He played as if his life depended on it.
Glenn Gould (1932-1982, piano), playing Bach’s Partita No. 2 in C minor (The Art of Piano, 1999)
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lagniappe
reading table
Happiness has never been one of my great aspirations.
—poet W.S. Graham (1918-1986, quoted in London Review of Books, 7/18/19)
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Partita for keyboard No. 6, excerpt (Toccata); Glenn Gould (1932-1982, piano), live (studio)
more
Tonight he’ll be playing this piece, along with Bach’s five other cello suites, in Chicago’s Millennium Park.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Cello Suite No. 1 in G major; Yo-Yo Ma, live, London, 2015
Thursday in Chicago
He’s playing Bach’s six cello suites in Millennium Park.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor; Yo-Yo Ma, live, London, 2015
Yesterday, listening to this while driving to see a client at an outlying jail, I was reminded, again, that hearing the right music at the right time can change your entire day.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin; Oscar Shumsky (1917-2000), violin, 1979*
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*Sonata No. 1 in G minor: 00:01
Partita No. 1 in B minor: 17:04
Sonata No. 2 in A minor: 48:26
Partita No. 2 in D minor: 1:11:43
Sonata No. 3 in C major: 1:43:33
Partita No. 3 in E major: 2:07:17
what’s new
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, excerpt (Prelude); Yo-Yo Ma (cello), 1/14/19
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
more
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Cello Suite No. 1 in G major; Lucia Swarts (cello), live, Netherlands (Amsterdam), 2014
more
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Cello Suite No. 6 in D major; Sergey Malov (violoncello de spalla), live, Netherlands (Amsterdam), 2016
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lagniappe
reading table
from the hole
in the moneybox . . .
a katydid—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
more
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor; Steuart Pincombe (cello), live, Netherlands (Amsterdam), 2018
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR’s Bach Festival, which began the day before Christmas, concludes at midnight.
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random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
more
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin; Bella Hristova (violin)
first four movements, live (studio), Boston, 2012
fifth movement (Chaconne), live, Philadelphia, 2013
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR’s Bach Festival (until midnight New Year’s Eve)
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musical thoughts
On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.
—Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), on Bach’s Chaconne, in a letter to Clara Schumann (translated from German)
