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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Clarinet Quintet in A major; Hagen Quartet with Sabine Meyer (clarinet), live
1st movt.
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2nd movt.
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3rd movt.
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4th movt.
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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.
—Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
(Taking a break—back in a while.)
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Partita No. 2 in D minor
Itzhak Perlman (violin), live, London, 1978
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art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), Bullfinch on a camellia branch
sounds of Russia
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
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, outside Chicago (Chicago Botanic Garden)
(Taking a break—back in a while.)
old school
Tommy Jarrell (fiddle, vocals), “Cripple Creek,” live, Mt. Airy, N.C., 1983
Another take.
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903)
Hagen Quartet, live, Austria (Salzburg), 2000
1st movt.
2nd movt.
3rd movt.
4th movt.
Sometimes I just want to be swept away.
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903), 1st Mvt.
Takács Quartet, live, New York, 2017
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lagniappe
reading table
cloud becomes a mountain
becomes
a cloud—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
Saturday night, in Chicago, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, I heard the Spektral Quartet. They performed a single piece, this one, which lasted not one, or two, or three, or four, but five hours. Awash in sounds and silences, I got up out of my metal chair, I looked at my watch, I checked my text messages, my email, not once.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame*), String Quartet No. 2 (excerpt), Flux Quartet, live, 2013
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
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*With saxophonists Von Freeman and Henry Threadgill; trumpeter Lester Bowie; drummer Hamid Drake; gospel singer Dorothy Love Coates; poets John Berryman, William Bronk, and Wislawa Szymborska; and photographer Helen Levitt.
never enough
This took my breath away—more than once.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Violin Concerto; Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (Philippe Herreweghe, cond.) with Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), live, 2014
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Miranda Cuckson, violin; Michael Hersch (1971-), Fourteen Pieces for unaccompanied violin, excerpt; live, 2009
Yesterday, in Chicago, at the Art Institute, I heard this woman play the violin. She played for well over an hour, by herself, without intermission. She performed seven pieces: the earliest, by Pierre Boulez (Anthèmes 1), was composed in 1992; the latest, by Steve Lehman (En Soi), this year. When a performer surrenders to the music wholeheartedly, she invites you, the listener, to do the same. And I did, gratefully.
Miranda Cuckson, violin
Ralph Shapey (1921-2002), Etchings (1945; excerpt), 2009
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Playing and talking, 2015
music clip of the day 