( Only important days are those ahead of us )

Tyle było dni do utraty sił
Do utraty tchu tyle było chwil
Gdy żałujesz tych, z których nie masz nic
Jedno warto znać, jedno tylko wiedz, że

Ważne są tylko te dni, których jeszcze nie znamy
Ważnych jest kilka tych chwil, tych na które czekamy

Pewien znany ktoś, kto miał dom i sad
Zgubił nagle sens i w złe kręgi wpadł
Choć majątek prysł, on nie stoczył się
Wytłumaczyć umiał sobie wtedy właśnie że,

Ważne są tylko te dni, których jeszcze nie znamy
Ważnych jest kilka tych chwil, tych na które czekamy

Jak rozpoznać ludzi, których już nie znamy?
Jak pozbierać myśli, z tych nieposkładanych?
Jak oddzielisz nagle rozum swój od serca?
Jak usłyszysz siebie w takim szumnym skercu?

Jak rozpoznać ludzi, których już nie znamy?
Jak pozbierać myśli, z tych nieposkładanych?
Jak odnaleźć nagle radość i nadzieję?
Odpowiedzi szukaj, czasu jest niewiele …

Ważne są tylko te dni, których jeszcze nie znamy
Ważnych jest kilka tych chwil,tych na które czekamy…

Marek Grechuta

Caspar David Friedrich

All my women, the adorable women with whom I have dreamed, have interested me. The naughty attraction that Nature has set between the two sexes, to perpetuate species, is excessively strong in me. But the idea of marriage horrifies me. If you hear someday that I have married, you’ll know that I have gone mad. For an artist, marriage is a misfortune. I want to get up everyday in a different state of mind, ready for new sensations; to marry would be to give up everything else in life. I have been around enough to have observed all the married artists in the world; well then, ninety eight out of a hundred are wretched and the other two cease to be an artist…

Do you know what I like best? To make a collection of all the happy moments, eternities, without ever stopping so they could replace the moments of disappointment. I don’t know whether I am making myself clear. I would like to leave of every woman and every friend at the highest moment of affection and never wait until the disenchantment comes. Some women strive for the impossible , for a permanent love, and in their stubbornness they merely attenuate love and happy memories, which are what one ought to aspire to. How long two people love each other is unimportant. What is unforgettable is the intensity with which they love. You can love a woman for forty years, but how? The divine part of that love, the only part that endures is the terrible and exalted madness of the first three weeks. All that remain are leftovers. One day in Venice, in perfect freedom, in the company of a women you’ve dreamt of, is worth more than the whole, prosaic lifetime of a marriage of convenience.

A.R. 1919

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting
for someone to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep through the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped’ onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to ‘be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty’s clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am waiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The month of August was a rather lazy one. Because of the extremely hot weather in the city , i spent most of my time at home practicing and…… cooking. As some of you may know already  , I love to cook and love to explore the infinite culinary treasures that New York City has to offer.  I would like to share with you some of these treasures , as well as those that I have been able to try during my travels. I will try to update this blog post regularly with some new culinary ideas , tips and photos. So please , stay tuned.

Music is a means capable of expressing dark dramatism and pure rapture, suffering and ecstasy, fiery and cold fury, melancholy and wild merriment – and the subtlest nuances and interplay of these feelings which words are powerless to express and which are unattainable in painting and sculpture.

Welcome back my dear readers ( so far I know there are two of you already!) Lately I have been so swamped with work that I totally have neglected my Diario. It;s almost 12.30 am and i promised myself to go to bed by 1am , but i felt a great need of sharing something with you. Today I spent most of the day working on the Brahms 1st concerto. A divine work of genius , everybody knows that. Those who don’t , please listen to it , a new planet will open up for you. A planet you will want to travel to as often as possible and probably want to move and settle there forever. As for me , Brahms came relatively late to me. It seems as he was neglecting me while I was a teenager and in my early 20′s. He didn’t want to waste his time finding a way to my heart while I was preoccupied with Liszt, Rachmaninov , Prokofiev and the salon transcriptions of the Golden Age. He waited for the right moment and then …..he kindly knocked

However, I didn’t want to talk about my love for Brahms’ music but about something I just found online. I was searching for the Karajan’s recording of his 3rd symphony on youtube and came across something so extraordinary that i couldn’t resist of posting it in my little Diario. I found the video of Evgeny Svetlanov conducting the 3rd movement with the Russian National Orchestra. This recording was made about 6 months before Svetlanov’s death on May 3rd 2002. It is by far the most perfect performance of this work that I have ever heard. I am listening to it as I am writing these words and it’s probably the 100th time already!!!  Svetlanov takes a slower tempo and is able to achieve such full and longing sound from the orchestra. It’s simply mesmerizing.    I have always been a fan of this great conductor. Unfortunately I never had a chance to listen to him live , but got to know him a little bit better through my former  teacher Nina Svetlanova who was married to him and told me so many amazing stories about him and about his genius. Some of her memoirs can be found on the website dedicated to him;

http://www.svetlanov-evgeny.com/EN/pianiste/index.php

Also , for those who speak Russian and are interested  , I am attaching  memoirs about him by Evgeny Kissin. A beautiful and passionate letter Kissin wrote remembering his meetings with the great Maestro. When you read it , quickly you will realize that Kissin is not only a great and passionate pianist , but equally wonderful and passionate writer. I wish this letter could be published also on Svetlanov’s website.

Евгений Светланов

So there it is , Brahms Symphony No3 , Poco allegretto  - Russian National Orchestra cond. Evgeny Svetlanov – Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory  , Dec 8th 2001

Enjoy…

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

by William Ernest Henley

p.s.

I am posting the photo with Maestro Spivakov in my Facebook fan page

…that’s how Umberto Eco’s “Diario Minimo” starts and i thought this to be an adequate 1st entry in my blog.