The 1st cello sonata of Brahms

 It has been already 13 years since I mentioned of this cello sonata, Brahms' 1st sonata in e minor, as in the post; here.

I might have told about the encounter with this music elsewhere. Investigating on it, however, I could find no post on it. It was a presentation within the club of the orchestra at the end of summer camp. At a hall of camping site in a skirt of high mountains in Shinshu in the end of August. Breeze was coming through the window of the hall. Bright sunray, still ushering in the arrival of early fall, was sparkling there as well. 

A senior cellist started playing the 1st movement of this sonata before the audience of the other orchestra members.

The cello starts the 1st theme so emotional as if mentally wandering in the way typical for youth. The piano accompanies it quietly with syncopated accord. After a passage intermediate, the cello goes decisively into the 2nd theme. Piano follows it in a beat or so. Both thema are rising up and reaching each peak. Then, the melodies are coming down. But no solution to the tension of the melodies. I often believe this kind of solution is characteristic to Brahms' music. I could exemplify quite some melodies in his various works, especially in his chamber music. This characteristic seems to appeal to young people. The recapitulation is given in the same pitch and tonality as the beginning. Accompaniment by piano is beautiul arpeggio downward. Sparkling sunlight filtering through leaves synchronized it perfectly. Whenever I listened to this portion, the scene comes up in my mind.

Oh well, imperfect analysis together with personal recollection is enough here. I would say it was really inspiring me, a beginner cellist those days, and had a dream to challenge this sonata someday. 

While practising the orchestral pieces I played in the orchestra, I did not stop doing with this piece. In 2 or 3 years, I have had a chance to play all the movements at a university festival. At a noisy cafeteria of the orchestra, I have "got it through". The 3rd movement inspired by Bach's the Art of Fugue was a really a challenge. Got it through! 

Much water has flown under the bridge since then. Three years ago, I had a chance to play this 1st movement together with a niece as the pianist at a hall in Tokyo. I could have played it better if I was still competent with the instrument as in my student days. I still felt happy to do with this sonata with my niece. It was a fun for me to play it with that niece whom I had known since her toddler days.

Shortly after its peformance, I got trouble with my both arms when going on playing cello for some time. I decided to leave the bow on the floor. Honestly, I would want to go on playing it. But I felt I have played it as much as I could. Getting apart from cello, I found more time for the other things including listening to key board music etc. No regret to give up playing it. More time and energy for listening music and reading books etc. 

Cello playing was an important part of life for me. But, I feel, it was a kind of the heaven's dispensation that I had to give it up exactly when I finished this sonata with niece. I am thankful for that even if it is quite a trifle for the other people than myself. It was the end of a chapter in my life.

I have been listening to various cellists playing this sonata. I have been a fan of Janos Starker with his youthful musicality from his accurate phrasing and bowing since my student days.  

Financial crisis

Our government has created a supplementary budget up to 21 trillion JPY, that is, about 130 billion USD. The total budget this year rose more than 136 trillion JPY, that is, approximately 860 billion USD. This size of budget is the largest ever. It is for fiscal stimulus, as they say. Increased military spending is most conspicuous. Almost doubled from that a few years ago. The budget for social security or farming is increased slightest. Considering of the on going inflation, this means almost reduction for these expenditures.

They say the revenue has been increased a bit. But it is mostly due to the inflation. It is just nominal but not substantial. Not as much as the expenditure. The government doesn't have any other means than issuing national bond to cover the increase of expenditure, I am afraid. The bond already issued is amounted more than 1000 trillion JPY. About 150 trillion JPY bonds are refinanced every year. The bonds yield rates, mainly of long term ones, are increasing to the extent they have never experienced. Higher interest rates would deteriorate the finance of Bank of Japan, which results in weakening of our currency as well as increase the expenditure of bond interests of the government. 

I am afraid the scenario we could picture in the near future could never be so hopeful. More than 70% of the people are applauding the present government. I wonder if they are aware of this financial crisis or if they are too stupid to acknowledge of the present situation. 

The most pessimistic scenario we could draw is as follows;

 THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM JUST BROKE IN TOKYO

Japan’s 30-year bond yield hit 3.41% today. That number means nothing to you. Here’s why it should terrify you.

Japan owes 230% of everything it produces. It’s the most indebted nation in human history. For 35 years, they kept the lights on by borrowing at near-zero rates. That era ended this morning.

Here’s What Just Happened

Core inflation is running at 3.0%. Government bond yields are spiking to levels not seen since 1999. China just conducted its 25th military incursion near Japanese waters this year. Japan is now forced to spend 2% of GDP on defense … nearly 9 trillion yen annually.

The Bank of Japan is trapped between two impossible choices: raise rates and trigger a debt collapse, or keep rates low and watch inflation destroy savings. They chose door number two.

Why You Should Care

Every major bank, hedge fund, and institution on Earth has borrowed yen at cheap rates and invested it elsewhere for 30 years. This “carry trade” could be worth anywhere from $350 billion to $4 trillion. Nobody knows the real number because it’s hidden in derivatives.

When Japan’s system breaks, this money unwinds. Fast.

The last time we saw a preview … July 2024 … the Nikkei dropped 12.4% in a single day. The Nasdaq fell 13%. That was a small tremor. The earthquake is coming.

The Math Is Simple!

Japan’s government pays interest on $9 trillion in debt. Every 0.5% increase in rates costs them $45 billion annually. At current yields, debt service will consume 10% of all tax revenue. That’s the death spiral threshold.

The yen is trading at 157 to the dollar. If it strengthens to 152, the entire carry trade becomes unprofitable. Unwinding begins. Emerging market currencies could drop 10-15%. The Nasdaq could fall 12-20% as funds are forced to sell.

What Happens Next

December 18-19, the Bank of Japan meets. Markets are pricing 51% odds they raise rates another 0.25%. If they do, volatility explodes. If they don’t, inflation accelerates and the problem gets worse.

There is no way out. Japan’s fiscal dominance is now permanent. They must keep the yen weak to service their debt. This means the free money that powered global markets since 1990 is ending.

The Bottom Line

Interest rates worldwide are going up 0.5-1.0% permanently. Not because of inflation. Because the world’s largest creditor nation can no longer subsidize global growth.

Your mortgage, your car loan, your credit card … all repricing higher. Stock valuations built on cheap money … all compressing. The everything bubble … all deflating.

This is not a recession. This is a regime change. The largest liquidity engine in financial history just seized up, and most people won’t understand what happened until their portfolios are down 30%.

Tokyo broke the world today. You’ll feel it tomorrow.

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Shanaka Anslem Perera  (@shanaka86) on X

Author & Ideologist. Exploring money, AI, science, and sovereignty. Mapping the collapse and the reconstruction of order. Data driven insights.

The reason for existence of my blog if any

I have kept this blog for 14 years and the other in Japanese for even 19 years. Astonishing myself is to know how long I have kept them. My father used to keep diary and was a diligent writer of letters to friends or family members. I might be inherited with that trait from him. Even though I have written little about my private life in the blogs, they are a kind of diary to me, where I record what I am concerned about, comparable to my father's diary. 

I sometimes wonder how to do with these two blogs in the future when I could hardly continue them. They should be put an end when I could not intellectually keep them. I still, however, would go on writing something until the time limit. 

The main reason is just, as told above, to keep personal records of concern for me. I realize of forgetfulness more and more as I get older now. These blog posts often bring me back to the days when I wrote them. There are topics which I totally forgot. Remembering old things through those posts is not only making me feel nostalgic but also is helpful to me to consider of the situation around me at that time. I have not expected this when I started these blogs.

As told above, I won't hesitate to delete these blogs completely when I am not capable of keeping them. But memories of old friends, either in ham radio or not, are precious for me. Some of them should be remembered by others as well, I often think. Too sad their memories are being lost as time goes by. 

Recently, the words professor Totsuka has come on in mind. Only 8 years since I posted this;

 https://nuttycellist-unknown.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-words-professor-has-left.html

It is not easy for me to execute "writing/reading/listening more carefully as well as deliberately". I would try.  "To be enlightened in life is not to die well but to live well." This motto is even more difficult for me. The less the life span left for me is getting, the more I should be diligent to live. 

It is a freezing morning here.   

Beethoven 9th by BFO conducted by Furtwangler

It is already December close to the end of this year. Around this time in a year, I was often listening music at the dorm room of the university. More than half a century ago. 

Beethoven 9th symphony played by Bayreuth Festival orchestra in 1951 was one of the  pieces which we, me and a room mate friend, used to enjoy. We have prepared an audio set with speakers of Sansui those days. It was the days we both had joined the university orchestra together. 

  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHDXdbSWu0E

This performance is exceptionally tense up as well as the atmosphere was. This music is to sing out loudly for the unity of mankind. I still wonder if we have progressed that way since those days or even since the time Beethoven composed it.

It has passed half a century for now. This performance still brings me back to those days. The dark and quiet dorm room. The symphony started like the moment of universe creation.