music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Tag: Maurice Ravel

Friday, January 30th

string quartet festival (day five)

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903); Hagen Quartet, live, Austria (Salzburg), 2000

1st movt.

2nd movt.

3rd movt.

4th movt.

Wednesday, October 1st

Three-word review: Don’t miss this.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903); Hagen Quartet, live, Austria (Salzburg), 2000

1st movt.

2nd movt.

3rd movt.

4th movt.

**********

lagniappe

reading table

Can I get used to it day after day
a little at a time while the tide keeps
coming in faster the waves get bigger
building on each other breaking records
this is not the world that I remember
then comes the day when I open the box
that I remember packing with such care
and there is the face that I had known well
in little pieces staring up at me
it is not mentioned on the front pages
but somewhere far back near the real estate
among the things that happen every day
to someone who now happens to be me
and what can I do and who can tell me
then there is what the doctor comes to say
endless patience will never be enough
the only hope is to be the daylight

—W. S. Merwin, “Living With the News” (New Yorker, 7/28/14)

Tuesday, September 24th

Some folks are intimidated by this stuff. Part of the problem is the label: “classical” music. That sounds like something for graduate students. Nonsense. You don’t need to know anything—anything at all—to connect with this. All you need are two ears, a mind, and a heart.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903), first movement; Chiara String Quartet, live, University of Nebraska, 2013

Thursday, 11/22/12

otherworldly

Maurice Ravel, Jeux d’eau (1901)

Martha Argerich, live (1977)

*****

Alfred Cortot, recording (1920)

**********

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.

*****

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.

Tuesday, 9/4/12

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

Saturday, 4/14/12

The keyboard is the stage on which the fingers dance.

Sviatoslav Richter, piano
TV performance (CBC, Toronto),* 1964

**********

lagniappe

reading table

even grass and vines
don’t part willingly . . .
lantern for the dead

—Kobayashi Issa, 1822 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)

*****

*Johannes Brahms, Intermezzo in E Minor, Op. 116, No. 5
Sergei Prokofiev, Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 14
Maurice Ravel, Jeux d’eauAlborada del gracioso