Kazan — summer 2010

Today our group went to a piano and voice recital. I love piano music, and some vocal performances I enjoy as well. Here was our program:

1. Chaikovsky's "Reflection"
2. Purcell's "Music"
3. Handel's "Dignare"
4. Bach's soprano aria from "Magnificat"
5. Mozart's "Fantasy in D-minor"
6. Schubert-Liszt's "Morning Serenade"
7. Schuman's "In Snow-White Lily Flowers"
8. Schuman's "I am not angry"
9. Schuman's "Reveries"
10. Rachmaninov's "It is good here"
11. Rachmaninov's "They answered"
12. Rimsky-Korsakov's "It is not a wind flowing from the heights"
13. Chaikovsky's "I would like in a single word to say"
14. Bom's "Night-time silence"
15. Klyucharev's "Bashkir dance"
16. Pechersky's "Tumbalalaika"
17. Pechersky's "Tarantella"
18. Mancini's "Moon River"
19. Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", parts 1 and 3

There is something about classical piano that is simply remarkable. It pulls at your heart and mind at the same time, pulling you ever higher and filling you with this amazing internal tension and when the piece is done you are simply bursting with astonishment at this incomprehensible beauty.

On more prosaic fronts, the opera soloist wore an astonishing ivory and black art nouveau dress that fitted her figure perfectly. Her voice was flawless to my ear, but the concentration she was putting into the song was reflected in her eyebrows and her forehead. It was rather distracting. I had never thought one would have to train one's eyebrows and forehead to give the appearance of effortlessness. In retrospect, though, that's obvious.

PS. I translated the Russian program on the fly, without looking up spellings or verifying the English names of these songs, so if they seem odd, it's because I didn't want to put the time into a professional translation for a blog entry.