The keyboard is the stage on which the fingers dance.
Sviatoslav Richter, piano
TV performance (CBC, Toronto),* 1964
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lagniappe
reading table
even grass and vines
don’t part willingly . . .
lantern for the dead—Kobayashi Issa, 1822 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
*****
*Johannes Brahms, Intermezzo in E Minor, Op. 116, No. 5
Sergei Prokofiev, Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 14
Maurice Ravel, Jeux d’eau, Alborada del gracioso
two takes
This is a woman’s world . . .
Neneh Cherry, “Woman”
Live, c. late 1990s (?)
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This is a man’s world . . .
James Brown, “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”
Live, Paris, 1966
He plays Bach as if, at that moment, nothing in the world is more crucial.
Johann Sebastian Bach, Glenn Gould, piano*
TV performance, 1981
*****
*Here, courtesy of YouTube, is the program:
00:21 Die Kunst der Fuge BWV 1080: Contrapunctus I
Partita n.4 in D-dur BWV 828
05:11 I Ouverture
10:06 II Allemande
15:45 III Courante
18:52 IV Aria
20:07 V Sarabande
25:21 VI Menuett
26:41 VII Gigue
From “Wohltemperierten Klavier”:
28:10 Fuge in E-dur (II)
33:17 Fuge in Es-moll (II)
36:16 Praeludium & Fuge in A-dur (II)
38:52 Die Kunst der Fuge BVW 1080: Contrapunctus IV
(Some of this has been posted before, but not all of it and not in one continuous clip.)
Boi Akih (Monica Akihary, vocals; Niels Brouwer, guitar) with guest Wolter Wierbos (trombone), live, Netherlands, 2008
Instruments, too, are often stereotyped. Take the trombone. Loud? Blustery? Bull in a china shop? Not here.
Shabazz Palaces, live (studio performance, KEXP-FM), 2011
These guys—their mix of drums, mbira, electronics—call to mind the AACM’s* tagline: ancient to the future.
*Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton, Fred Anderson, Leroy Jenkins, et al.).
Aretha testifies
Aretha Franklin, “Surely God Is Able,” live, Detroit, 1990
More? Here. And here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
random thoughts: Marcel Proust (or is it Samuel Beckett?) on Opening Day
You look forward to it like a birthday party when you’re a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.
Actually, it’s Joe DiMaggio. But for Joltin’ Joe, like Marvelous Marcel and Slammin’ Sammy, life consists largely of “look[ing] forward” to things, “wonderful” things—things that seldom, if ever, actually “happen.” Just ask the Cubs: going into the eighth inning of Thursday’s opener, they were winning 1-0; they lost 2-1.
The tree of country music has lots of eccentric branches.
The Handsome Family, “My Friend” (2009)
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lagniappe
reading table
The Everyday Enchantment of Music
by Mark Strand
(Almost Invisible [2012])
A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music. Then the music was polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty home of a heart in trouble. Then suddenly there was sun and the music came back and traffic was moving and off in the distance, at the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared, and there was thunder, which, however menacing, would become music, and the memory of what happened after Venice would begin, and what happened after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would also begin.
*****
Happy Birthday, Billie!
Happy (75th) Birthday, Merle!
Merle Haggard, live
“Lonesome Fugitive,” Buck Owens Ranch Show, 1966
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“Working Man Blues,” Austin City Limits, 1978
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“Today I Started Loving You Again,” with Tammy Wynette, England (Wemberly), 1988
