Juror

Maurice Ravel Daphnis et Chloe

2012-01-29T22:18:00.000-08:00

http://youtu.be/yUS1VOh-aIw

Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam
Bernard Haitink
19th March 1999

Audemars Piguet

2011-10-28T00:50:00.000-07:00

POST I
Master Watchmakers since 1875
Audemars Piguet is well known throughout the world for over one hundred and thirty six years. Their logo in Suisse says, ‘Le Maitre d’horlogerie depuis 1875’. They are indeed the master watchmakers since 1875. They have been recognized for their superb craftsmanship, highest quality and majestic designs in fashion and luxury watches. They are famous all across the globe as manufacturers of luxurious watches with unique properties and style. As one of the world’s oldest watchmakers, the Company is owned and run to this day by the families who established it. Jules Audemars and Edward-August Piguet started the Company in1875 in Vallee de Joux which is a valley of the Jura Mountains in the Swiss Vaud Canton, located about fifty kilometres north of Geneve and Lausanne. Audemars and Piguet combined their skills to design watches for the famous watch making houses in Geneva. Audemars Piguet’s great moment came in 1972 when they achieved a world first in watch making when they introduced the world’s first sports watch, ‘The Royal Oak’.

POST II
The Families are carrying the Audemars Piguet Tradition
After setting up the watch making company and making it world famous, both founders, Jules Audemars and Edward-August Piguet, handed over the manufacturing rein to their successors in their respective families as they both died in the successive years leading up to 1920. Their successors have continued in the same tradition of style and verve to make the company flourish. Though they suffered severe setbacks during both the World Wars, they came back strongly with the launch of the first ladies’ wrist watches and super thin models by making sure that their business did not receive a big dent. In 1972, they introduced the world’s first sports watch, ‘The Royal Oak’. This watch has revolutionized the shapes and the aesthetics of watches with a unique design of its steel edges as well as its octagonal shape. Audemars Piguet specializes in the making of intricate fashion and luxury watches. Even after their phenomenal success, each watch of theirs is still handmade.
POST III
Historical Gems from Audemars Piguet
Besides giving the world the first wristwatches for ladies and the first sports watch, other highlights and gems that are historical from Audemars Piguet include the first wristwatch with mechanical winding and tourbillon. A tourbillon, that means whirlwind in French, is a mechanical watch device that transfers energy to a time keeping element. They have also given the world the smallest self-winding watch with a universal perpetual calendar. They are also the pioneers of Dual Time and the Ladies’ Minute Repeater Chiming Watch. Their dual time watches run with automatic movement which features a second time zone displaying power reserve. They are considered today as one of the three biggest watchmakers in the company of Vacheron Constantine and Patek Philippe. The Company designs over sixteen thousand fashion and luxury watches in a year and has produced some of the most extra ordinary and timeless pieces ever crafted. In fact, they are the leaders in designer watches that specialize in miniaturization as well as precision with their sophisticated timepieces.

POST IV
Leading Showcase Boutique in Geneva
Audemars Piguet has opened a flagship bouquet in Geneva in March earlier this year at 12, Place de la Fusterie. This boutique is the Brassus manufacturer’s leading premium showcase in the Swiss capital of elite watch making. This is the largest and the twelfth boutique of the watchmakers until now. It is a well designed and spacious interior. There is a central section for the latest designs and for those products that are based on the annual selected theme. It also includes a private library for relaxation and reading where you can relax with cigars and wine. Apart from the central section, there is an after sales area where you can appreciate the craftsmanship. The boutique gives a complete picture of the product range, showcasing some older timepieces that have become landmarks in the company’s history along with its latest creations. The overall effect as conveyed by the boutique brings out the Company’s core values of innovation and excellence in designing fashion and luxury watches.

POST V
A Perfect Energy Efficient Manufacturing Commitment
The new production unit, Brassus Bois SA, is an ideal workshop for making timepieces. This workshop has been designed as per the new Minergie ECO label. It involves energy efficient electricity and heating, top quality construction material which is both environmental and user friendly throughout its life cycle. The building has blended well with the surrounding landscape. Its heating system respects the surroundings. Audemars Piguet has a remote heating network that will ultimately provide heating for close to a hundred local buildings. The process of manufacturing is fully optimized and the working conditions for more than three hundred employees that have been set up in small operational units are beyond compare. The Company has taken care of the health of the workers who will be making fashion and luxury watches. It has taken precautions with the electromagnetic fields and other ecological issues. This workshop has become a model re-landscaping project.

POST VI
History of a World Famous Collaboration
The long history of this world famous collaboration goes back to 1875 when a twenty three year old Jules Audemars joined hands with a twenty one year old Edward-August Piguet to start their own watch making company. Both were trained watchmakers. They learnt their trade after completing their public school studies in the town of Le Brassus. Around this time, Audemars was learning to design `ebouches’ which are blank watch movements that are finished and fitted by a watch manufacturer. He had set up a workshop at his parents’ farm. Meanwhile, Piguet was working as a self employed `repasseur’ who is a master watchmaker who performs the final regulation on a timepiece. Audemars engaged Piguet to work for him. Audemars became in charge of production and technical supervision. Piguet looked after the sales and management side. This formula has worked well right up to this time with the Audemars looking after the technical matters and the Piguets looking after the commercial affairs. This world famous collaboration gave birth to Audemars Piguet who emerged as one of the world’s finest fashion and luxury watchmakers.

POST VII
Timepiece for Holy Celebration
When the Vatican Radio, which was commissioned by Pius XI especially for the voice of the Pope, completed its eighty years earlier this year, Audemars Piguet made a gesture of celebration and designed a special watch for the Pope. The Vatican Radio was an all white watch. It uses Roman numerals to indicate the hours and the regular standard numbers to indicate the minutes. The numbers have a unique presentation feature. They grow larger when they are closer to the left side of the watch’s face, like the thirty to fifty-five minutes mark. The watch is engraved with an inscription that says, ‘Radio Vaticana 1931-2011’. This was meant as a one-time creation by the fashion and luxury watchmaker, specifically meant to be worn by the Pope Benedict XVI. A couple of million Catholics all over the world would be eyeing this watch and wishing to get their hands on it.
POST VIII
Improving Biodiversity and Battling Climate Change
Patagonia Sur and Audemars Piguet are collaborating in the battle against climate change. They are aiming towards improving biodiversity and replenishing the Patagonian native forests. Audemars Piguet has always led the way in corporate social commitment besides being one of the world’s leading fashion and luxury watchmakers. They are now a founder member of the Corporate Conservation Circle of Patagonia Sur. They have come out with a novel business model which is aimed at the conservation of ecologically valuable ecosystems in the Chilean Patagonia. This innovative project will bring together companies that are interested in committing themselves to the care and protection of the environment. The Company started a Foundation about two decades ago with a focus on the conservation of forests around the world. This project will include planting of 7,500 native species trees in an area of 614 acres with a plan of an estimated removal of 2,500 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
POST IX
Djokovic is the Latest Ambassador
After the U.S. Open, the world number one tennis player, Novak Djokovic, was made a brand ambassador for the fashion and luxury watch designers. Djokovic has joined the brand’s team of ambassadors that includes many famous sports personalities like Michael Schumacher, Leo Messi, LeBron James, Sachin Tendulkar, Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy. Djokovic is highly appreciative of the timepieces and their refinement. Some months ago, he had paid a visit to the watch company and during his visit; he showed his admiration for the brand’s latest watches after taking a tour of the famous workshop in Le Brassus. In addition to his tennis playing abilities, Audemars Piguet has acknowledged the generosity shown by Djokovic who is involved with a number of charity organizations. He has founded the Novak Humanitarian Fund that provides access to tennis courts and scholarships for young Serbians. It is also associated with the donation of ambulances to hospitals in Kosovska Mitrovica and Brus.

Post X
Longest Supporters of After-School All-Stars
Audemars Piguet has helped in the growth that After-School All-Stars has seen. The support has been for many years. The support phase has seen through the launch of four initiatives and three national programs. The support has been through financial resources to make these additions possible. Just recently, they have donated a million dollars to help After-School all-Stars in its attempt to expand its work and programs. Audemars Piguet, the fashion and luxury watch designer, is an important partner with ASAS in their battle to offer access to education and opportunity for those young people who deserve it most. Earlier this year in June, there was a gala to raise over a million dollars in company with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is a patron ambassador of Audemars Piguet right from his Terminator days. The gala was held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City. The live auction was conducted by Sothebys.
POST XI
Four Seasons Installs Royal Oak Clocks throughout its Properties
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts have chosen Audemars Piguet as their official timekeeper in both North and South America. They have put up the Royal Oak clocks throughout their properties. This is a partnership between the world’s oldest watch manufacturer and the renowned luxury hotel brand. At their hotels in New York City, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Miami, Las Vegas, Houston, Chicago and Beverly Hills, guests are greeted by the iconic Audemars Piguet Royal Oak clocks located strategically. Four Seasons have got these clocks in twenty one of their properties including the one in Costa Rica. The clocks adorn high profile locations at the main entrance, concierge desk and spa and business center. At Beverly Hills, they have five clocks that have been placed together horizontally at the front entrance. In Mexico City, the hotel’s lobby, second floor meeting room, athletic club and business center feature these clocks. This partnership is unique as both the companies are timeless and exude the ultimate in fashion and luxury.

POST XII
Features that have earned them Global Admiration
It is accepted universally that Audemars Piguet is one brand of Swiss fashion and luxury watches that has gained global admiration as a result of their designs and stylish steel edges with excellent utilization of distinct hexagonal screws. Their unique features are minute repeaters, perpetual calendars and time hopping functions. Each series of theirs has a personal story attached to it. They have existed in the business for the past fourteen decades because of their superior products. The world’s first minute repeater movement was designed by them in a wristwatch in 1892. Since then, the managing families and the brand have added many impressive and collectible models in the portfolio. Even today, their wristwatches are recognizable instantly. They combine innovative design with high construction quality to make their watches impressive. When the Royal Oak was launched in 1972, it captured the imagination of the watch making world as the world’s first sports watch.
POST XIII
iPhone4 and iPad Apps
The Audemars Piguet application which has been designed as a flippant variation of its website allows the users to explore great content and astounding graphics. The high resolution screens of both iPhone4 and iPad exhibit the signature models and intricate mechanisms of Audemars Piguet. The App includes films that have new models acting in them to promote these fashion and luxury items with videos that highlight the expertise in watch making. You will also find their online magazine, `Audacity.ch’ with its latest news, innovations and icons of the brand. The `Try It’ function lets you try a model of your selection by virtually placing it on your wrist. Once the photo has been taken, you can share it with your friends by eMail or MMS. Another selection takes you to all Audemars Piguet boutiques and points of sale all over the world, particularly those that are closest to you, thanks mainly to the integrated global positioning system.

POST XIV
The Online Information Platform
‘Audacity.ch’ is an online magazine that has been started as an information platform by Audemars Piguet about a year back. The site has been opened for all watch enthusiasts and haute horlogerie. It is also meant for the press, the collectors and the general public. It will specially cover the brand news concerning the sponsors, boutique openings, new product launches, AP icons, limited editions and technical innovations. The magazine also deals with the craftsmanship and the workmen behind it who exercise that expertise. The magazine shares the Company’s heritage by telling the general public all about the legendary watches and the people who are creating history with the brand. This website is going to focus on three corporate values of the fashion and luxury watch manufacturers – they are excellence, tradition and the audacity to inspire. The articles that are published here are meant for a large audience circulation and are also intended for the written press.
POST XV
A Very Special Timeless Museum
Musee Audemars Piguet has been built in the first Audemars family residence and is a testimonial to the traditional roots of the fashion and luxury watch making factory that was set up in 1875 by Jules Louis Audemars and Edward-Auguste Piguet. Apart from the factory, the museum is a testimony also to the crucial role that the brand has played in the history of watch making in the six rooms spread out in the museum. During your visit to this museum, you will get a chance to explore one of the most excellent illustrations of traditional Suisse watch making. You can see the pocket watches that were made in 1780 even much before the existence of Audemars Piguet. You can come down history lane to the superb contemporary grand and intricate designs. In this museum, you can also go through two workshops where half a dozen craftsmen demonstrate their expertise.

POST XVI
Caretaker of a Priceless Heritage
The curator of the Audemars Piguet Museum, Herr Martin Wehrli, is a walking almanac himself as he greets the visitors to this priceless heritage and shares his passion with them. As Audemars Piguet is the oldest watch manufacturer which is still run by members and generations of its founding families, they have been able to preserve archives and old documents and keep them intact. For example, they have every single order book available from 1875 till date. People can easily track the date and place where each of the designs or creations was sold. Mr. Wehrli is a well travelled person. He traverses the globe in pursuit of rare timepieces and gems to add to the already impressive collection that the museum has built up in time which is in excess of nine hundred pieces. The museum is private and is open by appointment only. It has one of the most charming collections of fashion and luxury watch complications in the world.
POST XVII
The Foundation wants to protect the Forests
The Audemars Piguet Foundation has tried hard to use a portion of the remains from the sale of the fashion and luxury watches to protect the Earth’s forests. It is concentrating hard on the promotion of building up forests and providing environmental education to people. The Audemars Piguet Foundation is helping in sowing the seeds from Portugals’s Tapada de Mafra reserve to the trees of New York’s Botanical Gardens and right up to Ghana’s Allanblakia Plantations. On the occasion of the Royal Oak completing a score of years in 1992, this Foundation was created and it gives its full time resources and energies to the cause of building up forests. It has pioneered the environmental education for children on a worldwide basis for the last eight years. In the beginning, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) gave the directions and many project suggestions for the purpose of assuring top quality standards.
POST XVIII
The Foundation Supports Practical Environmental Education
The Audemars Piguet Foundation’s budget on an annual basis will depend on the watch sales. Audemars Piguet has an amount that is fixed for the Foundation on every watch that is sold. The Foundation’s latest projects are the collaboration with Patagonia Sur in Chile and the restoration of almost five hundred hectares of woodlands at several locations in Scotland and in the United Kingdom. They are busy training biodiversity guards in Ecuador and revitalizing the mangroves in Senegal. They are also in the process of planting trees and supporting practical environmental education in Jaipur, India. Each year, they take on about four to five projects with decent on site results. The very fact that the Corporate Headquarters of the fashion and luxury watch designers are in Switzerland itself solidifies the credibility of many of their projects. They receive news and feedback on their projects even after a decade of giving the support at the initiation.
POST XIX
Restoration of Timepieces at the Repair Workshop
The Audemars Piguet repair workshop strives in restoring timepieces that are over a century old. The person in charge of this workshop, Francisco Pasandin, is looking after a long lost brand of expertise in the making of fashion and luxury watches. The repair workshop of Audemars Piguet handles models that are sometimes designed as far back as 1870. Mr. Pasandin is fluent with almost all kinds of watches. It could be a vintage pocket watch or a watch with an independent seconds’ hand. It could be watches with a jumping seconds’ hand, a minute repeater, a dual time function or a lunation indicator. It could also be a watch with a Reaumur scale with a thermometer with the date and the day of the week. It takes sometimes a hundred to almost three hundred hours to get the antique watches to function again. It will all depend on the damage that the watch has undergone in the hands of some other watchmakers.
POST XX
The Repair Workshop has a Team of Skilled Watchmakers
The repair workshop of Audemars Piguet has a team that is made up of ten skilled watchmakers. They piece together extremely complex timepieces almost entirely by their hands. Sometimes, it will take a good part of about fifteen to twenty minutes to restore just a screw that has been damaged by a bad screwdriver. It could take quite some time with more than a hundred screws in a pocket watch. That is not taking into consideration the broken pivots, damaged wheels or parts that have been glued into a movement. Sometimes, they have to take the whole thing apart and begin from scratch. This team of skilled fashion and luxury watchmakers has mastered all the processes right from handling various materials to intricately working out the small parts and then applying the finishing touches on the watches. They are using the tools and techniques that were available even a hundred years back. They may be modern but their way of working remains ancestral. The technical knowledge is recorded in notebooks to be handed down to the next generation of watchmakers.

Snippets - Authored by Renuka Rebecca Nakavi

2011-09-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

My 3 year old niece had developed an allergic rash on her legs and was prescribed an ointment to be applied twice a day by the local doctor. She found this exercise tedious as it meant a great restriction of her lying down patiently. One day after a tiring cat and mouse game, her exasperated mother in a stern voice said, ‘I want you to come and lie down and I am going to count till 5”. The tiny tot silently obeyed and patiently went through the whole process. Once it was over, she looked her mother straight in her eyes and as sternly as she was ordered said,”I want my milk bottle and I am going to count till 3”!!!!

My 6 year old nephew returned from school after a very enlightening class on ‘My Hen’. He rushed inside in search of his sister of 4 to share his knowledge. He took her by her hand and with all the facial expressions and emphasis of a 6 year old telling a story he said “Do you know, when you were born, you were suchhhh a biggg egg. Mamma sat on you for 21 days and then you hatched.”

My husband and I used to take our 5 year old nephew to school on our scooter. I would ride side saddle holding him on my lap. Every 5 - 10 minutes of travel this would be our conversation:
Me: “Legs are aching?”
Nephew (smiling): “Not aching”
Me: “Comfortable?”
Nephew (smiling):” Not compapable”

Sowing Specifications

2011-09-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

Maize/Corn
Gate Price is Rs. 1300 to 2300 per ton.
Turmeric
Rhizomes to be planted about 2” deep.
Harvest time – 10 months from planting. Symptoms – lower leaves will turn yellow and fall with age.
Too much water supply will rot the roots. Shoots will emerge in two weeks of sowing. Planting has to be done 4” apart. Distance between rows 10”. Avoid water stagnation in the field. Water should not stand or collect. A ridge and furrow method will give the best yield.
Seed rate is roughly 850 kgs. per acre.
Compost is required at the rate of 1 ton per acre.
Mulching is 1 ton per acre. Fertilizing has to be done at 45 days and 150 days schedule. Mancozeb (mix 2.5 gms. /litre of water) before sowing. Azovit can also do. Neem oil or neem cake could be added. Ratio of nitrogen: phosphorus pentoxide: potassium oxide = 1:1:2.
Irrigation cycle is 20 times or once in 15 days.
Average yield is 8 tons per acre.
Post harvesting, fingers have to be separated from mother rhizomes. Curing is done by boiling in water and drying. Boiling has to be done for a minimum of 40 minutes.
Current farm gate price is Rs. 1, 35, 000 per ton.
Average cost of cultivation is Rs. 37,800 per acre.
Urad Dal
Urad dal also referred to as black lentil to be purchased in bulk. Lentil has to be fresh and not much moisture or insect damage. The lentil has to be whole and not cracked. It has to be grown preferably in summer. They have to receive full sun in well drained and fertilized soil. Soil has to be prepared by compost and manure before sowing. Best sowing time is March to May. The tap root gives branch root system. Pods are narrow and up to 6 cms. Long.
The yield can be 600 kgs. per acre.
Urad dal is selling at around Rs.2800 per quintal.
Seeds should be planted 1.5” deep. Planting rate is 10 seeds per feet.
Fertilizer requirements: N- P –K
Harvest cycle: 3-5 months.

Moong Dal (Pesara Pappu)
Selling at Rs. 7,750 per quintal
Can be sown between April and June
The plants can grow up to 3’ tall.
They can grow from 10 to 20 branches.
The pods can hold up to 15 beans.
The beans are cylindrical and bright green
Before sowing moong beans, proper nitrogen treatment has to be given to the soil.
Seeds should be planted 1.5” deep. Planting rate same as urad dal at about 10 seeds per feet.
Treflan can be added as fertilizer apart from nitrogen.
Yield can be about 900 kgs. Per acre
Best sowing time: March to June
Harvest Cycle: 3 months.
For both Urad Dal and Moong Dal, excess rainfall could destroy the crop. That is the danger.

James Horner and Titanic

2011-08-20T02:51:00.000-07:00

http://youtu.be/saalGKY7ifU

The Pride of South Bombay

2011-08-20T02:47:00.000-07:00

No Indian community internalized the civilizing mission of the British as did the Parsis. Only 50,000 remain in Bombay today, mainly in South Bombay, the most disciplined and cultured part of India.
In South Bombay, the cutting of lanes by drivers is punished, jumping a red light is impossible, parking is possible only in allotted areas, roads are clean, service is efficient, the restaurants are unmatched - civilization seems within reach. South Bombay has some of the finest buildings in India , many of them built by Parsis.

The Parsis came to Bombay after Surat 's port silted over in the 17th century. Gerald Aungier settled in Bombay and gave Parsis land for their Tower of Silence on Malabar Hill in 1672. The Parsis made millions through the early and mid-1800s and they spent much of it on public good.

The Ambanis built Dhirubhai Ambani International School , where fees are Rs. 348,000 (US $8,000 a year in a country where per capita income is $ 600 per year) and where the head girl is Mukesh Ambani's daughter.

The Kingfisher Mallyas gilded the insides of the Tirupati temple with gold.

Lakshmi Mittal, the fourth richest richest man in the world says he's too young to think of charity... He's 57 and worth $45 billion.
The Birlas built 3 temples in Hyderabad , Jaipur and Delhi .
Hindu philanthropy means building temples. They do not understand social philanthropy. The Hindu's lack of enthusiasm for philanthropy is cultural. The Hindu cosmos is Hobbesian and the devotee's relationship with God is transactional. God must be petitioned and placated to swing the universe's blessings towards you and away from someone else.They believe that society has no role in your advancement and there is no reason to give back to it because it hasn't given you anything in the first place. Two centuries of British education was unable to alter this.

The Parsis, on the other hand, understood that philanthropy - love of mankind -
recognizes that we cannot progress alone. That there is such a thing as
the common good. They spent as no Indian community had ever before, on building institutions, making them stand out in a culture whose talent lies in renaming things other people built. The Parsis built libraries all over India , they built the National Gallery of Art. The Indian Institute of Science was built in 1911 by Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research was built by Dr Homi Bhabha, the Tata Institute of Social Science was built in 1936 by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust.
The Wadias built hospitals, women's colleges and the five great low-income Parsi colonies of Bombay. JJ Hospital and Grant Medical College were founded by Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy.

By 1924, two out of five Indians - whether Hindu, Muslim or Parsi - joining the Indian Civil Services were on TATA scholarships.
They gave Bombay the Jehangir Art Gallery, Sir JJ School of Art, the Taraporevala Aquarium. The National Center for Performing Arts, the only place in India where world-class classical concerts are held is a gift of the Tatas.
There are 161 Friends of the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI)and 92 of them are Parsi. For an annual fee of Rs 10,000, Friends of the SOI get two tickets to any one recital in the season, they get to shake hands with artistes after the concert and they get to attend music appreciation talks through the year.

Donations of Rs.1 million to the Tirupati Temple(www.tirumala.org) will bring the donor and his family three days of darshan in the year, one gold coin with the lord's portrait and 20 laddoos. The temple's budget for 2007-08 was Rs 9 billion (Rs 904 crore / US $193 million!!!).

The Parsi dominates high culture in Bombay are always full in halls and this means that a concert experience in the city is unlike that in any other part of India . Classical concerts seat as many as two thousand.

Zubin Mehta, the most famous Parsi in the world, is director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra since 1969. He conducted the tenor Placido Domingo, the pianist Daniel Barenboim and the soprano Barbara Frittoli.

No other city in India has this appetite for Western classical music and in Bombay this comes from the Parsis. Despite their tiny population, the Parsi presence in a concert hall is above 50 per cent. Many have to be helped to their seats. Most of
them know the music.

The people who clap between movements, thinking that the 'song' is over, are non-Parsis. Symphony Orchestra of India concerts begin at 7 pm. Once the musicians start, latecomers must wait outside till the movement ends.
The end of each movement also signals a fusillade of coughs and groans, held back by doddering Parsis too polite to make a sound while Mendelssohn is being played. No mobile phone ever goes off as is common in cinema hall - the neighbors are aware of the Parsi's insistence of form and his temper.

The Parsis were also pioneers of Bombay 's Gujarati theatre, which remains the most popular form of live entertainment in Bombay. Any week of the year will see at least a half dozen bedroom comedies, murder mysteries, love stories and plays on assorted themes on stage.

Bombay 's first theatre was opened by Parsis in 1846, the Grant Road Theatre, donations from Jamshetjee Jejeebhoy and Framjee Cowasjee making it possible.

The Parsi in Bollywood caricature is a comic figure, but always honest, and innocent as Indians believe Parsis generally to be.

In the days before modern cars came to India the words 'Parsi-owned' were guaranteed to ensure that a second-hand car listed for sale would get picked up ahead of any others. This is because people are aware of how carefully the Parsi keeps his things. His understanding and enthusiasm of the mechanical separates him from the rest. Most of the automobile magazines in India are owned and edited by Parsis.

The Parsis are a dying community and this means that more Parsis die each year than are born (Symphony concert-goers can also discern the disappearing Parsi from the rising numbers of those who clap between movements).

As the Parsis leave, South Bombay will become like the rest of Bombay - brutish, undisciplined and filthy.

Preserve this race.....

You are privileged if you have a Parsi Bawa as your friend...He/She is indeed a "Heritage" to be treasured for ever.

Michel LeGrand

2011-08-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

Michel Legrand has made his fame and fortune from writing for films, but he has done significant work in jazz on an occasional basis. In 1957, he arranged a set of Dixieland and swing standards for a French orchestra (recorded on Philips), in 1958 he used three different all-star groups for the classic Legrand Jazz (with such sidemen as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Phil Woods,
Michel Jean Legrand (born February 24, 1932, in Bécon-les-Bruyères in the Paris suburbs) is a Franco-Armenian musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist. His father Raymond Legrand was a conductor and composer renowned for hits such as Irma la douce and his mother, Marcelle Der Mikaëlian (sister of conductor Jacques Hélian), who married Legrand Senior in 1929, was descended from the Armenian bourgeoisie.[1]
http://youtu.be/kWMxX5MGuHI

Michel Legrand is a three times Academy Award-winning French composer, conductor and pianist who composed over 200 film and television scores as well as recorded over a hundred albums of jazz, popular and classical music.
He was born on February 24, 1932, in Becon-les-Bruyeres, in the Paris suburbs, France. His father, Raymond Legrand, was a French composer and actor. His mother, Marcelle der Mikaelian, was descended from the Armenian bourgeousie. From 1942 - 1949 young Legrand studied piano at the Paris Conservatoire.
In the late 1950s and 1960s Legrand was caught up in the French New Wave. He scored seven films for jean-Luc Godard, he also made ten films with Jacques Demy, and became responsible for creating the genre of musical in the French Cinema. In 1963 Legrand did The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), the first film musical that was entirely sung. For that film score he received three Oscar nominations. His beautiful, haunting melody, "I Will Wait For You", received nomination for Best Original Song.
http://youtu.be/taymDw9bQqM

Titan

2011-08-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

Completely imaginative and original opening to a magnificent Titan Symphony Of Gustav Mahler in D major. It is an impassioned integration and fusion of natural drama and gypsy folk music of the Alpine regions. The orchestral forces assemble together in a masterful display of artistry and technique in the opening movement - Langsam Schleppend Wie Ein Naturland Im Anfang Sehr.
http://youtu.be/Xvd14vVzm_k

Composed in 1884 and inspired b Jean Paul's novel `The Titan', this Symphony's Second Movement is `Blumine' (The Flower Piece). It is indeed like a flower blooming into immortality with the theme carried by the trumpet. It is a beautifully crafted movement with the closing strains on solo violin and soft strings and woodwinds with the final glissando on the harps. It is a pity that most of the conductors omit this movement and not include it in the reading of the Symphony. Zubin Mehta has done full justice to it.
http://youtu.be/iGgI46Hf3XI

The Third Movement: Kraftig Bewegt Doch Nicht Zu Schnell Landler Scherzo Trio. This movement was described as bringing spring with no end and a set with full sails. It is composed in A major. It is based on an Austrian Landler Folk dance. It is written in a truly mad and deep style that is releasing an ardent energy and depicting true joy of life. It is being played in a live concert by the Orchestra Del Maggio Musicale Fiorentina with Zubin Mehta at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow on 5th April 2011.
http://youtu.be/65y-Ixzm4Yo

The third movement is the slow movement. Feierlich und Gemessen, ohne zu Schleppen. It is a hunter's funeral and the hunter is being carried by animals. The melodic material is based on the popular Alpine folk melody `Bruder Martin' or also known as `Frere Jacques'. Mahler changed it though and transformed it into a minor mode. the movement ends with simple alternating fourths in the lower strings bringing the key motive back from the initial movement.
http://youtu.be/K56-KpR1ICE

The Finale - Sturmisch Bewegt - has to burst in after the dissipating gong resonance of the Hunter's Funeral in an impetuous fashion. There is a storm. The great theme after the storm has to be phrased in an excellent way. It has to be interpreted as anxious, angry and dramatic to conclude in a blaze as Zubin Mehta does in his reading.
http://youtu.be/05TE1WX4dUs

EGMONT

2011-08-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

Ludwig Van Beethoven. Egmont. Op.84. It is a set of compositions written as incidental music for the 1787 play of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Beethoven completed it in June 1810. It has an overture and nine parts for soprano and orchestra.
The music is on the subject of Count Egmont's heroism. Beethoven expresses his own political statements in the music, particularly about the sublime importance of the sacrifice of a man who is condemned to death but has the guts in raising a voice against oppression.
The definitive performance is by the stupendous reading of Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic followed by worthy performances of Herbert von Karajan with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Zubin Mehta with the Maggio Musicale di Fiorentino and Wilhelm Furtwangler with the Berliner Philharmoniker.
http://youtu.be/_MrFo3uDTkU

This is the complete incidental music to the play:
http://youtu.be/N-g4m-124Kk

http://youtu.be/1264jv5CXfo

http://youtu.be/nnTpNu-RS9o

Take out time to read the play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe which was written in 1788.

Nino Rota's Romeo and Juliet - 1968

2011-07-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Composition for the Franco Zeffirelli Film with Leonard Whiting as Romeo and Olivia Hussey as Juliet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCmUWNUzaqo

Nino Rota (1911-1979). Talented Italian Composer. Versatile. Wrote five ballets, ten operas and many choral and orchestral works. He also wrote chamber music. His string concerto is beautiful. The work that he did for films is unforgettable with the Zeffirelli film ` Romeo and Juliet' and Coppola's `Godfather'.

http://youtu.be/c5_e-scRrnY

Coriolanus

2011-07-20T00:34:00.000-07:00

http://youtu.be/QoultibNlus

Beethoven's Coriolan Overture is based on the play by Shakespeare as well as the one by Heinrich von Collin to whom the overture is dedicated. It is one of the last tragedies of Shakespeare that is known for its military and political themes. Caius Martius is a proud Roman General who does not hold himself back in displaying his outspoken and arrogant contempt of the Roman extremities. The Tribunes banish him and he raises an army to take his revenge on Rome. He is then given the cognomen or the third name of Coriolanus. He represented political honesty in a corrupt world. The play by Shakespeare was written in 1608.
Beethoven scored his overture brilliantly with all the subtleties included with a resigned ending on the contrabass pizzicato representing Coriolanus' suicide. The definitive performance of this overture is one attached here by Wilhelm Furtwangler with the Berliner Philharmoniker in the 1943 performance. The timpani accentuation and the crescendo effect has not been achieved by any other conductor after him. Karajan follows next with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the third goes to Otto Klemperer with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London.

Die Ruinen von Athen

2011-07-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

Op.113. Ludwig Van Beethoven. Overture and Incidental Music. Text written by August von Kotzebue. Die Ruinen von Athen depicts Athens under the Turkish rule and how Athene/Minerva finds a new refuge for the muses in the city of Pest. This is the place where Franz Liszt spent many of his days. It is a delightfully crafted overture and music played superbly by the Berliner Symphoniker and the Konzertchor under the direction of Hans Schonzeler.

http://youtu.be/SUPAf7eEo0o

http://youtu.be/yX3nWbeSqx8

http://youtu.be/31UGuN6eWKs

http://youtu.be/-BGVOMxDrQU

Fantasia on Themes from the Ruins of Athens

2011-07-12T01:58:00.000-07:00

On 4th March 1874, Franz Liszt delivered a stirring performance of his `Fantasia on Themes from Ruins of Athens' by Beethoven. S.122. This was a charity concert in Budapest and there were more than two thousand people present. The result was a pandemonium.The technical master of Liszt on the pianoforte astonished all who heard it.
http://youtu.be/mJzKVDiBbtU

This is a spectacular performance by Michel Beroff with Gewandhausorchester Leipzig conducted by Kurt Masur.

Konig Stephan

2011-07-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

Op.117.
Andante con moto - Presto
King Stephen overture and incidental music by Ludwig van Beethoven belongs to Hungary for its dramatic setting. August von Kotzebue composed the text for this incidental music. The music was presented on the occasion of the opening of a German language theater in Pest, Hungary. It was written in August 1811. There are falling fourths that are heard at the opening of the overture and recur later at the recapitulation. A woodwind tune of Hungarian tones comes in dolce to introduce Hungary's national hero. In the overture, Beethoven uses a juxtaposition with a theme that comes again in his opening movement of the Choral Symphony.
The music is played brilliantly by Herbert von Karajan with Berliner Philharmoniker and choir.

http://youtu.be/iyCl2yQlWk8

http://youtu.be/CG1xMyExpMo

http://youtu.be/Gji1EzgRkDs

Zur Namensfeier

2011-07-04T01:40:00.000-07:00

A lovely overture by Ludwig van Beethoven. The Name day Overture. Op.115. Berliner Philharmoniker. Herbert Von Karajan. This overture was written in 1815. It was a general composition for any occasion of Name Keeping.It was played specially on the day of the Feast of St. Francis. In France, this overture became popular as the Name Day Hunt.

http://youtu.be/aWIadVpxlDE

Die Weihe Des Hauses Ouverture von Ludwig Van Beethoven

2011-06-29T07:32:00.000-07:00

Beethoven composed eleven overtures between 1801 and 1822. They are largely different works created for various occasions. The overture here is `Des Weihes des Hauses' (The Consecration of the House). This was written in 1822 for the initial opening of the Josephstadt Theater in Wien. Beethoven was inspired by Handel in this composition. It is Maestoso e Sostenuto at its opening with the brass and timpani accompanied by staccato strings. It continues spiritedly with the music leading us to a furious Allegro to conclude the overture. This performance is by the Berliner Philharmoniker under Herbert Von Karajan.

http://youtu.be/E6swXra9sbw

The Seven Samurai

2011-06-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

http://youtu.be/QlivViv4i_4

A Masterpiece by Akira Kurosawa. 1954.
A film that has influenced several others for more than four decades.
It has inspired films like 'The Magnificent Seven' and Hindi blockbusters like `Sholay' and `China Gate'.
Many filmmakers use this as a study film.
Kurosawa mesmerises and tells a great story.
It is about 205 minutes long and each frame is a worthwhile one.
It offers a master lesson in how to pace an epic tale.
The story takes place in a sixteenth century village in Japan that is regularly attacked by bandits. The Samurai are hired by the village elders to shield them against the bandits. The cast is led admirably by Takashi Shimura who turns out a remarkable performance. It deserved a best actor oscar without any doubt. Hollywood has not recognised this film as much as it deserved. Toshiro Mifune has also turned out a brilliant support performance. The visuals are excellent, especially the one scene focusing on a bowl of rice and rice dumplings to drive home the value that a bowl of rice had for the Samurai. This was their price for the battle they were going to wage. The Samurai come off as a selfless lot who sacrifice themselves for the cause of the farmers. The final scenes shot in the rain are superlative.
The film won a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1954. It deserved much more than this. The jury at the film festivals have their ears and eyes plugged with shit sometimes. They can't see a gem versus a knick knack.
Kurosawa made four Samurai classics - The Seven Samurai, the Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo and Sanjuro. I have to see his another classic `Rashomon' yet.
The music by Fumio Hayasaka is haunting and outstanding. It is a superb and distinct score.
This film is cinematic perfection and one of the best films ever made.
It was voted by `Sight and Sound' as one of the ten greatest films of all time.
I rate it AAAA.

Die Geschopfe Des Prometheus

2011-05-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

A superb performance by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Herbert Von Karajan.
http://youtu.be/TEz8rtrdP4w

This recording of the sixties still holds good as the definitive performance of this great overture to 'The Creatures of Prometheus' by Ludwig Van Beethoven.

The New York Times At Special Bargain Rates

2011-04-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

Another short story from Stephen King's compilation,'Just After Sunset'. The story has an eerie impact. This story is about Anne. The story begins when she is in a shower and getting ready to attend her husband's memorial service who had gone missing in an airline crash. The relatives have assembled in the drawing room. She is ready to go to them when the phone rings. She picks it up and the voice on the other end is of James, her husband. 'They had thirty years together and one word is all she needs. He says Annie like no one else, always did'.
'For a moment, she can't speak or even breathe.He has caught her on the exhale and her lungs feel as flat as sheets of paper'.
"James? Where are you? What happened?" . 'The murmuring relatives are, after all, planning his funeral'.
James chuckles, "I don't exactly know where I am".
'Her first confused thought is that he must have missed the plane in London, even though he called her from Heathrow not long before it took off. Then a clearer idea comes; although both the New York Times and the TV news say there were no survivors, there was at least one'.
"Jimmy, are you all right"? "Are you burnt"? "Are you in the hospital"?
"Hush", he says. "I'm all right. Most of us are".
"Most-? There are others"?
"Not the pilot", he says, "He's not so good. Or maybe it's the co-pilot".
"Who's this really? Why are you being so horrible"? She's cold all over. 'There's a clear strand of mucus hanging from one of her nostrils'.
'It's his voice'. "Jimmy, Are you still there"?
"Yeah, but I can't talk long. I was trying to call you when we went down and I guess that's the only reason I was able to get through at all".
"Jimmy, did you know you were going down?"
"Not really", he says, "Everything seemed all right until the very end - maybe the last thirty seconds."
"James.. honey.. the plane crashed two days ago."
"Really? Mrs. Corey said time was funny here."
"Where are you exactly?"
"Looks like Grand Central Station.. only bigger and emptier.. there certainly aren't any trains .. and we can't hear any in the distance.. but there are doors going everywhere. Oh, and there's an escalator, but it's broken.."
"Are you scared?"
"Scared? No. A little worried, that's all. Mostly about which door to use... Listen, not to let the McCormack kid do the gutters this fall, last year he almost broke his fucking neck.. And don't go to the bakery anymore on sundays. Something's going to happen there, and I know it's going to be on a sunday, but I don't know which sunday. Time really is funny here... I have to go, Annie, I can't stay here and the phone's going to hit the bed any second now.."
'Then in her ear there is only black silence'.
'There is no record of an incoming call at 3:17 P.M. on that afternoon of her widowhood'.
Time passes by. The memorial service is held for her husband and the world goes on. After few days, she reads in the bargain rate New York Times,'Jason McCormack, the son of old Hughie McCormack, was killed in an accident on Labor Day. He fell from the roof of a summer cottage while cleaning the gutters and broke his neck.'
'Five years after the death of her husband and the death of Jason McCormack, Annie remarries... Craig, the new husband, is only semi-retired, and his business takes him to New York every three or four months... When she and Craig go back to New York, they fly. And when she's back home, she stops going to Zoltan's Family Bakery on sundays when she's home despite her favourite raisin bagels. She goes to Froger's instead. She's at Frogers buying doughnuts when she hears the blast. She hears it clearly even though Zoltan's is eleven blocks away. LP gas explosion. Four killed, including the woman who always passed Annie her bagels with the top of the bag rolled down, saying, " Keep it that way until you get home or you lose the freshness..."
'When she gets home , Annie can hear the phone ringing inside. Either everyone has gone down the block to where the local school is having a sidewalk art sale or no one can hear that ringing phone.. Except for her, that is. And by the time she gets her key turned in the lock, the ringing has stopped.'
'Star sixty nine reports the last call at eight forty last night. Annie dials it anyway, hoping against hope that somewhere outside the big room that looks like a Grand Central Station movie-set, he found a place to re-charge his phone. To him, it might seem he last spoke to her yesterday. Or only minutes ago. Time is funny here, he said. She has dreamed of that call so many times it now almost seems like a dream itself, but she never told anyone about it.'
'She has almost turned ninety now and with a firmly held belief in the afterlife.'
'She nevertheless holds the phone very tightly as the number she has star-sixty-nined rings once, then twice. Annie stands in the living room with the phone to her ear and her free hand touching the brooch above her left breast, as if touching the brooch could still the pounding heart beneath it. Then the ringing stops and a recorded voice offers to sell her The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates that will not be repeated.'
The short story has a punch of an impact. AAA.

Rachmaninov's C Minor Piano Concerto

2011-03-28T01:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8l37utZxMQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_bp4rcjgyk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0llKV3M6hvU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCVukg-_a_w

I have blogged earlier in the past few years on this great piano concerto. I had not posted the videos for readers to feel the music. My best rendition of this masterpiece is by Philippe Entremont playing with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein. That is the greatest recording of this concerto. With all great regard to the Master himself, Entremont has paced the second movement in a way that even Rachmaninov would succumb to and weep. It is unfortunate that I could not access any video recordings of that performance.

Elgar's Cello Concerto

2011-03-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlTontPm49M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6wt64X8Am0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsekb1qwZs0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjYy71hqu84

Cello Concerto in E Minor. Op. 85
This was his last great work.
It was composed during the summer of 1919 at Elgar's cottage, 'Brinkwells', in Sussex. The premiere was on 27th October 1919 with Felix Salmond as the soloist and Elgar conducting the London Symphony at Queen's Hall. This performance was not well received. Frankly speaking, the audience did not know their elbow from their knee in appreciating a great work.
This concerto represents the disillusionment Elgar felt after the end of the first world war. This is also an introspective on death.
The Concerto opens with a solemn dramatic adagio recitative in the solo followed by a short cadenza . The violas then present the main theme that Elgar had composed while he was recuperating from a throat operation. The violas then pass the theme to the solo cello. The cello repeats it and then modifies it into a stronger, painful reinstatement. Then, the cello moves into a lighter-hearted and lyrical middle section moderato. The main theme is presented again as a transition and after an impassioned utterance, the movement whimpers before a pizzicato enters into the lento without a pause, later transforming into an allegro molto second movement which is a melancholy scherzo with orchestration of the greatest economy.
In the brief slow movement Adagio, there is still greater economy and solemnity; a continuous solo for the cello.
The finale Allegro Moderato which is a rondo where the excitement of the principal theme is broken by references to earlier themes and particularly to the mood of melancholy that makes this as one of Elgar's greatest works.
My favourite interpretation is the one by Sol Gabetta and the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Copenhagen conducted by Mario Venzago. Another great version is the Jacqueline Du Pre with the London Symphony under Sir John Barbirolli.

Le Poeme du Feu

2011-03-21T05:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QOJAoy8eQM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35u6HHvbeAs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOZGAPVSDkA

I have heard it twice today. I went back to it. I heard the Martha Argerich/Berlin/Abbado version though I am posting below the Vladimir Ashkenazy version for its brilliant visuals.
Aleksandr Scriabin's Le Poeme du Feu - Prometheus is a great impressionistic piece of music creation. He uses fourth-based harmonies. This composition was a hit when it was first premiered on 2nd March 1911 with Scriabin as the soloist in Moskva with Serge Koussevitzky conducting. Scriabin died early at the age of 43 in 1915. This work would have made Debussy, Ravel and Glazunov proud.
The work's harmonic structure is evolved from a tonal centre in a six-note complex of different fourths (c f# Bb e a d). Here, the sound makes you feel that space has become time. For Scriabin, the theft of fire was central to the Prometheus myth. This symphonic poem with a piano accompaniment and choir is representative of Prometheus with the central theme narrated by the trumpets. The music describes the flickering and shimmering permutations of fire through piano and woodwinds with tremolos on the strings. Scriabin felt that Prometheus is the bringer of light and through sound and colour he reaches for the stars themselves as aptly showed in these visuals.

Johannes Brahms: Serenade in D Major

2011-03-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlY-c84HPSA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqQEu6MUvq0

I have heard this after almost thirty four years. It is still as fresh and the recording is superb.
Istvan Kertesz with the London Symphony. 1968.
Brahms composed his two orchestral serenades between 1857 and 1860.They were his first purely orchestral works to be published. The D Major Serenade was first intended to be a chamber work like an octet or a nonet. Then Brahms converted that to a work for small orchestra. He laid the orchestra out as fifteen strings, single woodwinds, two french horns, trumpet and timpani.
This Serenade respects musicians like Haydn, Beethoven and early symphonies of Schubert. The first movement that I have posted here pays homage to the finale of Haydn's D Major 'London' Symphony with its main theme and the 'drone' bass in open fifths by which it is supported and set for Brahms' favourite orchestral instrument, the french horn. Brahms had himself played the horn in his early days in Hamburg. The second subject is a string theme that breaks out into triplets. These triplets develop a third theme that brings back the exposition. The movement ends with a poetic coda where the flute takes over from the horn.
The second movement, Scherzo in D Minor, reminds us of the D Minor Piano Concerto and also of the scherzo of the B Flat Major Piano Concerto. The Adagio Non Troppo third movement in B Flat Major is rich and in sonata form and evokes memories of the 'Scene by the Brook' of Beethoven's 'Pastoral'. The fourth movement is a minuet with G Major and G Minor alternates. In this, we are reminded of the original instrumentation of the serenade. The fifth movement is the second Scherzo in D Major and is again dominated by the first french horn. This reminds us of the third movement of Beethoven's Second Symphony. It has a trio in D Major with a quaver motion in the accompaniment. The finale is a rondo which bounces a lot with a refrain and expansive subsidiary themes that ultimately find their way into the french horns and trumpet bringing the Serenade to its majestic close.
An Excellent reading by Kertesz. A great conductor with a great work. Purely Pastoral. The painting brings out the emotion perfectly in the video.

Tragedie dell'Ascolto

2011-03-19T06:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMXqo8d-o6E

Luigi Nono was influenced by Schoenberg and the atonal composers. He was influenced philosophically by Marxism. He has written opera of note in the late twentieth century. Prometeo is an opera described by him as a "Tragedia dell'Ascolto' (Tragedy for Listening). It was premiered at the church of San Lorenzo, Venezia on 25th September 1984 under Claudio Abbado. In the late nineties, he gave another great performance of this opera with the Berlin Philharmonic.
There is a remarkable three-part vocal fragment running as a thread through the opera. Nono enhances the natural clarity of the human voice by letting it sing on the sonorous intervals of octaves and the fourths. The tones are sustained for a long time so that it seems as if the voice only sings vowels.

For the Love of a Princess

2011-03-16T03:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk8323r577w

A beautiful composition for the film Braveheart by James Horner with the London Symphony Orchestra. A truly haunting theme.

Sospiri

2011-03-15T05:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_JvCKBRpFA

I heard this today for the first time. It is beautiful.
Sospiri for Strings, Harp and Organ. Op.70. Sir Edward Elgar.
Sospiri means elegiac sighs in Italian.
It was first performed in August 1914 and shows influence of the dark times during the first world war. Elgar's wife described this as " a breath of peace in a perturbed world." The Adagio is reminiscent of Gabriel Faure in its style. The main melody enters dissonantly over the harmony and its evolving wide intervals are really evocative of sighing. The long-held final cadence resigns this sensitive and expressive adagio to serenity.

Balakirev's First Symphony in C Major

2011-03-14T04:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEwJTDZy1EQ

Yesterday, I was hearing Balakirev's First Symphony in C Major performed by the USSR Symphony under Yevgeni Svetlanov.This 1971 recording rarely finds an able competitor in its nationalist reading by Svetlanov. We have Sir Thomas Beecham with the Royal Philharmonic and Herbert Von Karajan with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London giving superb performances of this symphony but Svetlanov goes beyond them. His reading is strong, ferocious and aggressive.
Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev was born into a poor clerk's family in Novgorod in 1837. He received his first lessons in music from his mother at the age of four. Balakirev's musical talents found a patron later in a nobleman, Alexander Oulibichev who had also written a biography of Wolfgang Mozart. Balakirev was first exposed to the music of Glinka, John Field and Chopin. Glinka encouraged Balakirev to pursue a career in music. Balakirev, after Glinka, is regarded as one of the 'Five' nationalist composers in Russia, the other four being Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Borodin and Cesar Cui.
Balakirev started his first symphony in C major in 1867 but completed it in 1898 when it received its first performance. He incorporated a new Russian element in his expression somewhat religious in nature in the opening Adagio of this symphony. He places a lively scherzo and trio as the second movement that is followed by a beautiful sentimental melody in the slow movement with a characteristic fluidity to the flute and woodwinds and a Slavic occidental raspiness to the brass. This is very well brought out by the USSR Symphony under Svetlanov. The finale is a compendium of merry folk themes. At one point, you could hear the brass laughing when the symphony ends on a jubilant note. This is an excellent orchestral work by Balakirev and could be regarded as one of the cracker first symphonies to be written anywhere.

Iolanta: One of the greatest one-act lyric operas

2011-03-12T02:56:00.000-08:00

<
I have recently got this recording set. What a great lyric opera I have missed earlier! There is absolutely no reason for its obscurity. It is sheer bad luck for Tchaikovsky. This opera received its first performance at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on 18th December 1892.
The action takes place in the mountains of Southern France in the fifteenth century. This is Tchaikovsky's last opera. His other operas are Voyevoda, Undina, Enchantress, Vakula the Smith, Cherevichki,Oprichnik, Mazeppa, Pique Dame, Maid of Orleans and Yevgeny Onegin besides this.
The Director of the Imperial Theater, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, commissioned Tchaikovsky to write a one-act opera and two-act ballet in 1891. The result was Iolanta and Casse-Noisette(the Nutcracker).
Tchaikovsky was inspired by the one act play by the Danish playwright, Henrik Hertz, in 1845 called 'King Rene's Daughter'. The subject fascinated him for its poetic quality. The librettist was his brother, Modeste. Modeste worked on the translation of the Hertz play in Moscow by Vladimir Zotov.
Both the opera and the ballet were admired by Tsar Nicholas who was in the audience. Even Gustav Mahler later championed Iolanta and made it a regular opera in his repertoire.
The story is about King Rene and his blind daughter Iolanta. She is cured by the miracle working Moorish doctor, Ibn Hakia, who succeeds only when he is assured that she really wishes to be cured. Iolanta is betrothed to Prince Robert who does not love her and he is in love with Mathilde. It is the knightly Vaudemont who takes a liking to Iolanta without knowing that she is blind. When he discovers her plight, he still accepts her and motivates her to see the beauty of the creation in this life. She begins to like him and agrees to get her condition cured by Ibn Hakia.
Tchaikovsky opens the prelude to this one-act opera with a score only for winds (which was run down by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov)and brass. A lovely effect is created followed by the introduction of harp and strings for the opening garden scene. The music is reminiscent of Handel (Xerxes), Brahms (second piano concerto Andante), Puccini's La Boheme and Wagner's Tristan Prelude. There is a touch of rococo style in the first few scenes. There is brilliant scoring and melodic interjection in the arias of Ibn Hakia, Robert, King Rene, Iolanta and her duet with Vaudemont. The opera concludes with a majestic contrapuntal scene including Iolanta, Ibn Hakia, King Rene, Vaudemont, Brigitta and Laura (Iolanta's friends), Bertrand (Doorkeeper), Martha ( his wife), Almeric (armour bearer to the King), Robert and chorus.
As I have mentioned earlier, I have heard this opera for the first time yesterday in this brilliant performance by the Kirov Opera and Orchestra under the splendid direction of Valery Gergiev. This is a superb production by Philips recorded in 1996. The recording is crisp and clear. An impressive CD set worthy of an addition to any opera lover's collecction and particularly of those who like the music of Tchaikovsky. This opera deserves more hearings than accorded presently in the universal operatic repertoire. This recording will deserve AAA and five star nod from me.

The Cat From Hell

2011-03-04T23:24:00.000-08:00

Stephen King's Short Story from his compilation, 'Just After Sunset'. AA.
The story is about a cat that comes from nowhere to take revenge for the atrocities committed on fifteen thousand cats in the name of an FDA approved experiment.
Halston is a hitman. He is sent by his contact to an old man in a wheelchair called Drogan.
"Who do you want hit?"
"Your victim is right behind you", says Drogan.
'Halston quickly grips the handle of the short-barrelled .45 hybrid that hung below his armpit in a spring-loaded holster that laid it in his palm at a touch. A moment later it was out and pointed at ... a cat.'
'For a moment Halston and the cat stared at each other.'
'Its face was an even split: half-black, half-white.'
"He's very friendly," Grogan said. "At first. Nice friendly pussy has killed three people in this household. That leaves only me. I am old, I am sick ... but I prefer to die in my own time."
"I can't believe this," Halston said. "You hired me to hit a cat?"
"Six thousand dollars. There will be another six when you bring me proof that the cat is dead".
Drogan is owner of Drogan Pharmaceuticals.
"In the four-year testing period which led to FDA approval of Tri-Gormal-G, about fifteen thousand cats ... uh, expired". 'Halston whistled. About four thousand cats a year. And now you think this one's back to get you, huh?'.
'Seven months ago there had been four of them here- Drogan, his sister Amanda, who at seventy-four was two years Drogan's elder, her lifelong friend Carolyn Broadmoor (of the Westchester Broadmoors,'Drogan said,'who was badly afflicted with emphysema and Dick Gage, a hired man who had been with the Drogan family for twenty years.Then the cat had come'.
'In mid-May, Gage had found Amanda Drogan lying at the foot of the main stairs in a litter of broken crockery and Little Friskies. Her eyes bulged sightlessly up at the ceiling. She had bled a great deal from the mouth and nose. They got to the head of the stairs and the cat got in front of her... tripped her...'.
'Carolyn Broadmoor was also attached to the cat. She had threatened to leave if he did, apparently.Near the end of June, she died in the night. The doctor seemed to take it as a matter of course... just came and wrote out the death certificate and that was the end of it'.
"Drogan, why don't you just have it put away? A vet would give it the gas for twenty dollars".
"On July third, I called Gage to this room and handed him a wicker basket... a picnic hamper sort of thing. Do you know what I mean? I told him to put the cat in it and take it to a vet in Milford and have it put to sleep. There was an accident on the turn-pike. The Lincoln was driven into a bridge abutment at better than sixty miles an hour. Dick Gage was killed instantly. When they found him, there were scratches on his face."
"And the cat came back?"
'Drogan nodded. "A week later. On the day Dick Gage was buried, as a matter of fact. Just like the old song says. The cat came back."
"It survived a car crash at sixty? Hard to believe."
"They say each one has nine lives. When it comes back.. that's when I started to wonder if it might not be a ... a ...."
"Hellcat?"
"For want of a better word, yes. A sort of demon sent..."
"To punish you."
'Halston smiled humourlessly. He began to stroke the sleeping cat's head and shoulders and back very gently again."All right, I accept the contract. Do you want the body?"
"No. Kill it. Bury it. Bring me the tail. So I can throw it in the fire and watch it burn."
'The cat was in a double-thickness shopping bag, tied at the top with heavy twine. The bag was in the passenger bucket seat.'
'Strange hit, Halston thought and was surprised to find that he was taking it seriously as a hit. He would park off the road beside one of these November-barren fields and take it out of the bag and stroke it and then snap its neck and sever its tail with his pocket knife.. And he thought, the body - he'll bury it honourably saving it from the scavengers. I can save it from the maggots.'
'He was thinking these things as the cat moved through the night like a dark blue ghost and that was when the cat walked in front of his eyes, up on the dashboard, tail raised arrogantly, its black-and-white face turned toward him,its mouth seeming to grin at him.'
'And suddenly the road was gone, the Plymouth was running down into the ditch, thudding up and down on its shocks. Then, second impact. And darkness.'
'It seemed to be grinning like Alice's Cheshire had in Wonderland.His arms would not move. Halston did scream, his mouth yawning open, and that was when the cat changed direction and leaped at his face, leaped at his mouth. It rammed into his mouth, a furry projectile. He gagged on it. Its front claws pinwheeled, tattering his tongue like a piece of liver. The cat was forcing its way into his mouth, flattening its body, squirming,working itself further and further in. Somehow it had gotten its entire body into his mouth. Its strange, black-and-white face must be crammed into his very throat. Protruding from his open mouth was two inches of bushy tail .. half-black, half-white. It switched lazily back and forth. It disappeared.'
'Above Halston's navel, a ragged hole had been clawed in his flesh. Looking out was the gore-streaked black-and-white face of a cat, its eyes huge and glaring.'
'The cat forced its body out and stretched in obscene languor. Then it leaped out the open window. It seemed to be in a hurry noticed a reporter from the local paper. As if it had unfinished business.'

N

2011-03-01T22:35:00.000-08:00

This short story, from the compilation of Stephen King's 'Just after Sunset', is the best story from the lot and deserves AAA. It begins with a letter from Sheila Bonsaint Le Claire writing to her crush from high school days, Charlie Keen. The letter is about her brother Johnny who died under mysterious circumstances recently and his death being labelled as an 'accidental death'. Johnny was a therapist and treating a patient known in the case study file as 'N' and Sheila suspects that there are forces working here beyond her comprehension.
One of the passages in her letters reveals 'It's as if the patients' woes are a kind of acid, eating away at the psychic defenses of their therapists". She encloses a case file from the therapist for Charlie to study. The deeper part of this is that not long before Johnny's death, his patient N dies of a fall in similar conditions echoing Johnny's death. Sheila warns Charlie to burn the case file soon after studying it.
N, the patient of Johnny, was 48 years old. He was a partner in a large Portland Maine accounting firm. He was divorced and father of two daughters. He had been suffering from insomnia since the past ten months. He had recently developed an obsessive compulsive disorder that was rapidly controlling and ruining his mental peace. For example, he used to tie his laces with the left tied at the top and the right at the bottom.
He was also obsessed with numbers. "When I load the dishwasher, I count plates. If there's an even number above ten in there, all is well. If not, I add the correct number of clean ones to make it right".
Johnny Bonsaint describes his patient N as pale man being pecked to pieces by invisible birds. N asks Johnny, "Have you ever read 'The Great God Pan' by Arthur Machen ? As it's the most terrifying story ever written!"
"But Doc, are you sure? Even if it puts you at risk of winding up like I am now?"
The place that is the centrepoint of the story in case is 'Ackerman's Field'.
"I am an accountant by trade, a photographer by inclination". "Reality is a mystery, Dr. Bonsaint, and the everyday texture of things is the cloth we draw over it to mask its brightness and darkness. I think we cover the faces of corpses for the same reason. We see the faces of the dead as a kind of gate. But there are places where the cloth gets ragged and reality is thin."
"I took another four shots which makes a total of nine, another bad number, although slightly better than five and when I lowered the camera and looked again with my naked eye, I saw the faces in the hills, leering and grinning and grunting. Some human, some bestial. I counted seven stones. But when I looked into the viewfinder again, there were eight. I started to feel dizzy and scared".
"The eighth stone fucking grinned at me and its teeth were heads. Living human heads".
"something spoke. Not English. Something that sounded like,'Cthun, cthun, deeyanna, deeyanna.. but then.. Christ,then it said my name. It said,'Cthun,N,; deeyanna, N. I think I screamed, but I'm not sure, because by then the wind had become a gale that was roaring in my ears".
' In the next session, I tell him that he looks better although this is far from true". 'He prints CTHUN in large capital letters. He shows it to me and when I nod, he tears the sheet to shreds, counts the shreds - to make sure the number is even, I suppose- and then deposits them in the wastebasket near the couch.'
'I could hear the wind that sometimes blows out of there, turning in its own private cyclone. and I knew it was coming. The thing with the helmet-head. He gestures again to the scraps in the wastebasket'.
"At least I'll get a break come winter. If I make it that far".
'I called his home number when I saw the obituary. Got C, the daughter who goes to school here in Maine. She knew who I was. Talked freely'.
Johnny Bonsaint makes notes: 'I am afraid but this fear is completely irrational. Back-trailing a patient' mental illness to its source is never comfortable. I stood at the chain, asking myself if I really wanted to do this- if I wanted to trespass, not just on land that wasn't mine but on an obsessive compulsive fantasy that had very likely killed its possessor'.
'I looked at the stones dead-on. Eight.' 'It's April Fool's and the fool is me. I woke from a dream of Ackerman's Field.'
'Took longer today to make 7 into 8.' 'There it was - the thing with the helmet head, born out of living insane darkness.''The screaming faces in the stones .. CTHUN'.
Johnny Bonsaint also ends up the same way as N, falling rom Ackerman's Field in the valley below and dying. There is a twist in the end when Charlie Keen receives another letter from Sheila saying.'There's nothing out there. Just some rocks. I saw with my own eyes. I swear there's nothing out there, so stay away'. Few days later, he reads another obituary in the paper,'Woman jumps from bridge, mimics brother's suicide.'
In the epilogue, Charlie Keen is writing a note to his secretary, Chrissy, asking her to cancel all appointments for the next week. He says, 'Two old friends, brother and sister have committed suicide under peculiar circumstances.. and in the same fucking place.. I don't mean to be a Philistine about it, but there might be a story in this. On obsessive compulsive disorder. Not as big a blip on radar as cancer, maybe, but sufferers will tell you it's still some mighty scary shit.'
This short storywill haunt your imagination.

The plight of Bombay

2011-01-13T00:56:00.000-08:00

It’s really sad to see Bombay turning into a city of hate. The way the Shiv Sena and MNS thugs are targeting innocent people, it seems very soon Indians from other parts of the country will need a visa to travel to Bombay. There was a time Bombay was the most cosmopolitan city in the country. Now it has begun to look like a provincial town where you are safe only if you speak Marathi or pretend to be a protector of Marathi Manoos' rights.

But it’s not enough to blame the Shiv Sena and MNS for the state of terror in the city; all political parties, particularly the Congress and NCP have been playing dirty politics on this issue with their eyes on Marathi Manoos votes.

What happened all of a sudden that made Congress to say that ‘Bombay belongs to all Indians’? Obviously, the Congress was alarmed by the RSS-BJP combines’ position on the issue. Of course, the Congress and BJP don’t want to lose any campaign – hate campaign or love campaign – to each other. So, from now on, we will see more of “Mumbai for all” campaigns from all political parties all over the country.

But let’s keep the politicians out of it. They are only good at creating problems and putting people against each other – rich against the poor, poor against the less poor, Hindus against Muslims, Muslims against Christians, upper castes against lower castes, lower castes against the lowest castes, and Marathi Manoos against North Indians. It’s time the people of this country reclaimed Bombay as an Indian city before it’s too late and before it falls to the hate politics of Shiv Sena and MNS.

This hate campaign is based on liesand lies. They changed the name of the city from Bombay to Mumbai, claiming that it was the real, original name of Bombay. It's a pure lie. The fact is that when the Portuguese arrived in what is now Bombay (it was a small island with a fishermen settlement), they called it Bom (good) Bahia (bay). It was, of course a good bay. Over the time, Bombahia became Bombay when the Portuguese gave the city to the British in dowry of their princess. That’s the origin of the word Bombay. No wonder the SS-MNS goons hate the North Indians who still call the city 'Bambai' and not Mumbai. Bambai is still closer to the city’s original name and it rankles these hate parties.

The other lie the SS-MNS combine keep spreading is that the city sends some 50% of the country’s revenue to the centre. True, a lot of tax comes from Bombay. But that happens because most of the PSU giants and private sector firms have their corporate headquarters in Bombay. It’s not that Bombay is producing goods worth the country’s GDP. If tomorrow all the big companies move their offices to Bangalore, all this tax will come from Bangalore.

The third lie is that the North Indians do not respect the local culture and local people. Again a pure lie. I have lived in Bombay for fourteen years and I found the cab drivers and street vendors, almost all of whom come from UP and Bihar, to be honest and hard-working and simple people. They have been the main targets of MNS' hate crimes.These people have made their lives with sheer hard work, slogging day and night and living in filthy hovels. They have made the city rich with their hard work. Ask any foreign tourist what he thinks is the best thing about Bombay and the answer would be – taxis. They are cheap, safe and friendly. They don't create problems for others. They don't attack others because of linguistic and cultural differences. And now the Congress government wants to throw them out because they don’t know Marathi.

Bombay is on a shaky ground at the moment. Let’s reclaim it before it’s too late, before the hate politics engulfs the city and fires start all over the country. The political class will be too happy to roast their goose over these burning fires, but the people of this country will lose a great city.

Why Indians cannot prosper in India?

2011-01-13T00:40:00.000-08:00

Indians have succeeded in countries abroad and not done so well in their own. This fact would have shocked leaders of our independence movement. They had declared that Indians were looked down upon by foreign rulers and could flourish only under self-rule. The harsh reality today is that Indians are successful in countries overseas but failing in India. They are prospering in the USA and the United Kingdom.
The citizens who stay and work in India are pulled down by an unconscionable system that fails to reward talent. This outrageous system fails to allow people and businesses to grow and keeps real power with `netas’ and assorted hooligans and manipulators. Once Indians go to overseas countries, they rise to peaks once occupied only by foreigners.
For example, Rono Dutta had become head of United Airlines from 1999 to 2002, the biggest airline in the world. Had he stayed in India, he would have had no chance in Indian Airlines or even Air India. Even if the top job there was given to him by some godfather, a team of `Babus’ and trade unionists would have ensured that he could never run it like United Airlines.
Rana Talwar was appointed Group CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Plc, one of the biggest multinational banks in Britain, while still in his forties. Had he been in India, he would perhaps be a local manager in the State Bank Group, taking orders from several Babus to give loans to politically favoured clients.
Rajat Kumar Gupta was head of McKinsey, the biggest management consultancy firm in the world. He was a consultant to the biggest multinationals on how to run their business. Had he remained in India, he would probably be taking orders from some Sethji with no qualifications save that of being born in a rich family.
Lakhsmi Mittal has become the biggest steel baron in the world with steel plants in the US, Kazakhstan, Germany, Mexico, Trinidad and Indonesia. India's socialist policies reserved the domestic steel industry for the public sector. So Lakhsmi Mittal went to Indonesia to run his family's first steel plant there. Once freed from the manacles of India, he ruled the world.
Subhash Chandra of Zee TV has become a global media king, one of the few to beat Rupert Murdoch. He could never have risen had he been limited to India, which decreed a TV monopoly for Doordarshan in the days that mattered. But technology came to his aid and satellite television made it possible for him to run business in India from Hong Kong.
You may not have heard of 48-year old Gururaj Deshpande. His communications company, Sycamore, is currently valued by the US stock market at over $30 billion, making him perhaps one of the richest Indians in the world. Had he remained in India, he would probably be a Babu in the Department of Telecommunications.
Arun Netravali has become president of Bell Labs and Lucent Technologies, one of the biggest research and development centres in the world with thousands of inventions like high definition television. Had he been in India, he would probably be struggling in the middle cadre of Indian Telephone Industries.

Apart from all these personalities, Silicon Valley alone contains over one hundred thousand Indian millionaires. Sabeer Bhatia invented Hotmail and sold it to Microsoft for $400 million. Victor Menezes is number two in Citibank. Shailesh Mehta is CEO of Providian, a top US financial services company.
While Indians have soared abroad, India has stagnated at home. At independence, India was the most advanced of all colonies, with the best prospects. Today with a GNP per head of $3500, it occupies a lowly 161st position among 226 countries of the world even though the total GNP at 793 billion dollars makes India the 10th largest. But poverty is by no means the only or main problem. India ranks near the bottom in the UNDP's Human Development Index but high up in Transparency International's Corruption Index.
At independence, we were justly proud of our politicians. Today we regard them as scoundrels and criminals. They have created a jungle of laws in the holy name of socialism, and used these to line their pockets and create patronage networks. No influential crook suffers. The (Indian) Mafia flourish unhindered because they have political links. The sons of police officers believe they have a licence to rape and kill (ask the Mattoo family). Talent cannot take you far amidst such rank misgovernance. We are reverting to our ancient feudal system where no rules applied to the powerful. The British Raj brought in abstract concepts of justice for all, equality before the law. These were maintained in the early years of independence. But sixty years later, citizens wail that India is a lawless land where no rules are obeyed.
The lack of transparent rules, properly enforced, is a major reason why talented Indians cannot rise in India. A second reason is the neta-babu raj, which remains intact despite supposed liberalisation. But once talented Indians go to rule-based societies in the west, they take off. In those societies, all people play by the same rules, all have freedom to innovate without being strangled by regulations. And this is why Indians like to hold a green card or citizenship anywhere else apart from Independent India.
[Source: Economictimes.indiatimes.com/View-point]

The Inextinguishable

2010-11-30T03:01:00.000-08:00

The broad philosophical theme behind this dark symphony is what Nielsen called the indestructability of the life force. He wrote, " This symphony is meant to express the appearance of the most elementary forces among humans, animals and even plants. In case, all the world were to be devastated by fire, flood and volcanoes, all things being destroyed; then, nature would still begin to breed new life again. Soon, the plants would begin to multiply, the breeding and screaming of birds would be seen and heard, the aspiration of humans would be felt. These forces, which are 'inextinguishable' , are what I have tried to present".
It is a musical drama in which the key of E Flat Major representing life wins an ultimate victory over an unstable D Minor tonality representing chaos and destruction. In the finale, we come across two timpanists who steam in from both sides of the orchestra thundering furiously. Their cannon fire is in strict canon.
Notable recordings are those by Michael Schonwandt conducting the Danish National Radio Symphony, Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle conducting the Birmingham Symphony.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD9I-UiYfW8

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2010-11-16T13:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMZ7OzNNaLM

The best film I have seen this year. I had not seen this since 2008. Move aside Ghost Writer and Shutter Island. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett score. Alexandre Desplat with his brilliant musical score has left me speechless. David Fincher has directed this film based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's story of a man born under unusual circumstances.
It is a brilliant movie. It is a beautiful and masterfully constructed film. It is about a man who is born in his eighties(a monster) and ages backwards. There are many heart tugging moments in the film particularly in the final hour in this 166 minute masterpiece.

Nielsen's Fifth

2010-11-16T04:34:00.000-08:00

I finished listening to the Nielsen fifth today.
It was written in 1922.
It is written for strings(violin, violas, cellos and contrabasses),3 flutes, 2 piccolos, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets(B Flat Major and A major),2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 french horns(F Major),3 trumpets(B Flat Major),3 trombones,tuba, pair of timpani,cymbals,snare drum,triangle,tambourine and celesta.
This symphony was influenced by the traumatic effects of post first world war in Denmark. It depicts a great battle etween the forces of order and chaos. A snare drummer takes the symbolic chaos trip and keeps interrupting the orchestra playing ad lib and out of time with the intention of destruction. It is to Nielsen's credit that he makes him almost blend in with the universe without sounding ugly. The rest of the orchestra keeps fighting back in six sections of the symphony while the drummer struggles on and he eventually fades with the glorious conclusion as order prevails over chaos.
I have heard Michael Schonwandt conduct the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra today. The sound is rich and effective; good interpretation, I am also attaching a good conclusion of the symphony by Blomstedt and San Francisco. My favourite remains Jascha Horenstein with the New Philharmonia Orchestra of London on Nonesuch Records with the beautiful Saga Drom that I hold as Nielsen's greatest composition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nICOABymhhs

Graduation Afternoon

2010-11-13T04:08:00.000-08:00

A story by Stephen King from his collection ' Just After Sunset'. It is about a girl Janice on her boyfriend Bruce Hope (Buddy's) graduation afternoon in New York City. The story is about Janice not expressing her love totally to Bruce and missing the opportunity of telling the one she is fond of what he means to her until the moment is gone and perhaps there is none other to follow. As things are taken for granted by all around us, a nuclear bomb explodes in New York that afternoon and soon it will all be over for Janice and the world around her as she starts thinking many thoughts in a flash. The story is not written with much feeling and it will get only a B-. Some of the passages worth reading are:
" She has ime to think before an enormous spark lights up there."
"Now huge black blisters are erupting in the red mushroom, giving it hideous features that shift and change - now a cat,now a dog, now Bobo the Demon Clown- grimacing across the miles above what used to be New York and is now a smelting furnace. A nuke. An almighty big one. No little dirty backpack model."
"Janice's vision has either been stolen by the brightness of the fireball, or the cloud has bloted out the sun. Maybe both."
"She thinks about the hike Bruce and his friends won't be taking. She thinks about the party they won't be attending tonight. In a little while, she may be able to teach,what is left of her eyes, not to look".

Que Sera Sera

2010-11-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

Am I the Man Who Knew Too Much? No. Not Me. Que Sera Sera. ... The future's not ours to see.. Doris Day in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece with James Stewart in this clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVuEC3r7a-o

DeMille's Samson and Delilah

2010-11-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5T-K1rY26Y

Cecil. B. DeMille has directed this masterpiece in 1949. This story is adapted from the Biblical Book of Judges. Samson is the strongest man of the Israelite tribe of Dan. They are enslaved by the Philistines. He falls in love with the Philistine Princess Cemadar and is engaged to her. She has designs for Ahtur and betrays him. At the wedding feast, there is an ensuing struggle between Ahtur ad Samson and Cemadar is killed. Her sister, Delilah, who loves Samson secretly, now plans vengeance against him. She seduces Samson into revealing the secret of his strength that lies in the untouched locks of his hair as a covenant from God at his birth. She then betrays him to the Philistine Chief, Saran of Gaza by giving him a potion in his drink so that when he is unconscious, she cuts the locks off and deprives him of his strength.She is not aware that Samson is put in prison and given many hardships and his eyes are gouged out. Delilah's heart softens and she loves him more strongly than earlier. She repents and asks for his forgiveness. Samson forgives her and prays to God to give him patience and his strength back. As the seasons pass, his hair grows and so does his strength to the ignorance of the Philistines. DeMille's epic is kown for the spectacular toppling of the Temple of Dagon that brings down the pillars on Samson, Delilah and all his enemies culminating in a tragic end. Victor Mature is Samson. Angela Lansbury is Cemadar. George Sanders is Saran of Gaza. Henry Wilcoxon is Ahtur. Russ Tamblyn is Saul. Olivia Deering is Miriam. Hedy Lamarr is Delilah. The colour still looks magnificent when you see it on the television. Victor Young's music is heavenly. There is not enough praise that can be showered on the magnificent Academy Award nominated music score by Young. In particular,the superb echoing horn motif for Samson and the unforgettable sensual loveliness for the strings and harp in the Delilah theme.

The Things They Left Behind

2010-11-09T23:43:00.000-08:00

A short story by Stephen King from his collection, 'Just After Sunset'. The story is about an insurance under-writer named Scott Staley who works in an insurance company called Light and Bell on the one hundred and tenth floor in the World Trade Centre. On the fateful day in September 2001, he is plain lazy to go to work and bunks that day only to learn that none of his colleagues survived. Few days after the incident, he finds little things belonging to each of his colleagues, that he remembers from his office, start to show around his flat and whisper all the time. Once, he even decides to throw them away so he collects them and throws them in the trash can but when he returns home, they are there again. A well written story. Some of the passages:
"And I remember smiling at what she asked me: 'Are you safe?'It reminded me of that movie, not Jeremy Irons' or James Mason's 'Lolita' (thinking about Lolita, sometimes at two in the morning, came later) but the one where Laurence Olivier does the impromptu dental work on Dustin Hoffman, asking him over and over again, 'Is it safe?' (from 'Marathon Man')."....
"The relief of seeing him holding the sunglasses and looking at them, almost studying them, was like having someone scratch that exact place between your shoulder blades that itches"......
"When something goes wrong in your life and you need to talk about it, I think that the first impulse for most people is to call a family member".....
"I remembered her once telling me that 'Alice in Wonderland' was the first psychedelic novel".....
"How much of what they call 'survivor guilt' are you feeling?"...

The only salvation Staley experiences is when he starts giving away those things of the dead people to their near ones and relatives that they stop coming back to his apartment. One of the left over things is a clump of his colleagues' hair that is burnt and is smelling of jet fuel. That is his compensation for surviving.
The story gets an A-.

L'Oiseau Du Feu - Igor Stravinsky conducting

2010-11-09T23:23:00.000-08:00

A historical moment in London in 1965 where Igor Stravinsky conducts the passage before the finale of Firebird. Truly one of the greatest ballets written in the twentieth century. The finale brings tears to your eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUwdyN27TWI

Limelight

2010-11-05T03:09:00.000-07:00

Charlie Chaplin's greatest.
A Masterpiece.
The theme is glorious.
He has composed the music himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl47EmHmSaY

Sinfonia Semplice - Carl Nielsen

2010-11-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

Carl Nielsen is a central figure in late romantic Danish music. He was born into a poor family of fourteen children. During school holidays, he supplemented the family income by looking after geese. Music was an early interest. He used to bang out tunes on different lengths of firewood. He was also interested in literature, philosophy and languages.
Leonard Bernstein was enthusiastic about Nielsen's music and this symphony. He actually introduced Nielsen's music in America in the sixties for much later after Nielsen's death, his music was not known to the American audiences. The Sinfonia Semplice is the strangest of his six symphonies. At the time it was written, Nielsen was suffering from a heart ailment.
The work is a meditation on the transcience of life in the opening tempo giusto movement. In the Humoresque, there is sardonic humour and brooding. Occasionally, there is pure grotesquerie. Nielsen may be poking fun at the atonal music of Schoenberg and his followers. The woodwind instruments make rude noises and the trombones make loud glissandos representing yawning. The slow movement is dark and sombre. The finale is a bizarre theme and variations. The main theme goes through a chaotic series of grotesque variations. At one point, the theme becomes a waltz. The brass and percussion then batter it with brutal dissonant outbursts. The movement ends in glee. Nielsen may be dying but he is laughing at death with the bassoons.
This symphony was written in 1925. The structure and tonality of this symphony are both individual and unorthodox. The Danish critics called it an enigmatic work. This is a bitter and ironic work to complete his symphonic oeuvre. Nielsen was never able to make a decent living out of his compositions. When Nielsen began composing his last symphony, he wrote, "As far as I can see it, it will on the whole be different from my other symphonies; more amiable and smooth, or how shall I put it, but it is impossible to tell as I do not know at all what currents I may run into during the voyage."
Notable performances are by Michael Schonwandt, Leonard Bernstein and Herbert Blomstedt.

Sinfonia Espansiva - Carl Nielsen

2010-10-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

You cannot listen to Nielsen and not become a better person for it. This is one of the most humane symphonies. The first few notes hold you spellbound. Great hammer blows from the whole orchestra, abrupt and jolting like pokes of fortissimo that come as a shock. There is an odd rhythmic pattern to them; yet, you cannot tell when the next turn is coming. Each feels like a thunderclap. The music springs to life taking form right before your ears. The music soars and expands. It is indeed 'Espansiva'. You are on a roller coaster that swings you from side to side so that you never know exactly where you are going. You only feel the excitement of the thrilling ride. This title represents Nielsen's genius at creating music that continually expands itself like a breathing organism, unpredictable and forever forward. The opening movement as I said earlier is friendly after the introductory percussion onslaught following which there is a distinct Danish flavoured theme that opens the bluff. The second movement is a 'Pastorale'. Here, a tenor/baritone and a soprano thread through the instrumental patterns with pipe organ arpeggios in the background together with french horns, oboe and flute. The two soloists wordlessly intone an aura of landscape and panorama. The third movement is a neat scherzo with an opening statement on the french horns that concludes softly on the timpani, oboe and bassoon. The finale has a big, simple tune. More contrapuntal entries open up. The brass introduce an apocalyptic impulse into the continuity with a canon that is exotically harmonised with punctuated rhythms to end in a rapt climax. This recording is good with Schonwandt delivering a charged performance with the Danish National Radio Orchestra. The best performance of this symphony comes from Leonard Bernstein with the same orchestra and one of his early sixties' recordings with the New York Philharmonic.

Die Zauberflote - Sir Colin Davis

2010-10-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

Die Zauberflote was composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The work is in the form of a Singspiel that includes both singing and spoken dialogue. The opera was premiered on 30th September 1791, about three months before Mozart died. Mozart himself conducted the Orchestra Freihaustheater auf der Wieden, Wien. The librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder sang the role of Papageno.
This opera is widely known for its masonic allegory. For example, the opening bars of the overture are reminiscent of the second degree knocks on the door. Mozart and Schikaneder were masons. Throughout the opera, the masonic symbolism is easily seen and particularly during the trials in the Temple of Wisdom.
The Queen of the Night's aria , 'Der Holle Rache Kocht in Meinem Herzen' is the most well known of all time and is the greatest aria written ever for a coloratura soprano. This difficult aria demands a two range octave and a lyric soprano voice dramatic enough to convey the emotional brevity of the scene.
If Mozart had attended the performance of Diana Damrau under Sir Colin Davis and the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, he would have shed tears of ecstacy. I am convinced that this is the best and most complete experience of this opera that we could get. This production gives detail that is astounding. Enormous work has gone into the elaborate costumes and stage designs. They are briliantly captured by the camera. The lighting gives nuances between the night and daylight scenes. It seems very natural. Sir Colin Davis has brought magic to this Zauberflote.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvuKxL4LOqc

Stationary Bike

2010-10-19T05:15:00.000-07:00

Stephen King's short story. (B-).About an ad painter Richard Sifkitz whose cholesterol levels go very high due to obsessive Krispy Kreme hogging. He is advised strict diet and rigid exercise by his Dr. Brady. He decides to go down to his parking lot basement and exercise on his stationary bike. Whenever he sits on the stationary bike and starts to pedal, he falls asleep and the stationary bike takes over giving him an eerie ride by the countryside, a ride ridden with guilt and complexes and bizarre unfolding of events. There are some brilliant passages in this short story such as:
"Once upon a time, back in the seventies, you could get away with a cholesterol reading of 240, but of course back in the seventies, you could still smoke in the waiting rooms at hospitals".
"Once you are past forty, it gets harder every year. After forty, Richard, the weight sticks to your arse like babyshit sticks to a bedroom wall".
"That was in the fall of 2002, a year after the Twin Towers had fallen into the streets of the Financial District and life in New York City was returning to a slightly paranoid version of normal.. except in New York, slightly paranoid was normal".
"Except when he went down the next day, there was no need to paint the beer cans out of the picture; they were already gone".
"And the taste in his mouth was oily and dusty, oily on his tongue and dusty on the insides of his cheeks and his teeth, and his back hurt, it hurt LAMF that stood for Like A Motherfucker".
"My last chance to avoid the ending everyone expects in stories like this".
"Despite whatever the Hindu philosophy might be, Richard Sifkitz believed you only went around once".

Dvorak: New World and Bernstein

2010-10-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

I got this yesterday. The New York Philharmonic recording of 1962. I have been stung by it. I have heard at least twenty performances of this symphony and the only one to surpass Bernstein is Istvan Kertesz with the London Symphony also in the sixties. Since then, there have been umpteen performances but none worth the weight with the exception of Carlo Maria Giulini , Zubin Mehta, Herbert Von Karajan, Witold Rowicki and Rudolf Kempe. Prior to Bernstein and Kertesz, an electrifying rendition exists and it is by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC.
Just one point in why I find this performance so great. New York plays with great elan and Bernstein is the pioneer in recognising the first movement exposition repeat. No one before him acknowledged that.
The more I listen to Leonard Bernstein the more I realise that he has left his definitive stamp on quite a few recordings. This is one of them.

Five Star Airliners and Cattle Carrier Sectors

2010-09-27T05:09:00.000-07:00

I boarded my Qatar Airways Airbus 321 at Kuwait. One thing is certain. The economy class leg space in Qatar beats the same in Emirates. Thank God, I did not get pumpkin seeds for starters; instead I was given boiled watermelon flavored sweets to suck on; needless to say they were not as good as Ravalgaon. But they got me on the way to become extremely thirsty. Soon afterward, I was served a rotten Monty's baked chick pea and chicken sandwich that made me more thirsty. By the time I called a stewardess to give me a cup of water, the captain croaked,"cabin crew to stations for landing". There was a gap of at least five minutes between this croaking and the time that the cabin crew parked their arses on their stations. They even had time to clear trash cups but not to serve a thirsty passenger. We are in the jet ages and they behave as if they were in the locomotive age. I would train them to serve children and women and people with genuine requirements even when they are landing or taking off. It is no big deal. Then as soon as we landed, I could not ask for water of course because the cattle got ready to deplane. They did not mind waiting, standing in awkward positions even for ten minutes. To their dismay, they found out that they would not be walking into an aero-bridge but onto a stair-trolley to be carried away in a bus to the airport main lounges that were at least two kilometres away. This is my story. And this is my message to both Qatar and Emirates (Five Star and Four Star airliners)to treat all sectors with respect. They may not earn moolah on the Kuwait-Doha, Kuwait-Dubai or Doha-Hyderabad and Dubai-Hyderabad sectors. They rate these sectors as cattle carrier sectors. Let me see this indifference on their Doha-London or Dubai-Munich sectors. These sectors would give economy travelers also elephantine leg space to spread their legs and their wings; also munch and sip festively while listening to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov or watching classics like 'The Big Sleep'.

Kuwait Airport

2010-09-26T02:54:00.000-07:00

There are numerous international airports. I am sharing my experience at Kuwait International Airport. It is gloomy. I rate Hyderabad International Airport at Shamshabad better than Kuwait. At Kuwait, you feel you are in an anti-traveler friendly environment. For people arriving, there are eighty-eight passenger strong queues x 3 for 'Other Nationalities' while there are five passenger strong queues x 4 for 'GCC Nationals'. Talk about lopsided planning. While on this subject, why do airlines have one first class counter at any international airport counter handling only first class check-ins when there are 2/300? Then there is one business class check-in counter when there are 18/300? Then there are only three economy check-in counters with in-adept staff to handle 280/300. Let us get back to Kuwait airport. Be it Emirates or Kuwait Airways or Qatar Airways, there are serpentine queues, indifferent staff, arrogant porters, grouchy and discourteous.Then there is the matter of foreign exchange. There are only two counters at this international airport and one of them is perennially non-staffed. The remaining counter is staffed by such caliber that takes on an average five minutes per person with an average exchange of $1000 per person. The counters do not even keep change. People are forced to travel with denominations of only $100 for all eastern and middle eastern countries to eye them suspiciously, lick the notes up and down, gaze through them and then pronounce them clean.

Rest Stop

2010-09-07T07:31:00.000-07:00

This is a short story by Stephen King from his compilation, 'Just After Sunset'. This story gets an 'A'. It is about an English professor, John Dykstra who encounters his alter ego split personality Rick Hardin at a rest stop when he goes to pee and stumbles upon a foul man abusing a woman in a ladies bathroom. This English Professor who cannot even swat a fly gives the ramming of his life to this abuser. Here are some brilliant passages: He walked across the parking lot to the building, the heels of his cowboy boots clocking. John Dykstra never would have worn faded jeans and cowboy boots but Hardin was a different breed of hot rod. Unlike Dykstra, Hardin didn't care much what people thought of his appearance.... There was a slap,followed by a thump, a muffled meat thump. Dykstra realized he was listening to the unremarkable sounds of abuse.... He could actually see the red hand shape on the woman's cheek and her head bouncing off the wall of beige tile.... Lee (the abuser) took off the queerly delicate spectacles and put them on the pavement. Hardin immediately stepped on them with the heel of one boot. There was a little snapping sound and the delicious grind of glass.

Harvey's Dream

2010-09-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

This short story by Stephen King from the compilation 'Just After Sunset' gets AAA.
This story is about a couple, Harvey and Janet Stevens who have three daughters settled away from them. The couple are quite bored with each other; Harvey is at the corner of Alzheimer setting in. Harvey narrates a nightmare to Janet at the kitchen table. He gets a call in his dream from his second daughter, Trisha,telling him that her sister is dead. He does not know whether it is the eldest Jenna or the youngest Stephanie. Janet knows that this dream could be a true foreboding as she suspects that something bad may have happened to her eldest daughter Jenna since she started going out with a man old enough to be her father. She has already seen a big dent and dried blood on that person's car the previous evening. When he finishes narrating, the phone rings and he relives the nightmare when he learns that the eldest of his three daughters, Jenna, is killed. The story is very well written. Here is one of the passages, "But it was like this," he says, "I mean, the sun was shining in.' He raises a hand and stirs the dust motes into lively life around his head and she wants to scream at him not to do that.... He falls silent and the kitchen belongs to the sun and the dancing motes; outside, the world is on hold.... It is a wrong number, she thinks. It has to be, because if you tell your dreams, they don't come true.

Bloody Spartacus

2010-09-07T01:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2CqtNeRK_w

This is a television drama sponsored by Starz, a U.S. based Pay Channel in January 2010. Thirteen Episodes make the Season I. It is AAA.
The series portrays the historical figure Spartacus (played by Kirk Douglas in the Stanley Kubrick masterpiece) now played by Andy Whitfield in this well directed television drama.
Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator around 70 B.C. who created lot of problems for the Roman Republic in masterminding a severe uprising by rebel gladiators against them. The drama brings out the early life of Spartacus. The drama is restricted for solo viewing and not with the family. The violence and nudity scenes are plenty and done in good taste. The drama does pound you savagely.
Andy Whitfield is supported capably by John Hannah, Lucy Lawless, Peter Mensah, Manu Bennett, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Erin Cummings and Jai Courtney. Joseph LoDuca has given good percussion strong music for the drama series.
A prequel titled Spartacus: Gods of the Arena is scheduled for January 2011 with six episodes followed by shooting for the Season II . The shooting had stopped after the first season as Andy Whitfield was diagnosed for Hodgkins Lymphoma and post treatment for the cancer, he will be back for the filming.

El Condor Pasa

2010-09-07T00:28:00.000-07:00

The Peruvian Melody first from Simon and Garfunkel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pey29CLID3I

On Pan Pipes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_gSydN_BYM

Wachet Auf

2010-09-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

A cantata completed by Johann Sebastian Bach on 25th November 1731. Popularly known as 'Sleepers Wake'. Beautiful. This has inspired A Whiter Shade of Pale of 1967 by Procol Harum that John Lennon ticked as the greatest rock and roll song perhaps ever written.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyWOIKCtjiw

Roman Polanski has done it again

2010-09-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

Few years back, I was mesmerised by Roman Polanski's 'Pianist'. It was refreshing to see 'The Ghost Writer' this year . I saw it twice in three days and this film replaces all before it as the Film Of The Year. Truly Hitchcockian. What attention to details! Build up and suspense is truly magnetic. Embellished by an outstanding musical score by Alexandre Desplat. Hear it. Roman Polanski has handled this script with an ease like Alfred Hitchcock would have done with Saboteur and The Man who Knew Too Much. I was first bowled over by Polanski's 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'The Tenant'. This film is in the true tradition of how a tale has to be told even if the tale has political overtones. Any other director would have found the going dry and tough. Ewan Mcgregor, I always felt had the potential to deliver; and he has done greatly. Pierce Brosnan is adequate. Good supporting work from Timothy Hutton, James Belushi and Tom Wilkinson. Let me get back to Polanski who is the Master Director here and excellent work by Aexandre Desplat. The visuals are breathtaking and perfect for the sombre mood of the script. The music is a perfect fit to this suspenseful cocktail of a tale. Polanski was born Rajmund Roman Liebling in Paris and his family moved to Poland for business where the second world war saw his parents being sent to the prison concentration camps where his mother died. His father and himself survived the Polish holocaust. He made his mark on Polish cinema with 'A Knife in the Water' in 1962. His work in the American scene started with films like Repulsion(1965), Cul-de-Sac (1966), The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), Rosemary's Baby (1968),Macbeth (1971),Diary of Forbidden Dreams (1972),Chinatown (1974),The Tenant (1976), Tess (1979), Pirates (1986), Frantic (1988),Bitter Moon (1992),Death and the Maiden (1994),The Ninth Gate (1999),The Pianist (2002),Oliver Twist(2005), To Each His Own Cinema (2007) and The Ghost Writer (2010). The case against him for raping a young girl apart, he has inherited the spirit of Hitchcock in his style of film making.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoTUX6ZKke0

A Bridge Over Troubled Water

2010-08-24T00:13:00.000-07:00

A Simon & Garfunkel masterpiece.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYKJuDxYr3I

The Gingerbread Girl

2010-08-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

This story by Stephen King is AAA. Very well written about a woman who has lost her daughter recently and takes up running obsessively, so much so that even her husband gets fed up of her. She leaves him and starts living in her father's beach shack at Vermillion Key. The story unfolds with how she runs into a neighbourhood psycho and how her running habit and strong legs come in handy to save her life. Some pages are brilliantly written, such as .. "when the front door slammed and Em knew he had really left, that abnormal brightness in the world started to turn gray and she realized she was on the verge of fainting. She could not afford to faint. If there was an afterlife and she eventually saw her father there, how could she explain to him that she had wasted her last minutes on earth in unconsciousness? He would be disappointed in her. Even if they met in heaven, standing ankle-deep in clouds while angels all around them played the music of the spheres (arranged for harp), he would be disappointed in her for wasting her only chance in a Victorian swoon." The story telling is well paced and makes you bite your lower lip with the frenetic tempo and taut suspense. Real good narration.

Willa

2010-08-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

I am reading a compilation of Stephen King's short stories titled "Just After Sunset". The first of the lot, 'Willa', is not the best story in the book; in fact, it is one of the soggiest I've read and I will not rate it above a 'C'. Though King loves it very much, it's certainly not up my alley. It is about a couple who move around as ghosts in a town called Crowheart Springs in Wyoming after their premature death on account of an Amtrak train derailment in the 1980s. David and Willa wander around even two decades later in 2006 particularly haunting juke boxes in decrepit bars listening to God awful country music by washed out groups. The only thing worthwhile in the story is the imagery involved where David is on the lookout for Willa and he is walking near the railroad tracks when he encounters a dangerous wolf who runs away, scared of him and David proudly reveals later when he finds Willa at the bar listening to a group perform country music and proclaims to her,"I should be called the Wolf Frightener". I thought that was a cute touch to the story. Apart from this, there is nothing much happening and the story ends in a whimper.

Mahler's Farewell

2010-08-01T03:47:00.000-07:00

The conclusion of Mahler's Farewell Tenth.. One of the most beautiful strains of music ever penned. Philadelphia under Eugene Ormandy (1964).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdxCIfGimCI

This symphony was written in 1910. Mahler's final composition. I call it 'Farewell'. Mahler never managed to complete the orchestral drafts except the whole first movement and the first twenty eight measures of the third movement. The rest was in piano edit. The work was cut short by his premature death at the age of fifty from a streptococcal infection of the blood. Mahler saw it coming and right from the first measures of his Death Ninth Symphony, he is saying his goodbyes to the world and communicating with His Creator.
Mahler was obsessed with death throughout his life. He resigned from the Wiener Opern in 1907, his forty-seventh year. His elder daughter died that year in New York. He was slso diagnosed with a blood infection and a heart disease. he lived the remaining four years under the shadow of death. Yet he lived his life too. He planned a career in the New World where he was excited with his tenure as the conductor of the New York Philharmonic. But again in 1910, his emotional life sank in turmoil. He discovered that his wife Alma was having an affair with the architect Walter Gropius. He even went to consult Sigmund Freud in Holland. During this period, in a span of few weeks, he completed the blueprint for the tenth symphony. In the winter of 1910-11, he went back to a further revision of the already completed Death (Ninth) Symphony. So, the tenth remained a skeleton and he spoke of it as a 'work fully prepared in the sketch."
Most conductors perform the first movement Adagio alone. The English writer Derryck Cooke completed the first performing version(there is another by Remo Mazzetti, Jr. under the guidance of Leonard Slatkin). This is not the version that we hear nowadays as this was revised by Cooke and the final script came out; was performed first by Wyn Morris and the New Philharmonia in London on 15th October 1972.
Here is the first radio broadcast on my birthday in 1960 of Deryck Cooke's version played by the Philharmonia London under Berthold Goldschmidt. Cooke also had a short life like Mahler as he passed away in 57 years.Deryck Cooke never claimed that he was completing the symphony. Cooke says, "Mahler's music, even in its unperfected and unelaborated state, has such significance, strength and beauty, that it dwarfs into insignificance any uncertainties." When the first realisation of the tenth was broadcast in 1960, Alma Mahler created trouble and stayed future performances legally but after four years she gave permission (Ormandy/Philadelphia version) and when she heard the music for the first time, she was so moved by it that she removed her ban and gave the rights of performance to Cooke's transcript. The sketches of this symphony were written by Mahler at Toblach in the Italian Dolomites. The crisis in his life brought about a formidable masterpiece.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/DeryckCookeWeb/videos/1/

The Sounds of Silence

2010-07-31T22:18:00.000-07:00

This Simon & Garfunkel masterpiece of the late 60s was used in a film, 'The Graduate' to a nicety. Christopher Nolan has missed out by not using this great song in his film 'Inception'. Those who have seen and really understood this film will know what I mean. Superb lyrics and a superb composition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsX03LOMhI

Eine Alpensinfonie

2010-07-25T23:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFvzAdbRfu8

Richard Strauss wrote this symphony for a hundred strings, thirty wind instruments, twenty french horns,six trumpets,six trombones, pipe organ, wind machine, thunder machine, heckelphone, four timpani, celesta, contrabassoon, four tenor tubas, two tubas, glockenspiel, tam tam - in all 180 players.
This is Richard Strauss' statement of Alpine nature and life to the Almighty Divine Architect of the Universe. It was written between 1911 and 1915. It had its premiere in Berlin on 28th October, 1915. Strauss is at the peak of his powers of orchestration. It is one of the most eloquent expressions of his musico-philosophical views. It is actually a symphonic poem in the garb of a symphony.It is played without pause but its various sections have been given titles - Night, Sunrise, the Ascent, Hunting Horns, Entrance into the Forest, Wandering by the Brook, At the Waterfall, Apparition, On Flowery Meadows, On a Mountain Pasture ( with the cowbells sequence), Lost in the Thicket and Brush, On the Glacier, Perilous Moments,On the Summit,Vision, The Fog Rises, The Sun is Clouded Over, Elegy, Calm before the Storm, Thunderstorm, Descent, Sunset, Epilogue and Night again.
Richard Strauss was one of music's greatest individualists.He created an aura around him.His concerts were attended not because of his compositions or his conducting but because he was Richard Strauss. He was an innovator and he lived during the cross-over point in the movements of art that is from romanticism to neo-romanticism and impressionism.
Richard Strauss owes much to Franz Liszt, the creator of the symphonic poem. Strauss considered himself an 'Ausdrucksmusiker'(Musician of Expression); if there ever was an 'Expressionism' as a movement in art or music, he belonged to it. The symphonic poem was an ideal medium for his romantic musical gifts. He musically describes not only what man does, but man's inner state of mind. Strauss saw man as a heroic figure. Critics had mixed reactions to some of his innovations. People did not adapt to change fast. When Berlioz and Franck used the English Horn in their symphonies, the critics said it was vulgar because Haydn and Beethoven did not use an English Horn in their symphonies. Meyerbeer and Bizet were criticized for using saxophones. Berlioz was also criticized for using an exceptionally large orchestra.
Strauss used some naturalistic sounds in this symphony such as cowbells and machines to create the sounds of wind and thunder. Mahler used cowbells before in his Tragic Symphony and his Seventh Symphony. Strauss' score was branded by some critics as a movie score. Some wrote, "this is really throwing the baby out with the bath water." When Strauss completed this symphony, he said, "Finally, I have learnt to orchestrate." The critics were arseholes who did not appreciate music. They only wanted convention that they could comfortably describe.
I say that it is a joy to discover so rich a musical masterpiece as this symphony that is Strauss' finest work.A great performance comes from Zubin Mehta and the Berliner Philharmoniker followed by Rudolf Kempe and the Royal Philharmonic succeeded by Strauss' own performance with the Bayerischen Rundfunks in his 1941 recording.

As Long As You Love Me

2010-07-25T23:45:00.000-07:00

Backstreet Boys
[A]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SSy5yeA5eo

Robert Schumann Piano Quartet E Flat Major. Op. 47.

2010-07-13T07:02:00.000-07:00

As the earlier piano quintet, this E Flat major quartet was also finished in the same year 1842 in the month of October.The quintet was finished a few weeks before this. Like the quintet, there are thematic links between movements.
The first movement - Sostenuto Assai - Allegro Ma Non Troppo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_CjUaSGSm4

The Scherzo has two trio sections:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbt2REPg7do

Andante Cantabile is in ternary form. A moving rendition by the Meadowmount Quartet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZMT36FKVuU

The Finale is in sonata form. After an introductory outburst, the viola states the lively theme. In a free rondo form, the finale has a lengthy closing coda section:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pxyfF5k8Xk

Schumann's Lively Piano Quintet in E Flat Major

2010-07-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

This work was composed in October 1842. This is Op.44. Schumann was the first romantic composer to pair the pianoforte with the string quartet. In my earlier post, I have shared how Mahler wrote a single movement in his sixteenth year in A Minor.
This is the Allegro Brillante:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iuKARQpzLk

In Modo D'Una Marcia- Un Poco Largamente - A funeral march in C Minor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9krhBwiJg9k

Scherzo - Molto Vivace - ascending and descending scales;two trios; a lyrical canon for violin and viola and the second one an accented perpetual motion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jY3YeChYI8

Allegro Ma Non Troppo begins in C Minor and not the tonic E Flat Major. At the conclusion, this main theme is combined with the Allegro Brillante theme with a double fugue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH3_uDyHIFc

My Love - Westlife

2010-07-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

Coast to Coast/ My Love... A Beautiful Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHyzxVlOI98

Danny Elfman with the Wolfman Score

2010-07-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

Do watch this film. It is the best effort this year after the Shutter Island. Brings Avatar and Star Trek down. Superb music score by Elfman. AAAAA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyl-gfMfLeE

Mahler's A Minor Piano Quartet - The Shutter Island

2010-07-10T04:58:00.000-07:00

A spacious performance by the Quarto Quartet from Sofia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIekvye53gg

This movement has been beautifully used in the latest Scorsese's masterpiece 'The Shutter Island.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHHdpb0-K0E

Gustav Mahler: Piano Quartet in A Minor - Single Movement

2010-07-10T04:32:00.000-07:00

This movement in A Minor for Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello was written in Mahler's sixteenth year and it is mature beyond his years. Only this movement has survived as he destroyed the remaining movements. Mahler was studying in his first year at the Wiener Conservatory. When Mahler sent this work to his publishers, they rejected it. What arseholes! That led to Mahler destroying the other movements. This survived. This movement got its first performance in Wiener with Mahler on the piano on 12th September 1876 and it was laid to sleep until it got its next performance on 12th January 1964 in New York by Peter Serkin playing the piano with the Galimir Quartet. This piece was found among the effects of his widow Alma after her death in 1964 in a folder labelled 'early compositions.'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyf64r4KvaI

Death Knoll

2010-07-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

Sergei Rachmaninov
Prelude C Sharp Minor Op.3 No.2
The Bells of Death
Vladimir Ashkenazy
AAAAAAA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKYkssqyYkc

Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely

2010-07-08T04:04:00.000-07:00

A beautiful song by Backstreet Boys
AA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKT_6e-UFIw

A Brilliant and Effective Book

2010-07-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

This book is about the changes in the life of a techie though in the beginning, the story is not heading that way. The book is full of dialogues between Saminathan(Sam) , a Project Manager and his onsite boss Bobby Reddy (Bob).I will not reveal who Bob is actually because when you finish reading the book, it will hit you in the last pages on the true identity of Bob. Bob is the teacher of management techniques and Sam the student. As the book takes you on a progress from Bangalore to Los Angeles, you find Sam and Bob on a parallel ground planning strategies for their upcoming project for an aviation company in the USA. There is not a dull moment when they do so. Though there are many cliches in the book, subjects such as 'what goes wrong in boardroom planning?', 'how employees sometimes save their skin' and 'Jujitsu, Ninjitsu tactics'are explained in a spellbinding manner.
A Comedy of Errors is not Shakespearean effort but it is witty, topical and effective not only for the IT sector but for any management student. For its narrative and style, I will give it a four star AA rating. Prasanna Kumar has given an open and honest rendition of tactics and strategies that are employed by managers and employees to play the climbing corporate game particularly in the clinching of difficult projects in an impossible situation. Like I said, it is a book that has to be read not only by the IT fraternity but by all managers trying to work on new projects. A simple narrative style by Prasanna Kumar that is brilliantly effective.

Star Trek

2010-07-01T03:57:00.000-07:00

Since its creation by Gene Roddenberry, this series have become a legend. No denying the fact that it is a fantastic science fiction effort made for television and cinema.
Here is a peek at the original with the theme by Alexander Courage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdjL8WXjlGI

Then came the great movie with Shatner, Nimoy, DeForest Kelley and Persis Khambatta with an additional superb work done by Jerry Goldsmith:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=456aIFMbXVQ

Then last year the movie on Star Trek is actually the one to be seen even before you see the television series because it gives you a peak at the prequel of how Captain James Kirk and Spock came about to the Enterprise. The music by Michael Gioacchino is magnificent and I will give the rating AA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl6WUpyGnhg

The Heavenly Intermezzo from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana

2010-06-22T03:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykUCfqvnI9I

Howard Shore's Music Score for The Fellowship of the Ring

2010-06-22T03:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRB4VgXswPs

Der Engel von Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder

2010-06-22T03:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpCoauKnXXQ

Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana

2010-06-19T23:41:00.000-07:00

This is a masterwork by Pietro Mascagni; one, he can be proud of even if it was his single opus. This is a worthy offering. A tale of unrequited love, forlorn and tragic. Good singing by Placido Domingo as Turiddu and Elena Obratzsova as Santuzza; the La Scala Milan Orchestra and chorus very competently handled by Georges Pretre. Very beautifully filmed by the master filmmaker, Franco Zeffirelli in 1982. This is an opera in one act adapted from a short story by Giovanni Verga. It was premiered in May 1890. The opera depicts life in a Sicilian village where love, betrayal and integrity come about on Easter day. The intermezzo from this opera is heavenly music.

The Fellowship of the Ring - Breathtaking!

2010-06-19T23:10:00.000-07:00

This is the first part of the trilogy written by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973). An English writer and a Professor at the Oxford University. He fought as a second lieutenant with the Lancashire Fusiliers during the First World War. He started writing the 'Lord of the Rings' in 1925.
The synopsis of the Fellowship: In a small village in the Shire, a young hobbit named Frodo has been entrusted with an ancient Ring; he must embark on an epic journey to the depths of Mount Doom in order to destroy it with the help of his eight companions.
This film made by Peter Jackson is an immortal legend in itself. This will feature in the top twenty films ever made. I had not read the book before I saw the film. Yet, I feel that I have read pages and pages as the film is so descriptive and expansive. I am fortunate to own the extended version of the complete trilogy. All parts are played to perfection by the cast and the casting is one of the best seen in years. It is a case of the best possible person for the part at every stage of the film. Special mention for Sir Ian Mckellen, Christopher Lee, Ian Holm and Elijah Wood. The film is a masterpiece and bears potential of outshining its contemporaries. The music of the film is its strongest point. Howard Shore has come out with a magnificent score. It is epic film music writing. I will call it breathtaking and will not hesitate to grant it AAAAAAA.

Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci

2010-06-03T03:10:00.000-07:00

I have always been fascinated by the beautiful aria, 'Vesti La Giubba' from this opera since the last thirty five years. But today, I heard the complete opera for the first time on the DVD video of Deutsche Grammophon Gessellschaft. It is a combination coupling disc with Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana. The singing is superb from Placido Domingo and Teresa Stratas with the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Alla Scala, Milan under Georges Pretre. This is a 1981 Unitel performance. Superb. The opera has been filmed by none other than Franco Zeffirelli who made masterpieces like 'Jesus of Nazareth' and 'Romeo and Juliet'. He filmed the opera in an empty theatre creating a vision that maintains the sense of a stage seen from an auditorium.
If you are hearing an opera for the first time and you like a tragedy with a love triangle, then this is a perfect opera for you and a very good performance too on this disc. This is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written by Ruggero Leoncavallo. This opera remains one of the most popular works in the operatic repertoire.

This Titanic clash beats the latest one.

2010-05-12T07:05:00.000-07:00

The Clash of the Titans (Original): An outstanding film made by Desmond Davis in 1981. The latest may be in 3D and fully decorated by computer graphics but the narration in this film is attractive and Laurence Olivier as Zeus makes this presentation an unforgettable one.I strongly recommend this fantasy classic. Ursula Andress is Aphrodite. Maggie Smith is Thetis. Harry Hamlin is Perseus. Burgess Meredith is Ammon and the beautiful Judi Bowker is Andromeda. The clash between Kraken and Medusa is awesome. Above all, Herbert Spencer's direction of Laurence Rosenthal's score of the film with the London Symphony players is simply magnificent particularly the Pegasus theme and the love theme of Perseus and Andromeda. A sure winner.

Haydn's Final London Symphony

2010-05-06T05:45:00.001-07:00

I just finished hearing Haydn's London Symphony played by the Berlin Philharmonic under Sergiu Celibidache in 1950. Many people laugh at the tempi and call it lethargic but I enjoyed the performance thoroughly with Haydn taken at a lugubrious and spacious pace. The Berlin strings are superb even with the age of the recording. 'London' Symphony No. 104 in D Major is Haydn's final symphony. It is the last of the twelve 'London' symphonies. It was composed by Haydn while he was living in London. it was premiered at the King's Theatre on 4th May 1795. Haydn wrote: "I made 4000 gulden on this evening; such a thing is possible only in England." The work is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in A Major, two bassoons, two french horns ( In D Major and G Major), two trumpets (in D Major), timpani and strings.
It is a magnificent work. Celibidache is superb in his historic reading.

Zany ... and yet the game is not afoot like Brett

2010-05-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

Even in film making, there is such a thing as blasphemy and this film Sherlock Holmes) comes close to that borderline. Guy Ritchie has done this in bad taste. When you read Arthur Conan Doyle and his creation Sherlock Holmes, you place actors like Peter Cushing and the definitive Jeremy Brett. Neither Robert Downey Jr. nor Jude Law come across as Holmes and Watson. The story is gripping with Lord Blackwood and Professor Moriarty. Mark Strong has done a superb job as Lord Blackwood but the remaining cast falls by the wayside. Rachel McAdams is a disappointment. The only winner in the film is Hans Zimmer with an outstanding musical score. He has worked hard in vain on such a sorry project. The film is zany and yet the game is not afoot as with Jeremy Brett and the Granada television project. That is the definitive Holmes.. any time. At best, this is bad time pass!

DSCH : TENTH

2010-05-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

Shostakovich wrote his tenth symphony in 1953. This was the year Stalin died. The work is in E Minor. The personal statement dimension is confirmed by Shostakovich's use of the initials DSCH (D, E Flat, C, B Natural in German notation) in the Allegretto movement. Robert Layton has written in the GRAMOPHONE, "few works give a deeper insight into the interior landscape of the Russian soul."
The first movement's tragic brooding and the third movement's melancholy define the symphony's mood. Against this mood, the whirlwind scherzo is set. The finale is a sprinting dash. An end to this symphony caused a critic to dub the symphony 'an optimistic tragedy.' The Allegro is a tribute to Stalin. Brutally, the music suggests banality of evil.
Karajan's reading with the Berliners is a great one, for me the definitive.He first conducted this symphony in Berlin in March 1959. In November 1966, he made his first recording of it. The Moscow performance which followed that in May 1969 was a sensation. Solomon Volkov, who wrote 'Testimony: The Memoirs of Shostakovich' says that the concert was a siege; tickets were impossible to get. Police, mounted and on foot, surrounded the theatre. Mariss Jansons was in the audience there and he recalled, "The Berlin Philharmonic played at 200 per cent. It was an unbelievable occasion." Shostakovich was also in the audience. He was so moved that he joined Karajan and the orchestra on stage after the performance.
The 1981 recording of the symphony came at a special time. In the wake of serious illness in 1976, Karajan returned to music with renewed intensity and Berlin, which he had guided for over a quarter of a century, was at the very peak of its powers. The performance as per Karajan was to some extent to share the idea of a struggle to survive in a world beset by menace. In the Allegro section of the finale, Shostakovich's incredibly quick metronome mark was now taken literally, something few orchestras could contemplate, let alone manage. Already in his 1966 recording, Karajan had shown that he had the measure of this symphony.
In the first movement, he gives an atmosphere described as unremitting and in the finale, the Berliners leave no doubt as to their virtuosity. The Berlin Philharmonic is beyond compare when it attacks the Allegro and the horn solo which introduces the Allegretto is hot. Karajan takes the climaxes more relentlessly than any other conductor. His account has the greatest impact. Karajan once told that he would have liked to be Dmitri Shostakovich had he been a composer.

Here is a Munich performance of Shostakovich Tenth by Sir Georg Solti

http://youtu.be/DVKHZZyQ3P0

Dickens' Carol

2010-05-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

No one talks about this book. No one talks about this movie. I will talk about both of them. I had read this book in my school days. Then I let it go. It came back to me last year when I was revising my nephew's English literature lessons for his tenth exam.The lesson had such an impact on me that I waited for Zemeckis' film to release last Christmas so that I could see it in 3D. Alas! I missed it because the film ran only for about a fortnight at the Imax in Hyderabad and I could not catch it thinking that it would run for a long time.
I strongly recommend that every person who loves a classic must read this book of Charles Dickens at least once in his lifetime. I finally got a pirated DVD version of this film and saw it at home and I would go a step further to say that any person who loves a classic must see this film.
Dickens wrote this magnum opus in 1843. What a century this nineteenth was! A classic composition. Even after 167 years, we marvel at this book and learn lessons from it. What more can I say about Charles Dickens? Personally, Oliver Twist is my favourite. Followed by this.
The film is directed by Robert Zemeckis and Jim Carrey is superlative as Ebenezer Scrooge. There have been umpteen versions of this film and none comes even close to this version. Though this is animated but it is more lively than livelier! Hats off to Zemeckis and Jim Carrey. This 3D film was made through the process of 'performance capture', a technique Zemeckis has previously used in his films, 'Polar Express' and 'Beowulf'.
Worldwide, this film has done business of 318 million dollars and in Hyderabad it has not even played for 318 people at the Imax. What a shame! I guess the people in Hyderabad have no spirit of celebration and sharing! All I know is I will not miss this in its re-run on Imax 3D.

The greatest of all Clarinet Concerti

2010-05-02T05:33:00.001-07:00

Clarinet Concerto in A Major (K.622) written in 1791 is the last of the Mozart concerti and mainly the notes are written in the bass register, written for Basset Klarinett. Up until 1791, no one knew what the bass clarinet looked like and it came as a shock to see a long instrument with a bulbous bell on the end. This work shows the depth of Mozart's mature style. At the peak of his compositional abilities and just weeks before his death, Mozart composed this concerto. He wrote it specifically for his friend and fellow mason, Anton Stadler, a clarinettist, who owed him $25,000 equivalent of that time and never paid it back to him. As a result of this non payment, Mozart was hand to mouth in his last ailing days.
This recording by Bernstein with Peter Schmidl and the Wiener Philharmoniker is all eloquence and brilliance. I haven't heard a single bad recording of this concerto by any soloist or orchestra, be it a chamber or larger ensemble. Here, Peter Schmidl has an emotional relationship with Mozart right from the first note. Bernstein carries off Mozart with competence in this rendition of the greatest of all clarinet concerti along with a crisp performance of the twenty-fifth and the twenty-ninth symphonies.

KULLERVO - A FINNISH LEGEND

2010-04-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

It took me some time to introduce myself to this great choral symphony of Sibelius. No symphonic cycle of Sibelius is complete without Kullervo. In 1892, this was the first extensive work of Sibelius.Johan Julius Christian Jean Sibelius was born in Hameenlinna on 8th December 1865. He became the master of Finnish national music. His music created a new national identity for the tiny nation that had long been a part of Sweden and was then annexed to the Russian empire. Kullervo, Op. 7, is a monumental symphony. The first movement conveys a sense of drama and fate. The Kullervo theme is lucid as an idee fixe. The opening movement reflects a Brucknerian approach although Tchaikovskian influence is also detectable. The second movement has crisp orchestration. The third movement highlights the dramatic qualities of the work. The rhythms and discords in the music support the drama of the sister's extensive monologue and the following lament of Kullervo taken from the Kalevala legend. The fourth movement is martial battle music coloured with folk music allusions. The last movement is sombre. The music subsides as Kullervo falls on his own sword. In conclusion, the listener returns to where he started as the main theme of the first movement rounds off the work. My first introduction to this work was by the Turku Philharmonic under Jorma Panula. It is a great reading that sounds purely Finnish.

Ein Deutsches Requiem

2010-04-14T02:12:00.001-07:00

This is a masterwork by Johannes Brahms. His greatest work if you look at the dimension and magnitude.The death of Robert Schumann inspired him to write this. It was a way of giving condolence to those who remain behind on earth after their dead have passed on. Brahms intended this work as a celebration of all humanity even in the face of inevitable death. Brahms claimed that he could have named this his 'Human Requiem'with its focus on comforting the living. The music really comforts whilst still acknowledging the tragedy of death.
The word 'Requiem' usually refers to the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead which begins with the Latin phrase, 'Requiem Aeternam Dona Eis Domine' (Grant them eternal rest, O Lord!). Brahms conceived the extra-ordinary idea of creating his own text selecting Biblical passages that do not correspond to the funereal liturgy of any church.
Brahms gives a sombre colour to the first movement by omitting the violins, piccolo, clarinets and timpani entirely and by subdividing the violas and cellos culminating with the utterance of 'selig' (Blessed) to close the movement with harp accompaniment. The second movement begins with a slow march passage in triple meter. The violins enter for the first time and in a high register. The timpani quietly sounds out ominous triplets. The chorus sings in unison first softly then in full voice as the march theme is repeated. This is the music that Brahms had originally composed for and then removed from his early D Minor Symphony. One movement came here and the other three went to the Piano Concerto No. 1. The baritone solo begins the third movement in a dialogue with the chorus. This is a haunting movement. The fourth movement is harmonically in a new world. It is a gentle middle section to the whole work representing sublime tranquillity. The fifth movement brings out the soprano and the contrast to the third movement is striking. The baritone earlier represents grief, doubt and despair. Here, the soprano sings of consolation. The opening of the sixth movement reverts to the uncertainty of the third in harmonic progressions that accompany the baritone's description of the mystery to come, the harmonies ranging from C Minor to F Sharp Minor. Three trombones and tuba announce the great moment.The excitement is extended into a powerful fugue in C Major. A Stretto leads to a final and forceful statement. The final movement is like the first. The basic thematic cell is in double bass and cellos. The sombre orchestral colours of the opening are replaced by reinstatement by the clarinets, the second pair of horns and the violins. The final section of the movement is a magical reworking of material from the opening movement. There is a return to the home key of F Major as the sopranos soar to a brilliant high A Major just like at the end of the first movement. The harps enter and rise to an ethereal conclusion over the final choral murmurs of 'selig' (blessed).
The definitive reading has come from Herbert Von Karajan and the Wiener Philharmoniker in 1985. Other recommended readings are : Fritz Lehmann/Berliner Philharmoniker; Daniel Barenboim/London Philharmonic; Robert Shaw/Atlanta Symphony; Otto Klemperer/Philharmonia Orchestra; Sir Georg Solti/Chicago Symphony; Sir Simon Rattle/ Berliner Philharmoniker.

Turning Lead into Gold

2010-04-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

A mystical tale about following recurrent dreams! This is the first book I have read of Paulo Coelho. After reading this book, I would say that it comes close to being a modern classic. The reason why it does not merit the status of a classic is because it falls short of a punch in the climax. The writing loses the intensity of the build up that has been promised at the beginning.The character sketches of Santiago, the Andalusian shepherd boy, the King, the Tangiers crystal seller, the Englishman, Fatima and the alchemist have been etched well. Coelho writes with wisdom and experience behind him. He has understood the pulse of the Spanish, the Arabs and the English quite well. While reading through this book, we also get enlightened about the art of alchemy.
It is a tender and gentle story. I will give you few glimpses: "People say strange things, the boy thought. Sometimes it's better to be with the sheep, who don't say anything. And better still to be alone with one's books. They tell their incredible stories at the time when you want to hear them. But when you're talking to people, they say some things that are so strange that you don't know how to continue the conversation." In one of the passages, Fatima tells Santiago, "The desert takes our men from us, and they don't always return..we know that, and we are used to it. Those who don't return become a part of the clouds, a part of the animals that hide in the ravines and of the water that comes from the earth. They become a part of everything ... they become the Soul of the World." This book teaches us how we all belong to the soul of the world which is in turn the soul of the Creator. It also teaches us that once we get on to the quest of our dreams, it is the soul of the universe that beckons us to succeed and inspires the environment to help us should we be true to our hearts.

Is piracy killing films in Hollywood and Bollywood?

2010-04-13T05:28:00.000-07:00

Piracy is not killing films in Hollywood. It is letting the whole world have access to films at a reasonable moderate cost unlike the brand pricing nonsense that we live with. The actors and the team units get enough and the big fish in the production studios make enough at the distributors' level . It is only the cinema owners who bear the sharp brunt of it all. For example, any film is not worth more than $3 for a viewing or for that matter a pair of jeans should cost only 5$ and not the horrendous amounts that the branded price tag demands. Coming to cars and electronics, that is a whole gamut too! Middle class families and lower are looted royally by the manufacturing and the retail world. Thus the pirates take over the submarine!

Avatar Soundtrack: Pure Spirit of the Forest

2010-04-07T01:31:00.000-07:00

Picked up the music soundtrack of Avatar. James Horner has written a superb principal theme- the pure spirits of the forest. Though there are serious overtones from the 'Titanic' and 'Troy' pages, yet the music is welcome and in the last year remains as one of the best creations. Sincere effort and well interpreted by his ensemble. Few days back, I had mentioned how he had a mesmerising spell on the score of A Beautiful Mind. He has done it again with Avatar. Cameron is a lucky guy to be supported by Horner.

The Mind Beautiful

2010-03-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

Haunting music by James Horner. Beautiful Themes. Ron Howard has come out with a clean winner. Good performances by Russell Crowe and the beautiful Jennifer Connelly. I had not read about the Equilibrium concept of John Nash Jr. and the personal trauma he had with schizophrenia and delusions before he got the Nobel for Economics Sciences that he shared with Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi in 1994. When I saw this film, I came to know about Nash. It was nostalgia for me as I had studied close to Princeton University at Glassboro State College (now Rowan). I had visited Princeton and almost felt that I was there when I saw the locale scenes.
I would say that Ron Howard romanticizes a bit and makes the story flashy. He could have underplayed the screenplay a bit. Yet the scenes of paranoid schizophrenia and delusions come out good with able performances by Paul Bettany as "the prodigal roommate" and the maniacal defense agent Parcher played by Ed Harris. Akiva Goldsman has written a good story on how to patch figments of a cracked imagination. The best reason to stay with the movie is Alicia Nash played by Jennifer Connelly. Her suffering comes out so well in her reading of the character. The best part of the movie is John Nash Jr.'s relationship with his wife Alicia. I am touched by the way Jennifer Connelly approaches Crowe when he is her professor and brings out her love for him. I have learnt from this film that love is patience, love is endurance, love is not just after one's own benefits and that love shines. To conclude, this film picked up the AFI best actress award for Jennifer Connelly. She also picked up the Oscar that year and the movie was the Film of the Year. James Horner has breathed life into the narrative with his compellingly mesmerising score. If not for Howard Shore's magnificent work on the Fellowship of the Ring that year, this was easily the best effort in music. A thoroughly satisfying film on the mind beautiful.

A haunting read

2010-02-09T07:12:00.000-08:00

One of the most honest books I have read recently. I never expected Khaled Hosseini, an Afghani settled in America to write such brilliant stuff. He is so honest in his expression that sometimes you feel like strangling the protagonist of the story yourself. If a writer can achieve this, then he is a bloody good writer.
There were passages in the book that made me cry.
This book revolves around Amir, a twelve year old who is fighting with his feelings to gain favour in his father's eyes and mighty jealous of anyone else who shares that favour with him. He is an ordinary boy, a coward and a weakling but possesses enough talent to win the local kite fighting tournament in Kabul.
The depiction of peaceful seventies' days in Kabul and the post Russian and Talibani regime passages are brillianly written.
More than Amir, it is Hassan who is 'The Kite Runner' and his boy Sohrab who tug at your heart strings. Hassan is younger to Amir, hare-lipped, a low caste Shia Hazara servant who is mocked in the streets. This story is about these two boys who could not see what was going to hit them on the afternoon of the kite flying tournament. That incident shatters their lives.
This is one of the greatest tales of redemption that I have read.
Hats off to Mr. Hosseini. This is a master story written with pain and honesty.
I will give you few glimpses of this master work : "I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. ... Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. we took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba . His was Amir - My name. Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975 - and all that followed- was already laid in those first words. ... We crossed the river and drove north through the crowded Pashtunistan Square. Baba (father) used to take me to Khyber restaurant there for kabab. The building was still standing, but its doors were padlocked, the windows shattered, and the letters K and R missing from its name ( Excellent imagery, typical and reminiscent of most of the civil and war torn strife areas not only of Afghanistan but universally could be describing any place in the world and you will come across images like these)... After all, life is not a Hindi movie. Zindagi Migzara. Afghans like to say - Life goes on, unmindful of beginning, end, kamyab, nah-kam, crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis." Well written.
Khaled Hosseini was born in Afghanistan and his family received political asylum in the States in 1980. He is a doctor and lives in California now. This is his first novel and richly deserving of the San Fransisco Chronicle Award and being declared Bestseller by the New York times.
It is full of haunting images. It is lively, engaging and will definitely bring a tear or two to your eyes.
People living in the subcontinent would identify with the importance of kite flying and kite running during Tilsankrat and other days of the year. Run with this kite and read. You will not be able to forget this book.

Largo From New World

2010-02-08T05:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO-kqgkJqA4

Dvorak's New World

2010-02-05T05:04:00.000-08:00

The first four symphonies of Dvorak were rejected by himself as immature and were omitted from his list of acknowledged works. Hence, this symphony was known as No. 5 till 1955. Earlier, his sixth symphony was published as No.1, Seventh as No. 2, Fifth as No. 3, Eighth as No.4 and occasionally labelled as 'Pastoral'.
NEW WORLD : This descriptive title is illuminating for this symphony. First, it sticks in the memory. Secondly, it reveals ethnic negro melodies adapted by Dvorak.
In 1891, Dvorak received a telegram from a wealthy American woman, Mrs. Jeanette M. Thurber, asking him to accept the post of Director at the National Conservatory of Music in New York founded by her some years earlier. Dvorak refused at first as he was reluctant to leave his native Czechoslovakia but was tempted later by the very large salary. When Dvorak reached New York in the autumn of 1892, he was the centre of attention of all musical circles. Mrs. Thurber wanted that Dvorak , who had produced a truly national music based on the folk music of his own country, should show Americans how to do the same thing with their own folk music. A close friend of Dvorak, Henry.E. Krehbiel, wrote that Dvorak held it to be the duty of composers to reflect in their music the spirit of the folk music of the people to whom they belong, not by using those tunes badly as themes, but by studying their characteristics and composing in their vein. Dvorak strove hard in his New World Symphony to reproduce the fundamental characteristics of the Red Indian and Negro melodies which he found in America. Henry Wordsworth Longfellow's ' Song of Hiawatha' made a deep impression on Dvorak as his notebooks show. Mrs. Thurber would have liked to see him make an opera of it but this did not work out. However, a tune jotted down by Dvorak in December 1892 under the heading 'Legend' became the theme of the middle section of the slow Largo movement of the symphony.
Like many nineteenth century symphonies, the New World exemplifies the cyclic principle of connecting the various movements thematically. In the slow introduction to the first movement, there is presented on the horns an emphatic rhythmic figure consisting of a rising arpeggio followed by a falling one.
This recurs as a motto theme in all the later movements. It is answered by a springily rhythmic phrase on the clarinets and bassoons. The second subject is announced on flutes and oboes. Near the end of the exposition, the flute plays a third lyrical tune. This theme carries over into the development. In the recapitulation, the first subject is much condensed and the second is elaborated and there is a coda based on the motto. The repeat in the exposition of this movement has been honoured only by Istvan Kertesz,Leonard Bernstein and Carlo Maria Giulini.
The Largo is made up of two memorable tunes. The first is on the cor anglais and the second is on flute and oboe.
The Scherzo is in the traditional form with a trio.In its coda, the motto theme again occurs.
In the finale, the massive main theme is announced by the horns and later passed to the strings. The second theme is accompanied on the cellos beneath a long breathed tune on the clarinet. The cor anglais tune from the Largo is brought forward now on the flute. A phrase from the Scherzo now comes on the violins and the motto theme as usual on the horns. In the viola counterpoint to this passage, there is a resemblance to 'Yankee Doodle'. Some recapitulation of the finale's own material follows until the motto theme heralds the coda in a grand thematic apotheosis.It is a magnificent work.
The noteworthy readings of this symphony in order are: Istvan Kertesz/London Symphony; Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic; Carlo Maria Giulini/Chicago Symphony; Sir Georg Solti/Chicago Symphony; Arturo Toscanini/NBC Symphony; Jascha Horenstein/Wiener Symphony; Vaclav Talich/Czech Philharmonic; Rudolf Kempe/Royal Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta/Los Angeles Philharmonic; Rafael Kubelik/Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert Von Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic.
The Kertesz set is the definitive for complete symphonies.

Carl Maria Von Weber : German Opera

2010-01-29T09:11:00.000-08:00

German opera made its first mature gesture in Mozart, especially with Die Zauberflote. A little isolated progress was with Beethoven's Fidelio. Then it came to its first full flowering in Weber. The pinnacle was, of course, Richard Wagner. Wagner lifted the opera on to another plane. These statements will serve to put the operas of Weber into quick perspective.
Weber was born in 1786 and died of consumption at the early age of thirty nine in 1826. Thus, his own lifetime lay within the lifetime of Beethoven. He was musically as unlike Beethoven as a contemporary genius could be. Yet, he remains the germinating link between Beethoven and Wagner. In Weber, German romanticism came to a head; his operas are full of the legendary atmosphere, the ghosts and spectres and goblins and the natural mythology of German folk art. When you add a rich and colourful imagination, you have the ingredients of a Weber opera in a nutshell. You can sense it at once in the preludial bars of almost any Weber overture. He throws you at once into the lands of romance and fancy and emotional ardour. Usually, it is Nature which is more often the active protagonist and the constant backcloth.
Weber wrote extensively for the stage. It was in the theatre that his original genius flowered and grew to fulfillment. The overtures have maintained enduring popularity in the romantic orchestral repertoire. Weber is a complete master in the overtures. He spun poetic and intensely imaginative summaries of their drama. He followed the fashion of the day by writing his overtures after the rest of the opera had been completed so as to give himself more elbow room.
Der Freischutz is Weber's best and most convincing opera. The overture sets not only the natural scene but the whole atmosphere of romantic mystery, magic and superstition. At once, we are at the heart of the matter in the lyric melody for four horns at the opening and the strange dark modulations. The famous clarinet passage depicts Max as he looks into the depths of the Wolf's Glen. The principal allegro is based on Max's aria and Agathe's prayer. Weber's invention is at its imaginative best throughout. At the end, all will be well as the brilliant coda leaves us in no doubt.
Der Freischutz retains the spoken dialogue derived from the German Singspiel. In Euryanthe, Weber essays grand opera at its most complete. He foreshadows the Wagnerian music drama, leitmotifs and all. The libretto was written by Hermina Von Chezy who also wrote 'Rosamunde.' In Euryanthe, a brilliant opening leads to a magnificent exposition and development of the leading themes to end in great splendour and triumphant pomp.
Abu Hassan is a one-act Singspiel to a libretto adapted from an Arabian fairy tale. It is light heartedly humorous in a way which the German romantics seldom achieved. It has a touch of foreign colour.
Weber was indeed the epitome of that German romanticism which swept through the minds of young Europe at the dawn of the nineteenth century.

THE GUNS OF NAVARONE

2010-01-24T04:31:00.000-08:00

1961. First Rate Production. This film gets AAAAA rating for its great direction, great performances and great music. I consider Alistair Maclean's 'Where Eagles Dare' as his best work followed by "The Guns of Navarone' as a close second. Thanks to Adolf Hitler for providing all the drama as both are with the backdrop of Nazi bashing during the prime of the second world war.
Columbia purchased the screen rights to this work in 1957. It cost $16 million to make this picture. They got Carl Foreman to produce and write this project as he had done 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' earlier. Foreman had Cary Grant and Alec Guinness in mind for the roles of Captain Mallory and Corporal Miller. They were not available. He eventually signed Gregory Peck and David Niven. They were soon joined by Anthony Quinn as Andrea Stavros, Stanley Baker as Brown "The Butcher of Barcelona', Anthony Quayle as Major Roy Franklin and James Darren as Spyro Pappadimous. The female characters were added with Maclean's permission (not originally in the plot) in Irene Papas as Maria and Gia Scala as Anna. Much of the filming was done in the Aegean Sea.
J. Lee Thompson, an English filmmaker, was signed to direct this epic adventure. Thompson is noted for his brisk storytelling. Shooting began in April 1960 on Rhodes in the Dodecanese island area of the Aegean Sea. Interiors were shot in London's Shepperton Studios. Attention to detail earned the film an Academy Award for Special Effects. I am surprised the jury could not find anything else worth rewarding. It was a sacrilege done by them. At the Globe Awards, it won the Best Picture and Best Music. Dimitri Tiomkin has written a magnificent score and songs for the film.
It was the top grossing picture of 1961. It has taken its place among the all time classic action and suspense films. Everyone acted brilliantly. Special mention for David Niven who stands out.
Six people save the lives of fourteen hundred on Kheros island in Greece by destroying the Guns of Navarone wielded by the Germans.

Antonin Dvorak : Symphony No. 8. G Major. Op. 88

2010-01-14T04:42:00.000-08:00

After his fortieth year, recognition on an international scale came to Dvorak in the 1880s. Brahms' assistance enabled his music to gain a firm foothold outside Bohemia, particularly in Germany. He had successful visits to England beginning in 1884. With the English tour gains, he was able to purchase land and a small country home for his family forty miles south of Prague. There, he composed his D Minor in 1885 and his G Major symphony in 1889. His D Minor was composed under the inspiration of Brahms' third. His seventh is a mature work of high and tragic intensity in the lineage of the German masters.
The G Major symphony is carefree and lyrical. I call it his 'Pastoral.' It is full of the folk spirit of the Czech countryside. He wrote this after he was admitted to the membership of the Emperor Franz Joseph's Czech Academy of Science, Literature and the Arts.
This symphony is constructed on a big scale for a large orchestra with a fully developed Allegro con Brio, an Adagio, a Scherzo with a waltz theme in the minor mode with a lilting Schubertian trio and a finale in variation form. Special attention has to be paid to the lovely and natural triplet upbeat and descending melodic sequence of the Adagio theme. The same theme becomes a graceful waltz in the third movement.
Like Mahler's Angelic Fourth, this symphony has its freedom from precedent of any kind. It is lyrically spontaneous though Dvorak laboured over his initial ideas and sketches, coming up with some of the finest touches and most salient melodic turns only after repeated attempts by trial and error. The sketch books clearly show the evolution of the theme that serves the finale variations of this G Major symphony. The piquant flute solo from the first movement's subject is split into two at the start of the finale with a brilliant fanfare in the trumpets. The theme is also presented in the lower strings with an occurence again of a descending melodic sequence. The sketch books of Dvorak as revealed by Jack Diether (Editor of Chord and Discord) show ten separate and different attempts to arrive at the right theme. Another good book that talks about these sketches is 'Antonin Dvorak - Musician and Craftsman' by Clapham.
When I first heard this symphony in the freshman year of my college in New Jersey in 1973, I was dumbstruck by the melodic beauty it possessed and how sublimely rustic it was. Very rarely, you are hit by pieces at first hearing. That was a rendition by the Boston Symphony under Charles Munch on RCA. I have not heard a better performance still. Other noteworthy readings are London Symphony under Istvan Kertesz, Philharmonia under Wolfgang Sawallisch, Hamburg Symphony under Charles Mackerras and Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta.

ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA

2010-01-12T03:42:00.000-08:00

Richard Strauss was musically influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche's writings. He greatly admired his philosophy, particularly the theory of 'Superman'. He believed in it. This belief led him to portray musically the lives of many superheroes and mostly it was he (autobiographical) in the garb of those heroes. These include Don Juan, Don Quixote, Till Eulenspiegel, Ein Heldenleben and Also Sprach Zarathustra.
He started writing this magnificent symphonic poem on 4th February 1896 and completed it on 24th August the same year. It had its first performance in Frankfurt-Am-Main on 27th November of 1896. It was based on Nietzsche's famous book - "a book for all and for none." Many criticisms were levelled at Strauss for attempting to write philosophical music. He replied, “I did not intend to write philosophical music or to portray in music Nietzsche's great work; I meant to convey by means of music an idea of the development of the human race from its origin through the various phases of its development, both religious and scientific up to Nietzsche's idea of the 'Superman'."
As a preface to the symphonic poem, there is printed on the flyleaf of the score an excerpt from Nietzsche's book - the first section of Zarathustra's introductory speech: "Having attained the age of thirty, Zarathustra left his home and the lake nearby and went into the mountains. Then, he rejoiced in his spirit and his loneliness and for ten years did not grow weary of it. But at last, his heart turned - one morning, he got up at dawn and stepped into the presence of the sun and thus spake unto the sun - ' Thou Great Star! What would be thy happiness were it not for those for whom thou shinest? For ten years, thou hast come up here to my cave. Thou wouldst have got sick of thy light and thy journey but for me, mine eagle and my serpent. But we waited for thee every morning and received from thee abundance, blessed thee for it. Lo! I am weary of my wisdom; like the bee that hath collected too much honey; I need hands reaching out for it. I would fain rant and distribute it until the wise among men could once more enjoy their folly and the poor once more their riches. For that end, I must descend to the depth as thou dost at even, when sinking behind the sea thou givest light to the lower regions, thou resplendent star! I must, like thee, go down, as men say - men to whom I would descend. Then bless me, thou impassive eye, that canst look without envy even upon excessive happiness. Bless the cup which is soon to overflow so that the golden water flowing out of it may carry everywhere the reflection of thy rapture. Lo! This cup is about to empty itself again and Zarathustra will once more become a man." -- Thus Zarathustra's going down began reflected in the dying pages of the score.
Will the mind of man ever solve the riddle of the world?
The World Riddle Theme with introductory bars on bass and pipe organ with the solemn motto C-G-C in various rhythmic guises pervades the whole symphonic poem through to its very end. The simple but expressive introduction grows quickly in intensity and ends majestically on the climactic C Major chord of the pipe organ and the large grand orchestra. A mysterious tremulando phase in the cellos and basses sets the atmosphere of the first episode in A Flat Major. The horns then intone the majestic Gregorian hymn, 'Credo in unum deum'. The next section is agitato with its ascending B Minor passage in the cellos and bassoons, the upper strings take over and the chromatic thirds of the answering woodwind is that of the great yearning from Von Den Hinterwettern to Von Der Grossen Sehnsucht. A rapid double glissando in the harp leads without interruption to the episode headed ' Von Den Freuden - und leidenschaften', a passionate animato. You will come across a melancholic cantilena in a tender passage and a motive that is expanded by the cellos and bassoons. The next episode, 'Von Der Wissenschaft' (Of Science) brings the fugue that is probably the most scientific musical form. Cellos and divided contrabasses open this episode with a fugato whose subject contains all the degrees, both diatonic and chromatic of the scale. Then, "Der Gensende' (The Convalescent) rises in B Minor on strings beginning in the cellos and violas. The subsequent 'Tanzlied' (Dance Song) with its laughing woodwind introduction leads to a waltz-like 3/4 movement akin to some of the best Rosenkavalier waltzes. In contrast, the 'Nachtlied' (Night Song) offers a very lyrical theme on a base of sustained chords. A low pitched bell peals fortissimo and the Nachtwanderlied (Song of the Night Wanderer) begins punctuated every four bars by the bell whose twelve strokes softly die away in a sustained decrescendo. Then comes the mystical conclusion that ends in two different keys. It aroused much controversy when the work was first performed. The trombones hold the chord C-E-F Sharp, the violins, flutes and oboes carry the Theme of the Ideal in B Major. The pizzicato of the basses sound repeatedly the C-G-C Theme of the World Riddle. Evidently, the great question remains unsolved. Magnificent.
The work has received its performance by almost every reputed conductor dead or living. I make a special mention of an extra ordinary performance by Zubin Mehta leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1969. David Frisina played the solo violin with aplomb. As a Zoroastrian, Zubin Mehta has grasped the entire content of Nietzsche and Strauss. He is a Parsi and has delivered a bravura performance. The other two conductors who surpass the rest are Herbert Von Karajan (with both Berlin and Wiener) and Fritz Reiner with the Chicago.

Flying Etiquette

2010-01-07T07:17:00.000-08:00

Gone are those days when people had to take a steamer to traverse across the world, leaving their lands and drifting ashore for days on end. Now we fly. Let us talk about Hyderabad's international airport. It is good and spacious. Immigration service has improved drastically. Waiting lounges are world class. In the days to come, perhaps more facilities of aero bridges will do good for this airport. People have claimed that the terminal as well as the runway is haunted but on various opportunities of flying out from Hyderabad, I have yet to be rapped on my head by a zombie or take circles in the air because of a waltzing ghost on the runway.
This is all well until we fasten our seatbelts on any flight that we take. Let us talk about etiquette from this point on. Invariably, most passengers simply forget to pull their window shields up while taxiing or taking off, they forget to set their seats upright, they stuff the hatracks in such an indisciplined manner that those overhead racks refuse to close until a steward or an air hostess helps and squeezes their odd shaped cabin baggage. Then about 5% of the people have to be reminded that their seat belts are not fastened when the plane is about to take off. Ultimately, we take off and once again a very minute minority start troubling the pursers and the hostesses to give them unlimited liquor and start being a nuisance to fellow passengers as well as the cabin crew. When they sleep, they are so well behaved until they are woken up by the crackling sound on the passenger announcement systems that cabin crew has been asked to take up their stations for landing. Once again, a round is taken to warn them that their seats are not upright and that the belts are not fastened.
We land. After the plane taxis to its halt, most of them rip off their belts in a hurry before the signs are switched off and begin to open the hatracks much to the annoyance of the cabin crew. Now it is almost impossible for the exit doors to be functional until at least five to seven minutes after the engines are switched off because it takes time for the aero-bridge to align or the stairs car to attach. There is a scene of 95% passengers waiting in uncomfortable standing position with stuffed baggage spread all over the aisles as if they are in a queue waiting for a bus to Disneyland. Mind you! They are waiting for full 420 seconds and those handpicked wise men are maybe countable on the fingers of a hand who are comfortably seated and waiting for the herd to clear up before they alight with ease.
There is a lesson to be derived from all that I am saying. No matter how many times we fly, we have to observe rules that are lessons in uniformity and discipline and they all add up to our own safety (talking of which all the wives and friends that sit in the passenger seat next to the driver in India feel that there is no need to fasten their seat belts;they don't know that an obnoxious jerking brake at the speed of 40 also can crack your head against the windshield). Please believe that the airplane is a vehicle for transporting people well versed with civics science and that it is not a cattle carrier.

Carl Nielsen - The Four Temperaments

2009-12-07T00:13:00.000-08:00

Nielsen titled his second symphony 'Four Temperaments' (Choleric, Phlegmatic, Melancholic and Sanguine)inspired by a painting he saw at an inn depicting the four temperaments. He completed this symphony in 1902. His opus 16. These temperaments are primarily connected with people and their general condition. They reflect on divergent personalities of the players for whom he wrote it. However, the symphony should not be considered programmatic. This symphony is polytonal. It is dedicated to Feruccio Busoni. Michael Schonwandt delivers a capable reading with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.

Carl Nielsen - First Symphony in G Minor

2009-11-12T09:39:00.000-08:00

Carl August Nielsen was a Danish violinist, conductor and composer. Born on 9th June 1865 and died on 3rd October 1931. His works are very well known in Denmark. Today, I heard his first symphony for the first time and it was impressive. He is admired for his symphonies. He also wrote concerti for violin, flute and clarinet. He appears on the Danish hundred-kroner note.
Nielsen first discovered music while experimenting with the sound and pitch he heard while striking logs in a pile of firewood behind his home. The songs his mother sang and the music at the wedding parties also influenced him. His father played the violin at such wedding parties.
His first symphony is in G Minor. It shows his individuality and progressive tonality. The first movement theme for the second violins, oboe and flute permeates throughout all the movements. He begins the work in one key and ends in another.
The performance I heard was by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and energetically interpreted by Michael Schonwandt. Beautiful symphony with a haunting first movement theme.

Shadow of a Doubt

2009-11-05T05:01:00.000-08:00

Alfred Hitchcock considered this 1942 thriller to be his personal favourite among his films though I will rate 'Psycho' as his ultimate. Good script by Thornton Wilder. It was inspired by an actual case of a 1920s serial killer known as the 'Merry Widow Murderer'. Nobody narrates a tale like Hitchcock. This film will keep you glued to your seats. Superb acting by Joseph Cotten. Teresa Wright is good as Young Charlie. Good music by Dmitri Tiomkin with Franz Lehar's 'Die Lustige Witwe' (The Merry Widow) waltz as the centrepiece of the music score. This is a great film for all Hitchcock and classic mystery lovers.