Dedication

I received an interesting short article in the mail today about a musical composition named Widmung, which means "dedication" in German. This composition was originally a poem of the same title, by Friedrich Ruckert, set to piano accompaniment by the famed composer Robert Schumann. This art song is the first song in the Myrthen song cycle which Schumann composed as a wedding gift for his wife, Clara Wieck, herself an accomplished composer and pianist. The completed song cycle was lavishly bound with a red velvet inscription that read "To my beloved bride". Wow! How romantic is that, to receive original compositions as a wedding gift!

In this song, Schumann expressed what Clara meant to him: his heart, his soul, his joy, his sorrow, his heaven, his better self.

In 1849, piano virtuoso Franz Liszt made a celebrated piano transcription of Widmung that further increased the influence of Robert Schumann. It's not what you would call a technically-challenging piece, but it is something that is so full of heart and love. It is indeed very, very moving.

Here is a video of Lang Lang playing Liszt's version of Widmung. 




This a rendition of Widmung by soprano Jessye Norman. This rendition is technically-accomplished and very expressive indeed :)



And here's one by Diana Damrau accompanied by the harp instead.



I wouldn't venture to claim that these are the best interpretations of Widmung out there; I'm sure if you looked hard enough, you would find others that are accomplished as well. Heck, for those who would be interested in playing and/or singing it, I even found a score here.

And if you're wondering what the words mean, here is the link to the original poem and its translation in several languages. Saves me the trouble of editing them in here.

You are rest, you are peace.
You are bestowed upon me from Heaven.
That you love me makes me worthy of you.

Beautiful, isn't it?

"I Shall Win!"

In 1986, the British Royal Opera toured Japan and staged Giacomo Puccini's Turandot and Georges Bizet's Carmen. This tour was sponsored by the Min-On Concert Association, and is headlined by world-acclaimed opera stars Jose Carreras and Agnes Baltsa. Min-On was founded by Soka Gakkai International (SGI) President Daisaku Ikeda in 1963 to promote cultural exchange among people from all over the world. Next year, Min-On celebrates its 50th anniversary.

The following year, Carreras was diagnosed with leukaemia and underwent painful treatment before making a full recovery. SGI President Ikeda wrote about Carreras' ordeal and triumph in his essay, Humankind's Universal Musical Instrument, drawing from Carreras' autobiography, Singing from the Soul. SGI President Ikeda wrote: "Our voice are our selves. The voice is alive. That is what gives it the power to move and stir other lives. The feeling in a voice enters through the ears, 'the gateway to the spirit', travels deep into the heart, rouses it and stimulates reactions, which then manifests as action."

In 1970, Carreras was recognised as one of the world's three great tenors, alongside Placido Domingo and the late Luciano Pavarotti. When he was diagnosed with cancer in 1987, he was at the peak of his career, and was only 40 years old. When he recovered, a comeback concert was staged in his hometown of Barcelona. To end  this concert, he chose to sang "Nessun dorma" (None shall sleep) from Turandot. "Nessun dorma" happens to be my favourite opera piece.

SGI President Ikeda wrote: "The famous aria closes with the lines: 'Depart, O night! Hasten your setting, you stars! . . . At dawn I shall win! I shall win! I shall win!' He wanted to communicate to his audience the profound lesson he had learned: 'I never gave up hope of coming through my ordeal alive, and now I face the future with confidence. I’ll do what must be done; I will not let myself be intimidated.' As he sang, he prayed that his message would strike home in the hearts of each individual in the audience, that each of them would feel that his song was also their own."

"I shall win! I shall win" - That was Carreras' triumphant cry. In fact, he had won! Through his deep love of music, and the support of people all over the world, he battled the demons of illness head on, telling them, "Depart! Begone! Vanish!" from the depths of his soul. Every time I hear "Nessun dorma", I cannot help but be moved by the ending, "Vincero! Vincero! Vincero!" It is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit over the greatest of ordeals. It is most fitting that Carreras chose this to end his triumphant comeback concert.

You can find a translation of "Nessun dorma" here, and the following is a Carreras performing "Nessun dorma" from before his illness.

The Dark Side of Great Men

Philipp Lenard

I read a little about Philipp Lenard while reading Michio Kaku's Einstein's Cosmos. Philipp Lenard is a physicist of the first order. He made important discoveries about cathode rays and was awarded the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on them. This is from the days when people still won Nobel Prizes single-handedly. As we know now, without cathode ray tubes, television would not have been possible (the horror!). Other than the Nobel Prize, he also won the Royal Society's Rumford Medal (1896) and the Franklin Institute's Franklin Medal (1932), among other honours. This is a man who regularly gets entries in books about "greatest scientists".

However, Lenard, who was born in Brastilava (now the capital of the Slovak Republic), which was then part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in 1862,  is an avowed German nationalist. He despised "English physics", which he claimed had stolen ideas from German physicists. he felt that Germany should only relied on "Deutsche physics" and denounced the work of ethnic Jewish physicians, in particular those of Albert Einstein's. He called relativity a "Jewish fraud".

He became a member of the Nazi Party long before it came to power. His deep-seated anti-Semitism caused him to block Einstein's nomination for the Nobel Prize on more than one occasion (Einstein finally won in 1921 for his work on the photoelectric effect, instead of the more famous and worldview-changing relativity theories). When Hitler came to power, he came one of the dictator's advisers and was Chief of Aryan Physics.

When the Allied forces occupied Germany, he was dismissed from his post as emeritus professor at Heidelburg University, Germany. He died in 1947.


Thomas Alva Edison

Well, just about everyone knows who Edison was. Other than his many inventions, he was also the co-founder of a company that would become the predecessor to today's General Electric. The Wizard of Menlo Park was definitely a magician of sorts.

One of the most interesting episodes in his life is the "War of Currents" in the late 1880s. As electricity became more prominent, a battled ensued to decide whether direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC) would become the type of current supplied to electrical grids.

Edison championed DC, which became the standard electricity distributed in the US at first. He also earned lots of money from patent royalties arising from the use of DC. He put in lots effort and money in promoting and maintaining his grip on DC usage.

On the side of the Atlantic ocean, several scientists and innovators championed the use of AC. These people included George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla, "The Wizard of the West". Tesla used to work for Edison, but he was largely under-appreciated. In fact, Tesla was cheated of compensation for his work in improving Edison's inefficient dynamo, leading to bad blood between them.

Well, Edison was no Mr. Nice Guy. Edison launched a massive PR campaign to discredit AC. This included  spreading misinformation on fatal AC accidents and lobbying US Congress officials. One of his more spectacularly disgusting campaigns is to use AC to fatally electrocute animals, at first stray dogs and cats, to "show" how "dangerous" AC would be to humans. Years later, even after losing the War of the Currents, Edison's film crew made a film on electrocuting an elephant named Topsy in 1903. This disgusting event was witnessed by over 1,500 people and the film was screened all over America.

Another dastardly thing he did was to secretly fund the development of the electric chair. The funny thing is, Edison was opposed to capital punishment. But he was so insistent on discrediting AC that he funded this project to show that AC is way deadlier than DC.

The infamous chair was first used on August 6, 1890 on convicted murderer William Kemmler. A technician misjudged the voltage needed, and the first jolt of current, which lasted for 17 seconds, only left Kemmler badly injured (oh, can you imagine the screaming, and the smell of fried human meat?). Horror-struck prison staff then turned on the current for a second time and made sure Kemmler was not "injured" any more. The scene was revolting, to say the least.

A reporter who witnessed this called it "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging". George Westinghouse, also Edison's great rival in the War of the Currents, and Tesla's collaborator, commented wryly, "They would have done better using an axe." Ironically, Westinghouse later won a medal named after Edison, while Edison was still alive, for his contributions in developing AC systems.

How funnily life turns out!


Fritz Haber

Without Fritz Haber's work, agriculture as we know it today could not have existed. The Green Revolution could not have happened. The number of people starving would undoubtedly be much higher. At a glance, he could probably qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize as well.

Together with Carl Bosch, Haber developed the Haber-Bosch process, which allowed for the catalytic formation of ammonia from hydrogen and atmospheric nitrogen under conditions of high temperature and pressure. Haber won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918 for his work on this process. Carl Bosch himself later shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1931 for his work in high-pressure chemistry. Bosch's uncle, Robert, pioneered the development of the spark plug. The Haber-Bosch process allowed for the development of nitrogen-based fertilisers and also explosives.

Haber played a major role in the development of chemical warfare in World War 1. He led the teams that developed the use of chlorine and other deadly gases. He also personally oversaw their deployment on the front despite it contravening the Hague Convention of 1907. He also defended their use, saying death is death no matter what means are used.

His work in chemical warfare so greatly distressed his first wife, Clara Immerwahr, that she committed suicide. On the day she died, he left for the Easter Front to supervise the deployment of poison gas against the Russians, leaving behind his grieving 13-year old son, Hermann. During World War 2, Hermann emigrated to the US and committed suicide in 1946 (Fritz Haber had died in 1934).

During World War 1, Haber was awarded the rank of captain by the Kaiser. He was a strongly patriotic German. He even said, "During peace time, a scientist belongs to the world, but during war time, he belongs to his country." His life would be marked by ethical repercussions stemming from his work.

In the 1920s, scientists working at his institute developed Zyklon A, a cyanide-based gas that was largely used as an insecticide. During the Holocaust, Zyklon A was modified into Zyklon B, which was widely used in the gas chambers to exterminate people, including six million Jews.

Here's the clincher: Fritz Haber was a Jew.

He had left Germany for England in 1933 as animosity against Jews in Germany was growing. He died in Basel, Switzerland, in 1934, while on his way to what is now known as Israel.

Fritz Haber's work with poison gases has been heavily-criticised by his contemporaries and current scientists. Yet his contributions via the Haber-Bosch process is so significant. Had he lived to know of the Holocaust, I am sure he would have been profoundly haunted by what he had wrought. You can read about his life and work in Master Mind by Daniel Charles.

David Yepsen talk on the 2012 U.S. Presidential Elections

Today, I attended a talk on the upcoming U.S. presidential elections at the HELP College of Arts and Technology at Fraser Business Park, KL. The title of the talk was "Road to the White House: Candidates and Issues in 2012." This talk was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Malaysia, and the speaker is David Yepsen, who is currently the Executive Director at the Paul Simon Institute of Public Policy at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. You can see his bio here. David Yepsen had been a journalist for most of his career and specialised in political reporting.

Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, I arrived late at the talk, and the speaker was already fielding questions from the audience. One of the interesting things he said was "Politics is not about 'what you did for me' but 'what you are going to do for me?'" This is something politicians need to give serious thought to. He notes that when an incumbent does something right, it is expected of him/her.

An audience member asked him what a primary and caucus is. A primary, or rather primary election, is basically an election to choose a candidate from within a party for another bigger contest. An example would be the U.S. Republican Party presidential primaries to choose a candidate to challenge Barack Obama for the presidency.

A caucus is a meeting of supporters and members of a political party or movement, kind of like a town hall meeting of members. One of the suggested origins of the word "caucus" is from an Algonquian (a Native American tribe) word meaning counsel.

He also talked about the growing political polarisation in the U.S. due to the existing power structure and gerrymandering. (The word "gerrymandering" was named after a 19th century former Massachusetts governor named Elbridge Gerry. Mitt Romney is also a former Massachusetts governor.) Growing political polarisation is also becoming more evident in many countries.

Other audience members asked about the U.S.-Russia arms race and the what he thinks the U.S. would do to influence the dynamics of the relationship between China and Southeast Asia. This is in view of the current spat between China and the Philippines. He cleverly noted that it is in the U.S.'s interest to have China buy their goods to boost their economy; so they have no reason to cheese off China. Also, the great pressure and peacemaker for any national leader is to ensure economic growth. He felt that Obama and Romney would have the same foreign policy outlook where this is concerned.

Yepsen also stated that while campaigning, candidates can make all sorts of promises, but once they are in power, their ability and influence will become more limited. They are likely to adopt more centrist views, rather than those that are closer to their election promises. Considering the power of the various special interests groups and of Congress itself, that seems pretty close to the mark. Overall, I felt that the talk got good response, with many students asking questions. But I also noted (at least the time I was there) that it was the foreign students who were more interested in asking questions.

After the talk, I had a chat with Franklin Morais, the head of the department in HELP that hosted this lecture. He mentioned some of the things Mr. Yepsen said that I had missed out. Yepsen mentioned that today, 53% of U.S. voters are women and they are a very powerful voting bloc. But at this point in time, compared to men, they are still way below men in terms of social influence. For example, women only make up 17% of the U.S. Congress. The shifting demographics (the white people are a minority in the U.S. now) will also play a influential role in the elections.

Too bad I missed the talk; I'd imagine it would have been really interesting. I thought he handled the Q&A really well.

Here's a video of him talking about the Iowa Caucus.

"me against the world" by Charles Bukowski

I recently came across this poem, "me against the world", by Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) in the Best American Poetry 1994 compilation (Touchstone, 1994):


when I was a kid
one of the questions asked was,
would you rather eat a bucket of shit
or drink a bucket of piss?
I thought that was easy.
"that's easy," I said, "I'll take the
piss."
"maybe we'll make you do both,"
they told me.
I was the new kid in the
neighborhood.
"oh yeah," I said.
"yeah!" they said.
there were 4 of them.
"yeah," I said, "you and whose
army?"
"we won't need no army," the
biggest one said.
I slammed my fist into his
stomach.
then all 5 of us were down on
the ground fighting.
they got in each other's way
but there were still too many
of them.
I broke free and started
running.
"sissy! sissy!" they yelled.
"going home to mama?"
I kept running.
they were right.
I ran all the way to my house,
up the driveway and onto the
porch and into the
house
where my father was beating
my mother.
she was screaming.
things were broken on the floor.
I charged my father and started swinging.
I reached up but he was too tall,
all I could hit were his
legs.
then there was a flash of red and
purple and green
and I was on the floor.
"you little prick!" my father said,
"you stay out of this!"
"don't you hit my boy!" my mother
screamed.
but I felt good because my father
was no longer hitting my
mother.
to make sure, I got up and charged
him again, swinging.
there was another flash of colors
and I was on the floor
again.
when I got up again
my father was sitting in one chair
and my mother was sitting in
another chair
and they both just sat there
looking at me.
I walked down the hall and into
my bedroom and sat on the
bed.
I listened to make sure there
weren't any more sounds of
beating or screaming
out there.
there weren't.
then I didn't know what to
do.
it wasn't any good outside
and it wasn't any good
inside.
so I just sat there.
then I saw a spider making a web
in the window.
I found a match, walked over,
lit it and burned the spider.
then I felt better.
much better.


I was moved and took a liking to it immediately (and there are other gems in this compilation). It would appear as if this poem was inspired by Bukowski's real-life experience. As a child, he was often physically and verbally abused by his father, who was largely unemployed in the 1930s. His mother did not do anything to stop those beatings.

As a result, Bukowski became a socially-withdrawn child, and at the age of 13, picked up drinking at the urging of a friend whose father was an alcoholic surgeon. He remained an alcoholic pretty much for the rest of his life. As a teenager, he was socially awkward and was often made fun of by his peers. When he was old enough, Bukowski moved to New York City and worked a variety of jobs before establishing himself as a major American poet.

The angst and despair of the child in the poem is a reflection of the troubles besetting children in troubled families, especially those trapped in poverty. And in this poem, the child draws comfort from killing a spider in a cruel way. (Bukowski was not known to be abusive to people or animals. If anything, he had numerous love affairs and trysts with women and have used these experiences to write poetry).

This poem is beautiful and melancholy.

The Wave

I got a second-hand copy of Todd Strasser's The Wave, and last night, I decided to read it. And guess what? I finished it that very night itself. While the book itself is only over 140 pages, the story was so arresting that I somehow wanted to finish it in one night - something no book has made me done in a long time. I first heard about this book while reading The Freedom Writers Diary.

The Wave is a young adult novel published in 1981, and this book was based on a telemovie, which you can see below in its entirety:



The story is set in Gordon High School, in 1969, where Ben Ross, the main character teaches history. During one lesson on the atrocities of Nazi Germany, his students asked him how could those horrible things happen in an advanced society. They were upset, and Mr. Ross wasn't sure how he could answer them.

So he devised an experiment to show that fascism can exist in a democratic society. He begins to "indoctrinate" the students in his history class and have them perform acts of discipline and shout slogans in order to bolster "unity" among the students. He then formed a group called "The Wave" in order to strengthen their solidarity further. "The Wave" even has a symbol, and members greet each other with a particular hand movement...does this sound eerily familiar?

At first "The Wave" receives praise from the school community, as it successfully instils discipline and a sense of community in students who are largely lackadaisical. Even the "class creep", Robert Billings becomes more socially acceptable through his participation in "The Wave". But as the "The Wave" expands, things change.

The thing is, this book is actually based on a real high school experiment that was carried out in 1967 in Palo Alto, California. The teacher, Rob Jones, wanted to prove that the ideals of fascism appealed even in a democracy. On the fourth day of the experiment, Ron Jones terminated the experiment as he felt it was getting out of control. He wrote about this experience some nine years after the original experiment, in this lengthy essay.

This book has also inspired the German movie Die Welle (The Wave), whose trailer follows:



If you can find this book, I highly recommend you read it. It is an interesting study on how people in a supposedly democratic society can be influenced to behave in conformist manners, even destructive ones.