Today

Today is my birthday, well, 3 more minutes left of it at least. Received gorgeous flowers from Peter, combination of yellow roses and blue orchids and other blue flowers that I don't know the name of.

Had a not so productive practicing of Beethoven Emperor. Had a horrible drive down to St. Mary's (bad weather, bad traffic and many inconsiderate people!). Great conversations with Peter. Horrible Shostakovich 9th, totally missing the point. Classical music is loosing audience because majority (NOT ALL!) of musicians don't care about the product. They only care about fame and Name. In today's world, you are considered to be a good professional musician by status only, not by the product. As long as you know how to advertise yourself, you get a share in the market. It works for most of the business, but it should not be the case for arts (all forms)& culture!

Started to read "Lies, A Diary 1986-1999" by Ned Rorem.
Here are some interesting quotes and my thoughts on them:

"poulenc never penned an original note: every measure can be traced to Chopin, or Mussorgsky, or Ravel, or Stravinsky, or even Faure whom he reviled. Yet every measure can be instantly identified as sheer Poulenc, by that mad touch of personal chutzpah that no critic can define."

My thought: Artistic personality cannot shine without a channel for it to shine through. In music, understanding of tradition of musical language and various style does not chain one's artistry and personality, on the contrary, it enhances and ensures the projection of one's expression. Unfortunately, many musicians and artists think being artistic or have individuality means being disconnected to the past.

"True, music is not a universal language but an attitude, of one consciousness and of one environment, which does not easily slip past the customs inspector. We are not all the same - it is difference, not increasing similarity, which lends Earth's dwellers their beauty, wisdom, mystery, and, indeed, their identity. but if this identity is never fully grasped by a dweller from another environment, sometimes it can be sensed, appreciated, and even loved, especially if the identity lies in works of art. (Art has little to do with understanding anyway, but with feeling.)"

"Janacek and Busoni: two more underrated composers who are overrated. It's hard to get the point of them. But then, I don't get the point of Berlioz either, or of Bruckner."

"Critics sometimes say, about this or that new work - it should be taken up by all our major orchestras and recorded. It never is. Critics have great power, but they have no power."

"... with a taboo against using twice any phrase used only once by the poet. For a composer to repeat words in a sung version of a sonnet is to repeat the punch line of a joke."

"What models, those six quartets! After them, all others seem superfluous. (Carter revived the genre, and Diamond and Milhaud.) Yet, although whenever I hear it I am filled with admiration, Bartok's music as a whole is a music I never think about when it's not around. It's impeccable, it's theatrical, it's even great. It dazzles, thrills, horrifies, sometimes irritates, but also moves me. But I'm not touched by it, as by, for instance, the outset of the quartet by Ravel - Ravel, supposed to be icy, formal, above all that. The notion that French music is objective, nose-thumbing, brittle, anti-romantic, is a notion I've never grasped. French music makes me cry."

"Apropos fees, when I announce to JH that the Chicago Symphony is feeling me out for their hundredth anniversary in 1990-91 and might pay up to forty thousand for a thirty-minute piece, he says he's just read the Perlman's fee for one concert is forty thousand. Their hundredth anniversary? Like yesterday I recall the season of their fiftieth in 1940 when we heard Milhaud conduct his First Symphony and play his piano Concerto. And Chavez's Concerto for Four Horns, and Stravinsky's Symphony in C, and..."

My thoughts: That kind of fee is outrageous! Also, no wonder symphony orchestras are sounding the way they are now, most of the conductors are not composers, they are not even good musicians/artists in their own right! One without the knowledge cannot lead. They are also way overpaid!

"Your life is your life, and I would not presume to tell you how to lead it except insofar as it intersects with my life...."

My thought: In a truly free society, one needs to have the obligation not to interfere with other's freedom while acquiring one's own freedom.

"Stalin: One death is a tragedy. A thousand is a statistic."

My thought: HOW SAD!!! And HOW TRUE in our society.

"Pretty girl on 68th Street chewing bubble gum like a hemorrhoid twist her lips."

"Elliott Carter's new quartet, unrelentingly chaotic, leaves nothing to listen for. When all is chaos, nothing is chaos."

It has been a interesting and emotionally turbulent day for me. That is what life is about, I am lucky I can experience all that in a day!

To be continued...

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Thank you, Peter, my husband, and my best friend for sharing your life with me. Love you!

Mom is coming tomorrow, with Yi-An and her friend. I hope this house will maintain it's peacefulness with all these people in it.

Happy birthday to myself, and thank you mom & dad for bring me to this world.