Thursday, July 31st
Who needs coffee?
Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994), Variations on a Theme by Paganini
Martha Argerich & Gabriela Montero, pianos, live
Who needs coffee?
Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994), Variations on a Theme by Paganini
Martha Argerich & Gabriela Montero, pianos, live
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.
otherworldly
Maurice Ravel, Jeux d’eau (1901)
Martha Argerich, live (1977)
*****
Alfred Cortot, recording (1920)
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lagniappe
radio
After finishing, at midnight, their 24-hour Coleman Hawkins birthday celebration, the indefatigable folks at WKCR-FM didn’t rest for even a minute. Instead they embarked on a 4-day, 96-hour celebration of pianist Teddy Wilson’s centennial.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
MCOTD gives thanks for
Lester Bowie and
Blossom Dearie and
The Dirtbombs;
for Mingus, Miles, Monk,
Bach, Beethoven, Bruckner, Bartok;
for WKCR-FM and WFMU-FM;
for Morton Feldman and
Elliott Carter and
Alfred Schnittke and
Tristan Murail;
for Hound Dog Taylor, Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson, Magic Sam;
for The Ex, The Heptones, The Swan Silvertones, The Impressions, The Art Ensemble of Chicago;
for Von Freeman and Art Pepper and Vernard Johnson;
for Friedrich Gulda and Martha Argerich, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Ursula Oppens;
for Ed Blackwell and
for Phillip Wilson;
for Julius Hemphill and
Henry Threadgill and
D’Angelo and
Dorothy Love Coates;
and for all the others—singers, musicians, composers, painters, photographers, printmakers, novelists, poets—who have graced this site;
and for you, who have found your way here, somehow, from Mongolia and Slovenia and Jamaica and Saudi Arabia; from Myanmar and Syria; from Angola, India, Ethiopia; from Finland, Thailand, Ireland, Iceland, and over 100 other countries.
You don’t need to be asleep to be lost in a dream.
Maurice Ravel, Piano Concerto in G Major (1929-31); Martha Argerich, piano; Orchestre National de France (Charles Dutoit, cond.); live, Germany (Frankfurt), 1990
If, someday, Björk invites you over for tea, don’t be surprised if she wants to show you this.
Martha Argerich, at home with then-husband conductor Charles Dutoit, Switzerland (near Lausanne), 1972
‘Recently I have been guilty of watching a lot of YouTube,’ Björk says. She’s been exploring Martha Argerich (1972 home movies) . . .
—Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise (blog), 11/13/11
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Happy Birthday, Suzanne!
Turn it off: cellphone, email, Twitter—the whole modern rot.
Let this, and nothing else, surround you.
Frederic Chopin, Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2
Martha Argerich (piano), live, Germany (Saarbrücken), 1972
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
In the right hands there are no notes—only mysteries.
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reading table
Then I considered the spiritual bread that a newspaper constitutes, still warm and moist as it emerges from the press and the morning mist in which it has been delivered at crack of dawn to the housemaids who take it to their masters with a bowl of milk, this miraculous loaf, multiplied ten-thousandfold and yet unique, which stays unchanged for everyone while proliferating across every threshold.
—Marcel Proust, The Fugitive (translated from French by Peter Collier)
Frederic Chopin, Mazurka in C Major, Op. 24, No. 2
Martha Argerich, live, Sweden (Stockholm), 2009
More? Here. And here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
When I don’t play Chopin for a while, I don’t feel like
a pianist.—Martha Argerich
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reading table
Look how
we “attempted to express ourselves.”Every one of these words is wrong.
It wasn’t us.
Or we made no real attempt.
Or there is no discernible difference
between self and expression.*****
The outer world means
State Farm Donuts Tae Kwando?*****
Today could be described as a retired man humming
tunelessly to himself.*****
Any statement I issue
if particular enoughwill prove
I was here*****
It’s as if
the real
thing—
your own
absence—
can never be
uncovered.*****
These temporary credits
will no longer be reflected
in your next billing period.—Rae Armantrout, Versed (2009), misc. fragments
Great music, unlike great food, doesn’t fill you up.
It leaves you wanting more.
Bach, Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826
Martha Argerich, piano, live, Switzerland (Verbier Festival), 2008
Part 1
Vodpod videos no longer available.
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Part 2
Vodpod videos no longer available.More Bach? Here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here.
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reading table
Last night, opening a book at random, I came upon this—another reminder that Emily Dickinson, surely one of my desert-island writers, takes a backseat to no one when it comes to strangeness.
I see thee better — in the Dark —
I do not need a Light —
The Love of Thee — a Prism be —
Excelling Violet —I see thee better for the Years
That hunch themselves between —
The Miner’s Lamp — sufficient be —
To nullify the Mine —And in the Grave — I see Thee best —
Its little Panels be
Aglow — All ruddy — with the Light
I held so high, for Thee —What need of Day —
To those whose Dark — hath so — surpassing Sun —
It deem it be — Continually —
At the Meridian?—Emily Dickinson
When it comes to saying a lot with a little, Chopin’s 24 Preludes for solo piano—most of which last no more than a minute or two—have few equals. This one was played at his funeral.
Frederic Chopin, Prelude No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 28
Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997)
*****
Alfred Cortot (1877-1962)
*****
Martha Argerich (1941-)
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lagniappe
Today isn’t just any old day; it’s Record Store Day 2010.
Chris Brown, Bull Moose (New England record stores)
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reading table
an old man’s ways—
my backside warmed
by the wood fire
—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828; Trans. David G. Lanoue)