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Chapter 13 Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843～1907, died at 64) Grieg’s grandfather immigrated to Norway from Scotland. Grieg studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, and later established his own unique style of music that incorporated elements of Norwegian folk songs and folk dances, while being influenced by German Romanticism. His achievements were recognized. Although I had not listened to much Scandinavian music, I realized once again that Grieg was a more approachable and gentler composer than Sibelius. *Piano Concerto in A minor Van Cliburn's performance perfectly expresses the lyrical melody of this piece. *Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 and No. 2 seem to be songs attached to a play, and their slightly cheerful melodies become familiar to the ears immediately. For your reference, I have put together a list of composers' works that I re-listened to in the table below.

Chapter 12  Jean Sibelius (1865～1957, died at 91) After studying law at the University of Helsinki, Jean Sibelius later turned to music, and at the Helsinki Conservatory of Music, he met the man who is said to be the father of Finland’s national music. Sibelius studied abroad in Berlin and Vienna. The subject matter was the Finnish traditional epic poem "Kalevala," and he composed outstanding works of the program music and symphonies. *Symphony No. 2 in D major:  This piece was completed in 1902 and reflects my impressions during my stay in Italy. It seems to be generally played the most, but with the exception of the 4th movement, the range of performance volume increases and decreases is large. It is difficult music for me to listen to. *Symphony No. 4 in A minor:  His inner music, which is filled with passion and dark fantasies, is not popular, but many people consider this piece to be his greatest masterpiece, but to me it still has a dark image. It seems to me that the symphonic poem “Finlandia” is his masterpiece. *Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47:  The only concerto by symphonic composer Sibelius. The first movement is a little difficult. The second and third movements have beautiful melodies and are worth listening to. Listen to the performances by Anne Sophie Mutter and Akiko Suwanai. Both are great performances. *Serenade No. 1 & No. 2 and Humoresque No. 1:  I felt that both songs let the tones of the instrument violin be heard to the fullest, but I think they are difficult pieces for the performers. *Symphonic poem “Finlandia” Op. 26 A powerful song that expresses the Finnish people's strong desire to escape the tyranny of imperial Russia. *The symphonic poems “Tapiola” and “The Swan of Tuonela” are songs with gray landscapes that don't suit my tastes. “Lemminkäinen's Homecoming” has a good march-like rhythm. Sibelius, who left behind seven symphonic poems, is considered one of the greatest symphonists (symphony composers) of the 20th century. Sibelius’ symphonic poems are inspired by the Kalevala from Scandinavian legends and about the nature of Finland. The composition was based on mythology. For your reference, I have put together a list of works by composers that I listened to anew in the table below.

Chapter 11 Gabriel Urbain Fauré (1846 ～1924, died at 79) Born in Pamiers in the southwestern part of France, Fauré studied under Camille Saint-Saëns at music school. Under the influence of Saint-Saëns, Fauré laid the foundation for the revival of French music, which at the time was dominated by Wagner and Berlioz, before Debussy. *Requiem:  Among the three great requiems of Mozart, Verdi and Fauré, my favorite is Fauré and the recording by the Paris Conservatory Orchestra conducted by André Cluytens is “Eternal Bliss and Joy.” I think it is a masterpiece and performance that expresses death as a feeling of freedom. I belonged to a mixed choir when I was a student and sang Requiems by Fauré and Mozart on stage. This recording by Cluytens is a masterpiece that I love listening to. 3rd track Sanctus ⇒ Pie Jesu (Victoria de los Ángeles' singing voice is the best!!) ⇒ Connects to Agnus Dei ⇒ Libera me (Wonderful solo by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau ⇒ Ascended to heaven in Paradisum. For your reference, I have put together a list of works by the composer that I listened to anew in the table below.

This book is a historical bestseller that is said to have written about Gauguin's life, largely from the point of view of the narrator, who is a writer. The narrator, a writer, is invited to Mrs. Strickland's dinner party and meets her husband Charles Strickland. Charles was working as a stockbroker in London when he suddenly disappeared, leaving his family behind. At the request of Mrs. Strickland, the narrator heads to Paris, where Charles lives. Charles is living a poor and lonely life. He says he abandoned his family to paint. Five years later, the narrator lives in Paris. When he visits a Dutch painter, Dirk Stroeve, a third-rate painter, who knows Charles and praises his talent. When the narrator meets Charles, who coldly says, “Stroeve is a guy with no special skills.” Charles's life became even poorer, and when the narrator and Stroeve visited Charles' studio before Christmas, they found him seriously ill. When Stroeve told his wife that he wanted to take care of Charles at home, Stroeve’s wife strongly objected. However, as her husband persuades her to take care of Charles, his wife begins to like him. She eventually abandons her husband and takes care of Charles, but Charles does not love her, and she commits suicide by taking poison. When Stroeve learns of his wife's death, he invites Charles to his hometown of Holland, even though he is in despair. The narrator meets Charles and harshly criticizes his cruelty and bad mouth toward his family and those around him. After Strickland’s death, the narrator visits Tahiti. There he meets Captain Nichols, who worked with Charles, and hears that Charles was working as a sailor. Tiare, the innkeeper, arranged for Charles to find a wife named Ata. Dr. Coutras tells the narrator about Charles’ later years when he was infected with leprosy, and learns that Charles's paintings were burned as per his will. The narrator returns to London and meets Mrs. Strickland again. As he finished talking about Charles’ time in Tahiti, the narrator imagined Charles and Ata's son steering a ship on the high seas. Charles Strickland in this novel is said to be modeled after Gauguin, and I was interested in the historical background and the last painting Gauguin painted. Differences in peoples’ lives such as “geniuses vs ordinary people,” “devils vs angels,’ “restricted vs free lives,” or “men's vs women's lives” are not viewed from the perspective of “good or bad” but the story tells us the Christian teachings of the existence of God and that people’s destiny is given by God but people do not control their own destiny. I also realized that I was glad to be an ordinary person who was not chosen by God. Without ever having seen Gauguin's paintings or having the artistic talent to appreciate them, I unexpectedly and easily accepted Charles Strickland's complete ruthlessness, brutality, and madness as a result of being a “genius painter,” and I read the story of his heroic life in one sitting. Although this was my first time to read a novel by Maugham, the resolution of the characters and scenery is clear, and the words that touch upon the core of human psychology and social conditions are interspersed with words that give rise to the title “The Moon and Sixpence.” I would also like to read another of his masterpieces, “Human Bonds.” Among the descriptions of Charles Strickland's life in Tahiti, expressions such as “There was no sound in Charles's home” and ”The air smelled of white flowers that bloom at night” were particularly impressive. Charles' life may seem reckless, but I believe that he was obsessed with the religion of natural beauty and art, and lived a life that pushed him forward. If you look into the meaning of the quote at the end of the book, “The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small,” you will find that it is more like God's divine retribution than “praising God's works” according to the write up found in wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mills_of_God). In response to Charles’ son Robert in London who said that Charles' death from leprosy was God's punishment, the narrator felt it was a strange comment as the narrator remembers how the son by Charles and Charles's second wife's, Ata, had grown up so freely and lively. I will read the Japanese version and think about it again. I think it's a great ending that leaves an impression on the book. This was my first-time reading Maugham's work. I read his bio and I learned that he had a life of hardships from an early age, including stuttering and separation from his parents. I think these hardships are connected to the structure and depth of the work. Writers who lived uneventful lives may not be able to write a complex and ruthless character like Charles in their books. The Raffles Hotel in Singapore seems to have been the main character's permanent residence, and Somerset MRT Station is said to come from there. This is a place I want to stop by when I go to Singapore.

Performed Brahms piano trio op.114 with Ms. Motoko Koizumi (Piano) and Mr. Hajime Saito (Cello) at Musashino City Hall in Musashino, Tokyo. Plan to play the same piece on April 13, 2024 at the APA International Chamber Music Festival at Koganei Miyagi-gakki Hall, Koganei, Tokyo. Cellist will be Dr. Steffen Luitz (a German cellist who is a regular cellist of our piano trio group in the U.S.) and pianist will be Mr. Ikko Torii (a Japanese pianist who played Mendelssohn in April 2023 with Mr. Saito and me). Looking forward to it.

Some people claim that 2023 is the summer of “Barbenheimer.” This “mashup” word was created by studio marketing wizards to express the incredible success that these two movies which were released on the same day have created. Barbie and Oppenheimer are both big-budget films. Both are huge hits. Both are excellent. They represent the best of Hollywood filmmaking and audiences have been moved by both…but for very different reasons. Barbie Rated: PG-13 Stars: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Kate McKinnon, Simu Liu and many, many others Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Adventure Director: Greta Gerwig Writer: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach When Greta Gerwig wrote the script for this movie with her real-life partner, Noah Baumbach, I’m sure neither one of them could have envisioned the success this movie (about a famous doll) would create. Being known and admired writers, they were able to gain a hefty budget for the film that was about $145 million to create. Incredibly, after only a month in the theaters, the movie has already taken in $1.077 BILLION! Why? How? Having a stellar cast and a good budget, the movie created a lot of hype before it was released which certainly was partly due to its early success. But I think it is more than that. We live in such a serious world. I think we all just need a laugh. Also, something nostalgic from our childhood, like a beloved doll, was certainly a way to capture hearts. And Barbie does just that…at least at first. As the movie progresses, it also reminds us of issues that women (and men) have faced in the past and today. The film is a perfect balance between satire and humanity. There are many laughs to be had as well as points to ponder as Barbie takes a journey from her Barbie World into the very real world we live in today. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBk4NYhWNMM Oppenheimer “Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.” Rated: R Stars: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh and many others Genre: Drama, Biography, History Director: Christopher Nolan Writer: Christopher Nolan, Kai Bird, Martin Sherwin The film begins with this ominous quote and sets the tone for this dramatic biography. It is based on the book “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin who also co-wrote the movie’s script with Christopher Nolan. The movie focuses on Oppenheimer’s adult life, including his role in the Manhattan Project where he served as director of a clandestine weapons lab built in a near Los Alamos, in New Mexico, where he and many other of the era’s most dazzling scientific minds puzzled through how to harness nuclear reactions for the weapons that killed tens of thousands instantly, and ended the war in the Pacific. What surprised me when viewing this movie was how much I ended up caring about “The Father of the Atomic Bomb.” I admit that I knew very little about Oppenheimer, the person, before seeing this film. I only knew the horror he was instrumental in creating. Now I have a very different understanding of him after seeing the personal and external pressures that were placed upon him that were portrayed so skillfully in this movie. Oppenheimer is three-hours long, so it is difficult to go into great detail about the various topics it covered. However, for me, it was a perfect film. Cillian Murphy, who portrays Oppenheimer deserves special credit. He is amazing in the title role, and not only does he look like Oppenheimer, but he also has the intensity and humanity needed to play the part. The entire movie, including the stellar cast, realistic sets and costumes and effective soundtrack are all as good as it gets. One thing that sets Christopher Nolan apart from most film directors is that he doesn’t rely on special effects. He gets what he wants in camera. His mastery is evident in each frame. When I think about the striking success Barbie and Oppenheimer have enjoyed, even though they are vastly different from one another, I am struck by the importance of what makes them the same: people need to remember the PAST. Remembering the good and bad that has happened to us can be the best teacher to help us become better humans. Barbenheimer has touched our humanity. Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYPbbksJxIg

Had a lot of fun rehearsing and performing Mendelssohn op 66 with Mr. Ikko Torii (piano) and Mr. Hajime Saito (cello).

It's bit strange to send the titled email when you are in Japan, but I feel like it's paired with my previous photos of “Weeping Cherry Blossoms in Maruyama Park, Kyoto” so I'm sending it to you. At last, I was able to put into practice what I had planned to see at Hikone Castle during the cherry blossom season. Yesterday, I was blessed with fine weather, and I went out on a two-hour train ride. Hikone Castle is designated as a National Treasure along with Himeji, Matsumoto, Inuyama and Matsue because of its beautiful appearance and excellent military function, which is the castle's original function. We saw beautiful scenery here and there that matched the cherry blossoms.

I went to see the weeping cherry blossom in Maruyama Park in Kyoto. The current large trees are the second generation, and the first generation died in 1947 when the trees were 220 years old. The cherry blossoms, carefully nurtured from the first seeds, have grown into large trees that are about 80 years old now. I wanted to see them under good weather when they were in full bloom, but it didn't come true due to the COVID-19 disaster. Today I finally got to see them and enjoyed myself!

Chapter 10 Sergey Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff (Сергей Васильевич Рахманинов) (1873～1943, died at 69) Sergey Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff (Сергей Васильевич Рахманинов) was a great pianist and a composer of modern Russia, and was the leading opera conductor in the last years of the Russian Empire. He was born into a wealthy landowner's family, but his family fell into ruin because of his spendthrift father, and he lives with his maternal family in St. Petersburg. At the age of 9 (1882) he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and at the age of 15 (1888) he studied piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatory. While he was active in Dresden (Germany) from his thirties, he occasionally returned to Moscow, but due to the Soviet Revolution in 1917, he bought a villa in the suburbs of Luzern (or Lucerne), Switzerland (where his grandson still lives), where he could quietly compose music. From time to time, he composed the masterpiece "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" and others. After that, he moved to the United States (1942) and made Beverly Hills (Hollywood) his second hometown. In his later years, despite Stalin's repeated calls to return, he never set foot in his homeland due to the outbreak of World War II. Influenced by Tchaikovsky, whom he respected since he was a student at the Moscow Conservatory, he composed many works that blended the styles of German Romanticism and Russian folk music. Most of his masterpieces were written when he was young, before his exile. Most of his masterpieces were written during his youth before his exile. Many of his melodies express sorrow and love for his homeland, and he left many masterpieces, mainly for the piano, in a popular conservative style, which was rare in the era in which he lived. Rachmaninoff was also an accomplished pianist, and it is said that his hands were as large as 22 white piano keys when put together. *1 Piano Concerto No. 1 Ashkenazy’s (piano, Pf) Piano Concerto No. 1 (C-26) has a fast tempo and many changes between slow and fast, and I think it is a difficult piece for performers. *2 Piano Concerto No. 2 A. Piano Concerto No. 2 (R213), performed by the Moscow Philharmonic, conducted by Kondrashin, is also performed by Ashkenazy on the piano. B. Nobuyuki Tsujii's (Pf) piano performance with Yutaka Sado conducting the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (C-56) has moderate tempos and light performances, so you can enjoy listening to this masterpiece without straining yourself. C. The performances by several other pianists that I listened were all good, especially Kirill Gerstein (Pf) at the Waldbühne Open-Air Concert (Berlin) with the Berliner Philharmoniker under the baton of Kirill Petrenko (CL2- I really liked Q) because it was a perfect performance for a summer evening in the open air surrounded by forests. D. Naoko Kawamura (Pf) performed with the NHK Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Fabio Luisi (CL23-X). *3 Piano Concerto No. 3 A. Horowitz’s (Pf) Piano Concerto No. 3 (C-27) expresses the main melody pleasantly in the first movement. B. 20-year-old pianist, Mao Fujita (CL20-Q), who performed with the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra, is said to have performed this piece for the 11th time, and her techniques and expressiveness are overwhelming. C. Dennis Matsuev (Pf) and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (CL4-J) conducted by Riccardo Chailly 　is also an impressive performance. *4 "Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini" A. Van Cliburn's performance (R214), the 18th variation, which is famous among its gorgeous and splendid performances, expresses indescribably beautiful and melancholy emotions. B. The same piece (C-26) by Ashkenazy on the piano has a fast tempo that seems to be even more difficult, and it is splendidly scattered with notes that seem to roll on the keyboard. Even so, the sudden emergence of the beautiful melody of the 18th Variation, which lasts just over three minutes, has made this piece a masterpiece that has become popular with the general public. *5 Piano Sonata No.2 As long as I listen to Horowitz's performance (C27), I can hear that there is peace in anxiety, but there is also a phrase that slams the keyboard in a furious rage. The melody that deviates from the common sense of the sonata continues to dominate. Rachmaninoff is called *virtuoso. Virtuoso originally had a moral meaning and meant “a virtuous person.” From around the middle of the 19th century, it has been used to refer to musicians, especially performers, who have excellent technical skills. It means like a master or a master, including Paganini and Liszt, the conductor Furtwängler, the violinist Huberman, and the pianists Cortot and Kempff. They are said to be the last virtuosos. *6 Preludes works 23 and 32 I listened to Svatraf Richter's piano performance (R412), and unlike the concerto, I felt that it was a piece that I would like to listen to over and over again because it has a very familiar and easy-to-listen melody. For your reference, the table below shows the list of works by the composer that I listened to. VILLA SENAR: A MAGICAL PLACE SUPPORTED BY RACHMANINOFF FOUNDATION

Beate Sirota Gordon is one of the drafters of the current Japanese constitution. At the time, she was 22 years old and had just graduated from college. Born in Austria, Beate moved to Japan before the war when her father, Leo Sirota, a well-established musician (pianist), decided to teach in Japan. Famous musicians from overseas gathered at their house, and she lived a rich life. Then she went to the U.S. alone to study just before the World War II. She spent the war time at Mills College in California. Four months after the end of the war, on Christmas Eve in 1945, she returned to Japan and was reunited with her parents, who had evacuated to Nagano. The photograph above is my father's book by Beate Gordon (which he gave me) with full of his notes and highlights. My father also had two notebooks with his notes. At that time, Beate saw Tokyo as a burnt-out ruin, except the Imperial Palace. Since there were few people who could speak both Japanese and English then, and she had an acquaintance at GHQ (General Headquarters) of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, she was hired as a staff member in the Civil Welfare Bureau. She was then appointed to the important role of writing a draft of the Constitution of Japan in two months, which would turn Japan a democratic nation. While she was living in Japan until her high-school years, gender equality did not exist then. The new constitution was aimed at focusing on changing the nation’s long customs and laws that women were expected to put up with inequality. Day and night, she worked side by side with veteran legal colleagues. So far so smooth, but veteran men read her drafts and mostly deleted them because her draft was too progressive, and the U.S. in 1945, too, there was no "perfect and essential gender equality". Beate was in tears of frustration, but it was convenient to be able to provide her parents, who were malnourished during her evacuation, with the money and goods she worked for at GHQ. Finally, in 1946, a new constitution was promulgated. The book club held a New Year's party, and the discussion lasted for two and a half hours. Below is an excerpt of the comments. “There were surprisingly few pages about drafting the constitution in the book, but her feelings for Japanese women were reflected in her subsequent activities in the Japan Society and other organizations. It is admirable that she lived positively even though she regretted for many years later that she could not convince her male colleagues her ideas on "equality" in her draft of the constitution. Apparently, there were some criticisms about a women (non-legal expert) been hired to draft the constitution, but I am afraid what would have happened if that did not happen. ”I didn't know that a young woman with high aspirations joined men and drafted the Japanese Constitution right after the war. Then I understood the meaning of the original title of the book; "Christmas 1945: An Autobiography of the Woman Who Wrote "Gender Equality" in the Constitution of Japan. “The book was so interesting that I finished reading it in two days. I wondered how Beate lived a 'rich' life (not in a financial sense) before the WWII time in Japan. In addition, I realized that there were Russian Jews who survived with making great sacrifices to their lives while being tossed about by the time of the war." The "gender equality" in the Constitution of Japan was to be focused, and I wondered how the GHQ's draft became the Constitution in the end in that regard. Separately, I went to a seminar titled "Constitution Cafe" sponsored by the group called Association to Protect Article 9 of the Constitution, and some material was given at the seminar regarding "gender equality." So, I read the book while comparing it with the material given at the seminar. I haven't studied enough yet and I'm neither a constitutional revisionist nor a constitutionalist, but honestly when I saw this LDP’s (Liberal Democratic Party) proposal, I wondered why they changed everything so much. The U.S.'s (and other developed nations') constitutions have changed "gradually" through revisions over years. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know that the current Japanese Constitution was written from such a background until I read the book. I think that this book is a book that both constitutional revisionist and constitutionalist (conservatives) should read. A long time ago, I heard a phrase from a constitutional scholar who said, "The constitution is an ideal idea." If that is the purpose, I thought deeply about what kind of philosophy we would build from now on. “I heard that there was an exhibition of Ms. Beate Sirota last year at the National Women's Education Center. Looking at this, I think you can get a sense of what it was like back then. https://www.nwec.jp/event/archivecenter/Beate_online.html

On January 23rd, I had the opportunity to go to Akira Fuse's live tour concert held in Chofu City. As soon as my wife found it, I made a reservation. As the theme of the concert was "Reviving the Passion of the Old Days" I expected that there would be many songs that we had often heard before, but it had a wider repertoire. Few songs I knew were "Smell of Cyclamen" and "Lake Mashu in Fog", and "My Way" (in Japanese lyrics). The ending number was "Time to Say Goodbye" in Italian. I enjoyed and spent two hours with a certain sense of security. Personally, I was expecting a wider selection of songs (including jazz numbers) in addition to his own songs, but apart from that, his overwhelming voice and the volume were just a word of surprise. It was also truly a surprise that in two years, 60 years after his debut, he would become a late-stage elderly of 75-years old. Recently, many singers of my generation are retiring, and I sometimes see them sing at their farewell shows and concerts. So, I may have felt that way about Fuse in particular. I didn't know that he was originally from Mitaka City and attended a local junior high school in Fuchu City where I live close by. However, as the story progresses with a good sense of humor, it struck me that he himself was worried about the current state of Japan and that he hoped for the revival of the good old days of our times. He was married to an English woman and probably lived in New York（or Hollywood) for a long time thus perhaps came up with the theme of the concert this time. It's still too early for him to retire. I went home with a rich feeling and was sending my all the best to the singer in the coming years.