career plans for the next life
If none of those other things pan out (tap dancer, rubboard player, reggae bassist, guitarist in a Malian band), I might give cellist-in-a-string-quartet a shot.
Keller String Quartet, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), The Art of the Fugue (excerpts); György Kurtág (1926-), Officium Breve (excerpts)
alone
György Kurtág (1926-), Perpetuum Mobile (from Játékok [Games])
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lagniappe
reading table
‘There is no God and Mary is His Mother.’
—Robert Lowell (1917-1977), “For George Santayana” (excerpt)
More sounds from the shadows.
György Kurtág (1926-), 12 Microludes for String Quartet (Hommage à Mihály András) (1978), Maxwell Quartet, live, Scotland (Argyllshire), 2012
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lagniappe
reading table
“Chartres”
By George Oppen (1908-1984)The bulk of it
In airIs what they wanted. Compassion
Above the doors, the doorwaysMary the woman and the others
The lesserAre dreams on the structure. But that a stone
Supports anotherThat the stones
Stand where the masons locked themAbove the farmland
Above the willBecause a hundred generations
Back of them and to another peopleThe world cried out above the mountain
They play each note as if, at that particular moment, nothing in the world is more important.
György Kurtág (1926-) and Márta Kurtág, live, Kurtág (Játékok [Games]) and Bach (miscellaneous transcriptions), Paris, 2012
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lagniappe
musical (and other) thoughts
Q. One last question—are you a believer?
A [G. Kurtág]. I do not know. I toy with the idea. Consciously, I am certainly an atheist, but I do not say it out loud, because if I look at Bach, I cannot be an atheist. Then I have to accept the way he believed. His music never stops praying. And how can I get closer if I look at him from the outside? I do not believe in the Gospels in a literal fashion, but a Bach fugue has the Crucifixion in it—as the nails are being driven in. In music, I am always looking for the hammering of the nails. . . . That is a dual vision. My brain rejects it all. But my brain isn’t worth much.
—Alex Ross, New Yorker blog, quoting György Kurtág: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages (2009)
music clip of the day 