Bach cello festival (day one)
Suppose you had twenty-four hours to live. What would you want to hear? These six cello suites, which I’ve been listening to for over forty years, are where I might turn. (Why not go out dancing?)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Cello Suite No. 1 in G major; Denise Djokic (cello), live, Canada (Winnipeg), 2012
Prelude
Allemande
Courante
Sarabande
Minuets 1 and 2
Gigue
never enough
Sometimes, it seems, nothing is more precious than clarity.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Partita No. 2 in C minor
Tatiana Nikolayeva (1924-1993), piano
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lagniappe
reading table
The hill I see
Every day
Is holy—Samuel Menashe (1925-2011)
never enough
I could live happily inside a cello.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Suite No. 3 in C major for Unaccompanied Cello; Nathan Chan (1993-), live, San Francisco, 8/17/14
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lagniappe
art beat: more from Monday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Josef Koudelka (1938-), Slovakia, 1966 (from Gypsies)
Nationality Doubtful, through tomorrow
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Suite No. 3 in C major for Unaccompanied Cello; Jean-Guihen Queyras (1967-), live, c. 2007
never enough
Three more takes on what we heard Thursday.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor (2nd Movt.)
Henryk Szeryng (1918-1988), live
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Arthur Grumiaux (1921-1986), recording
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Yoojin Jang (1990-), live
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lagniappe
reading table
[A] mad person not helped out of his trouble by anything real begins to trust what is not real because it helps him and he needs it because real things continue not to help him.
—Lydia Davis, “Liminal: The Little Man” (The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis)
never enough
Bach’s six cello suites, which I’ve been listening to for over forty years, never fail to astonish me—they breathe.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Suite No. 1 in G major for Unaccompanied Cello; Jan Vogler (1964-), live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course . . . .—The Odyssey, opening lines (Robert Fagles’ translation)
Smooth sailing wouldn’t make much of a story.
never enough
One-word review: riveting.
Johann Sebastian Bach, Chaconne in D minor for solo violin (Partita for Violin No. 2); Ivry Gitlis (violin), live, Japan (Tokyo), 1990
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lagniappe
art beat
Weegee (AKA Arthur Fellig, 1899-1968)
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach, Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826; Martha Argerich, piano, live, Switzerland (Verbier Festival), 2008
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR’s Bach Festival, now in its tenth day, concludes at midnight.
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reading table
Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else. . . . Our noise, our business, our purposes, and all our fatuous statements about our purposes, our business, and our noise: these are the illusion.
—Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island
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no passport needed
This year folks from ninety-five countries stopped by to listen. Welcome, all.
music clip of the day 