My only conducting teacher, Milan Horvat, very often spoke highly about the pianist Gina Bachauer (1913-1976), with whom he often made music. He praised her as a no-frills pianist with outstanding technique and energy. I heard some Rachmaninoff (I think it was the second piano concerto) – of whom she was one of the last students – some time ago, and yesterday, this Beethoven Concerto. What a pleasure! She doesn’t add anything that is not in the score (which means she reads behind the written notes). The simplicity of her approach makes the rendition of this score just perfect, without any mannerism (to which most of the young pianists today strongly tend), correct tempos, and perfect dynamic. Just refreshing. I wish many of the very hyped soloists of our time had the same sincere, humble, and genuine approach to such masterworks as she had.

È un libro sulla bellezza. Ma una dimensione di bellezza spesso trascurata, quella che emerge dai contrasti luminosi: non una bellezza scaraventata verso l’osservatore in piena luce, ma quella che viene creata dal buio,  dall’ombra, dal segreto del crepuscolo. Bellissimi i paragrafi sulla lacca giapponese (come del resto quelli sui costumi del Teatro No), il cui valore estetico è completamente percettibile solo nella penombra delle stanze giapponesi, e non in piena luce, che ne rende le decorazioni in oro troppo sgargianti. Questo libro è anche un inno ai tempi antichi ed un appello per la salvaguardia della bellezza almeno nella poesia e nella letteratura. Scritto in modo semplice e facile da leggere, si tratta di un saggio di un autore importante soprattutto per lo sviluppo della letteratura (con tema sessualità ed erotismo) giapponese dopo l’era Meiji, che poi porterà ad uno scrittore noto anche all’occidente come Yukio Mishima.

It is a book about beauty. But a dimension of beauty often overlooked, the one that emerges from light contrasts: not a beauty thrown at the observer in whole light, but created by darkness, shadow, and the secret of twilight. The paragraphs on Japanese lacquer are beautiful (as are those on the costumes of the Noh Theater), whose aesthetic value is entirely perceptible only in the dim light of Japanese rooms and not in whole light, which makes the gold decorations too gaudy. This book is also a hymn to ancient times and a call for beauty protection, at least in poetry and literature. Written in a simple and easy-to-read way, it is an essay by an author who is essential above all for the development of Japanese literature (with the themes of sexuality and eroticism) after the Meiji era, which leads to a writer also known in the West as Yukio Mishima.

Yes, unfortunately, this word is a “vox media,” which means that it doesn’t have a positive or negative connotation, per se. Nevertheless, especially when speaking about art, we should reflect on the real meaning of this—5a is my point.

Smelling all those damaged Guerlains really got me down. I can think of no art other than perfumery that has suffered such grievous damage and neglect. We play music from scores written a thousand years ago. We have sound recordings going back to Brahms. We read books written in the Middle Ages. Paintings going back hundreds of years, frescoes going back thousands of years are lovingly preserved and restored. And yet the pleasure of smelling a 1969 Guerlain as it was meant to be is denied us. 20th Century perfumery, i.e. its entire Golden Age, has been wiped out and will never come back.

Why? Because the industry never believed in its own product. Because we let a handful of enterprising dermatologists and analytical chemists dictate our lives. Because when something like perfume is perceived to have no measurable benefit, yet has some costs (a few allergies) the cost-benefit ratio is always wrong. Because the people running the industry are shallow, misogynist, and greedy. “Mais non Madame, the perfume has not changed, maybe it is you”. Because nobody had the courage to put a label on their fragrance that says “do not spray on skin.” Because the fragheads came too few and too late to save perfumery.

(Luca Turin)

I really hope it will happen. Ulisse is a masterwork of Italian “motivischen Zwölftontechnik” that implements the bel canto tradition, so much loved by Dallapiccola. It is his opus summum.

Paul Lendvai ist seit Jahrzehnten ein Beobachter und Analytiker der politischen Zusammenhänge in Europa, mit scharfem Blick über Osteuropa und die Beziehungen zwischen den Europäischen Staaten und den Staaten des ehemaligen Ostblocks. Dieses Buch beleuchtet mit scharfer Zunge die „Fehlgriffe und Fehldeutungen der westlichen Politik“ (aus dem Vorwort), oft verursacht durch blinden Dogmatismus, Indifferenz oder schlichter Inkompetenz. Ein lesewertes Buch von einem echten Kenner der politischen Lage in Europa.

Paul Lendvai has been an observer and analyst of the political context in Europe for decades, with a keen eye on Eastern Europe and the relations between the European states and the states of the former Eastern Bloc. This book uses a sharp tongue to shed light on the “missteps and misinterpretations of Western politics” (from the foreword), often caused by blind dogmatism, indifference, or sheer incompetence. It is a book worth reading by a true expert on the political situation in Europe.

This continues a significant “Ring des Nibelungen” project with DSO. After a long hiatus, I will conduct my third complete “Ring” production (semi-staged) in Dallas. If we consider the “Ring des Nibelungen” to be a giant symphony (“Rheingold” being the introduction, “Walküre” the first movement, and “Götterdämmerung” the final apotheosis), “Siegfried” is undoubtedly in form and character the “scherzo”.

This is the perfect summer read. It is a beautiful novel. Horror, Science Fiction, Mystery? All of these. Entertaining and suspenseful.

It is unbelievable that I have not conducted Ravel’s arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition before (I only conducted the Stokowski version). It is coming to NHKSO soon.

It is high time to think about this term and not be dazzled—and deceived—by cheap opinions, mere visibility, or, even worse, political correctness.