timeless
I didn’t know how much I needed this until I stumbled upon it this morning.
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), Fantasia in C major (HXVII 4); Kirill Gerstein (1979-, piano), live, London, 3/4/21
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
more
Spektral Quartet (Clara Lyon [violin], Maeve Feinberg [violin], Doyle Armbrust [viola], Russell Rolen [cello]): Joseph Haydn, The Seven Last Words of Christ, recorded in Chicago (St. James Cathedral), 3/20/21 (performance begins at 4:00)
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
Need a break from America 2019?
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), String Quartet in C major, Op. 20, No. 2; Danish String Quartet, live, New York, 2018
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lagniappe
reading table
The roaring of the wind is my wife and the Stars through the window pane are my Children.
—John Keats (1795-1821), letter to his brother George Keats, 1818
Last night, at the University of Chicago (Mandel Hall), they opened with this piece, which was followed by Shostakovich (String Quartet No. 4 in D Major), Brahms (String Quartet in A Minor) and, in an encore, Webern (Langsamer Satz). One-word review: spellbinding.
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), String Quartet in D Major, Op. 20, No. 4 (excerpt); Takács Quartet, live, New York, 2018
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
Joseph Haydn, Piano Sonata No. 24 in D major, excerpt (2nd Movement)
Sviatoslav Richter, live
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Logic does not exist for me. I float on the waves of art and life and never really know how to distinguish what belongs to the one or the other or what is common to both. Life unfolds for me like a theatre presenting a sequence of somewhat unreal sentiments; while the things of art are real to me and go straight to my heart.
—Sviatoslav Richter
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reading table
After a black day, I play Haydn,
and feel a little warmth in my hands.The keys are ready. Kind hammers fall.
The sound is spirited, green, and full of silence.The sound says that freedom exists
and someone pays no taxes to Caesar.I shove my hands in my haydnpockets
and act like a man who is calm about it all.I raise my haydnflag. The signal is:
“We do not surrender. But want peace.”The music is a house of glass standing on a slope;
rocks are flying, rocks are rolling.The rocks roll straight through the house
but every pane of glass is still whole.—Tomas Transtromer (winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature), “Allegro,” trans. from the Swedish by Robert Bly
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music clip of the day 