MLT Club Member Jürgen
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
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Jakarta
The metropolis Jakarta, located on the island of Java, is the capital of Indonesia and has around 10 million inhabitants. This makes Jakarta the largest city in Southeast Asia. Due to various problems in Jakarta, a new capital called Nusantara is being built on the island of Borneo, which is scheduled to be inaugurated in 2024.
Indonesia itself is largely part of the Asian continent, but its part on the island of New Guinea belongs to the Australian continent. The country is spread over a total of 17,508 islands with the main islands of Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi and New Guinea. More than half of the population lives in Java. So there is a lot to discover.
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Hi Jung,
I found diary excerpts from two musicians that you might like 😁:
Beethoven
Beethoven kept a diary from autumn 1812 to 1818. He confides feelings, thoughts and plans to him, but also notes down quotes and general wisdom. The entries do not record memories, they are more like self-talk. Here is an excerpt from 1815, a time of crisis and disorientation:
(The translation of Beethoven’s diary excerpt is a little bit difficult: he wrote in a very old-fashioned style and uses terms whose meaning in the English language I don’t know exactly. I let googletrans do most of the job. I hope the whole thing makes sense. His handwriting: see photo below )
„Let everything that is called life be sacrificed to the sublime and a sanctuary of art! Let me live, even with aids; if they can be found.
If possible, bring the ear machines (note: hearing aid) to maturity and then travel. You owe this to yourself, to people and to him, the Almighty. This is the only way you can develop everything that needs to remain closed within you.
A small courtyard - a small chapel - the song written by me in it, performed in honor of the Almighty, the Eternal, the Infinite. So may the last days pass - and of future humanity. Handel, Bach, Gluck, Mozart, Haydn's portraits in my room - they can help me claim toleration.
My decree: just stay in the country. (…) Easily rented an apartment from a farmer, certainly cheap at this time [in winter]. Sweet silence of the forest! The wind, which comes on the second beautiful day, cannot keep me in Vienna because it is my enemy.“
(Source reference: Bayerischer Rundfunk Klassik - Emerich Kastner, Julius Kapp (Hg.) Ludwig van Beethovens sämtliche Briefe. Leipzig 1923)Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach: The secret diaries of the Thomaskantor in Leipzig
The diaries, which were recently discovered in the Bach Archive Leipzig, shed new light on Bach’s time in Leipzig. They not only cover his musical activities, but also provide insight into his personal life, thoughts and feelings.
In the diaries, Bach describes in detail his work as St. Thomas cantor and the challenges he had to face. He reports on the rehearsals with the St. Thomas Choir and the Gewandhaus Orchestra, on the performances of his works and the audience’s reactions. It is fascinating to read how Bach composed his music and how he dealt with the musical trends and currents of his time.
But it’s not just the musical aspects that are highlighted in the diaries. Bach also provides insight into his family life and his relationships with his children and wife. It becomes clear that Bach was not only a brilliant composer, but also a loving father and husband.
The diaries also shed new light on Bach’s personality. They show a man who worked hard but also struggled with self-doubt and insecurities. Bach describes his fears and worries, but also his joys and successes. It’s an intimate look into the inner life of one of the greatest composers of all time.
The Bach Archive Leipzig is planning an exhibition in which the diaries will be presented to the public. It will be a unique opportunity to experience the great composer’s thoughts and feelings up close and gain a deeper insight into his life.
(Source: MUSIK HEUTE KLASSIK-NEWS-JOURNAL, September 2023)
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Hi Chris,
if you should ever travel to Paris again, I can only recommend a visit to the Louvre (if you haven’t already visited it, what I suspect now). I’m not necessarily a great art connoisseur or expert and actually visited the Louvre just to have been there once. But afterwards I was still impressed. Not so much by the Mona Lisa (a small painting behind bulletproof glass) and the modern art paintings, but by the old paintings that fill entire walls. Most of them are rather dark and boring in photos (we colloquially call this kind of thing „Old Ham“: „Alter Schinken“). But once you’ve stood in front of these huge paintings, where people and animals are depicted almost on a 1:1 scale, it’s very impressive. It’s a bit like experiencing the Renaissance or the Middle Ages live. Contemporary witnesses from days gone by. To be honest: Some of these paintings are really weird and kind of creepy, but back then there was no television or horror movies. If you love painting with a roller, maybe this is the right thing for you. 😀
Yes, Montmatre and the artists’ quarter are very impressive. You can spend a lot of time there.
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A beautiful round trip to the sights of Singapore. One day is certainly very short if you want to see everything at your leisure. As an alternative to the subway route described below, there is a hop-on hop-off bus route. A double-decker bus whose upper level has no roof. A nice and relaxed way to get to know the city.
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This song was recorded in 1999 by the band Aphelion in Singapore. Unfortunately, I have found very little information about the band.
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And what does the modern music scene in Singapore sound like today? It’s all there, pop, cozy rock, metal. Very western style.
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Of course, the Singapore music scene also had its own stars and starlets, which few of us have ever heard of:
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Some beat bands of the time played purely instrumental guitar music. That reminds me a little of the Shadows.
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However, if we take a step back from the traditional music of Singapore and the present – and approach one of our favorite decades – we will be surprised to find that when the Beatles flew to Manila in 1966, they were not bringing the rock and beat music of the western 60s to Asia, but that this kind of music had arrived there long before even a single Beatles foot set foot in Southeast Asia.
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Hi Jung,
Art is the way into reality and another person’s imagination. And sometimes this path leads into unknown worlds and certainly leaves many things open. Hints and allusions, perhaps sometimes questions that the artist has asked himself and that he would like to pass on to the world. Maybe it’s often just the pure fun of creative work, without a lot of ulterior motives and considerations. There are works of art that make me curious and make me think. Pictures that I wouldn’t necessarily hang on my wall at home. This certainly includes the works of surrealists like Dali. I always found Dali’s works very interesting, just like the surrealist landscape paintings by the painter Hans Werner Sahm. Both have understood how to bring the perspectives of everyday life into new dimensions. To put abstract concepts such as time, dream or space in a new relationship to our human perception and thinking.
But I’m actually a fan of representational painting, such as landscape painting, which captures a special moment, forever remembering a blink of an eye in the flow of time and preserving it for posterity. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I have loved taking photographs since I was young and this has shaped my perception of the world. This is my form of art. Maybe I didn’t answer your question, but isn’t life itself and the world we live in a masterpiece that is worth remembering forever? Each of us carries a piece of this puzzle within us, and perhaps if we put enough of these pieces together, as happens in art and music, we expand our understanding of the world.
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As a musical introduction, a short medley in which traditional and modern music styles from Singapore and Malaysia are taken up. Singapore combines the traditional and musical heritage of different nations. Including Malaysia, South Asian, East Asian and Eurasian influences
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The Heart of Southeast Asia
I’ve wanted to introduce Southeast Asia in this thread for a long time because I’ve grown very fond of the cultures and people there. I just didn’t know exactly how to start, since Southeast Asia is a huge area, a microcosm of its own that is almost completely unnoticed by our Western world. A dazzling kaleidoscope of cultures, customs, colors and exotic scents. As diverse as the many languages spoken there, as colorful as the breathtaking landscapes that spread out in front of you and as delicate as the many delicious dishes there to try. If you want to discover Asia for yourself, you should do so with all your senses. Pictures can only give an imprecise idea of what awaits you there. When I traveled to Thailand for the first time many, many years ago, I was very surprised: the variety of impressions that awaited me there: the scents of exotic plants and flowers and the tasty smells of the small restaurants and food stalls that are everywhere are found. Impressions that images unfortunately cannot convey. So the idea came to me to simply introduce the individual metropolises of the countries there. A good start to a colorful, varied trip to Asia.
Singapore
I would like to start with Singapore. In general, Singapore is a good place to start if you have never been to Southeast Asia. Modernity and culture flow seamlessly into one another and the city seems both familiar and exotic to us Western travelers. Singapore is a small island and city state that was once part of the British Commonwealth. A melting pot of different nations and cultures. The smallest country in Southeast Asia, geographically part of Malaysia. In modern times, Singapore has become a wealthy and influential nation. One of the four so-called Asian Tiger States (South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong). An important financial and shipping hub and perhaps the westernmost of all the Asian metropolises I have gotten to know so far.
“The traveler sees what he sees; the tourist sees what he visits.”
-G.K. Chesterton - -
Hi Tom,
yes, it’s a repetition, but still nice. I remember that the train station in Basel is signposted in three languages: Italian, French and German. Romansh is also spoken in the canton of Graubünden. Speaking many languages is a blessing. I wish you a happy new year too.
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Hi David and Bud,
thanks for the information. I remember reading that „Give My Regards to Broad Street“ was said to be a flop at the box office and that there were few good reviews. No sex, no violence and lots of British humor, huh? One more reason to watch the film. 😀
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David, I like the password, but I don’t like the sound the door makes. This is not worthy of Miles Davis. But doors are idiosyncratic constructions and as the following film material shows: even in the future, doors will often not do what they are supposed to. With or without a musical password.