My good friend G has recently celebrated 30th anniversary of her marriage, so I want to send her and her husband my greetings here on my blog too. I want to thank you for emanating the positive energy from your blog, and must say that I developed a great admiration for your writing style ever since I read the post about incident with Storioni violin :)
My dear friend, I want to offer you few songs in your native language as a present. I don’t have idea how often do you speak or hear Hungarian language, but I reckoned you would be delighted to hear some songs. They are all sung by my favourite singer Magdolna Ruzsa, I don’t understand the words, but I fell deeply in love with the colour of her singing.
Magdolna Rúzsa – Felix Lajko – Még azt mondják
This one is folk song. Lajko Felix, the famous violin virtuoso, is playing on zither.
Magdolna Ruzsa – Végső vallomás
Beautiful ballad, I wish I could know the words :)
Magdi Ruzsa – Máté Péter – Most elsz
Translation by Zadia75:
Time is melting like a pale iceflower
and evanescent happiness will come to the end.
You are standing there alone, like a leaf on the top of the hill
sleepy moonlight greets you, and the wind blows you away.
But in the meantime there is hope, every minute celebrates
for there is always hope, you must believe, so believe it.
refr:
You are living NOW, take care to do it well
because your smallest mistake will avange itself.
You are living now, be happy for the summer is beautiful
and that you have somebody who’s waiting for you
and embraces you.
And finally here is the first song I ever heard of her. It was Hungarian entry of ESC competition this year. When I heard the song Unsubstantial Blues, it won me over so much, that I immediately took the mobile phone and voted for her. Song is in English so everybody can understand. Here it is, enjoy!
French composer Leo Delibes composed opera Lakme in 1883. Here I am giving synopsis from encyclopedia Opera by Andras Batta (that huge book I bought last summer, and I really enjoy discovering new things in it ever since)
Synopsis
The wordly love of the Indian priestess Lakme for an Englishman is sanctified by her courage and self-sacrifice. Her european lover, who cannot understand her foreign culture, is left to mourn and admire her.
Even those who are not fans of opera, can recognize the famous Flower Duet (in above video sung by Elina Garanca and Anna Netrebko), which is the most famous sequence of notes from this opera. But recently I found another beautiful aria from Lakme that I liked very much, and its name is Les Filles de Cadix. I heard it on french Mezzo channel and it was sung by a french opera singer whose name I cannot remember now. But I managed to find clip on youtube where russian soprano diva Anna Netrebko sings this aria. Here it is. Enjoy :)
It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.
George Harrison
(1943-2001)
I heard The Beatles’ music for the first time in my life when I was 15 (too late, I guess), it was my neighbour who borrowed me the cassette, and I liked music so much that I did not return it for months. There are people who love Stones more, but I am not among them. Beatles will always remain my favourites; and though Paul and John are much more famous, still by far my favourite is the youngest among them, mr. George Harrison (1943-2001) – the “silent beatle” as he was called, due to being very introspective person.
Some people say that his birthday is on 25th February, but in Wikipedia article we can read that he was actually born on 24th February at 11:40pm. So, today is the day – Happy Birthday, George!
If my destiny was to become so famous I would want to have similar attitude as him. He always said that he wanted to be successful, not famous, and I feel that music was his instrument to search for deeper meaning in his life. Many other musicians unfortunately find drugs when they become famous, and when that fame is over, they take the needle, and they are finished. But George was not interested in fame, but he was all the time seeker for the true joy and fulness of life. I found this clip, it is interview with him and famous sitar player Ravi Shankar. There he speaks how he does not want to produce meaningless songs, but is interested in writing songs that have deep values and that can last through years. Such is for example his song All things must pass.
And I wrote before how much I like reading books. but I have to admit now, I especially like to read book written by people who were searching for the deeper meaning of their own life. I enjoy in diversity, I do not believe in uniformity. I even enjoyed reading Ayn Rand’s books very much, though I am completely of different temperament, and my life philosophy values are generally totally different. But you know what, when someone believes in what he or she writes, such books become very attractive to read. Complete sincerity in one’s deeds is always very attractive (do what you preach) in every philosophy, and in every religion.
Over the years I have read many books about different world religions and spiritual paths and systems of values, in Christianity, Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism etc. and though some of such books sometimes can be dry and preachy, I very often found very nice ones from different cultures and backgrounds that literally lit my heart with divine love, while I was reading them. And one day, God willing, if I have enough money I will invest it in printing books that brought me so much joy. Books are not transitory as other world pleasures, and if they contain intense sincere inner cry in them, they are really something.
George was so selfless in that aspect, he gave much money for printing books, he even donated a temple in London. He could do drugs, or spend money on fancy cars or something, but he was so unlike many other music stars, and therefore I appreciate him so much. If some book brought me much joy (there are many like that, starting with Quo Vadis by Sienkiewicz, which was my introduction to deeper meaning of Christianity) I would like to print many of them in nice covers, so perhaps other people will also feel joy. That attitude gives me so much inspiration and hope for the future. I hope my dreams one day will come true, but that depends on me too! :)
In previous clip George explained why he likes to compose on Sanskrit verses, and I guess it was actually him who composed the music for Govindam Adi Purusham chant (although I am not sure, to be frank). Nevertheless, it is very nice chant, and I managed to find nice clip of it to post here.
George, thanks for everything, and thank you for being sincere seeker in your music art. It means much. It gives hope.
Eduardo Sainz de la Maza was born in Burgos, Spain in 1903 & died in Barcelona in 1982. He is the younger brother of Regino Sainz de la Maza. They both studied with Daniel Fortea, a student of Francisco Tarrega, but it was Eduardo who studied with Miguel Llobet.
Tarrega’s influence is undeniable here, this composition goes hand in hand with Recuerdos de la Alhambra.
Kaori Muraji was born in Tokyo in 1978. Her first guitar lessons were from her father, Noboru Muraji, when she was 3 years old. She won the top prize at the 1989 Junior Guitar Contest, and was the winner of the Student Guitar Competition in two consecutive years 1989 and 1991. She was the youngest ever student to win the Leo Brouwer International Guitar Concours and Tokyo International Guitar Concours in 1992.
She really plays this very nice, and if you are inspired and want to try to play this on your guitar, you can find tabulature of this composition here.
In my opinion Janice (band’s hippie lead guitar player and Sgt. Floyd Pepper (band’s bass guitar player) performed this even better than Simon&Garfunkel :) Even Animal was unexpectedly peaceful in front of such nice ballad.
Lyrics of the song 50 ways to leave your lover you can find here. But I heard someone actually wrote a parody 50 ways to love your liver. Lyrics of that parody you can find here.
I see that there are many muppet fans out there (yay!:), so from time to time I will post some video about them on the blog. I still hope someone gets them back on TV.
I remember last year on Belgrade Marathon while I was waiting for my friends at the finish line, one jazz band was playing, among all other stuff, opening theme from Muppet Show. You know the song; It’s time to put on makeup..It’s time to dress up right..It’s time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight :) Oh well, at the middle of the song, one man from that band said to the microphone -People, Animal couldn’t stand it anymore- and then all instruments went silent, so the drummer was drumming like crazy I am sure not less than 10 minutes! Then they continued with the song. I was laughing and laughing, that really brightened my day :)
Rita Moreno won Emmy award for appearance in this episode of Muppet Show. The above clip was filmed in 1977. I loved Muppets so much, and this is my appeal to all TV people in charge – please give us Muppets back! They were the most sensational inspirational celebrational Muppetational – this is what we call the Muppet Show!
My sister and I went one fine day to buy a painting that is about Belgrade. Her good friend was getting married, and my sister wanted to buy a painting which will remind her friend of their student days (her friend is not living in Belgrade now). So we strolled thoroughout the galleries in the city, and when we almost saw everything, we found one nice painting and agreed to buy it for the present. But then I looked at the painting below that one, it was also oil on canvas – and I liked it so much. I spent I don’t know how much time persuading myself not to buy this one, we had to give money also for the other one. But I did not persuade myself. I went back home to the other part of city where I live, to take more money because we did not bring enough (who would have thought of buying two paintings at the same time), and I came back, I remember I was very tired, but I was happy when I bought it.
Painting shows Skadarlija, that is bohemian quarters of Belgrade, favourite place for artists, cobblestone promenade the same as it looked like hundred years ago. What is Montmartre for Paris, that is Skadarlija for Belgrade. If you plan to visit Belgrade, plan to visit Skadarlija too – spending evening there with your friends, listening to the music that used to be played in old days in the city (starogradska muzika) is unforgettable experience.
When I was a little kid, I acted a bit strangely because I enjoyed to count numbers one, two, three and so on…everywhere, in home and outside. I remember that I managed to count till ten thousand about when turned six years old. And my father told me to write down numbers in one hardcover A4 notebook, in each new line – next number, and so I wrote about two thousand and something there. Here my father got interesting idea – he figgured that each line can represent one year in history starting from 1 AD until beyond 2000. So he explained to me that we will write down when some great scientist or artist or composer – some great person was born and when he died. And of course, we will write down if some important event happened. I liked the idea, and we started to do it. Perhaps it was my first seeing face to face with the fact that human life is transitory inside eternity, that there is time when one is born, and that there is time when one dies. I was drawing sign of little cross beside year in which someone died.
Later when I grew up enough to have history in school, to be very frank now, I was not interested in history at all. I just learned it to get good grade. And I always had best grade, I was learning like a parrot – and therefore now I know so little, I forgot it all. Is it important to learn history? What do you think? Let me hear some pros and cons in your comments.
First off, my opinion is that it is important to learn history of art. Can we allow ourselves the luxury of not knowing what was before and what after – Baroque or Rennaissance. It is our fellow humans who created that art – by learning that we will widen our horizons in certain way – we will get finer resolution of our perception. We are inheriting what generations before us created, in certain way, but we should not be attached to it – we should create now art of our time, as they created art of that time. It is very important to elaborate now on this a bit more.
So, I don’t wish to have rules from past how to create art now – save and except one – that art which I create has fulness. How can I know that? I can feel that. I am unable to judge others precisely, but myself – it is completely different story. For anything I created I know how much it fulfils me – I feel it to the slightest degree. If someone creates something because he just wants to have something new – I cannot see eye to eye with such person. Art has to be our most intimate dream. We have to give ourselves completely, and to feel that we have done so. Many times unfortunately, so called artists, are just offering confusion from their minds. No art for me – without the heart!
Frankly speaking, I am not well acquainted with history of art, no authority for it. I want to convey another message with this text – that I am ready and willing to learn. I will start there what I love most – Claude Monet’s Soleil levant (1873) and the Impressionists, and Claude Debyssy’s music, of course :)
As for general history, it is broader subject, and I will elaborate on it more in some of my next posts. And one more thing. I will start again to do what my father suggested. But this time I will write one year for one page in new book, and I will do it for the period since 1800 until now. Including music, visual art and science.
Radio – radio
I’d sit alone and watch your light
My only friend through teenage nights
And everything I had to know
I heard it on my radio
You gave them all those old time stars
Through wars of worlds – invaded by Mars
You made ’em laugh – you made ’em cry
You made us feel like we could fly
Radio
We are living in a time when we are thinking about concerts on DVD’s and about 7.1 speakers, but what happens to inspiration and awe of good old radio? What happened to that medium which was absolutely amazing before television? Nowdays we can listen to radio that is propagated by radio diffusion and FM modulation, and Internet radio stations which are there on the net, of course there are another modulations for ordinary radio which are more rare, and some lucky countries even have digital radio such as Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) or Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM).
But my main question for this post is – would you consider buying hi-fi radio receiver? You know, those marvellous looking devices that you can add to your hi-fi system and receive radio programs. I know some people who are giving large amounts of money for hi-end tube amplifiers (in order to avoid quantization noise at least in that component), but they say they would never buy a receiver as another component (I guess they would spend money on another component). And my opinion, oh well, I do not have money to buy hifi right now – but I would buy a receiver. I would like to listen radio on such device. And what is your opinion?
My favourite internet radio stations are SmoothJazz.com and Piano Whisperings and one fusion jazz station, I forgot now the link and the name.
No we must not forget the radio, and this is my appeal to all people who are working on radio, to give their best to make that media once more popular. Everything can be done through careful planning of all details. We simply have to have quality radio shows. And to end with Queen’s song again
Let’s hope you never leave old friend
Like all good things on you we depend
So stick around ‘cos we might miss you
When we grow tired of all this visual
You had your time – you had the power
You’ve yet to have your finest hour
Radio – radio
P.S. What is your favourite internet radio station? Share your opinion and the link here in comments please.
Dreams Corner 