Gracián & Shostakovich
It is Friday and for many people it is the last working day before the weekend. Today I would like to leave a quote and some music with you: Spanish writer and philosopher Balthasar Gracián, who will talk about not to complain and Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who was not allowed to complain for many years in his lifetime and he used music as a vehicle of self-expression and creativity. Shostakovich wrote his first symphony when he was 19. It was his assignment for his graduation at the conservatory of Petrograd (Saint Petersburg, presently).
Today’s maxim: stop learning, make the transition to thinking and creating
“Never complain. To complain always brings discredit. Better be a model of self-reliance opposed to the passion of others than an object of their compassion. For it opens the way for the hearer to what we are complaining of, and to disclose one insult forms an excuse for another. By complaining of past offences we give occasion for future ones, and in seeking aid or counsel we only obtain indifference or contempt. It is much more politic to praise one man’s favours, so that others may feel obliged to follow suit. To recount the favours we owe the absent is to demand similar ones from the present, and thus we sell our credit with the one to the other. The shrewd will therefore never publish to the world his failures or his defects, but only those marks of consideration which serve to keep friendship alive and enmity silent.” – Balthasar Gracian (1601-1658), The Art of Worldly Wisdom, 1947
Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10 (1923-25)
I. Allegretto – Allegro non troppo
II. Allegro (Scherzo)
III. Lento
IV. Allegro molto
Michael Thallium
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