perhaps my favorite beethoven joke of all is when he says at the beginning of the last movement of the hammerklavier “fugue with some license” haha yes, no kidding

every morning, i read a beethoven letter, to find one hilarious thing, and one tragic thing, and sometimes they are the same

Some of the most perceptive and hilarious writing on music I’ve ever encountered is in the first fifth of Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai

Ah the joys of that wonderful hall in Worcester

overheard: “he was as egotistical as you could get, for a violist”

one of the most wonderful piano lessons in recorded history is the opening of the franck quintet as played by cortot … astonishing rubato and color like entering a different spiritual zone, and climaxing with a spectacular cortot wipeout at the opening of the allegro youtu.be/tGrQRP2FOBI?...

I would love to see this opera

imagine how furious beethoven would be about this

on a grey wintry morning in new york i am getting warmth from the hilarious story of magnificent lola montez scandalizing the inauguration of the long-delayed beethoven monument by dancing on the table, with a side plot of liszt’s colossal ego

i really enjoyed writing this one

beethoven had many many great virtues but I really don’t think he was this hot

one of my favorite musicians in the world, what a joy it has been to work with him these last years, and to connect (in a way) back to my hungarian teachers, who we spent some time admiring together

my old teacher, being charming and young and handsome www.facebook.com/reel/1530112...

wow this is truly a work of art for our age

Two serious musicians revisiting one of the classics

decent view before a day of rehearsals

“Beethoven unites, confounds, and makes no distinction between the tragic and the comic, the agreeable and the repulsive, the heroic and the howling, the most holy and the Harlequin” (Schubert, diary, 1816)

don’t know why this looks so ominous

Reading Foucault in the LAX Lyft shuttle is peak poser

Not many airport bookstores have such a solid Foucault section

Pretentious reading of the day

a lesson in overdone music writing

Halloween sf

this is your occasional reminder that every musician and music-lover should own and read eta hoffmann’s life and opinions of the tomcat murr (link in thread)

honolulu hotel room 546 am … thinking about the history of the diminished seventh chord

On a groggy morning the allemande of the b flat partita felt so good

Writing about Beethoven and fear

After the storm, sf

lol

i decided to take on the bach jig! you’ll be relieved to know i did not name my essay “the jig is up” (link in thread)

Walking around gorgeous Portland Maine this afternoon is like ingesting concentrated essence of fall

I wrote some stuff I liked about Bach and getting out of bed (link in thread)

i wrote about one of the most beautiful pieces i know (link in thread)

we had fun creating a zany ives band chorus playlist, 70 minutes of who knows what will happen!

still makes me happy to run into fans of the book ! i worked hard on it

this is so dangerous and terrible and disgusting

Happy Pride Month! We're celebrating with our newly updated playlist of Nonesuch recordings by LGBTQ+ composers, performers, and allies, including k.d. lang, Magnetic Fields, Caroline Shaw, Ringdown, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Mountain Man, Jeremy Denk, Nico Muhly, and more: nonesuch.lnk.to/Pride

If you're going to write a bad review, you should do it in grand, slashing style ("Chernow's new biography of Twain is enormous, bland and remote--it squats over Twain's career like a McMansion" wow wow wow).

Based on this mornings open rehearsal so far you should make every possible effort (short of committing a crime) to hear Giulio Cesare tonight at Carnegie hall

Hey Substackers, we posted our latest Substack with @rhiannongiddens.bsky.social, @stevereich.bsky.social, @jeremydenk.bsky.social, Randy Newman, @philharmonie.bsky.social news and more. You can read it and subscribe for free at nonesuch.substack.com/p/rhiannon-g...

Still life: late Beethoven, coffee, sloth, capybara

It was fun and what’s cool is a lot of the commenters seemed to grasp the existential dilemma of choosing a piano the compromises and questions

I hate to criticize a great thinker like Edward Said, but what the f@#k is he talking about … ? op 110 is one of the most perfectly paced and designed pieces of the entire western canon

“This list may not reflect recent changes”

not many people (like Beethoven) can turn their anger issues into great art

honestly, this is my favorite publicity photo of all time

An incredibly moving thing to see mtt at his last new world concert, after all the crazy cage and wuorinen and Ives and god knows what else… conducting as his final word a simple sentimental and yet heartbreaking song of grieg

a classic moment rehearsing with MTT… we got to the cadenza and i asked michael if i should play it … he replied why not? do you have a bar mitzvah to go to or something?

i offer you a somewhat redacted postcard from erik satie

never try to outdrink a british orchestra at the end of a tour