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Good old portrait.
Beautiful !!!
very interesting!
really beautiful portrait.. nice presented.
Truly beautiful,Bernd! Best regards.
Very interesting description, very good photo and tonality!
Regards
A beautiful portrait!
Very well presented!
Congrats!
Have a great weekend, my friend!
A big *HUG* to you!
Bere
You cannot possibly be so old as to have taken that picture!
Es ist umoeglich dass Sie so alt sind dass Sie dieses Bild selbst gemacht haben.
Anyway, you have illustrious relatives. I've got a Finnish friend related to the Russian composer Scriabin (Skriabin) but not encountered anyone related to British composers (since there aren't too many;-). I never knew that Gustav Holst had any Baltic connection, to me he always was anEnglish composer. His music is a bit too heavy for me, so although I like the entire Planet suite I really love only one part - the Jupiter.
und das Bild ist einfach ausgezeichnet wie die Planeten von Gustav Holst.
Correct, I am definitly born to late to have made this picture!
The Holst family had a real astate (Rittergut) in East Prussia. (near Riga?) So may be they had their house nearer to your home place, then to mine... Gustav's father became a musician and went to England for a job with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in about 1870. He stayed there for the rest of his life, and his son Gustav was born in England as a british citizen. Only is name Gustav ist typically german...
If you don't like most of The Planets, you could try to listen the St. Paul's Suite... This one was composed for a pupil's orchestra of a school, Gastav worked at as a music teacher. This suite is easy to play and perform, but creates a very different sound...
I know Scriabin a bit, I heard some piano works on CD performed by Horowitz...
I like the music of the late 20th century best. So one of my favorite composers is Alfred Schnittke. His 1st symphony is so crazy...
Thank you very much for your notes!
Have a nice day!
Thanks for telling the background of Gustav Holst. I would have thought that Gustav is a Swedish name (that something has to do with Goths?), but naturally enough there are quite a few Frenchmen with that name (Gustave Flaubert), so it never occurred to me that Holst was a Prussian by descent and English by birth.
After the allies abolished the state of Prussia in 1947 (perhaps we should one day resurrect it though) most of its territory was given away to Poland and locals were deported, another part with the city of Memel (like in the German anthem von der Maas bis an die Memel, von der Etsch bis an den Belt) - was given by Stalin as a present to Soviet Lithuania and third smaller piece with Koenigsberg became a part of the Russian Soviet Federative Republic and renamed Kaliningrad. Riga the capital city of the old Russian province of Livonia (since 1700s), once a seat of the Bishopric, is not in East Prussia but of course is not far away from it . St. Petersburg is on the Baltic but as the crow flies I would guess that Stockholm would be somewhat closer to us than Koenigsberg or other coastal Prussian cities in Lithuania and Poland. Of course the another large metropolitan area on the Baltic with over 1 million inhabitants is Helsinki/Helsingfors is just a 30 minute flight away or a few hours of relative suffering by train.
If you are in Northern Germany or northeastern Germany both the distance from you to your Prussian relatives' old home and from where I am must be about the same. If you are in the west or the south though I am probably closer.
I guess writing in English is appropriate here so others can understand although I enjoy both reading and listening to German albeit writing may not be my forte.
Music. You must be a real connoisseur and an expert in music. Alfred Schinttke is not easily understood by most people, as for me then listening to serious music from the second half of the 20 th century is just plain difficult. I’d rather listen to more melodical classical stuff (you know what I mean - from baroque up to Wagner and Rimsky-Korsakov), although I occasionally like late 19 century and early 20 th century composers - again in a wide range - from Sibelius (he is easy on my ear) and Saint-Saens through Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Poulenc, even early Stravinsky. But most people who came after are a sort of pain. The Planets are also a bit tough although the Jupiter piece is beautiful and I reckon there are far more people who heard it and would recognize the melody than those know the composer’s name.
I will most definitely try his St. Paul’s suite.
You are of cause right, that Gustav also is a swedish name. Several swedish kings were Gustavs, of corse. But in german, it was and is a quite common boy's name. It's rather unusal in England...
The name Holst must be viking in the beginning... You can find the name today in Sweden, Denmark and Germany. And maybe in Poland as well... At places were the vikings have been, this family name can be found...
But Sweden is very tricky. The anchestors of my father were swedish, just because they lived in the province Mecklenburg (capital: Schwerin) in the 18th century. Some regions in Mecklenburg were part of Sweden between 1648 and 1803.
I can't really listen to all of Alfred Schnittke's works. One of those, that didn't reach me, is his Requiem. But I like his symphonies or his piano concertos.
Regards!
