never enough
If I could play like this, I’d never stand up.
Johann Sebastian Bach, Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, Prelude; Eva Lymenstull (baroque cello), 2017
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lagniappe
reading table
I like this story from the N.Y. Times—a composition by a child in the third grade: ‘I told my little brother that when you die you cannot breathe and he did not say a word. He just kept on playing.’
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), Letter to Robert Lowell, September 8, 1948
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach, Goldberg Variations; Evgeni Koroliov, piano
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR’s (Columbia University) Bach Festival continues through midnight tomorrow.
*****
random sights
other day, Sonoma, Calif.
Tonight, at 1 a.m. (EST), one of the year’s great musical events begins: the annual Bach Festival—now in its 40th year—broadcast on WKCR-FM (Columbia University). All Bach, all the time, until midnight New Year’s Eve. Hope, beauty, inspiration: they aren’t luxuries; they’re necessities.
Johann Sebastian Bach, Mass in B minor (excerpt, “Dona nobis pacem”); Berlin Philharmonic (Ton Koopman, cond.) with RIAS Chamber Choir (Justin Doyle, chorus master), live, Berlin, 10/28/17
*****
Johann Sebastian Bach, Cello Suite No. 6 in D major; Mischa Maisky (cello), live
sublime
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Goldberg Variations, Aria
Peter Serkin, live, Japan (Hiroshima), 8/5/17
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1
András Schiff (piano), live, London, 9/7/17
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lagniappe
reading table
Cold night: the wild duck,
sick, falls from the sky
and sleeps awhile.—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Robert Hass
This piece, in over forty years of listening, has never—not once—let me down. And this performance, which I encountered last night, is among the strongest I’ve heard.
Johann Sebastian Bach, Suite No. 5 in C minor for Unaccompanied Cello
Mischa Maisky, live, 1991
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lagniappe
reading table
Unable are the Loved to die
For Love is Immortality,
Nay, it is Deity –Unable they that love – to die
For Love reforms Vitality
Into Divinity.—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), 951 (Franklin)
more
Johann Sebastian Bach, Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, mvmts. 1-2 (Adagio, Fugue); Niek Baar, live, Berlin, 2016
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach, Violin Sonata No. 3 in C major, 3rd mvmt. (Largo); Isabelle Faust, live, New York, 2013