An Inspiring Sight

Just watched “You and I”… It demands from me a little digesting… Hvorostovsky looks and sounds as good as ever, but… a whip? Give me a break! So cheap, so… I don’t know… Video is incredible, though, and song itself… interesting. Melody is somehow haunting, and Hvorostovsky’s voice matches it very well. He just not only sings but lives every song and makes it live, too. And his voice – did I tell already, that his voice is an ointment to cure whatever wound?

Must confess, however, that I am very inspired of this sight: Dmitri Hvorostovsky as a gothic macho… Once again I dive into my own fantasy-world, Malanzar, where no one is what he or she looks to be. Reckless Durcas, Kira with her icy heart, sweet Siibei… Creating worlds is just cool. And no, Mr. Hvorostovsky in gothic costume and wig does not look like any of them. Perhaps I will some day or other tell something more about them. Stories never end.

Ivan’s Childhood

Did I already tell, that I like very much Andrei Tarkovsky’s movies? Just watched his first one, Ivan’s Childhood (Иваново детство). It is extremely impressive piece of work, and it has won many highly esteemed prizes all over the world. The movie tells a story of 12 years old war-orphan, Ivan, who serves Red Army as a spy. Mr. Hruštšov, after seeing the film, stated that there has never been any child in Red Army – and that was enough to doom the flick so very few saw it then on CCCR. (Of course it is not anymore hushed down, I presume.) Mr. Hruštšov’s remark was total bullshit, as everyone who knows even a bit of WWII knows very well. Even in Finland were quite young boys on frontier during the war. On the same cd than Ivan’s Childhood is very interesting document named Children of the War – about those brave Russian kids who did their best in fighting against fascists, no matter what. Child-fighters are not a phenomenon of modern era.

Speaking of Tarkovsky, from his works I consider Stalker the most touching one. It shows much about human’s strange and incomprehensible moves of mind, as well as those that are clear and easily recognizable ones. To me Stalker and Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurais together tell all about human mind.

Sacred singing

Today I will tell you at least something about Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s cd Верую (Credo). Actually, I don’t know what to tell… it is sort of a baffling assortment of Russian sacred songs. I know nothing, to be true, about Russian orthodox religion – pravoslavic, as they call it themselves, but these songs have their own beauty and power, no matter where they come from. Mr. Hvorostovsky says that he was a devoted orthodox at the time of recording these songs, and it can be heard on the cd; he occasionally reaches depths that can only be known to those who have felt the touch of Mystery. When It comes close, you change, and you can’t conceal it.

Songs are recorded in Petropavlovskaja Cathedral of S. Petersburg, with The St. Petersburg Chamber Choir. Nikolai Korniev conducts. The choir is excellent; from the highest crystal-clear sopranos down to the lowest bass its tone is seamless, smooth, fully. With it Mr. Hvorostovsky’s magical voice is like a lustrous, dark pearl on an ancient golden frame – simple beauty and power. When I listen these songs, they bring to my mind memories of childhood, bittersweet but comforting. They can’t really be my own memories, though, I know that very well. But time and memories have their own secrets, and you can never know when or how sacredness comes close to you.

If you dare to dive deep into your own innermost mind, and at the same time soar in mid-air as relaxed and light as cloud, and you are not afraid of your own blackest secrets, then I can recommend this cd to you.

Of wandering ancestors

Recently learnt that the DNA line of my paternal ancestors is rare in Finland – only 4 % of men here belong to it. Interesting. The first paternal ancestor of my family actually came from south – DNA line in question is the most common on Britain, Spain, French and northernmost Italy.

Who was that first ancestor? And what made him to travel north? Was he a cunning merchant, a brave warrior, or perhaps an adventurer endlessly seeking new frontiers not yet explored? Or just a refugee, maybe a little boy оn her mother’s bosom? Somehow I want to believe that in him burned desire to go somewhere just because it was over there.

Heavier singing

I found Valery Kipelov. Listen to this song, this beautiful Russian language. Just listen.

How can it be possible that I’ve never before heard anything about him or his music? Well, I see clearly why but won’t explain; I believe that you, too, can see through millstone because there is a hole in the middle of it.

How did it happen? How I found him?

First I found a band named Leningrad, that is, its cd Хлеб, Hleb (Bread) in the nearest library, and fell immediately in love – what energy, creativity, vitality! On the cd Leningrad plays Cвободa, Svoboda (Freedom). I wanted to see lyrics, searched them in the Net, and at the end of track was Kipelov – his song Я свободен. And what a song it is! True hearth-ripper! Like all the best heavy metal ballads it tears your heart open and leave you to tremble and wonder what the hell was that what happened to you. Surely Kipelov and his groups have many other pieces worth of listening than that one in question. And Leningrad is very well worth of listening, too.

I’m happy and somehow relieved to see that the Hvorostovsky-phenomenon didn’t spoil my understanding in heavy metal. I still love it, its energetic drums, beautiful guitar riffs, and touching lyrics; they make me burst aflame, again and again. As long as I do love metal, I know I am still truly alive.

Wife-beauty

It seems to me that my try to learn Russian is so hard an effort that it demands all my energy and wit and capacity of brain. Luckily, though, it is gorgeously funny, too! I enjoy at least those moments when I don’t sweat and curse and wonder why I believe that I am able to learn that beautiful and kinky language. Did I say kinky? Yes, and I mean it. Russian is kinky and knotty and impossible language in many ways. And I love it!

I have seen that many of you visitors here find my blog with key words such like ‘Hvorostovsky’s wife’, so here comes something for your exertion:

Florence Hvorostovsky, née Illi, is a pianist who recently started singing. In that she is very much like her husband; he is a pianist who started singing, and the rest is history. Her mother is from France, and father from Italy. Or was it the other way around? Who cares, anyway? She is such a dark, curly, curvy Mediterranean-like beauty and mother of two little kids. (Mr. Hvorostovsky has also teenager twins from his first marriage.) Florence can be seen almost on every video made of her hubby’s recitals. It is cute and amusing! Hvorostovskys make very well matched married couple. They look so happy when they are together on pictures and films. Their fellowship seems to be firm.

I am sure that all we who love Mr. Hvorostovsky’s miraculous voice hope fervently, that beautiful Flo would forever have enough love and patience to endure her hubby’s capricious personality and support him unfalteringly. (At least he revealed that he gets easily bored and can be cross and impatient towards his beloved ones. Quite normal behaviour of all married men, I think…)

Of Finishing Disaster

Been suffering from serious pc-syndrome lately – suits very well to the situation my life is nowadays in. My dearly beloved pc passed totally away taking with her all those important files I’ve been collecting over years. It was like a dive to icy water: a tremendous shock first that hit all wind out of me, then very, very slow recovering to the point of clear understanding that although I lost very much, I didn’t lost anything really important. I’ve wielded an axe in my life carving away all that is not necessary to me, so this computer-accident somehow completed it all. However, I had to buy a new one, and whole hard drive of the old, dead pc was copied to new one, but that operation didn’t help too much, because their operational systems were different, XP in old one but Vista in new one. Now I wonder with longish face why the latter must be such a complicated and lousy tangle.

Only reason for buying this new pc was its very cheap price. And I need a computer, at least for a while. So here I sit at my desk in almost empty home and try to get acquaintance with a machine that is totally a piece of shit. At least I can again be in connection with the net. But how long? Progression progresses, but not everywhere on Earth.

Berserking – sort of

Just watched a Finnish-Russian collaboration film named Luonto ja terveys Природа и здоровье (Nature and Health); Panu Heikkilä directs and the biggest star is Ville Haapasalo. He is quite a celebrity in Russia, but not at all as big in his homeland. I liked this film very much, and it thrilled me to see how much I already understood spoken Russian – after only a few weeks’ studies. Luckily the film has Finnish text, too; of course I wasn’t able to clear up for all that Russian without help.

These days have been sort of the sorting days for me; in the depths of rapacious anxiety I’ve been raging around my little home casting away everything I don’t need anymore. I already cleared my closets, wardrobes, and every hole where I have squeezed stuff into, founding lots of thingumies I didn’t even know I possess. I dragged tons of junk to a garbage bin, that is, to the jaws of Molok. I was able to give away even my dearly beloved old Pentium and its games. (I don’t know how I found power enough for it.)

Today I emptied my bookshelves. That was agony! I threw away more than one hundred dusty books that have no value to anyone. There are still left too many, f.e. my collection of Satanic or otherwise spooky books, not to mention all those fantasy and sci-fi novels I’ve collected over years. And then there are still lots of computer games, dvd-films, and music-cds… But in this clearing effort its worst moment was in the beginning, so I dare to hope now that I’ll endure this to its end.

It is as if I couldn’t anymore bear thought of growing mountains of wares; they don’t allow me to go freely whenever or wherever I must. I want to be light within and without; always ready to catch wind and go.

Cure and desease

What is this? Again loosing my mental health? No, on the contrary – I’m getting it back again. My dive down to madness was due to Dmitri Hvorostovsky, or a song he sings on YouTube, Тёмная ночь (Dark is the Night). It pushed me to a state of mind that was – and still is – like schizophrenia with its manic and depressive phases. I know, I know – it is difficult to believe, but it is true. My own frequencies resonate with the frequence of his voice, in good and bad. So simple it is! And knowing this I began as soon as I was able to heal myself with his voice. (According to the homeopathic medicine the best cure to disease comes from what caused it.) To be honest, I’m grateful to that event – it kicked me out of my stasis that I didn’t know I was in. I always keep banging my head against mystery, and perhaps all that banging had somehow thickened my head preventing me to see clearly my own conditions.

So, what is it like, this destroying – and healing – magical voice?

It is like a huge gold nugget seen through flowing water, tarnished, dull, with darker dimples on it. Then comes down a ray of light from sun or moon or even stars and penetrates that flowing water allowing us to catch a brighter glimpse of gold. And near that nugget lies an ancient mussel growing a pearl in it, dark, lustrous, the most beautiful pearl, but no one can ever see it, only know that it is down there.

This is my attempt to describe Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s voice today, listening his bel canto -arias (a pict of that cd above). Another day I’d perhaps choose another words.

Of Weirdish Dreams

An excellent day! I met my son in Turku; he lives in Helsinki and visits hereabouts far too seldom. He offered me a lunch, and we discussed over very tasty meal taking up many important events and incidents of our lives. He looked as handsome and good-natured as ever, and I was happy to see that everything in his life is fine. Afterwards I walked with him to the railway station.

When we crossed the town I told him that I have a brand new dream: I’d like to work on a Russian ship, if ever possible. He burst at laughing and said, when he was again able to talk, that hardly anyone would consider working on a Russian ship as an object for a dream. I know, however, that there is no better place for learning a foreign language than a ship. Within me burn two desires: I’d like to learn Russian as much and quickly as possible, and enlist for merchant fleet. Adding these concerns together gives an answer that is obvious: a Russian ship.

Let me explain: When you are on board, in the middle of the oceans, amongst men and women you don’t know at first but who you’ll know better than your own relatives, and, supposed that they all spoke, say, Russian, you must learn to speak it quickly, and surely you’ll do it and quite glibly sooner than you’d ever believe possible. Why then anyone would like to learn Russian, from all languages? Well, it is so beautiful, like music. Being raised to hate and fear all that lies behind our eastern border, I‘ve seen just a while ago that there lies, actually, an interesting world, culturally rich and full of natural resources; a vast region totally unexplored by me. Who am I to resist such a challenge? It is practically impossible to get a working visa for Russia, but there is neither office nor instance that could block miracles.