Haimovitz's Goulash

NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday featured an interview yesterday with cellist Matt Haimovitz, one of the most innovative performers today. In Liane Hansen's introduction, she mentions Haimovitz touring punk rock clubs with "Bach's solo cello concertos." Maybe she spent too much time studying for the Sunday puzzle this week. She does much better in the actual interview, and Haimovitz has interesting things to say about Rumanian folk music, Led Zeppelin's Turkish connection, and his own passion to connect with people through music.

While on the subject of things cellistic, I have to rave a little bit about a performance I heard yesterday of Schubert's Cello Quintet in C major. It was part of the New World Symphony's chamber music series, and this particular concert was directed by cellist Laurence Lesser. Just thinking now about that second theme in the first movement makes my heart start to melt and go all gooey inside - in a good way. The other pieces on the program, a Boccherini cello quintet in F minor and George Crumb's An Idyll for the Misbegotten, were also very compellingly played.