The real sublime of Western music is its historical duration; few realize how much greatness there was in over half a millennium. And the past dumb century is, in all branches of the art, by far the least interesting and distinguished. Perverse indeed that it's so well-documented

The primitive early recordings of the finest nineteenth-century opera singers capture the final 25 years or so of a vocal art that emerged three hundred years before, out of choral and madrigal singing traditions already several hundred years old

As a child and young adolescent, my musical perceptions were decidedly synaesthetic; I distinctly recall "seeing" both instrumental timbre (the Sinfony to Messiah) and tonality (the rich baritone submediant harmonies of Beethoven op. 57/ii) as unmistakably dark palettes of color

Pay no mind to the accounts that soyface about Bach but don't know a single note of any other "Baroque" music; they're naive formalists and literalists. Same as saying you can understand Chopin without profoundly understanding Italian singing technique.

Arnold Dolmetsch is erroneously credited with pioneering interest in old instruments; in fact it was virtuoso pianists like Moscheles and Diémer who gave the first revival harpsichord recitals on antiques. Sadly it was Dolmetsch's amateurism that would characterize Early Music

When Taruskin wrote that "blind modernist prejudice against the unwritten is also deaf", he was acknowledging the general truth that modern musicians, critics, and audiences cannot, in key fundamental respects, hear music, because they were never properly trained to do so

In case any of you are wondering what the planned endgame is, take it from the CFR mouthpiece. Only it won't be sanctions.

Paul Craig Roberts today: 'Dear readers, you can expect war. No one in the Western world, nor Putin, has sufficient intelligence to avoid it. It is just a matter of time.'

Foreign Affairs article from June 3, urging the US to increase its nuclear "posture" against both Russian and China: "Strategists now generally agree that the first use of a nuclear weapon will occur as the result of an escalating regional conventional conflict."

One must speak of nothing but debasement, vulgarity and pure degradation as essential components of the predominant taste and mores today. #Evola

Coming to a concrete view about geopolitical security is tricky because of state secrecy. Nevertheless, unlike other expats I did not get caught in Ukraine when the war broke out, even though I postponed my exit well into that February. The current situation is worse than ever

Paul Craig Roberts, an old-school Cold War realist, called the recent attack on Russian strategic forces "the most potentially dangerous act in my lifetime." The cavalier attitude toward this attack on Russia's strategic forces including by Putin himself is absolutely astounding

All Trump has to do is give the Russians the security agreement they asked for in December 2021. But he isn't really in charge, is he?

Of the very real possibility of nuclear escalation (see the recent Foreign Affairs article I quoted), Trump says "I hope not"

Credible analysts have traced the Operation Spiderweb attacks on Russia's strategic forces, parked openly per treaty with the US (now ripped up), to MI6 with CIA connivance. Rogue Western intel agencies have decided it's okay to test Russia's nuclear doctrine with acts of war

The narrative that Trump can just "walk away" from the Ukraine war is idiotic, given that behind the scenes (and his back), there is an all-out effort to drag the US into a wider war. Trump may not care about international politics, but international politics care about him

"Decades of writing have taught me that it is very difficult to inform people that what they know is wrong." (Paul Craig Roberts)

My Rappi this morning has one of those long Latino names; the penultimate is "Chandler"

Heinrich Schlusnus sings Schubert 'Ständchen' (1927) youtu.be/lnpCqZOZ5_o?fe… via YouTube

The names Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven are just meaningless words to most people now