In the end of 2019

A couple of days ago, among news from abroad, there was an obituary of Peter Schreier, a renowned German tenor singer.

When I was spending student days back in '70s, he has extended his activity as a tenor from East Germany to the western countries. It was the days when I got the sources of music with cassette tapes recorded FM broadcasts. His name was quite popular not only in Lied but also in religious music. He has unconstrained beautiful voice and his technique as a tenor was stable. He has sung in many pieces often together with Karl Boem, a famous conductor, those days. 

In the end of the 2nd year of the medical faculty, at the dormitory of the school, I have had a chance to record Matthews Passion of Bach from an FM program. It was late at night in winter, possibly, in December. A performance of BPO conducted by Karajan. Prepared high quality cassette tapes, I was waiting for the program together with a friend of mine. It was a precious chance for us to listen and record this great piece. I could picture that moment like a quite recent episode. The evangelist in that performance was played by Schreier. At the faintly dark room of the dormitory, I was keenly listening to the Passion. 

The role of the evangelist in Passions after Bach has become not only a story teller but also a highly artistic and important expresser. Schreier was one of the best evangelists those days. He was from a suburb of Dresden and has started his career in East Germany. As told above, he has welcomed by the audience in the western countries in '70s. In 2005, when he ceased his career as a singer, he came to conduct Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa. He has played as the evangelist as well as the conductor from memory. Later, he had become ill and had spent a long time in bed in Dresden until he passed away 2 days ago. The other news told that there had been a populist right wing party active in Dresden and they had ostracized the immigrants over there. I wonder what he has thought of such a movement while he had spent the days of a kind of immigrant from the East in '70s to '80s.
  
An era has ended for me. I have been listening to that music by Muenchen Bach Orchestra conducted by Richter in 1979 where he sang as the evangelist. Having found the source of this music by Karajan in Youtube I listened to in the med school days, I would spend the rest of the New Year's Eve listening to it. 

Thanks for visiting this blog throughout this year. I am afraid this blog is becoming a mannerism unworthy of reading. That is why I appreciate you visiting here. Until I become incapable of writing anything, I would go it on for a while.

This year, I have omitted or have ended sending a greeting attached to an e mail to my friends, even though I have continued it for the past several years. The reason why I decided not to do that is quite the same as I wrote above regarding this blog. 

It seems the world is messed up by the right wing populism. Clearly, it is a rebound to the neoliberal economy which has damaged societies everywhere. It is amazing that populism won't care for announcing fraud or fake things. They seem to appeal to the emotion of the mass but not to their intelligence. Intelligence seems to be an object of hatred from the standpoint of those mass. While that populism overwhelms around the world, the ruling politicians are backed up by the globalism. Globalism insists things should be entrusted by the market. Thus economical disparity is growing more and more, which drives the mass toward the populism. It is difficult for us to foresee what will follow to this situation.

Turning to age 70 years, I still feel closer to and even look forward to death which might make me free from all the duties and relationships in the world. Until the end of my life, however, I would carry on what I have to do as failtfully as possible. Whenever I listen to the last music of Matthews Passion, my heart is moved to tremble.

A very happy and peaceful New Year to you all!