The Hammock Papers: music.poetry. art.

Showing posts with label music.poetry. art.. Show all posts

29 July 2026

Sonorous.

Marie-Claude Chappuis, Luca Pianca, Vittorio Ghielmi perform a sonorous program of Lully, Lambert,de Visée, Monteclair, and Bataille ...

28 July 2026

Happy Birthday, Simon Kirke

Simon Kirke was born on this day in 1949.

"Burnin' Sky"...

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

... to prioritize victory over rather than coexistence with the communist threat.

Released.

R.E.M. released Life's Rich Pageant on this day in 1986.

"I Believe"...

Bloch, Three Scenes from Jewish Life

Steven Isserlis performs "Prayer" with Candida Thompson and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta ...

Haydn (1732–1809), Symphony No. 47 in G major, Hob. I:47, "Il Philosofo"

Giovanni Antonini's incredible ensemble, Il Giardino Armonico ...

27 July 2026

Released.

AC⚡DC released Highway to Hell on this day in 1979.

"If You Want Blood (You've Got It)" ...

Released.

John Cougar released John Cougar on this day in 1979.

26 July 2026

More.

More leisure time for artists everywhere ...

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

... to prioritize victory over rather than coexistence with the communist threat.

Happy Birthday, Roger Taylor

Roger Taylor was born on this day in 1949.

"Now I'm Here ...

An excellent album ...

Alan Parsons Project, "The Turn of a Friendly Card"

Thanks to my buddy, Kurt, for introducing me all the way back in those heady days,long ago and for the gift of experiencing this band live last night ...

Part One

Part Two

Telemann, Suite in A-Minor for Recorder and Strings, TWV 55:a2

Bolette Roed performs the Menuet with Arte dei Suonatori ...

25 July 2026

Verdi, La Traviata

Sir Georg Solti conducts the Orchestra of The Royal Opera House in a performance of the Prelude to Act One ...

Released.

AC⚡DC released Back in Black on this day in 1980.

"Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution"

Rock and roll ain't no riddle, man ...

Good morning.

24 July 2026

Jones, Air in B-Flat Major

The Beggar's Ensemble performs the Allegro ...

Fauré, Trio in D-Minor, Op. 120

The ATOS Trio performs ...

23 July 2026

Thin Lizzy, "Do Anything You Want To"

'Tis Summer and the weekend begins now ...

"Hang care!" exclaimed he. "This is a delicious evening; the wine has a finer relish here than in the house, and the song is more exciting and melodious under the tranquil sky than in the close room, where the sound is stifled. Come, let us have a bacchanalian chant—let us, with old Sir Toby, make the welkin dance and rouse the night-owl with a catch! I am right merry. Pass the bottle, and tune your voices—a catch, a catch! The lights will be here anon."

Charles Ollier, from "The Haunted Manor-House of Paddington"

For best results, listen to this: Thin Lizzy, "Do Anything You Want To"...

The euphony transformed me and inundated my soul in a roguish countenance, the likes of which I had know well in younger days. Such impishness soon drove out the complaints of the day.

Umberto Limongiello

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."