Johannes Brahms’s Quartet for Piano and Strings in G Minor, Op. 25 is considered one of the composer’s first mature masterpieces. The wide-ranging emotional content seems to encapsulate the human experience from wonder, mystery, and tenderness to heroism, exultation, and merrymaking. The composer seems to explore the infinite potential of the smallest musical gestures, as …
GRACE NOTESfrom Rev. Kimberley Debus This month we’ve been talking about envisioning – what is the future we seek? And more, how do we shift our thinking when things seem so terrible? As I was contemplating this question – and feeling pretty cynical, to be honest – I opened Facebook to find a post by …
This Sunday’s solo piano selections highlight March as Women’s History Month, with music by women from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Part of collective liberation is partaking in the rich heritage of music from a demographic which was frequently marginalized in a male-dominated profession. We marvel at the diverse range of beauty conveyed in …
We’re pleased to have as our musical guest this week: Freebo, a genuine Folk, Rock, and Blues icon (https://freebomusic.com). Over a 40-year career Freebo has recorded and toured with many of the great popular musicians of our time: Bonnie Raitt (10 years); Crosby, Stills, & Nash; Maria Muldaur; John Mayall; Ringo Starr; Dr. John; Neil …
Few composers have come to represent the ideal of beauty in piano music more than Frederic Chopin, whose 214th birthday would have been last Friday. His music reconciles spontaneous emotion with deep complexity, an apt expression of our multi-layered psyches and diverse connections. This Sunday’s musical selections include a survey of the composer’s wide-ranging creations. …
GRACE NOTESfrom Rev. Kimberley Debus For a few years now, I have watched as other ministers post warnings about fake emails or texts pretending to be them, asking for gift cards or some such, with concerns about hacking, safety, and often a rush to change passwords. I wondered why I wasn’t experiencing this – until …
Love is in the air at CUUC in the wise message of this week’s worship service and in the warm afterglow of St. Valentine’s Day. This Sunday’s solo piano selections bring the sultry climate of Andalusia in Isaac Albéniz’s “Almería” and the yearning sensuality of Argentinian dance in Alberto Ginastera’s “Danza de la moza donosa.” …
Music, the universal language, is often said to transcend words, enabling people to commune spiritually beyond the bounds of space and time. But is it really possible to experience music as an abstraction? Can we hear instrumental music without conjuring images, inventing lyrics, or imagining narratives? This Sunday’s solo piano selections beg those questions… Read …
This Sunday’s solo piano selections anticipate a future of integration and mutuality with respect to the musical idioms of diverse cultures. Included are works by the French composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy that incorporate the language of such historically African American musical styles as ragtime, blues, and jazz. In the Gathering Music is a …
I don’t know about you, but I found this January to be a bigger “blah” than normal. I suspect some of it was the flu, which knocked me out for a couple of weeks. Also, for the first time in a few years, we had actual snow that made the roads messy and our backs …