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Category: violin

2013

Monday, 1/21/13

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

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2013

Saturday, 1/19/13

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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2012

Saturday, 12/15/12

A reader writes:

Dear Richard:

I think you should check out the YouTube link below. From Dore Stein who is the host of a great radio show on Sat. nights on the SF United School District’s radio station, KALW.

Melos: Mediterranean Songs (filmed in Tunisia and Germany, 2011)*

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taking a break

I’m taking some time off—back in a while.

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*With Dorsaf Hamdani & Ensemble (Tunisia), En Chordais (Greece), Juan Carmona & Ensemble (Spain), Keyvan Chemirani (France/Iran), et al.

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2012

Wednesday, 11/7/12

post-election special

Weary of words?

John Luther Adams, The Light That Fills the World (chamber version, revised 2001), excerpt

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lagniappe

art beat: Saturday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Paul Strand, The Court, New York (1924)
Film and Photo in New York (through 11/25/12)

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2012

Thursday, 11/1/12

Forget harps—my heaven’s full of string quartets.

Franz Schubert, String Quartet No. 14 in D minor (“Death and the Maiden,” 1824), excerpt (mvt. 2), Takacs Quartet, live, Scotland (outside Edinburgh), 1998

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2012

Wednesday, 10/24/12

The last band I heard with this lineup—trumpet, violin, accordion, bass—was, uh, let’s see . . .

Dave Douglas (trumpet), Charms of the Night Sky*
Live, Germany (Frankfurt), 1999

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

I am moved by more music now than I have ever been. Trying to see it from a wider and deeper perspective only makes it clear that the lake itself is wider and deeper than we thought.

—David Byrne, How Music Works (2012)

*****

*With Mark Feldman (violin), Guy Klucevsek (accordion), Greg Cohen (bass).

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2012

Thursday, 10/18/12

 fasten your seatbelt

Here’s another take on a piece we listened to the other day.

Alfred Schnittke (1934-98), Concerto Grosso No. 1 (excerpt); A Far Cry with guests Nelson Lee (violin), Meg Freivogel (violin), and Andrus Masden (harpsichord, prepared piano); live, Boston, 2009

(This entire performance can be heard here.)

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2012

Saturday, 10/13/12

street music: outskirts of Tehran

Violinist, c. 2009

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2012

Thursday, 10/11/12

Alfred Schnittke (1934-98), Concerto Grosso No. 1, live, Russia, 2004
Kremerata Baltica (Gidon Kremer & Tatiana Grindenko, violins)

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

What do we want from music—a mirror or a window?

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2012

Saturday, 9/15/12

riveting

Anton Bruckner (1824-96), Symphony No. 5 in B flat major; Berlin Philharmonic (Wilhelm Furtwangler, cond.), live, Berlin, 1942

(Yeah, I realize this performance took place in Nazi Germany during World War II and, no, I don’t have anything profound, or even interesting, to say about how such beauty and such horror could coexist.)

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