about Christ’s injunction to love thy neighbour as thyself—because actually, of course, people hate themselves.
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We know almost nothing about ourselves because we judge ourselves before we have a chance to see ourselves.
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Self-criticism is an unforbidden pleasure: we seem to relish the way it makes us suffer.
—Adam Phillips, “Against Self-Criticism,” London Review of Books, 3/5/15
music clip of the day 