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Saint Peter @ Pearly Gate-Legal Angle

Four death row criminals appeared before Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates and he asked them have they been honest in their life and their answers are as follows:

1. I was honest to the prosecutors and landed here after a lethal injection.

2. I did not lie under cross examination and had my death sentence commuted to life sentence and ended here after a gang clash between the inmates.

3. I replied factually under cross examination and got my death sentence commuted to life sentence with parole possibility but was killed by my victim's relative outside prison wall.

4. The prosecutors asked the wrong questions and was pronounced innocent and lived to a ripe old age until old age took me here.

Have a good laugh. An original joke by lkypeter aka Peter Lye

Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye

Choo Hoey Returns - Many Happy Returns

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) last Friday was aptly named Choo Hoey Returns. It was a concert that I was looking forward to not so much for the program but for the conductor Choo Hoey whom I have grown to be very fond of as it brings back many old teenage memories as I grew up listening to his performances when he set-up the SSO in 1979 when I was just a teenager starting to appreciate classical music. I would have wished for the concert to be at Victoria Concert Hall (VCH) instead of the newer Esplanade Concert Hall as SSO first home was VCH and had recently moved to Esplanade Concert Hall from VCH when it was completed. This would have completed the nostalgia. Perhaps Singaporean should cherish the old whilst keeping in step with her development.

Choo Hoey is no ordinary conductor. Back in 1979 when he first agreed at the bequest of former Minister Dr. Goh Keng Swee to help setup SSO which is the first for our little island state, he was doing well in the West but gave up his little ambition to pioneer SSO. For this, I am ever grateful to Choo Hoey for the instrumental part he played in the birth of SSO. Being a guy, I also grew up admiring the ever gracefully dressed Lynnette Seah who has been with SSO as long as Choo Hoey I think. She is currently co-leader for SSO. I must say that whilst many lady musicians in SSO chose to wear pants, I could hardly remember a concert seeing Lynnette Seah in pants. She is ever so elegantly dressed during concerts.

The first piece was a french piece Printemps by Debussy. It is a piece that I am not familiar with and it was my first hearing of the piece. I read from the program commentary by Marc Rochester that Printemps in french is closely equivalent to Spring in english. He continued that it is a controversial piece because the original score was destroyed and Debussy had no intentions of resurrecting it and was being resurrected by another musician named Henri Busser. I like the piece and would most probably go look for it to add to my collection. Choo Hoey was his usual effervescent self making it both an audio and visual treat for me.

The second piece had Lynnette Seah playing a very familiar piece Tchaikovsky only Violin Concerto. I have about 10 full versions of this piece on recording and have heard it live in concert countless time. Familiar is the piece but it is not an easy piece and pile that with the easy comparison as this piece has been remarked by some as being recorded to death. Although the piece opened with gusto under Choo Hoey, Choo Hoey was his usual style in conducting concertos allowing the soloist space and ensured that the orchestra stayed as an accompaniment rather than the lead role. This is not easy approach to adopt as Choo Hoey is a larger than life conductor on stage but when it came to concertos, he knew the orchestra station. SSO under Choo Hoey did very well in this light but my favorite for this piece is still with Julia Fischer. I have reviewed this piece at Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major Opus 35 last year.

The final piece after the interval was the last symphony that Dvorak wrote in his homeland before leaving for America. It is Dvorak Symphony No 8 with Symphony No 9 nick named The New World having been written in America. This Czech piece was very gallantly played by the SSO watching Choo Hoey directing SSO was an equally if not a bigger treat for me. When the piece was completed, the audience was clapping zealously and Choo Hoey had to hold the hands of Lynnette Seah out of the stage otherwise the night would have gone on and on.

Why Many Happy Returns for this article is because the starting and ending pieces were happy pieces. As for the middle piece by Tchaikovsky, it is most probably one of melancholic as Tchaikovsky wrote it shortly after his disastrous marriage perhaps as a cover rumor of his being gay. In addition, personally it brings back many happy teenage memories. I remembered once taking my date to a SSO concert and she was so straight jacketed by the audience silence that she could not wait for the concert to end. Perhaps this is the reason why we did not end up together but neither is my wife a person appreciative of classical music.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter

Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye

"The Pianist" and Chopin Piano Concerto No 1 in E Minor Op 11

Photograph of Chopin by Bisson, c. 1849

The 2002 show "The Pianist" by director Roman Polanski is about the real life experience of a Polish/Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw in the second world war and how he managed to survive whilst other Jews around him perished at the hands of the Nazis. The first thing that strike me about the film was its opening and ending not that there isn't anything substantial about the show. In fact, the entire show had my eyes glued to the screen reminding me about the atrocities of war and ears to the nicely paired background music that accompanied it.

The opening and ending had Szpilman playing Chopin pieces under different circumstances. The opening was of him playing the piece at the Polish National Radio Station midway when Nazi bombs started littering the streets of Warsaw and how he held on and continued playing albeit at increasing tempo until the piano was destroyed. The ending shows a post war concert of him playing the same piece.

Chopin wrote two piano concertos in his short life but many romantic piano pieces. Perhaps the good dies young and the wicked suffers a longer sentence on planet Earth. This piano concerto was written after his second piano concerto but was published first and therefore had a lower opus number of 11 as opposed to 22 for the second piano concerto.

The piece has 3 movements. The first starts with a longish orchestra introduction that puts the pianist twiddling fingers or nervously waiting for his turn to show his skills. Have been to concerts and saw videos of this piece and has watched varied postures taken by the pianist during this anticipatory start some of which are worth a laugh or two. At the ripe moment, the pianist enters with a very loud first minor chord and thereafter to finger runs along the piano as it is very Chopin to be very notes centric rather than chord centric like Rachmaninov or Tchaikovsky. Some sources have it that Chopin aptly named this movement Allegro maestoso not that it will be a walk in the park for the maestros but rather only maestros need attempt this walk.

The second movement is both romantic and fairly lyrical and clocks in at roughly half the length of the first movement which runs for about 20 minutes. It does seems to me that this second movement is more like a bridge to the finale with most of the glory of the piece being exhibited in the first movement.

The finale is a Rondo that thunders in with an orchestration starts just like the first movement before bringing the concerto to a grand finale.

If orchestration is your meat, best to look towards Beethoven, Mozart or even Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov but the beauty of this concerto likes in the striking piano parts that can almost stand on its own as Chopin is primarily a pianist at heart and it shows in this piece where his heart lies.

I spent the last few days going through my collection to hunt for various recordings that I have of this piece and was nicely surprised that I have 7 but I thought 8 as one is missing somewhere. Was able to do so as I have almost ripped all my classical CDs into iTunes and could search at light speed compared to going through the CDs on the rack. The 7 recordings are as follows:

1.Garrick Ohlsson with Kazimerz Kord conducting the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra recorded in 1997. Ohlsson is considered one of the living Chopin experts on two counts on having recorded the entire Chopin repot-ire and having won the Chopin Piano competition himself.

2.Olga Kern with Antoni Wit conducting the same Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra recorded in 2004. Olga was a gold medalist at the 11th van Cliburn paino competition and she has a slightly wider range of composers centering on more Russian composers like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.

3.Martha Argerich with Charles Dutoit conducting Montreal Symphonic Orchestra in 1998. Argerich name is on the top top list of pianist and her rendition of this piece blows my mind away.

4.Nikolai Demidenko with Heinrich Schiff conducting The Philharmonia recorded in 1993. I have seen Demidenko live and he is very balanced and technical in his ways as in this album.

5.Yund Li with Andrew Davis conducting The Philharmonia recorded in 2006. Yund Li is also a Chopin Piano medalist like Olga Kern.

6.Lang Lang with Zubin Mehta conducting Weiner Philharmoniker in 2008. Lang Lang is a very successful pianist from China having recorded extensively with many renown conductors and orchestras. Perhaps the loud and some egotistical ways gets filtered into his interpretation making it over exuberant. I just hope that attraction of money and fame does not tip him into the dark side of pop-ciscal as in giving classical music a pop interpretation in future not that he has done it now.

7.Polish pianist Alexis Weissenberg with Stanislaw Skrowaczeski conducting Orchestre de la Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire recorded in 1967.

After a couple of days of intense listening, my vote goes to Martha Argerich as she shows she is in control of the piece and yet lets the emotions deliver the musical message. On first hearing, I was about to strike it off my list due to the orchestra start which I felt was a tinge too fast but she and Dutoit does tango well as there is very little signs of struggle between the pianist and the conductor/orchestra.

Left Brain Right Brain

Heard this joke from one of my kids that purports that is was their original and not a re-post.

There is nothing right about my right brain and my left brain has nothing left!

Shostakovich Symphony No 1 in F Minor Op 10

It is often said that great works are followed by sequels of disappointments and finally unfinished business. In the case of Shostakovich, his first symphony is more like an insight to greater things to follow as he wrote a total of 15 symphonies in his life time.

Symphony No 1 in F minor with an Opus number of 10 was written during his teenage years but the symphony showed no sign of childishness or undefinedness due to biological hormonal transformation that plague many teenagers. Maturity and insight into larger social and political issues seems to underline the symphony against a backdrop of social and political transformation under the newly minted Soviet communist regime and power transition from Lenin to Stalin. The minor scale of a dark canvass belies the piece. This was punctuated by many mysterious and surprising corners through clever plays of the timpani and inter-plays between brass and woodwind sections.

The drum roll that begins the four movements gives one an expectation of the start of a triumphant or regal piece but it quickly blends in with the first 3 movements of mystery and surprises with the repeated drum roll making a few rounds before ending on a note of what seems like an end of a significant event that is neither jubilant or dark. This suspenseful insignia of Shostakovich was to follow his many pieces that left both political intrigue or the largest politico-musical scandal of the communist regime as it begin to unfold before modern day Shostakovich interpreters.

There is also a hint of romantic era influence in between the mystery shrouded piece. The composer was said to be under the weather emotionally and was institutionalized in an asylum and thought to have attempted suicide during the 1-2 years of writing this symphony.

Although he was poor, Shostakovich is believed ( not by his contemporaries but modern day scholars ) to be a firm believer of the merits of the democratic/capitalist system and the devil that underlies the communist regime. Although nothing much is known about his religious beliefs, Karl Marx maxim that religion is the opium of capitalism is not likely to be one of them. Some say that they hear a cry for justice out of a summary execution and you be the judge.

The piece was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic in 1926.

Prelude to the Music of Political Sarcasm

Dimitri Shostakovich lived during the era where Stalin ruled over communist Russia. He was one of the few composers to have gained the stamp of approval to use music as a tool to rally the country into the communist cause. Now that the Iron Curtains are down and much more exploration is done on his music, there appears a lot of sarcasm embedded in his so called nationalistic symphonies. When I read about this, I jumped up in enthusiasm and decided to give his music a deeper look as I have always though it was just typical neo-classical genre with their complex form that eludes their character.

This is just a short prelude as I have armed myself by going out to buy his complete 11 symphonies as I already have some of his violin concertos and other minor music. With lots of Coke, a good listening ear and reading up, I shall be putting pen to paper on my discoveries soon.

In our language 'Akan Datang' or coming soon.

Late now and I have to sleep

Peter Lye aka lkypeter
Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye

Music and Politics-Dvorak Symphony No 9 in E minor Op 95

I recently went crazy about Dvorak Symphony No 9 in E minor Op 95 or aptly named "From the New World" as the Czech composer wrote it during his stay in America and it was premiered also in New York by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The name Dvorak has been sort of a tongue twister as I never learnt correctly how it should be pronounced and would quietly go look for the piece on my own on the shelf instead of asking for assistance at the risk of embarrassing myself.

I personally have 5 complete versions of this piece and the last version and sixth version I heard and saw over the internet was very special in that it was performed by the premiering Orchestra New York Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Lorin Maazel in Pyongyang, North Korea in 2008. The significance being that the New York Philharmonic Orchestra is the first foreign orchestra to perform in this very closed country. This sort of qualify it as being music diplomacy.

The live recording done in Pyongyang and widely telecasted and netcasted had almost 100% audience discipline with hardly any audience nuances like coughing etc audible and it might as well have been a studio recording as such. Normally, you sacrifice a bit of imperfections in live recordings for the added exuberances of the performing artist but this live recording could have been as cold if not colder than a studio recording. Perhaps it could be that the recording was done during winter or the political climate was not right. Lorin Maazel also did not seems to display a very involving performance himself. In fact, the conducting could be described as somewhat aloof and remote. Not the usual style of Maazel. Although the symphony is keyed in minor but it is no where near melancholy and does have colorful passages in terms of the native American folk music influence.

Chicago Symphonic Orchestra-I have two versions from this orchestra. An older recording under Fritz Reiner and the second recording being conducted by James Levine. Although the Reiner version being made in the 1950s suffered from higher noise floor, RCA did a good job in re-mastering it and the playing was also more melodic then dramatic compared with the later recording by James Levine with the same orchestra. Chicago was also the place where Dvorak spent most of his time whilst in America and it was also where he felt more welcomed compared to New York. Perhaps, there is less competition for the lime light as Chicago is a smaller city.

The other 3 recordings are made on the European continent where Dvorak was born. Witold Rowicki did an outstanding job leading the London Symphony Orchestra on this piece with the right amount of emotive highs and lows and the timpani playing is well accentuated on this piece but some have a different opinion as an over bearing out of control percussionist.

Neeme Jarvi lead the Royal Scottish Orchestra to a triumphant mood with very good brass and woodwind portions especially the french horn playing was very regal fitting of such a piece. The final recording by the Swedish National Orchestra lead by Thomas Dausgaard is most probably sonically the best sounding being one of the more recent recording enjoying better technology and it is also a very technically well framed by Dausgaard under his 'Opening Doors' range of recording done for BIS.

I am glad to have married music and politics by this article on my blog. Happy weekend.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter
Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye

The Singapore Pledge Debate

The Singapore pledge has moved from becoming a daily ritual during my school days to grow on my altruistic ensemble over the years. I heard somethings about a parliamentary debate on the pledge on the car radio. Shock pulled my other part of my body from my bed a few kilometers away. No danger as my wife was driving and I was desperately trying to catch up on lost sleep.

I decided not to read a singe shred of this topic so that I can form my own opinion unadulterated by you reporters and journalists alike. No pun intended. Up to now, I have kept this faith and will launch into penning my thoughts on such topics in an unadulterated manner.

To me the pledge represents a couple of things namely:

a. A state that we would like to arrive at at year X in the future.
b. A common compass to point us towards the year X destination.
c. A common moral goal post for a secular society polarized across various divider like race, religion, language and social standing.
d. Justice is blind and fair. (the lady with a blindfold on top of old supreme court has always caught my attention). Not the woman but the concept it conveys.

Singapore is a young nation whether you use 1819 or 1959 or 1965 as birth years. Not only that, the multi-ethnic composition right from the start did not help and a sprinkling of riotous events along racial and religious lines did not help. It seems that the low flash point thinner to glue the society together as one never had a chance and the low flash point thinners were used in the raw with disastrous results as we look back using our rear view mirror and hopefully wiser.

On why the pledge written by Rajaratnam and revised by Lee Kuan Yew should stay the way it is to allow it to sink deeper roots a few more generations for it to be internalized in the future generations. I am not suggesting that we continue on a track and not change it for old time sick to bring us all into destruction. By not changing the pledge which we have very little reasons to do so after such a short period will transmit to the younger generation the meaning of sacredness and longevity of some of our institutions. Seeing my two kids grow up and the youths that I interact with, it seems that we need not worry about them adopting to the fast changing environment that is becoming second skin to many of them but to root them in the areas that needs longevity together with their dynamism transform Singapore into unique society in the world and no longer the little red dot as we are commonly known as.

On the question of equality, there seems to be an existing dichotomy like granting the Malays in Singapore certain special privileges. And if I read it correctly, the ruling party might be concerned that the pledge might be used as instrument to rally SIngaporean into one be made to polarized the nation and allow racial overtones color our largely islamic and Malay geographical neighbors. Many countries like New Zealand, USA, Canada,Malaysia and Australia practices some form of first nation rights to certain groups to varying degrees.

This could also have been prompted by religious activism world wide and this worries me too and in a secular society, we should at all times be able to live as one people with different races, religion and practices. Tolerances, understanding, and respect shall be hall marks by which we live by.

Schumann Symphony No 4 in D minor Op 120

Schumann music has not figured very much on my radar for unknown reasons but one day while at a music store, I was introduced to his symphonic works and I decided to give it a try. It was interpreted by Eliahu Inbal and was like love at first sound. I could not figure out why but I recently learned that we might be hard wired to some musical forms unconsciously. In that experiment, they got a volunteer who loves Bach music. Played some obscure pieces from both Bach and Beethoven and ask the person to choose which composer each piece belongs to. It came as no surprise that the participants were able to get the correct composer most of the time as the two composers belongs to different eras with markedly different styles. However, there were some wrong answers also.

In a second series of tests, they now put the participants insides a MRI machine and used special ear phones to play the music to the participants while taking an MRI of their brain. The ear phones had to be special as nothing metallic would survive an MRI machine. The participants were also equipped with an A/B switch to indicate whether the music was Bach to Beethoven. The percentage of right and wrong answers were about similar. Two notable observations were made during the experiment. Firstly, the MRI almost consistently showed two markedly different patterns according to the composer and very little differential between pieces by the same composer. Secondly, even when the participants gave the wrong answers, their brain seems to have gotten the correct answer according to the image on the MRI.

Would love to acknowledge the owner of the above experiment but I could not recall the names and my apologies. My point being that perhaps I am hardwired to like Schmann symphonies without knowing.

Getting back to music, the symphony no 4 has two versions ie the 1841 and heavily revised 1851 with the latter being the more commonly played and recorded version. My collection of this piece quickly grew from 1 to 6 of which only 1 is the 1841 version. It was also opinionated by some Schumann experts that symphony no 4 was actually a heavily revised version of his symphony no 3 but after much listening to both, I cannot hear the similarity personally.

I would start with the Eliahu Inbal version with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Schumann being a German and Inbal being Jewish and given the history of the two races, it is interesting that music can be a common denominator that glue things together. This version is more subdued interpretation right from the first note. Inbal most probably considered the circumstances surrounding the composer when the piece was written and the fact that his wife Clara Schumann is said to have a hand in the revision closer to his death after an attempted suicide. A widow under those circumstances is more likely to be more subdued mood wise as she internalize her husband death.

The version by Riccardo Muti with the New Philharmonia Orchestra also mirrors that of Bernstein and this is perhaps because the recordings were done at about the same time.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt did a fairly recent recording with his Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and this is most probably what I would term as a catching the train interpretation tempo wise. Sonically, it has the advantage of better recording technology and also a markedly larger orchestra.

Thomas Dausgaard and Swedish Chamber Orchestra is next on my list. I have this on SACD and with a smaller orchestra, it actually sounded sweeter.

Although I have not heard the 1841 scoring, some might say that the scoring of the earlier 1841 version is like an uncut diamond and perhaps the beauty is most probably in rawness and capturing the initial intent of the composer.

The more authoritative version by Leonard Bernstein with Vienna Philharmonia is quite the opposite interpretation with gusto and much extremities of emotions throughout the piece. Perhaps Bernstein is registering the probable mood swings that Schumann was going through in his final hours of life. This is also a live recording and the audience sounds very disciplined or the sound engineers did a good job to mask it.

The last version is most probably one of its kind. I got this piece second hand off the internet and it happens to be a recording made at the bequest of the German Bank West LB when they sponsored the concert in Dusseldorf where the composer once lived. The conductor was Hans Vonk that has recorded this piece with Czech Orchestra before but this one was with a German Orchestra. The entire liner notes was in German and rightly so as it is supposedly given away as a memento to guest of West LB at the concert. I do not wish to trace its origin further but it is a good recording with enough energy to move my heart strings.

For my lawyer friends out there, Schumann actually wanted to be a lawyer but decided that he is more suited for a musical career. Perhaps one of the reason his symphonic pieces are not heard that often is because it was recorded that he was not a good conductor but I think one need not be a good conductor to write good symphonies.

Lastly, for my more religious friends, Schumann is a so called atheist it was documented that his life was the pursuit of wine women and song although his wife Clara continued to carry his torch even after his death.

The Wisdom of Crowds-Singapore Election Perspectives

Sir Francis Galton who is a half cousin of the Charles Darwin and a person steep in aristocracy and the study of inheritance of intelligence during the early 1900s was surprised that the crowd at a county fair was able to guess the weight of an ox better than the estimates of the cattle experts at hand. Although no single guess of the crowd and cattle experts were correct, the mean of their collective guess of the crowd was more accurate than that of the cattle experts. For Francis Galton, this was not only a surprise but most probably represented an unlearning of his basic belief in the superior wisdom of the intelligentsia proxied by the aristocrats of his time relative to the wisdom of the crowd.

Many years ago, the elder statesman of Singapore; Lee Kuan Yew once made a comment that perhaps there should be a re-examination of the 1 man 1 vote system which is the cornerstone of democracy. Such a comment by a politician would have been equated to a politician committing career hara-kiri. However, in Singapore Lee Kuan Yew was commended for his candor in being willing to surface such a sensitive topic for the public to start pondering about. The topic did not take much root and died a natural death on the media and eventually in much of Singapore.

It was an old Washington Post editorial where Francis Galton experiment was mentioned that revived my memory of the comment made by Lee Kuan Yew. What unsettled me was that Lee Kuan Yew have a few parallel in terms of beliefs with Francis Galton with both of them being highly intelligent, influential members of society and thought leaders. In addition, the topic of inheritance of intelligence has also some parallel in the 'Graduate Mother Scheme' that has been abolished. This scheme provided off-springs of graduate mothers priority points in getting into choice schools. This scheme was relatively short-lived as it saw opposition not only from non-graduate mothers who were dis-advantaged by it but also by the graduate mothers themselves I believe on an altruistic heart chord of preserving the scared equal opportunity for all and sundry. At least it proves that political apathy has not gone as far into the woods as some might have thought. To be fair to Lee Kuan Yew, it was a Ministry of Education policy and not entirely his making.

Perhaps, we all should be mindful that though the 1 man 1 vote system is not perfect, it is most probably the best that we have. To me, this is so scared that most attempts to improve the system will more likely injure it than do any good to it and perhaps should be considered an out of bounds topic for a long time.

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 3 Op. 72 / 79: Unfinished Business

Tchaikovsky died in 1893 under questionable circumstances. Some attribute it to cholera and others to committing sucide through taking poison. Whatever the circumstances surrounding his death, he definitely left some unfinished business. He started writing his third Piano Concerto in 1892 and till the time of his death, he has only finished the first movement in Allegro brillante leaving the remaining two movements in Andante and Finale unfinished. However, he signed off "The end. God be thanked." at the end of the original manuscript of the first movement which seems inconsistent with a composer that have another two more movements to write. As a speculation consistent with the suicide theory surrounding his death, it could be that life was becoming so unbearable that he could no longer bear to live to finish the remaining two movements before bidding goodbye to this world. Tchaikovsky did not lead a very regular live as there were rumours about his homosexuality as well as his marriage to Antonina Miliukova supposedly as a cover for his homosexuality.

Taneyev attempted to complete the last two movements of the unfinished work by providing the orchestration to it after the death of Tchaikovsky. The completed work as published as Op 79. However at the premiere of this work on 19 January 1985 in St Petersburg, only the original first movement was played. Perhaps as a mark of respect to the original composer Tchaikovsky.

In 1956, Bogatryryev made another attempt on a different plane by creating a four movement symphony by combining the three movements of the piano concerto done by Taneyev with a Scherzo from Tchaikovsky eighteen pieces for piano Op 72. This synthesis has transformed a Piano Concerto to a Symphony and in my opinion might be far from what Tchaikovsky intended the piece to be.

I would be going to Singapore Symphony Orchestra concert with pianist Stephen Hough and conductor Zhang Xian to listen to their rendition of this controversial piece on 10th July 2009.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter
Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye

Childhood

When I was young kid in primary school, friends were people that inject the fun factor into my life mostly and at times a little bit of sorrows when we fight or quarrel sometimes over the most petty of matters. I grew up in public housing in Singapore widely known as HDB where about 80% of the population of Singapore are housed in. During that 1970s, most of these housing were very monolithic and crammed but there were ample open spaces for us kids to amuse ourselves in. When amusement hour comes, you can find the open spaces littered with children out at play. Although we were economically challenged to some extent, there was no lack of fun. With a few marbles, a couple of sandbox ( not of the corporate variant ), holes on the sandy pit and a few play mates and we have a game of marbles. It was to a certain extent an integrated resort for kids as the end in mind was to end up with as much marbles as possible by winning them over from your friends. Of course, there would be winners and losers, good and bad days as in all games. Sometimes, these games do end up in squabbles over whether there is a foul or not or whether there was any cheating by squatting beyond the permitted line in the sand. As we are of varying age and size, normally, the ones with longer limbs have an advantage but shooting skills does play an important part as well. Besides marbles, we also played football but of a different variety. As most of us were too poor to afford a proper football, a cheap plastic ball with foot wear to mark the goal post with the height element missing. It is normally played on cemented floor or along the corridors.

I began to recollect my past as I watched China marked the anniversary of the terrible earth quake that took and re-arranged many lives in Chengdu about 1 year ago. A dated news footage of children playing happily against a backdrop of the ruin days after the terrible earth quake oblivion to the misery all around. In that sense, the poor neighborhood that I grew up was in a sense the backdrop of the ruin with many families literally living from pay cheque to pay cheque and a day's delay could mean much hardship. However, when we kids were at play, I could recall very few if any displayed any of that misery. Perhaps it is a special ability bestowed on kids to enable them to cope better in such situations. Such abilities seems to wear out gradually as we mature with age.

In that sense, there is something magical about childhood that perhaps we ought not only to cherish but also to preserve and live by as appropriate.

Dedicated to my two children Deborah Lye and John Ross Lye.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter
Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye