one thing after
another after another
after another after another after . . .
John Cage (1912-1992), Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1958); Variable Geometry (Jean-Phillippe Calvin, director), live, London, 2011
A performance like this can go wrong in so many ways. This one, to these ears, works wonderfully. Momentum, tautness, immediacy—it has them all.
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Everything we do is music.
last night
At the University of Chicago (Mandel Hall), I heard this played by the Keller Quartet, wonderfully.
Ludwig van Beethoven, String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Orion Quartet, live, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, 2008
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music, like sex, is an immersive experience—you go to be engulfed.
*****
Intermission. Men’s room. Old man, with a cane, at the urinal. I hope I still go out to hear live music when—if—I’m his age.
The other night, as Mitsuko Uchida was performing two of Mozart’s piano concertos (17, 27) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, there were moments so pure, so open, I would have liked nothing more than to disappear into one of the spaces between the notes and stay there.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, KV. 466; Mitsuko Uchida (piano and conducting), Camerata Salzburg, live, Germany (Salzburg), 2001
last night
I heard a concert, at the University of Chicago, devoted to the work of this man, a composer, a longtime professor, a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient. The performances featured different combinations of violin, viola, cello, clarinet, and piano. The music was often thorny. Occasionally whimsical. Frequently emphatic. Sometimes beautiful. And wholly absorbing.
Ralph Shapey (1921-2002), String Quartet No. 6 (1963)
The Lexington Quartet of the Contemporary Players of the University of Chicago
#1
#2
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
To me, [it’s] very important that [the audience] can recall it as an emotional experience; as though it were something they could hold in their hands.
—Ralph Shapey
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
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.
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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
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
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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