Want to be swept away?
Alexander Scriabin (1871-1915), Etude in D-sharp minor, Op. 8, No. 12 (1894); Daniil Trifonov (1991-, piano), live, Berlin, 2019
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
And I Was Alive
by Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938),
translated from Russian by Christian Wiman
And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear,
Myself I stood in the storm of the bird-cherry tree,
It was all leaflike and star shower, unerring, self-shattering power,
And it was all aimed at me.
What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth?
What is being? What is truth?
Blossoms rupture and rapture the air,
All hover and hammer,
Time intensified and time intolerable, sweetness raveling rot.
It is now. It is not.
spellbinding (part two)
Why not begin the week with something beautiful?
Daniil Trifonov (1991-, piano), live (Chopin, Prelude No. 15 [“Raindrop”])
spellbinding
Daniil Trifonov (1991-, piano), live (Chopin: “Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. 66”; Schumann: “Chopin. Agitato” (from Carnaval); Grieg: “Hommage à Chopin, Op. 73, No. 5”; Chopin: “Variations on ‘Là ci darem la mano’ (from Mozart’s Don Giovanni) – Coda. Alla Polacca”), Washington, D.C., 2018
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lagniappe
reading table
the rice planter’s
sunshade . . .
billowing cloud—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
How about a trip to the nineteenth century?
Daniil Trifonov, piano (Chopin, Schumann, Grieg), live (studio performance), Washington, D.C., 1/12/18
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lagniappe
reading table
To shut our eyes is Travel.
—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), Letter 354