For the last music this year, I have listened to this piece. Poem by Chausson. Hadelich, the violin solo, plays it with piano quartet. This is often performed with an orchestra. This chamber music version is provided by Chausson himself but is much less often performed. So far, I have never heard this version before. As Hadelich says, this version makes the solo stand out compared with the orchestrated one. We could hear detailed and fine move of the solo. It sounds to take us to an inner world. Real concentration.
In med school days, in Tokyo early in spring, I have walked miles with a friend in the university orchestra without being conscious of that distance. Talked a lot of favorite music. Brahms, Beethoven or Bach. She has mentioned of this piece, which I had never heard of before. Later, in the CD my daughter's violin teacher gave to her when she left the class, it contained this this piece played by a genius violinist, Ginette Neveu. It was an impressive rendition to me. However, this chamber music version still sounds much more than that.
Writing down of this tiny story of memory, I realize I am always going around that old days. In the last chapter of my life journey, I could as well as would be free from every relationship or any sense of value in the world. Being indulged in old memories, I feel I could accomplish that. Life is like a circle. Whenever we listen to such a moving performance as this, we return to the days when we were aware of our life. Listening to this delicately beautiful tune, unbearably beautiful, I was thinking of such a thing.
My brother gave me an email early yesterday morning. He told me it was our mother's 109th heavenly birthday yesterday. I was aware of her birthday but never thought of the 109th.
He told me he used to present her a diary for birthday every year. Her diaries he still held says how she has spent her last years over here. When it became difficult for us to care for her in Alzheimer's disease and we were taking her into a nursing facility, brother wanted to care for her by himself and his wife in Sendai city. It was in April 2006 when she departed her last trip where she spent a few years with them and later at a nursing facility there until her death in 2011.
Before her move there, my brother and his wife used to visit here once a couple of weeks and cared for mother during the week end. So devoted to our parents, especially to our mother, he didn't care for that regular trip here. Our sister also came to see her at the same interval when brother and his wife won't come here.
In the repley to brother, I wondered if I could do more for mother. A question often comes up in mind with bitter emotion. I know I should have done more for her and should have made efforts to have her stay at this place, where she started bringing up the family with our father decades ago.
My brother replied to me her diaries had told what a joy it was for her to do with her grand children and us and to live here. I still remember, when I brought simple breakfast, sitting at the table in the dining kitchen early in the morning, she used to pray quietly alone or to practise writing down chinese characters. She might be vaguely aware of suffering from Alzheimer or at least of forgetfulness in life. She might want to preserve her ability to write them.
Brother told me once she brought the steamed vegetable to him staying with her in a week end and told him to try that dish. She told him it was the breakfast I cooked for her. With shining smile on her face, as brother said.
This story won't erase my bitter memory not having done what I could for her. But I was happy to know she had spent her last years in this way. It was also moving me a bit that brother had shared this memory with me possibly in order to alleviate my bitter thought about care for my mother.
She used to utter, when she knew of her friend or relative passing away, she/he was now free from anxiety in the world and in eternal relief. She has lived her last years of life in that way. Suffering from Alzeimer's disease and being gradually deprived abilities of herself, she has accepted everything as it was without complaining of anything. It was a precious lesson she left to us. That is why we family members still miss her so much.
It has been so cold since yesterday. Yet no snow. She might be named after snowy weather. Her name, Yukie, stood for snowed branch in Japanese. It might be snowy at this time in a year when she was born 109 years ago.
Still often cooking dinner by myself. Home grown potatoes were fried with bacon. Seasoned with consome and a bit of salt. Simple and delicious.
I was intending to consume potatoes harvested this fall. Boxes of them are in the shedding.
This year it has been too warm in the beginning of fall. Planted in September as usual, potatoes have grown slowly if not. I was worrying they could be decayed in the ground with the high grouond temperature. Most of them, however, have caught up and have cropped quite good number of fruits. Of course, it was a symptom of global warming, I am afraid. Actually, in the internet, some professional farmers especially in the western area, hotter than here, have complained of that. Generally, it is possible for farmers to do with cold weather but not easy to manage the heat wave. They say they would plant potatoes in the next fall season a couple of weeks later than this year. It is a gamble. Winter often comes in at the same time as usual even if summer lasts longer. Then potatoes would not mature enough then.
Again, I am feeling blessed with farming and with good health enough to do that. I may plant the potatoes harvested this fall in March next year. They may bear a lot of fruits. I would give them to friends and/or family members next year. It will be a kind of sharing a gift from the nature with them.
It was surprisingly cold outside when I got out for an errand. It has been frosty almost every morning here. We seem to be finally in the mid winter for now. It is the time for me to reflect what has happened to me this year and to tell what I would expect in the coming year. To every friend of mine, I have been sending a greeting mail for that purpose at this time in a year in the past. I was wondering if I should curtail it because it seemed to fall into a mannerism. But I still believe it's worth doing that at least through a post like this on this blog, testifying I am still here full of gratitude to them.
There have been the wars occuring as well as continuing in Ukraine and in Israerl/Gaza. They are heart breaking tragedies to me as to most of you. A lot of people are victimized and we are left unable to do anything for them. It is as if the idea for pacifism were ridiculed. I still believe the steady stream of pacifism established in 19th century as the Peace Society, has been inherited by the Treaty of Renunciation of the War, the League of Nations followed by the United Nations. In constitutions of several countries including Japan at present, resorting to military forces is determinately excluded. Of course, there could be dictators or populists who would start wars to another country. I believe, however, the steps toward pacifism won't be stopped as a whole. I would do whatever I could for the people in war and against the social system which prones expansion of armaments.
In the warmer seasons throughout this year, I have spent a lot of time in the garden and the small farm. We are celebrated with much harvest of vegetables this year again. It turned out a bit difficult for me to get enough crops for ourselves. Despite successful harvest of pumpkins, some of them became less tasty or even started being decayed in a couple of months. Some vegetables got matured at the same time. I should devise or look for the way how to preserve them as fresh as possible for some time. I should not have been too reluctant to send the crops to friends or family members. Natural farming with use of compost but not fertilizers was often successful but not so in some cases. More experiences are needed. Anyway, as always told, I could not be happier to work in the small lot of farm at home. I would carry it on so far as my health permits.
It was a really big event for us that my wife had closed her office and put an end to her career. It was much easier for us to start own business by ourselves than to close them down because we were so young and hopeful for the future in the beginning. Taking advantage of this move, we started to sort out things unnecessary at home and discard them. There have been so many papers, books, mattresses, tablewares and so forth asleep deep in the sheds outdoor or the storage room indoor. They all are the remnants of our life for the past decades. This is a kind of the activities for the end of our lives as well. The closing of my wife's work will officially have been finished by next March. What a big and time consuming task!
I have been asked when I would come back on the radio by a few friends. Unfortunately, my answer has been "Not yet". The longer it passed since I quit it, the less passinate I feel for that hobby. I have lost a couple of old friends in the US whom I had known through this hobby. As already written in this blog, one was Bill Ewing, K1YT, who died of interstitial pneumonia in the spring. I have visited him in Stow in early 90s. We have corresponded each other at least once a few months and have discussed about a lot of things even without meeting on the air. One of the most intelligent and friendly friends of mine. The other person is Bob Warmke, W6CYX, who has fought against a cancer and has deceased this fall. We have had more QSOs on our beloving mode more than 1200 times since '60s. A lot of discussions on politics, economics and other topics. He was a tough disputant. I have always enjoyed his coherent views even if I have not agreed with all of them. I have had chances to visit him for 3 times, most recently, together with my wife in 2012. A kind and warm hearted person. Even though it is inevitable for us to lose such close friends, it might be another reason why I have not felt so fascinated with this hobby any longer. The tower and the antenna are as they used to be in the yard, even though the antenna needs a bit of repair. There are the radio and keyer in front of me. I may start with them with smaller power sometime in the future when I would come back.
As for music, I have totally become a listner. My poor cello has been lying on the floor in the case. I used to be kinda obsessive-compulsive to practise it. As I wrote in the past, I got an arm issue on both sides with too strenuous exercise and gave it up. It was good for me to leave practising it too much. Now I could enjoy listening to music, preferably keyboard ones. I might have written the same thing but still admire the last 3 sonatas for piano by Beethoven. What emotional and almost religious world! Faure's chamber music is also a cure for me. I have loved them ever since I first listened to in my school days. Faure used to tell the role of music is to uplift our mind, which I could not agree more. Brahms, Bach and sometimes(!) Mahler etc are composers who I love. When I listen to some cellist playing the unaccompanied suite by Bach, I feel inclined to start practising them again. Maybe, some time, asking my arms if they could.
This is one of my favorite performances of g minor piano quartet by Faure, which I recently found in Youtube. As I wrote before, I have played the 1st and the 3rd movement with good company in my school days. A sweet memory.
What an endless talking on myself! I should stop it. I always thank to everyone visiting this blog. So far, I might go it on. Leave a comment if you want. Don't forget putting your name or ID with which I could recognize you. Thanks in advance. I wish you all the Best Holiday Season and good health in the upcoming New Year.
PS; Rereading this post myself, I found so many misspellings and typos. I have corrected them now. I forgot to mention I had lived longer than the healthy life span for men in our country, that is, 73 years of age. I must confess I am feeling aches or forgetfulness etc associated with aging for the past year. It is not unavoidable as you know. Accepting it as it is, I would try to keep myself as active and young as possible. We should never be captured by the thought of aging but should live it as it is. When seeing it as an objective subject, it may mean we overcome aging in heart.
Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo have been my favorite since my school days. Often I listened to them for a long time not being tired of that. That solo violin could express the universe as well as the deepest aspect of our mind. It was stunning to me. I believe it was Henryk Szeryng who played the source for me those days. A real virtuoso. Later, I was fascinated by Hilary Hahn, who sounded a great Bach player as well. She used to write in her site that she always started with one of those Bach's works in her daily practise session.
This violinist, Augustan Hadelich, playing Bach could not help becharming me. What warm hearted and profound Bach we could hear from his performance. Hadelich himself tells in the caption that Bach is special to him.
The caption of his discography for Bach's Sonatas and Partitas say as follows;
“Recording Bach’s complete Six Sonatas and Partitas has long been a dream of mine,” says Augustin Hadelich “They are formidable tests of technical ability and stamina, but also of musical imagination and expressive range – they never cease to provide challenges, hope, and joy.” For his interpretation, sensitive to historical practice, Hadelich chose to use a baroque bow. “It was a revelation,” he says. “It felt liberating … Passages of three- and four-note chords felt more fluid … The dance movements danced more and the slow movements sang more.”
The video first quoted in this post seems to show he was using a modern bow. It is still intriguing how he constructed the world of Bach's polyphony using a baroque bow.
Recently, I have finished reading a book titled "How Not to Study a Disease The Story of Alzheimer's" by Karl Herrup, the professor in Neurobiology at Pittsburgh University. A traslated version into Japanese. Since the end of last century, he seems to have been involved in research of Alzheimer's disease;abbreviated as AD. A well known neurologist has introduced this book as a work overturning our common sense in AD. AD is not only an interesting subject in medical science but also a topic for myself in the age group favorably affected by AD. At age 85 years, one out of 3 persons could be affected by this malicious illness.
He emphasizes two point. First, the research has been occupied by a dogma of beta amyloid cascade. Historically, this disease was found as a type of early onset dementia pathologically featured with plaque in brain. The plaque was revealed later to be beta amyloid with neurofibrillary tangle. This pathological findings have been regarded as the basic pathogenesis of this disease. That has often excluded the other hypotheses of etiology. Beta amyloid accumulation in brain is found some 30% of intellectually normal elderly whilt 15% of AD won't show its accumulation compared with the age matched control. Both in human and animal models, antibody against beta amyloid could successfully get rid of beta amyloid. In human study, the symptoms have not been improved with that treatment whild it has caused fatal complications.
There have been the non beta amyloid hypotheses investigated which could co exist the beta amyloid cascade hypothesis. Such as brain chronic inflammation, cholesterol metabolism abnormality related with APOE protein, abnormal myelin sheath, lysosomal dysfunction, mithochodrial dysfunction resulting oxygenation damage and so forth. The mainstream in research has firmly based on the beta amyloid cascade theory and has not valued the other hypotheses even though the latter should have been seriously considered.
The other point the author emphasized is the problem of the research fund. It is handled by National Institute of Aging, NIA, which is rather new division of medical science institute in the US and the top of NIA used to try to get more funds advertizing AD was a disease of the people. It was successful and enabled NIA collect much more funds in behalf of AD research. But their advertisement was based on the beta amyloid cascade hypothesis and the definition of the disease was too broad and ambiguous. It has caused, as the authoer says, further confusion.
The author's view is that the etiology of AD is closely related with aging process itself. Hyperalimentation with too much glucose intake causes oxygenation in mithochondria through TCA cycle. That oxygenation is closely related with aging. As we get older, there is more unrepairable DNA accumulated, which, in brain, activates microglia in brain and results in chronic inflammation. It is another phenomenon of aging maybe related with AD.
The author's hypothesis of AD's etiology is dysfunction of the combination composed of neuron, astrocyte, oligodendrocyte, microglia and vessel. This 5 cellular and vascular structure work in combination. When each of them deteriorates, it could cause the dysfunction of the network system. Honestly, this hypothesis was a bit difficult for me to understand. It seemed still premature as a definite etiological hypothesis of AD. Even to me, the etiology research seemed not making much progress since finding of beta amyloid as well as genes responsible for familiar AD. The author's view against binding only to the dogma of beta amyloid seems to be on the right point. I surely hope they would carry on investigation without prejudice or biases. Since AD seems closely related with aging, it may not be easy to understand the whole phenomenon but, as the authoer emphasizes, the other treatments other than beta amyloid related ones could and should be tried even without understanding it.
Early this morning, I went out to pick up lettuce in the small garden farm for fresh salad. Stepping on the frosty ground toward there, I had an unpleasant expectation. So it was what I expected.
Poor lettuce was almost frozen. Especially the outer leaves were covered with frost without exception. I did not know it had been so frosty around that time in a day. I have given it up. Later, in the day time when sun was warmly shining, these lettuce has revived and was served for a material of salad for dinner.
I knew lettuce was pretty strong against this cold weather. There could be other kinds of vegetables which are prone to be damaged. I would cover them with dome of non woven fabric.
I have almost finished planting several dozens of onion seedlings in another farms. Some of them are too small. I have used vinyl mulch for them. Grass mulching was also applied to some of them. So far, they are surviving this cold weather.
No wonder it could be this cold because the winter solstice is ready to come in 3 weeks. Everything including human beings should hibernate for 2 or 3 months.
It is the time for me to devote myself to reading and listening to music. For the past several years, I have been sending a greeting mail to friends in this season of a year. Wondering if I should carry it on or not. Downsizing my own life.
