Personal Life Sharing
I am a regular audience (and amateur performer) of classical music concerts. Shared below are some collections of fabulous recordings, selected in personal taste. Meanwhile, there will be some random thoughts on influential artists and recent concerts, updated by occasion.
Aspire to be a multipotentialite. Always keep an eye on traditional Chinese culture, e.g. history, crosstalk (a traditional comedy), medicine. Passionate explorer of western art (ancient instruments, impressionism paintings). Amateur player of table tennis and badminton.
Instrument concerto performance, especially the live ones, is so astounding to me even after thousands hours of listening. Go check out these fabulous recordings, even you are just familiar with Vivaldi's four seasons, which is a nice place to start.
Personal Advice: Beethoven Piano 5, Tchaikovsky Violin, Rachmaninoff Piano 2, Glass Violin
How to demonstrate the elegant texture of music and virtuosity of solo performers? Sonatas might provide essential answers to that. Mozart's elegance, Schumann's "unstable" and passionate, Brahms' self reflection etc. Definitely a place to rest assured.
Personal Advice: Beethoven Piano 21, Schumann Piano 2, Liszt Piano, Prokofiev Violin 2
Celebration for Martha Argerich's 80th Birthday
Scroll down for memories of me following Martha these years.
Well, a person in 80s, perform with memory, effortless and even hustle the speed of younger orchestra fellows for 25 min straight. That is another way to define "savage".
Who is Martha Argerich? Maybe a question much tougher than "How do you thinks of her live performance?". She is too legendary to be defined over a few lines. By Wikipedia, you will get an all-time top pianist (not just female), champion of 1965 Chopin competition, 3-time Grammy winner. To me, she is a multilingual genius, a last-minute concert canceller, a warrior to fight over and defeat the cancer, and of course, best performer with extremely high quality spanned over 5 decades. Finally, an ultimate representative of romantic love story.
To be honest, I just knew Martha in 2016. That was in a class on review of classical piano. Her performance of D. Scarlatti's sonata K.141 was played to audience. This piece is so elegant and subtle in techniques and I never found myself satisfied to any interpretation before Martha's version. (Check out here!) Above that, it seems so easy for her to do that (and a little bit boring for her, from my view then). In video, she was at her 40s or so and you can feel that power of mastering and energy brought to music. Not surprisingly, she is a BIG BEAUTY! Put these together, I know that she will definitely be my lifetime idol in music world.
(to be continued...)
Scenery by Footprint
"Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."
- Franz Kafka, Czech novelist
The map embedded here provides some personal favorites during years of traveling. Blended with hot destinations and chilled towns, with foods you never want to be blind to.