I am immensely pleased to share this performance of my 2021 composition, Allegro Risoluto, Op. 91, by pianist Julian Zalla, a.k.a. Gamma1734, who has a splendid YouTube channel dedicated to performances of solo piano pieces by mostly lesser-known composers.
Julian’s channel is the place to go for hidden gems of classical music, including contemporary classical music. You will be astonished by how much tonal, melodic, absolutely beautiful music is composed *in our era* and needs to be heard. Julian is making this possible. I am one of his donors, and I would recommend that to everyone.
Also, my Allegro Risoluto is not easy to perform, and Julian has done an impressive job; I know that he exhibited much persistence in learning it, and he gave me great feedback as well. In the past decade I essentially composed for machines, and it actually takes a bit of effort to consider how (and whether) the human hand would be able to approach a particular passage – and those who know my music know that I like powerful chords, successions of octaves, occasional rapid accompaniment (with octaves and powerful chords worked in). But there is actually a decent fraction of my compositions which *could* be performed by humans, and I will try to make more scores available for that purpose – because the results could be absolutely outstanding.
Also, I will challenge myself this year to compose more human-playable works for solo piano this year. In our era we especially need beautiful music to uplift and inspire, to get us beyond the predicament of the current moment in history. While many of the latter half of my compositions have attempted to test the boundaries of what can be appealing to the human ear while being out of the reach of the human hand, it is also indisputable that writing a playable work is a great way to get exposure for it and get the ideas and sense of life that one wishes to convey communicated to a broader audience. I already have over 1200 listeners who heard the Allegro Risoluto because of Julian’s performance. They speak Spanish, German, Russian, and many other languages besides – for music is a universal language, and the project of uplifting humanity is also a universal one for me.
Everywhere you look the Left appears to have won the culture wars and owns the Establishment. The universities are full-on bastions of Marxism and Critical Studies. Even Science and Math are being “de-colonized.” The NFL and NASCAR piously preach the Black Lives Matter Party Line. Corporate America is on totally board, too. Amazon bans books questioning the Transgender Movement. Big consumer brands have purged Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, and the Land of Lakes Indian maiden. The Social Media giants routinely enforce Politically Correct Speech, “fact checking” and even banning dissenters. Even the US Military is adding indoctrination against “extremism” to its basic training.
But Joel Kotkin notes that the Progressives’ triumph remains limited to the Institutions, and their conversion is visibly costing them in terms of prestige and credibility.
Over the past several decades, the progressive Left has successfully fulfilled Antonio Gramsci’s famed admonition of a “long march through the institutions”. In almost every Western country, its adherents now dominate the education system, media, cultural institutions, and financial behemoths.
But what do they have to show for it? Not as much as they might have expected. Rather than a Bolshevik-style assumption of power, there’s every chance this institutional triumph will not produce an enduring political victory, let alone substantially change public opinion.
Carmel Richardson was moved by the snowstorm stopping traffic on Interstate 95 in Virginia trapping motorists in the cars, in some cases for over 24 hours, while the soon-to-be-outgoing Northam Administration did nothing to help to comment wittily in the manner of the late Robert Frost:
Whose road this is I think I know.
His house is in the city though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch the road fill up with snow.
My little car must think it queer
To stop without an exit near
Between Glenn Ruther and Dumfries
The whitest evening of the year.
I give my weary head a shake
And ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the beep
Of countless cars stuck next to me.
They say the sun has melting powers
But I have waited hours and hours,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Who says that Joe Biden has accomplished nothing in his presidency? Why, he got the Marine Corps Band to compose a brand-new entering-the-room tune, equivalent to “Hail to the Chief,” for his wife Jill.
Will it stick and become a tradition? Who knows? The Republican-minded, like Mr. Jefferson, would think this sort of thing smacks of Monarchy, sounding like the sort of thing that would be played when Louis XVI’s platter of roast peacock was ceremoniously delivered.
Born: Richard II, King of England, 1366; Joan d’Arc, 1402; Peter Metastasio, poet, 1698; Benjamin Franklin, philosopher, Boston, U.S., 1706; David Dale, philanthropist, 1739; George Thomas Doo, engraver, 1800.
Feast Day: St. Melanius, bishop, 490. St. Nilammon, Hermit. St. Peter, abbot of St. Austin’s, Canterbury, 608.
TWELFTH-DAY
This day, called Twelfth-Day, as being in that number after Christmas, and Epiphany from the Greek ‘‘ΕπιΦáνєια”, signifying appearance, is a festival of the Church, in commemoration of the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles; more expressly to the three Magi, or Wise Men of the East, who came, led by a star, to worship him immediately after his birth. (Matt. ii. 1-12.) The Epiphany appears to have been first observed as a separate feast in the year 813. Pope Julius I is, however, reputed to have taught the Church to distinguish the Feasts of the Nativity and Epiphany, so early as about the middle of the fourth century.
The primitive Christians celebrated the Feast of the Nativity for twelve days, observing the first and last with great solemnity; and both of these days were denominated Epiphany, the first the greater Epiphany, from our Lord having on that day become Incarnate, or made his appearance in “the flesh;” the latter, the lesser Epiphany, from the three-fold manifestation of His Godhead—the first, by the appearance of the blazing star which conducted Melchior, Jasper, and Balthuzar, the three Magi, or wise men, commonly styled the three Kings of Cologne, out of the East, to worship the Messiah, and to offer him presents of “Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh”—Melchior the Gold, in testimony of his royalty as the promised King of the Jews; Jasper the Frankincense, in token of his Divinity; and Balthuzar the Myrrh, in allusion to the sorrows which, in the humiliating condition of a man, our Redeemer vouchsafed to take upon him: the second, of the descent of the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove, at the Baptism: and the third, of the first miracle of our Lord turning water into wine at the marriage in Cana. All of which three manifestations of the Divine nature happened on the same day, though not in the same year.
‘To render due honour to the memory of the ancient Magi, who are supposed to have been kings, the monarch of this country himself, either personally or through his chamberlain, offers annually at the altar on this day, Gold, Frank-incense, and Myrrh; and the kings of Spain, where the Feast of Epiphany is likewise called the “Feast of the Kings,” were accustomed to make the like offerings. — Brady.
The Daily Mail reports happily on our handbaskets speedy progress toward Hell.
Why pretty boys have ousted beefcakes as Hollywood hottest heartthrobs: Tom Holland and Harry Styles are the poster boys for ‘non-toxic masculinity’ who appeal to Gen Z with ‘enlightened’ views, experts say
Stars like Timothée Chalamet and Tom Holland are modern A-List heartthrobs
Younger fans are attracted to their anti-leading man looks, experts claim
Facial symmetry makes them popular on social media because photograph well
Changing attitudes towards gender and sexuality also made them popular
Ten years ago, baby-faced men were passed over in Hollywood for rugged looking stars with more traditionally masculine looks.
But today more feminine-looking actors with delicate features, shorter stature and symmetrical faces are more in demand because they appear to younger viewers, experts claim.
Gen Z audiences are drawn to celebrities like Tom Holland, Timothée Chalamet and Harry Styles who embody a ‘brand of enlightened non-toxic masculinity’, according to beauty expert Laura Kay.
Their symmetrical, heart-shaped faces also make them more photogenic and therefore more popular on Instagram, which has become a key part in the Hollywood marketing machine.
These non-traditional leading men also benefit because younger generations are more tolerant of things which would have seen as ‘abnormal’ in the past, such as height differences or attitudes to gender, says dating and relationship expert Alex Mellor-Brook.
Tom Holland, 25, who is dating his co-star Zendaya, also 25, for example, is 5ft 8in, shorter than one might expect for a Hollywood A-lister, while Harry Styles, 27, proudly steps out in feminine clothing and has released a range of nail polishes.
