Rest day

Like in chess tournaments, finally there is a gap to take a breath.

Till now (already midnight in Tallin) ONCT has not put anything new on their facebook page, though I believe, once finished the Baltic tour, they will have time to update from Vienna. Anyway, their blog also gives a lot of impressions by text.

One thing I have learnt these days has been the linguistic geography in the Baltic states. I didn't know that Estonian has NOTHING to do with Latvian or Lithuanian, though all the three are written in a smiliar alphabet to me. It is even NOT an Indo-European language!! Like Finnish, Estonian belongs to the Uralic Family. In Wikipedia there is a detailed map showing the subdivisions:

Baltic / Finno-Ugric / Eastern & Western Slavic

                  Family: Indo-European / Uralic / Slavic

And another surprise to find here is about Hungarian >.< Like its Romance neighbor, Romanian, it has also survived from the Slavic encirclement. Well, many times, the classification does not show a correct or real "linguistic distance", but more in the sense of a structural and logical approach. But one can find (especially phonetically) similitude, between Czech and Russian, for example, or between Romanian and Spanish.

Though I have to work every Saturday in the morning, I do take Friday evening as my weekend. And better, when there are good things to enjoy, like yesterday:

1. Leonskaja's Schubert recital given 12 months ago in Sendesaal, now emitted by Radio-Bremen. It was a pity that the program didn't include the C minor sonata, which she did play. Perhaps due to the radio timing limit. And it was unbelievable that the host talked on the sonata in A, D. 959, and then released the button for D. 960... So the broadcasting has been incomplete and inverted! Anyway, I feel grateful for living "discountedly" the experience through an on-line resource. Actually I was about to go to this recital to meet a friend, but finally the plan didn't work and I finally went alone to her next stop: Prague.

2. Next to the radio concert, I got an e-mail I had waited for a week! So some "suicide" shopping homework to do before the salary day... Difficult choice, I think finally I will buy them all T_T

3. A disclaimer I should have done at the first moment, about a new section in this blog, at the top of the right column:

 (past screen snaps)

It only provides links that already exist on the Internet, for the goodwill and benefits of admirers of Ms. Leonskaja as pianist. It is NOT official. But I don't publish anything by myself. And believe me, neither do I share everything but only the relevant ones. It is updated with events, essays, materials that third parties have uploaded. I don't take any responsibility for the content. But, of course, I am open to any comment or discussion it might generate. And also welcome to possible information/suggestions. Thank you.