This sound-world I could inhabit, happily, all weekend.
Gérard Grisey (1946-1998), Vortex Temporum (1994-96)
Ensemble Sonorama, live, Argentina (Buenos Aires), 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
When we recognize we ‘think again’
without knowing what or if
we thought before.—Rae Armantrout, “Fusion,” excerpt (New Yorker, 3/7/16)
sounds of Ireland
“The Bucks of Oranmore,” “Come West Along the Road,” live, Dublin (The Ferryman Pub), St. Patrick’s Day, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
The narrative got punctured.
***
. . . picking up crumbs like there was no tomorrow, which
there isn’t.—John Ashbery (1927-), “Tall Order” (excerpts), Breezeway (2015)
Want to be swept away?
Claude Debussy (1862-1918), String Quartet in G minor (1893); New England Conservatory Student Quartet (Minchae Kim & Harry Chang, violins; Heejin Chang, viola; Hsiao-Hsuan Huang, cello), live, Boston, 2014
The only thing hard about listening to this is letting go of everything else.
John Luther Adams (1953-), Dream in White on White (1992); Virtuoso String Orchestra (Joaquin Valdepenas, cond.), Sanya Eng (harp), live, Toronto, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
Barn’s burnt down—
now
I can see the moon.—Mizuta Masahide, 1657-1723 (translated from Japanese by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto)
lucid, adj. translucent, pellucid, clear. E.g., Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians.
Steve Reich (1936-), Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76)
Ensemble Intercontemporain with Synergy Vocals, live, Paris, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
the door latch
rusting scarlet . . .
winter rain—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
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random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
The more kinds of music you love, the more chances you have to make wonderful discoveries, as happened yesterday when I heard this for the first time (Oberon Ensemble, Art Institute of Chicago).
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor; Martha Argerich (piano); Gidon Kremer (violin), Yuri Bashmet (viola), Mischa Maisky (cello), 2001
#1
#2
#3
#4
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lagniappe
reading table
You don’t hear the sound; you go into the sound—you and the sound become one.
—Seung Sahn, Only Don’t Know
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin; Johnny Gandelsman, live, East Lansing, Michigan, 2015
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Dance?
Sing?
Why not both?
Sounds for a strange, scary, sad world.
Georg Friedrich Haas (1953-), String Quartet No. 8 (2014); JACK Quartet
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.
*****
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
music clip of the day 