In August 1945 atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Around 120,000 people, of which 95% were civilians, were killed outright. It is estimated that a further quarter of a million died from the after effects of the explosions. Six days after the second bomb was dropped Japan surrendered unconditionally, removing the requirement for an invasion of the Japanese mainland by Allied forces , an engagement that would undoubtedly have resulted in dreadful casualties on both sides. Hopefully the music community, as well as the world, will remember 2005 as the sixtieth anniversary of these terrible events, as well as the year of the premiere of an opera by John Adams . My attempts to understand the almost incomprehensible events of 1945 led me to the recently published 109 East Palace by Jennet Conant . This is the story of the extraordinary secret community of allied scientists at Los Alamos in New Mexico that, in a race against the clock, created the t
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I had occasion to listen to various Beethoven piano interpretations recently, and this is indeed a class in itself.
I've ordered that CD.
It is a measure of my conditioning and prejudice that I nearly didn't listen to it because of Suzie Quatro. It was only the knowledge that Michael Berkeley never makes a dud programme that prompted me to listen on earphones while cutting the lawn.
Glad I did ...
MB has an extroadinary ability to draw out of non profesional music lovers some remarkable insights.. often they are more interesting than composers say.