It's Friday! Take a breather with our latest link roundup -- as luck would have it, there's plenty of music in this one. Crazy, right?
1. Justin Davidson, a critic for Vulture, says "it's time we all heard the music of Lili Boulanger," and he's right. Here's her beautiful "D'un soir triste / D'un matin de printemps":
2. In honor of the 500th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci's death, art historian Martin Kemp, conductor Robert Hollingsworth, and vocal ensemble I Fagiolini joined forces to choose a piece of Renaissance music to represent the Mona Lisa: Monteverdi's "Era l'anima mia."
3. Pianist Vikingur Olafsson spoke with The Guardian about what he's learned from Bach, and what fresh insights he brings to Bach's music"
"What Bach did for us was leave an incredible wealth of pieces that we can find ourselves in. He didn’t write about his own suffering, he doesn’t draw us into his world, he writes about all mankind. He opens up the cosmos.”
4. Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2 puts violinist Ray Chen through his paces:
Shostakovich Piano Trio No. 2 is a monster of a piece. Composed during WWII in 1944, it has a lot of powerfully dark and unsettling moments.
— Ray Chen (@raychenviolin) May 2, 2019
🎻 @Pablo_Ferrandez
🎹 @AliceSaraOtt pic.twitter.com/HzpyDpXYtD
5. Need help remembering the names of all of J.S. Bach's many, many children? This... might help.
Did anybody want to hear a comprehensive, contrapuntal list of all of J. S. Bach's children? @harry_sever #bach pic.twitter.com/LhAlG2bhlD
— The Classical Music Pod (@ClassicalPod) April 28, 2019
6. It takes a lot to steal the show from Cardi B, but when genre-bridging pianist Chloe Flower did just that during the most recent GRAMMY Awards, we knew she was destined for stardom. Every interview we read makes us fall in love with her more.
"People are like, "Well, what do I do with you? What do you mean you're doing piano with beat? What do you mean you're wearing heels and feathers?"
"My biggest challenge as a pianist, as a solo pianist, is, before the #GRAMMYs, people didn't know what to do with me." - @ChloeFlowerhttps://t.co/pSw5k39SQp
— Recording Academy / GRAMMYs (@RecordingAcad) April 28, 2019
7. Listen, we get it -- sometimes you just want to watch somebody play Tchaikovsky in a beautiful room. When that mood strikes, pianist Luke Faulkner has just the thing.
