viola | music clip of the day

2015

Wednesday, June 24th

Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Rothko Chapel (1971); Seattle Modern Orchestra (with Julia Tai, conductor; Melia Watras, viola; Stephen Olsen, celesta; Brian Yarkovsky, percussion; Sarah Marroquin, soprano), live, Seattle, 2012

Today Morton Feldman enters the MCOTD Hall of Fame, joining saxophonists Von Freeman and Henry Threadgill, trumpeter Lester Bowie, poets William Bronk and Wislawa Szymborska, photographer Helen Levitt, and gospel singer Dorothy Love Coates.

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lagniappe

reading table

This performance reminds me at times of Emily Dickinson:

The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air—
Between the Heaves of Storm—

—No. 591 (Johnson), “I heard a Fly buzz”

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art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Jean-Luc Mylayne (1946-), No. 560, 2008 (Mutual Regard, through August 23rd)

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2015

Thursday, April 16th

astonishing

Lee Hyla (1952-2014), String Quartet No. 4 (1999); Spektral Quartet, live, Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.), 2011

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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.

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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

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2015

Thursday, March 5th

No matter what, music remains.

Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006), String Quartet No. 1 (1953-54), live (Erica Kiesewetter and Yinbin Qian, violins; Marie Daniels, viola; Jake Hanegan, cello), Texas (Round Top), 2011