Aquileja

I wrote about the Finnish national anthem before. Since that I've been interested in Finnish classical music. Speaking of Finnish classical composers, you might think about only one person, Jean Sibelius(1865-1957). He is known as a great composer of symphonic music.

Everybody knows his symphonic poem 'Finlandia'. He also composed about 150 works for solo piano. Most his works for piano are unknown at the moment. Few pianists play his works and you can hardly get the CDs. But if you listen to his works for piano once, you will soon find out many of those works are unforgettable. The feature of his piano works is its simplicity. In early 20 century, pianists liked to study virtuoso pieces like Rachmaninov's and Liszt's. And at the same time, people liked to watch their virtuoso performances and listen to those pieces like that. That's why Sibelius's piano works didn't attract a lot of people at that time. Actually, he was not a virtuoso type pianist. According to his biography, he got his first piano in his fifties. But I don't think he was a bad pianist. His fingering style is justified and natural at least.

Tonight, I will introduce his adorable piano piece, Aquileja Op 85-4. This is a only two minutes, small piece. First, cadgy melody with simple beat is coming. This melody sounds like a folksong of countryside and makes you relax. You might imagine beautiful forest of northern Europe from this melody. After that, the melody repeats with colorful arpeggio and the scenery becomes more colorful and expanding. After the third repeat, the melody turns a little sentimental with descending scale and goes back to the beginning style as if you returned home after the long journey. If you would like to listen to this piece, I would be happy to play it for you.

Trip to Hawaii

It's been a long time since I posted an article.

First, I'd like to write about trip to Hawaii with my family in April. It was my first trip to Hawaii. Before the trip, I was worried about the weather in Hawaii because weather forecast had said it wouldn't be fine. But luckily, it was beautiful throughout the trip. We traveled around Oahu island and Hawaii island. I enjoyed many activities at the Polynesian Cultural Center. There are cultural sections from Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii and Tahiti. We visited each those sections by a canoe and got to build a small fire, play local games and try hula. That night we enjoyed an evening show at a big stadium in the Cultural Center. It was fun. Usually whenever I travel abroad, I need to use English. I didn't have to use English that day. We joined a Japanese guided tour and they took us to the Cultural Center and a Japanese tour guide led the Japanese tourists. It was kind of strange for me. I was obviously in Hawaii but I felt as if I were in Japan sometimes.

One day, we went to Pearl Harbor. My father and brother were interested in the history of Pearl Harbor and of the battleships. First, we visited a museum and watched a movie about the history of Pearl Harbor and visited the USS Arizona Memorial. I had studied a little about the history of Pearl Harbor before the trip. But I felt as if I were watching a film of a different story. In Japan, everybody tells the history on Japan's side. I realized the differences of the American perspective when I was watching the movie. I learned history has several dimensions. It was interesting.

Today, my father called me and asked me how to open the photo files that I had mailed to him the other day. It just reminded me that my parents are not good with computers. It took me 30 minutes to teach him how to open a photo file.