requiem for a dream

I have no words.

Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny, 4.6.1976 – 16.2.2024

death wants more death, and its webs are full

While posting this song may seem like a manifesto and also like I’m picking sides, that is not the message of this post.

Hamas is not Palestine. Hamas is not representing Palestinian people. Hamas is a terrorist organisation, that with every attack on Israel risks the lives of and causes endless suffering for not only the Israeli but also the Palestinian people.

I condemn the treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government just as well as I condemn the terrorist attacks on Israel by Hamas. But by supporting Hamas you do not support Palestine, you do not support peace, you do not support civil rights. You support a terrorist organisation that does not care for any lives, not even that of their own people.

My heart goes out for all the victims of this recent crisis, no matter of religion or nationality. But I do take a stance against terrorism. Against Hamas.

long may she reign

I will leave the words for Her own people and pay my respects the best way I can – through music.

Concerto for Harpsichord in D Major Op. 1 No. 6, W. C54, composed by Johann Christian Bach (“The Londoner Bach”), the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in London in 1763 as part of the collection Six Concertos pour le Clavecin, ou Harpe, deux Violons, et un Violoncelle, dedicated most humbly (“très humblement”) to Queen Sophie Charlotte, then Queen of Great Britain, who employed him as her music teacher. The third movement of this concerto, Allegro moderato is a set of variations on the theme of the anthem God Save The King, which serves as de facto National Anthem of the United Kingdom and in most of the Commonwealth countries.

Fun fact: the same melody is used for the National Anthem of the Fürstentum Liechtenstein and until 1961, for Switzerland.

the man who planted hope and grew happiness

I’m very clearly on the Ukrainian side in this recent conflict and am rather vocal about it too, watching with sheer horror as the world as I knew it, falls apart and everything I believe in, is being violated. And while I don’t claim to know a lot about global politics, belonging to the generation that was still brought up to believe that the glorious Red Army has saved us from the Nazis (which is, in a way, true – 20 million Soviet soldiers gave their lives to end the war) (too bad it couldn’t stop at freeing countries but went on conqueering them); I am fully aware of the fact that while my Socialist childhood was, in a way, idyllic, my memories are in no way realistic, and for a lot of people, life in the USSR and in the countries behind the Iron Curtain was hard and filled with oppression and injustice. In a way I get the nostalgic longing for the past as we knew it (as my Russian coworker put it once: we were all brothers and sisters), but I cannot unsee and un-know all the horrors of the Socialist regime that was since brought to light.

The Germans killed in a more civilised way than the Russians, as my great-grandmother, who was born in 1902, experienced 3 revolutions, survived 2 world wars, and lived under 2 totalitarian regimes, used to say. I think we can consider ourselves very lucky to not being able to fully understand what she meant.

Mikhail Gorbachev understood that there is no peace without freedom so he made it possible for Russia to move on from the past – it must have been tragic for him to watch how everything he has worked for is being destroyed by a man who craves power over everything and by his own people who doesn’t appreciate the gift he gave them: democracy.

Let’s listen to the most famous Soviet war song, Polyushka to grieve the loss of a great man, a nation that failed to be great and the hope that peace is sustainable.

history will teach us nothing

I really need a lot to push me over the threshold of “I don’t have time for this blog” nowadays, but it seems like it’s enough for our prime minister, Orbán Viktor to just open his mouth and I immidiately need an outlet for the secondhand shame of being Hungarian.

The thing with hate is that it is so versatile. Its subject is so easily interchangeable that it does not even matter, what it is. You can hate anything and anybody just the same, it does not make any difference.

So let’s just watch M.I.A.s classic video about how easily it can happen to you too.

may your song always be sung

Kóbor János, 1943.05.17 – 2021.12.06

Kóbor János, founder and lead singer of Omega, the first Hungarian beat band ever, died of Covid-19 today. He wasn’t vaccinated, because he did not think it was necessary. He was a healthy man for his age and was convinced that he is stronger than the virus.

He wasn’t.

Go get vaccinated. It won’t save you from an infection but it pretty likely will save you from ending up on a respirator and dying in the ICU.

I’m so tired. These last 2 years were hard, even in Switzerland, the land of milk and honey, excellent health care and no lockdowns. I haven’t seen my family for a year. Still not sure if I’ll be able to go home this Christmas. But do you know what makes me really tired? Seeing those unvaccinated people coming to the ER with an oxygen saturation of 60% and needing 12 liter oxygen. Passing them over to the ICU. Those endless, pointless discussions with same unvaccinated people, who did not do anything to prevent getting into this situation and now are waiting for me to clear this mess up for them. Instead of them. They don’t have to do anything to save their own life, it’s entirely my job, my responsibility. It’s my fault if it doesn’t work out.

I’m tired of people putting their life into my hands because it’s against their personal beliefs to take it into their own. Because Bill Gates puts microchips in us to make us all update to Windows 11. Because “they” (who? no unvaccinated person could ever tell me, who these “they” are) want to wipe humanity off this Earth and chose to do this in this rather unefficient and long-winded way of creating a virus and then creating a vaccine against it and then poisoning this vaccine (why so complicated? That’s also something nobody has ever explained to me). Because they won’t let themselves infected with killer bacteria (go on. Get killer virus instead. It’s free!). Because they know how it works (congratulations. I don’t. I just believe people who are so much smarter than me).

Honestly. Just go get vaccinated. I’m already so annoyed, I don’t think I can go on for much longer.

RIP, Mecky.

December recap

I can’t count the ways this blog has helped me throughout the years – the best of all is  it serving as my memory, haha. In no way could I otherwise recall what I did 5 years ago in December.

As it turns out, five years ago in December I spent an afternoon in Salzburg…

…and another one in Wels, where I visited Europe’s largest Christkind:

In Schärding I saw the house, where Rupert Ignaz Mayr was born…

…and stepped briefly on German land…

…before really going for it and spending a whole day in Passau. I liked it!

Not everybody is of the same opinion, though:

Honestly, what’s wrong with this generation?

We really need some peace…

…and some Bach on Europe”s largest pipe organ (yeah, it was the month of the Greatest(s)).

I also drank the first (and last) mulled wine of the season (my yearly total alcohol consumption, I’m a party animal, but only at heart):

Christmas was everywhere:

I mean, literally. Everywhere. 

‘Tis the season for the good and the innocent…

…and for the truly evil:

Fortunately, I got home safely, just in time…

…for Móricka’s birthday party…

…and for Christmas Eve:

We went skating…

…and made a stunning gingerbread house:

Two proud baker’s helfers:

New Year’s Eve I spent, hot and reckless as I am, partying hard with Milo…

…Móricka…

…and The Cat.

we woke to find December

Oh, how I love to talk about books I read 5 years ago! Such an intellectual challenge, haha.

Sedaris – never did I imagine in 2015, that 3 years later I will reenact the title story in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Yalom – why all the Klimt? This is a story about a Hungarian Holocaust survivor turned into an American heart surgeon. How on Earth does Klimt fit in and where? I mean, ok, I can follow the lead if I have to: Yalom – psychiatry – Freud – Vienna – Secession – Klimt, but is it really necessary? Could we skip just one of the stereotypes, pretty please?

Riggs – I think I became somewhat emotionally invested in Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children.

Miéville – I liked Kraken more.

Valmy – was funny? I suppose? I don’t remember? Do I?

I’d say, with only 33 books read, 2015 was the worst year ever, but no. Worst year ever is definitely 2020. Period.

Christmas was a friend of mine

M&M&The Cat

Budapest at Christmastime

Budapest

Schärding – Rupert Ignaz Mayr: Nisi Dominus

There is not much known about Rupert Ignaz Mayr “Schärdingano” other than the date of  his birth and death, some of his places of employment (Passau, Eichstätt, Freising and München); he didn’t compose a lot and most of it is lost anyway. He may or may not have been a pupil of Jean-Baptiste Lully and he may or may not have done great deeds. Who knows. (Not me).

But. He was one of the firsts on the road leading to that special mixture of Austrian Baroque music of the Muffats, Fux and Biber; and he definitely published a collection of songs and antiphones in Regensburg in the year of 1681, the year that gave us both Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Mattheson!; under the title “Sacri concentus – Psalmorum, Antiphonarum, piarum Cantionum ex sola voce et diversis instrumentis, Opus III”; all perfectly quaint and monodic.

Because if you were born in a house like this…

…with neighbours like this…

…on a street like this…

…in a town like this…

…no wonder you compose music like this:

Schärding – part 4

Schärding – part 3

the place where Germany meets Austria

Of all the ways one could cross a border, the best way to do it when it involves some kind of water. I’ve already crossed the Salzach, the Saalach, the Leiblach, the Danube, the Old Rhine, even Lake Constance; now* it’s time to cross the Inn!

*now, as in 2015 (haha) (facepalm) (worst blogger ever)

In order to do this, you have to approach the Alte Innbrücke, which still stands on its original 700 years old pillars…

…and leave the town of Schärding…

…which claims to be a healthy place, worthy of your love…

…and of your financial support, aimed at its numerous charities.

Don’t be too quick to leave…

…and take your time to say goodbye.

Pause at the border to contemplate life and death…

…and to look back…

…and forth…

…and right…

…and left.

Now you are in Germany…

…in the tiny town of Neuhaus am Inn…

…which, on this winter afternoon is rather a desolate place.

Its inhabitants are mostly sheep…

…a pig…

…and a crocodile.

It has seen some rough times…

…which are never to be forgotten.

Fortunately now is all good again!

Schärding – part 2

Schärding – part 1

Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer – “Vertigo” from “Premiere livre de pièces pour clavecin”

Just a quick reminder that I’m still living (unfortunately not the time of my life, but what is life anyway) – and with the second-hand spinet I bought a few months ago to restore, also came the immediate urge to ask myself useless questions like 1) why didn’t I bought an original 18th-century two-manual French harpsichord instead* and 2) what did I do to my life and why.

The newest source of my unhappiness is this really cool harpsichord piece which I’m unable to play on my spinet because it does not have all the keys needed!** composed by Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer, another great Italian-born French composer (do you still remember the First? The Greatest? The one and only Giovanni Battista Lolli?), who was held in high regard by Louis XV and was also good friends with Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville, the sexiest composer ever.

Who cares that Charles Burney found his music boring? I definitely don’t.

* guess why. Just guess. Will you buy one for me if I set up a Donate button? As a thank-you I am willing to continue this blog with the present speed of one post every three months. Me thinks it’s a good deal.

** I didn’t open the spinet in two months because I don’t have the time (what did I do to my life and why?), but what I can already tell for sure is that the times when I still could tell the difference between the temperaments Werckmeister II and III are, alas, over***

*** but now I totally can tell you the difference between the second-degree atrioventricular block types Mobitz I and II!

Linz at Christmastime

Passau – part 4

Passau – part 3

Passau – part 2

Passau – part 1

music for the first day of 2018 – Aria “Laß uns, o höchster Gott” from the cantata “Jesu, nun sei gepreiset” BWV 41 by Johann Sebastian Bach

Let’s start 2018 with an aria first performed exactly 293 years ago – on a Monday, just like today – and wish for the same Johann Sebastian Bach once did: that in a year from today we’ll still have all the reasons to be thankful to God.

love is the voice under all silences

It has been twenty-five years since I first sung this song and it still feels the same.

Some things never change.

music for Christmas (Eve, 1st Day, 2nd Day, etc, etc) – Pierre Dandrieu: À la Venue de Noel

From his collection of Noëls from 1714. Based on an ancient French Christmas carol which first appears in the manuscript Livres des Noëls from around 1497, and is printed for the first time in 1535 by Jacques Moderne, in his  collection of Christmas songs La Fleur des Noelz. 

and Art shall awaken and Love shall sing

That first tone.

And the lute player at 7:40.

That’s what music is about.

my Linz neighbourhood

Wels – part 2