{"id":28833,"date":"2014-08-29T15:54:03","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T05:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/?p=28833"},"modified":"2014-08-29T15:54:03","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T05:54:03","slug":"friday-lay-day-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/?p=28833","title":{"rendered":"Friday lay day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tIts Friday lay day, where I don’t really write a blog anymore. Whatever! Over the last few weeks, I have written a few blogs that have examined the state of affairs in France – for example, Germany contracts as the French suggest defiance<\/a> and French government in tatters and the financial markets want growth<\/a>. I recall that earlier this year (January 28, 2014), the French President Francois Hollande told the press that unemployment in France had “finally peaked” (Source<\/a>). Every month since he made that prediction, unemployment has risen.
\n
\nI am currently reading Haruki Murakami’s latest book – Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage – which is outstanding. He is best known for the classic Norwegian Wood, but he has many other books translated into English. All are challenging in one way or another.<\/p>\n

In the latest book, one of the ‘vehicles’ that motivates the inherent retrospection and binds various characters together is the piano piece by Franz Litz – Le mal du Pays.<\/p>\n

In my younger years I shared a large house in Melbourne with a stack of musicians which we called the ‘Pink House”. It was quite a place. There were all sorts of impromptu bands forming very early in the morning as the occupants came home from their various gigs and whatever. Blues players, Jazz players, Rockabilly, Vaudeville and Classical musicians. We were young and didn’t need sleep.<\/p>\n

One of the occupants of that mad house at the time was Leslie Howard<\/a>, who is now a world famous concert pianist and is “the only pianist to have recorded the complete solo piano works of Franz Liszt, a project which included more than 300 premiere recordings”. It was a very eccentric mix of music styles that lived under that roof.<\/p>\n

He used to play Litz late in the night on his piano and one of my favourite pieces was Le mal du Pays. It is 6 minutes of beautiful Litz, if you like him. It is part of a three suites for piano – Ann\u00e9es de p\u00e8lerinage – written around 1838.<\/p>\n

So just as in Murakami’s novel, the piece invokes a certain restrospective relevance for me personally.<\/p>\n

Here it is played by Hungarian pianist – Jen\u00f6 Jand\u00f3<\/a> – who is another world expert on Litz.<\/p>\n