The Northeastern part of the United States
is under very heavy snowfall.
Vehicles are bogged down on the road.
It appears that the Governors and the Mayors
did set aside enough money
in the winter budget
for snow clearing operations.
Ah well, it’s a learning process.
The Pacific Region is not quiet anymore.
There are terrorist bombings there now.
Hey!
Was it something I said?
Syria needs maintenance and parts for its Russian tanks and planes.
So does Iran with its American jet fighters.
Russia has fielded its big bombers
but they do not have the huge bomb load
of the American B-52’s to make carpet bombing more effective
against the thieving oil trucks from Turkey.
Would that the Russian planes were armed
with incendiary bullets for their
20-mm. and 23-mm cannons
to strafe the columns of oil trucks
with these bullets that rend and burn.
The Syrian Army must refurbish its T-34’s
if they sill have them.
Mortars and rpg’s are absent.
So does assault en masse by armor and infantry.
If the Americans can pay for mercenaries
so can Syria from the restored income from oil.
Following the breakup of ISIS
the splintering of all existing coalitions is ensured.
Well, not all, anyway.
What remains is the tight cooperation
between Syria, Iran, and Lebanon.
It has come to pass that the players in the Arab world
have now come to up the ante
and throw in their bets on the table
that represents the dry and barren Middle East.
Curiously enough, the price of oil slides
at a rate which is now alarming to the oil producers.
It is as if the cessation of oil pilferage from Syria
has not started a bigger demand, and hence a higher price,
for Arab oil.
Raising one’s ante necessarily means
lowering its selling price of oil.
It is now a buyers market for oil.
Profit is now sacrificed in favor of a steady buyer.
Syria can now enjoy the profit from oil.
And so will Iran.
The West has now entered a more confusing state
as regards its policy in the Middle East.
Further damage control gets them into more trouble.
As a result, the West has commenced skirting
the United Nations’ rules and conventions.
The main object is to save face
and twisting the facts is one resort.
And Israel?
If it tries to ante up and join in this gaming table,
it will make the situation more explosive.
Going back to First Placer Dmitry Malseev.
He played Prokofiev’s Concerto No.3.
Now I am not going to elaborate on the composer that is Prokofiev.
But I can tell you that he probably belongs to, or initiated,
the group of contemporary composers,
noted for musical pieces that are,
or seems to be, disconnected, discordant, and sometimes syncopated.
These are actually correct in measures and beat and
follow the norm of composition.
They do sound funny and incoherent at times
because melody is not easily discernible.
They do not belong to the romantic period.
if I might put it simply
Prokofiev’s compositions, especially this one,
would be difficult to play because
the chords seem to be incoherent and wildly diffused.
(From the recent hits on this site, I can again deduce that there are
those who follow high-brow music. The comments and replies on
this site is however closed for obvious reasons. Email me
if you want to contact me.)
orakulo@shaw.ca
Who can be described as natural-born American citizens?
Maybe this next question would help the Americans decide—
Whom among ALL the past American presidents
were natural-born American citizens?
And then of course, the First prize Piano
from the XV Tchaikovsky International Competition
comes Dmitry Masleev,
fast, furious, hyperactive,
plays the piano as if he was driving a car
running on jet fuel.
But I did say that speed plus versatility with the keyboard
compromises one’s romantic rendition of the piece being played.
Not unless the pianist is one like Franz Liszt,
who can play the “La Campanella” with zip,
and the “Consolation No. 3” with fervor.
With comparable speed and precision to Trinfonov (2011),
he still must show, however, that he can feel the music.
But I must be asking too much from Dmitry.
Perhaps he has yet to mature with the music.
After all, he won First Place, didn’t he?
Listen to Danse Macabre.mp4
This one was composed for the orchestra by Saint-Saens,
transcribed for the piano by Franz Liszt,
and then arranged by Horowitz.
Walt Disney made a video translation of this.
.
George Li
19 years old
American
wins second prize piano
from the XV Tchaikovsky International Competition.
This video shows he is playing the
Hungarian Rhapsody no.2
by Liszt-Rachmaninov,
and the Etude No. 3
by Paganini-Liszt
These pieces would be extra difficuilt for him.
because of the short span between his thumb and pinky.
But he has his fingering technique and adaptation to solve this.
He has also succeeded in imposing
the Hungarian accent to the music
of Franz Liszt.
Yu-Chien Tseng
Second Prize
XV Tchaikovsky International Competition
plays Concerto in D major.
It should be remembered that Peter Tchaikovsky
was a pianist by profession
and he composed this violin concerto to expound
on the technical limits of the violin,
A fast tempo from a virtuoso is required
to give justice to this piece.
Yu-Chien played this with noticeable slowness.
The effect, however, more than enhanced the sentimentality
in the music, giving this piece a notably different
but enraptured version,
just like a Hungarian Rhapsody
played ala Chopin Nocturne.
Yu-Chien played the first two movements passionately,
with less pyrotechnics, of course, but still technically correct.
The demanding Third Movement in this video did not have that
appearance of “beating the violin black and blue”
with technical prowess, but the tonal quality
more than made the violin conversational.
This probably comes from applying
gentle pressures on the strings at the precise moments.
If he can make a violin like this talk
imagine what he can do with a Stradivarius!
I had a friend named Yuri,
a popular Russian name
equivalent of the English name, John.
One of his jokes was about a Russian breathalyzer.
One car was seen moving erratically
bouncing up and down in tune with the driver’s hiccups.
The police stopped the car and made the driver do
the breathalyzer test.
Apparently the device did not work
because it did not register the amount of alcohol
that the driver had.
So the policeman breathed on the breathalyzer himself
to test it, and “Oh,” the policeman exclaimed,
“it works!”
“No, I’m not tired–
just trying to remember
why we were going upstairs.”
The year 2016 came in unobtrusively with a bang,
with leaps and bangs, actually.
We see the world in strife,
with peoples in conflict with each 0ther,
with diplomats giving way to the men at arms.
With the prospect of ISIS faltering with their motives,
the Sunni and Shia muslims renew their armed conflicts
not just to air out religious differences,
but to determine once again who would rule the muslims.
The title for this person may not now be CALIPH,
but with a more resounding and prestigious title of
SALADIN.
I do not have to elaborate on this topic anymore.
Just type in the search box the words
“Saladin Syndrome”
and three of my posts on the subject will open up for you.
Hussein coveted the title, and so did Ghadaffi,
now the Turks, Saudis, and the Iranians do.
And when somebody does succeed in being
ruler of all rulers, then what?
It would be interesting to note that the quiet region
now is the Pacific and the Far East.
Now this is a change!
