shostakovitch etc.

i first heard shostakovitch in 1994 at belmont school of music in nashville.  i often went there to hear michael stalcup play pianoin the rehearsal studios.  he introduced me to glasanov, scriabin, gottschalk and he'd play rachmaninoff and schubert and schuman and chopin as well.

several semesters of soviet and russian literature and cared a lot for the gulag and tolstoy and dostoevsky.  thus ran the russophilia.

the wikileaks story finds situation in a solzhenitsyn taste . . .

truly, tolstoy was my first french teacher, due to their rampant francophilia in the russian courts.
or the gigi musical.
or un couer en hiver . . . of ravel



next to shostakovitch then comes hindemith, the four temperaments composed for balanchine especially, and then prokofiev's piano and violin concerti. . .


four temperaments---hindemith
of government condemned refugee composers . . .
and other such medievalisms
on the train into dublin 1997 and the walkman cd player redemption

viva ennui

gigi: it's a bore
simply not my cup of tea
"the same dull world where ever you go
the earth is round but everything on it is flat"