sounds of Paris
Ensemble Intercontemporain, live, Paris, 6/9/20: Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time, excerpt); Charles Ives (1874-1954), The Unanswered Question
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago (Columbus Park)
Happy Fourth of July!
Professor Longhair (1918-1980), “Big Chief,” live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1973
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Charles Ives (1874-1954), A Symphony: New England Holidays, Third Movt. (“The Fourth of July”); GSW Orchestra (Orlando Cela, cond.; Alex Blake, guest cond.), live
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Tommy Jarrell (1901-1985), “Let Me Fall,” live, North Carolina (Mount Airy), 1983
yesterday in Chicago
At the Art Institute—next to Millennium Park, site of Saturday’s Gospel Fest—I heard this piece for the first time, played by three Chicago-based musicians (violinist Yuan-Qing Yu, clarinetist J. Lawrie Bloom, pianist Adam Nieman). It, too, sang.
Charles Ives (1874-1954), Largo for Violin, Clarinet, Piano (1901-02); Lucy Chapman-Stoltzman (violin), Richard Stoltzman (clarinet), Richard Goode (piano), 1990
two takes
Need a lift?
Charles Ives (1874-1954), Ragtime Dance No. 4 (1904)
Alarm Will Sound, live, New York, 2013
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Orchestra New England, recording, 1990
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
As I remember some of the dances as a boy, and also from father’s description of some of the old dancing and fiddle playing, there was more variety of tempo than in the present-day dances. In some parts of the hall a group would be dancing in polka, while in another, a waltz. Some of the players in the band would, in an impromptu way, pick up with the polka, and some with the waltz, and some with a march. Often the piccolo or cornet would throw in asides. Sometimes a change in tempo, or a mixed rhythm would be caused by a fiddler who, after playing three or four hours steadily, was getting a little sleepy. Or maybe another player was seated too near the hard cider barrel. Whatever the reason for these changes and simultaneous playing of things, I remember distinctly catching a kind of music that was natural and interesting and which was decidedly missed when everybody came down ‘blimp’ on the same beat again.
—Charles Ives
music clip of the day 