Liszt and Brahms

A few weeks ago, I attended a solo piano recital by Kirill Gerstein. I am not necessarily following individual performers, but as I was randomly browsing what to do for this particular evening, I noticed that he would be giving a recital in the Kammermusiksaal of the Berliner Philharmoniker, and knowing that he is someone who really knows his craft, I figured it would be a good idea to get tickets, even though the program isn't necessarily my favourite musical period.

Georg Friedrich Händel's Agrippina

Oh I never imagined I would absolutely enjoy an opera that was more than 300 years old. Contemporary classical music tends to be the type of music that I enjoy the most, so a Baroque opera would be very far from my familiar territory. Nevertheless, I wanted to broaden my horizons and so I went all the way to Halle an der Saale for one evening to attend a very contemporary performance of Händel's Agrippina, an opera from 1709.

Working Remotely in Athens: Lycabettus Hill

Perhaps it is a common activity to go upwards whenever one is sightseeing. One wants to go to a summit to see the lay of the land, after all. So when we were in Athens, we climbed up Lycabettus Hill, which is the tallest hill in the Athens metropolitan area.

Book Review: Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić

Oh, this book was different. Very different.

See, Dictionary of the Khazars (1984) is less a "novel" in the traditional sense and more of a literary labyrinth. Written by Serbian author Milorad Pavić (and this is my first book by a Serbian author), it is a masterpiece of postmodernism and magical realism that functions like a choose-your-own-adventure story for intellectuals. It's a "lexicon novel": Pavić didn't write chapters. Instead, he wrote dictionary entries. The book is divided into three "books" representing the three perspectives on the Khazar Polemic (a historical event where the Khazar people had to choose a new state religion): the Red Book (based on Christian sources), the Green Book (based on Islamic sources), and the Yellow Book (based on Jewish sources). Because it’s a dictionary, one doesn't have to read it from page one to the end. One can jump from entry to entry, following cross-references, effectively building one's own version of the story.

Working Remotely in Athens: The Ancient Agora

After checking out a very intact temple, we just continued on exploring the surrounding ruins, as after all we were inside the Ancient Agora.