Another Excellent Concert

Now that I'm a little less busy, I have a little time to relive another wonderful musical experience I had recently. It took place about 10 days ago. I attended the concert by San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas, a Los Angeles native who first conducted the orchestra in 1974 and has been its musical director since 1995.
 
The concert was suitably divided into two parts. The first part gave us a taste of the creative vitality of the American West Coast. We were introduced to the works of two very talented composers, none of whom I had previously heard. Lou Harrison and Henry Cowell . We had some pieces taken from what's called Pacifika Rondo by Harrison: The Family of the Court. It's a very Western interpretation of Korean courtly music: full of solemn and sonorous percussive sound with some very oriental type of musical motifs. Then we had Music 1957, which Cowell composed for the Minnesota Orchestra and its then musical director Antal Dorati. The second piece was a piece of music which explored the 4 opening notes of the piece 22 times with different variation by different musical instruments. Both composers share something in common: they are explorers of musical traditions of the East and the countries on the Pacific Rim and it shows in their music. Cowell in particular is very much into tone clusters which he uses to great effect. Of course, their music is not the type that concert goers of the more traditional "classical" music are used to and it does require some adjustment of their expectations of what music "should" be like to be able to appreciate their adventures  into possibilities of the richness of musical sounds. It's not as unpalatable as some of the other more "contemporary" musical compositions and it does open up my mind.

Then in the second part of the concert. we had one of the happiest of Mahler's symphony, his No. 5 in C-sharp minor in 5 movements. This is a familiar piece and needs little introduction. What I'd say is that under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas, I was able to hear some of the details of the piece which I hadn't noticed before although I don't know how many times I had heard that favourite of Mahler before. The structure of the music by different sections and different musical instruments came out much more clearly without being intrusive. It's as if I was hearing Celibadache conducting! Needless to say, the applause was long, in fact so long that the conductor has to literally drag the concert master away at the last time he re-appeared at the stage to acknowledge them. 

The following is not what I heard but it would give some idea of the kind of sound that I heard that evening from Lou Harrison.

Again this is not something I heard that evening and put in the video for the same purpose

A Triple Beauty

The HKPO concert tonight was one I went to with great expectations. It introduced one relatively and one absolutely new piece of music to me and one very familiar piece. The relatively seldom heard piece was Leos Janacek(1854-1928)'s Taras Bulba, the absolutely new piece was Sebastian Currier's Time Machines, in fact, its Asian premiere.The familiar piece was Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor Op 64 but it was played by one of my favorite violinists Anne-Sophie Mutter. Everything happened under the baton of Michael Francis.

The first piece, Taras Bulba, was a programmatic sort of music about the deaths of three Cossacks during the Cossack-Pole war of 1628 based on a romantic nationalist tale about Cossacks written by the Russian writer Gogol. Bulba has two sons, Ostap and Andrey, who fell in love with the daughter of a Polish nobleman, the governor of Kovno.The cossacks under his father were then beseiging the Polish Dubno Castle but Andrey's Polish girl friend led him to see how her compatriots starved. As a result of that secret visit, he brought them bread and joined their cause against his own father because he was horrified by what he saw. He encountered his son at a wood and then killed him by a bullet at point blank range. After killing many of the Jewish merchants
at the Sich, the Cossacks set off on a campaign against the Poles.The battle continues and Ostap is captured by the Poles. Ostap was torn by a wheel but didn't make a sound but at his last moment called out for his father, who hiding amidst the town crowd at the public square, answered and then slipped away. Taras  Bulba continued to fight the Poles and met his death at a ruined fortress. He's nailed to a tree and then burnt alive. In the music, the first death was that Andrei, the son who in love with a Polish gir The second describes the death of Ostap, Taras Bulba's second son, captured and tortured by the Poles and then executed at the town square, a death witnessed by his father who mingled amongst the crowd seeking to help his son but left in sorrow after he died. The third death was that of Taras Bulba's own, who himself was captured by the Poles, nailed to a tree and then burnt alive. The music in three movements were sad, violent, boisterous and meditative by turns, interwoven by brief passage of tenderness. It's a very atmospheric piece mingled from time to time by jarring percussions and disharmony.

The second piece by Currier was a fairly short intellectualist piece about the composer's reflections upon the different ways in which time could affect our lives. It's in 6 movements respectively called Fragmented Time, Delay Time, Compressed Time, Overlapping Time, Entropic Time and Backwards Time, playing on the harmonics of violin at often breakneck pace, with different rhythm, tone textures, with movement forward, backward, accelerated, slowed, compressed, concentrating and disintegrating or flowing etc in complex interaction with other parts of the orchestra. It was not a piece for those accustomed to music with traditional introduction, development, variation, recapitulation and resolution etc.

The second half of the programme was a favorite of Mendelssohn and one familiar to all music lovers. The violin concerto, Mendelssohn's last, was first premiered in 1845 in Leipzig where he was conductor of its Gewandhaus Orchestra. Mutter appeared in her by now trade-marked bare back gown but this time in bright red. She remained as beautiful as ever, like her violin and her sound. I just wonder how she is able to manage to keep in such good shape for so many years. She played with delicacy, subtlety, balance and absolute control, yet not without passion. It was a riveting experience. Mendelssohn became alive for me again. I am truly amazed by the versatility of The HKPO under Michael Francis in its ability to produce music of so obvioulsy different styles. It's getting better by the day. Another most satisfying evening.

Saturday Fun

Before I know it, it's fun time again. So let's have some fun.

1.      A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground.
         He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head.
         The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services.
         He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?”
         The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: “Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead.”
         There is a silence, then a shot is heard.      
         The guy's voice comes back on the line.
          He says: “OK, now what?“

2.     Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go on a camping trip.  After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep.
        Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. “Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”
        “I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes” replies Watson.
        “And what do you deduce from that?”
        Watson ponders for a minute.  “Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. But what does it tell you, Holmes?”
        Holmes is silent for a moment. 
        “Watson, you idiot!” he says.  “Someone has stolen our tent!”

3.     A man and a friend are playing golf one day at their local golf course.
        One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course.
        He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer.
        His friend says: “Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man.”
        The man then replies: “Yeah, well we were married 35 years.” 

4.     When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity.
         To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300°C.
         The Russians used a pencil.

5.     This woman rushed to see her doctor, looking very much worried and all strung out.
         She rattles off: “Doctor, take a look at me. When I woke up this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and frazzled up, my skin was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were bloodshot and bugging out, and I had this corpse-like look on my face! What's WRONG with me, Doctor!?”
         The doctor looks her over for a couple of minutes, then calmly says: “Well, I can tell you that there ain't nothing wrong with your eyesight....”

6.      A general noticed one of his soldiers behaving oddly. The soldier would pick up any piece of paper he found, frown and say: “That's not it” and put it down again. This went on for some time, until the general arranged to have the soldier psychologically tested.
        The psychologist concluded that the soldier was deranged, and wrote out his discharge from the army.
        The soldier picked it up, smiled and said: “That's it.”

7.     A woman gets on a bus with her baby.
        The bus driver says: “That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!”
        The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!”
        The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you.” 
 

8.     A turtle was walking down an alley in New York when he was mugged by a gang of snails. A police detective came to investigate and asked the turtle if he could explain what happened.
   The turtle looked at the detective with a confused look on his face and replied “I don't know, it all happened so fast.”

9.   A scientist and a philosopher were being chased by a hungry lion.
      The scientist made some quick calculations, he said “it's no good trying to outrun it, its catching up”.
      The philosopher kept a little ahead and replied “I am not trying to outrun the lion, I am trying to outrun you !”

Now go out and have some real fun. The weather appears to be excellent.

The Waters of Jiuzhaigou

Our tourist guide told us that there is a saying in their trade about two Chinese two tourist hot spots: "After having been to Huangshan, you will never want to see any other kind of mountain; after having been to Jiuzhaigou, you will never want to see any other kind of water". The full impact of the latter part of this saying suddenly took on new meaning for me when I was there.




You may find giant waterfalls elsewhere. But you'll never find dense vegetation right in the middle of the falls except here in Jiuzhaigou.

Tree growing between practically every other line of fall !

and right in front of your eyes !

This is the biggest water fall in Jiuzhaigou.

Another angle of the fall

Trees, bushes, shrubs everywhere !

Water tumbling down

in every direction

Some sharp falls

A close up of one of the falls

And the water looks so fresh and so colorful !

But there are also gentler waters in smaller steps too. Where else in China, perhaps in the entire world (?) do you get such a full range of so many different styles of waterfalls so close to each other as in this magical valley?

Another Face of Jiuzhaigou

October is a good time to visit Jiuzhaigou. It's the time of the year when the leaves begin to change colors. But this year, because of the abundance of rain, many trees are still quite green.  Well, not all.

like these.

and these.

and this.

It's just been raining.

The trees grow around the sides of the peaceful lakes

on both sides of the lakes,

around all the 108 lakes there.

What variety of colors !

They look so fresh, so green and so full of life even at the moment when life may be going out of them !

Their colors become part of the colors of the lakes

Everywhere

I really enjoy looking at the mosses growing everywhere: on the ground, on the surface of old tree stumps, amidst other grass and leaves.

Look at all the tiny mosses and ferns growing everywhere?

and such variety!

A close up of one of the tree stumps

This is one of the places our chartered bus stopped.

It was full of 5-color flags and pennants. The Tibetans are really fond of decorating their houses and yards with them. They are called prayer flags. According to them, it's important to spread the message that the good news of salvation is come. Theoretically, we can all become buddhas and reach nirvana, not just the brahmins and the monks, provided we follow the dharma and think the right thoughts, say the right words, do the right works, have the right attitude and constantly improve.

For me, however. the message in the wind is : think the right angle, take the right photos, do the right trees, have the right lens, the right aperture, the right ISOs and press the shutter button at the right time,

even whilst the coach is moving.

Some of the houses we passed.

See how full of prayer flags they are: the "message" of Buddha is in the air everywhere ! In the hostels...

outside private residences.

on top of trees

strung to the top of the pagodas

Their colors blend in so nicely with the color of its clear sky

I like the way they build the paths and broadwalks here: everything in wooden planks. There is a kind of flexibility in the fibres of the wood which would bend ever so slightly when one walks upon them that makes it such a pleasant experience to do so. A real joy.