ethicssteve.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Happy birthday to Richard Wagner: proof that one can be a creative genius and a Jew-hating, egotistic , adulterous, deadbeat shithead. His music remains exquisite. www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/b...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

I listened to Salome this afternoon. The music struck me as far too beautiful for this horrid story. I enjoyed every minute. Kudos @metopera.bsky.social and @WFMTClassical here in Chicago for airing it live. I love the Saturday noon Met opera broadcasts.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Reason to love Chicago #333,333,333. Taken on my lunchtime jaunt in River North, Chicago. My iPhone id’s this as Phlox—but it is a tulip methink.

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

Places des Vosges, September 2024. A most peaceful Parisian portico.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

I stand corrected. The Bach encore was not Herr Jesus Christ—it was Kempff’s transcription of the Siciliano from a flute sonata. Glad this isn’t Final Jeopardy! thirdcoastreview.com/2025/05/13/p...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Every human emotion—the vast panoply of them—Shostakovich somewhere in this magisterial work identifies and plumbs it.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Evgeny Kissin is one of the great virtuoso pianists of our lifetime. Fascinating to hear him play Shostakovich; a hitherto unknown (by me) sonata. Wow it was dark—Leningrad 1943. He graced us with 3 encores: Bach’s Ich Ruf Zu, Herr Jesus Christ, and a Chopin scherzo and waltz. Stunning.🎹

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

To say I’m looking forward to Kissin’s annual Spring appearance in Chicago would understate it. I didn’t know Shostakovich even wrote piano sonatas. But his preludes + fugues are sublime. Dmitri’s “oeuvre” is like an ever-beckoning mountain range.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Fun with new iPhone camera. The flora are exuberant on this gorgeous Spring Chicago Saturday. The roses: at the post-modern McDonald’s at Clark + Ontario. The dogwood: at St. James Cathedral, Huron + Wabash.

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

Clickbait, but fun just the same. superage.com/seven-cities...

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

This settles what’s on many a Chicagoan’s mind (even non-Catholics like me). Leo XIV is a Sox fan. I never doubted this. It restores my essential faith in the Essential Order of the Universe. Thomism at work. x.com/josh_frydman...

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Happy birthday to old Johannes Brahms. This is my go-to performance of his German Requiem, itself a desert island piece.

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

Rest in peace dear colleague and neighbor. I was lucky to work with Lori during her years in the Daley Administration; our families were neighbors, 1999-2001. Far too young. My condolences to her family. A talented executive and an outstanding public servant. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_He...

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

This is of the canonic works of Western Art.

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

So due to a dumb, most improbable accident, I’ve got a new iPhone 16 ProMax. And I’m gonna use its camera! Few things are as voluptuous as a Japanese Crabapple in full flower. Even on an overcast day in Chicago. This one is on the Moody Bible Institute campus.

submitted 19 days ago • 1 comment

Photos serendipitously found in my Apple photo archive: Chicago. 22 December 2019. Lots of oranges, oddly.

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

Ugh. More to fret about. A few things: 1. I read (can’t recall where) of someone, “he died of having lived.” 2. I re-read that red wine is good for you. I’d guess it has hardly any microplastics. 3. Do eggs have microplastics? superage.com/7-foods-and-...

submitted 20 days ago • 2 comments

How lovely to be pointed by Spotify to this sublime interpretation of a sublime LvB work. The #4 pc, in G. Mitsuko Uchida is such a gem.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

Lovely, not licely! I do like the sound of licely, but can’t figure out how to use it in a sentence. It should be a word! 😜😜

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

A llcely thing about Chicago is radio station WFMT, 98.7 FM (they have a worldwide app). 40% of my brain’s musical real estate comes thence. Today I heard it’s Wallingford Riegger’s bday. Never heard of him? Me neither until I heard this piece 25 years ago on WFMT. Enjoy! youtu.be/z8XlBLUhBDc?...

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Other beautiful views of Millennium Park—on the right day, one of Chicago’s most memorable spots, one of its grand, vast—yet private—spaces. So many languages can be overheard that feels like you’re a tourist in your own town.

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Largely the same view, 11 years later. A reflection on the concept of permanence in this world. That was 11 generations of iPhones ago. So this is today.

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

What a beautiful Spring weekend in Chicago, especially for music. Wunderkind Klaus Mäkelä led a stunning Mahler 3–here saluting the massive percussion section. Emanuel Ax gave LvB’s Eb sonata op. 27 #1 the love it deserves. And Schumann: my favorite lawyer-composer. His C major Fantasy is a gem.

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Happy 83 to former Mayor Rich Daley, the first of four for whom I’ve worked. I hope he’s enjoying life to the max.

submitted 29 days ago • 1 comment

Happy birthday, Sergei P! A favorite recording. Piano concerto 3 soars.

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

The Red Army Choir is choice guilty pleasure. I give not a fig for Soviet ideology, but wow can they sing.

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

Schönheit, indeed. To paraphrase Ben Franklin: “a beautiful planet, if you can keep it.” —Beira Interior, Portugal (Salvaterra do Extremo).

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

A completely fascinating case before the SCOTUS tomorrow. Part of me thinks the future of our 50-state republic depends on the resolution of questions like these. www.scotusblog.com/case-files/c...

submitted 31 days ago • 1 comment

So one late LvB masterwork leads to another: the Diabelli variations. This is genius in action.

submitted 32 days ago • 0 comments

The first LP I have of this sonata is Kovacevich’s, when he was Stephen Bishop (~1964). A Seraphim LP. I adore it. This sonata is ever new—and in my LvB pantheon of favorites.

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

LvB’s A major sonata op. 101: a gem, strange and calming. Kudos to Spotify for having both early and late Stephen (B.) Kovacevich versions. www.tpr.org/arts-culture...

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

Moses’s first reaction upon encountering the burning bush: 4/20/1446 BC. This version did not make it into the Book of Exodus.

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

Clear, powerful opinion in the Garcia case from Judge Wilkinson (4th Cir.) His contrasting discussion of Eisenhower is elegant. Reminds me of Justice Frank Murphy’s dissent in Korematsu v. US—another case dealing with a shame on our constitution. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

submitted 35 days ago • 1 comment

After 35 years of understanding only a few words of Luso-Brazilian, this David Byrne compilation still enchants. Especially having recently visited Portugal and heard this mysteriously beautiful language spoken. Even my untrained ear could hear differences between the dialects.

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

The happiest of Passovers to all who observe.

submitted 41 days ago • 0 comments

Taken seconds apart. From the same footprint, same exact spot. Different camera settings, but same human stance, same view. Life is ever complex and beautiful.

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

So it’s Tom Lehrer’s birthday. Born 1928. His delightful work occupies lots of my 🧠 , for good reason.

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments