Léo Delibes' 175 Birthday Anniversary

Léo Delibes
French composer
Ballets, Operas, and Stage
(21 Feb 1836 - 16 Jan 1891)
Maurice Abravanel, The Vienna State Opera Orchestra (1970)
Delibes' Valse Lente from the Ballet Coppélia
Click here to view this L'Envoi YouTube.

Ronald Reagan 100th Birthday Anniversary

Ronald Wilson Reagan
40th President of the United States
(6 February 1911 – 5 June 2004)

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'

-- Ronald Reagan

Chinese New Year 2011

3 February 2011, Year of the Rabbit

Mozart for the Ages...

...even New Age. Music, that is.

Mozart's Birthplace, Salzburg, Austria, Christmas 2010
On This Mozart's Birthday Anniversary
(27 January 1756 - 5 December 1791)
The MP3 below expired on 03-06-2011.
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Keiko Matsui, piano (1997)
- Into the Forest
(after Mozart, arr. Kazu Matzui)
For the Mozart fans, here is a quiz. Name the original Mozart score for this Matsui arrangement.

If you can provide the right answer, I will send you a classical recording (MP3)by a renown artist of this Mozart composition. This contest expires upon the installation of a new tune.

One of Those Things

Hubert Giraud wrote this tune, 'Sous le ciel de Paris' (Under Paris Skies) in 1951. My making this YouTube was just one of those things, as Cole Porter would say.

Maurice Larcange, accordion
Under Paris Skies (Sous le ciel de Paris) 1962
Click here to view this L'Envoi YouTube.

Christmas 2010 Travel Panoramas

Panoramic View of the Christkindl Village
Styr, Austria, Christmas 2010

                        Panoramic View from the Nuremburg Castle
                        Nürnberg, Germany, Christmas 2010

            Panoramic View of Regensburg and the Danube River
            Regensburg, Germany, Christmas 2010

Panoramic View from the Melk Abbey
Melk, Austria, Christmas 2010

Happy New Year 2011

Vienna at Night, Christmas 2010
The MP3 below expired on 01-27-2011.
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In Classical Mood: Nights in Vienna (1996)
- Radetzky March, Op. 228 (J.Strauss Sr.)

A Hardy New Year

New Year's Eve
Thomas Hardy
1906

"I have finished another year," said God,
"In grey, green, white, and brown;
I have strewn the leaf upon the sod,
Sealed up the worm within the clod,
And let the last sun down."

"And what's the good of it?" I said.
"What reasons made you call
From formless void this earth we tread,
When nine-and-ninety can be read
Why nought should be at all?

"Yea, Sire; why shaped you us, 'who in
This tabernacle groan' -
If ever a joy be found herein,
Such joy no man had wished to win
If he had never known!"

Then he: "My labours--logicless -
You may explain; not I:
Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess
That I evolved a Consciousness
To ask for reasons why.

"Strange that ephemeral creatures who
By my own ordering are,
Should see the shortness of my view,
Use ethic tests I never knew,
Or made provision for!"

He sank to raptness as of yore,
And opening New Year's Day
Wove it by rote as theretofore,
And went on working evermore
In his unweeting way.

Grace Has Appeared

"For the grace of God has appeared,bringing salvation to all men"

-- Titus 2:11
New American Standard Bible


Merry Christmas one and all.

To Ride the Danube Waves

For the next two weeks, I will be on Christmas holiday with good company to cruise on the wintry Danube River from Austria to Germany. At ports of call we will sample the food and spirit now swirling and permeating all the Christmas Markets along the river banks.

The MP3 below expired on 01-02-2011.
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Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops
- Waves of the Danube (Ivanovici)