Tuesday, June 20th
more
Johann Sebastian Bach, Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, mvmts. 1-2 (Adagio, Fugue); Niek Baar, live, Berlin, 2016
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jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: violin
2017
Monday, June 19th
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach, Violin Sonata No. 3 in C major, 3rd mvmt. (Largo); Isabelle Faust, live, New York, 2013
2017
Thursday, June 1st
more
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.
***
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.)
2017
Thursday, May 25th
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
2017
Tuesday, April 18th
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.)
2017
Thursday, April 13th
old school
Tommy Jarrell (fiddle, vocals), “Cripple Creek,” live, Mt. Airy, N.C., 1983
2017
Wednesday, April 5th
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.
2017
Tuesday, April 4th
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
2017
Monday, March 13th
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.
2017
Saturday, March 4th
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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