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Measuring the distance of hope

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Measuring the distance of hope

New music

Hans
Feb 11, 2023
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When I used to play the classical piano in my early twenties I had this really thick Handel sheet music ‘book’. Not sure what to call them, but you know, a collection of Handel’s sheet music in a paper back and I remember whenever my teacher would suggest we’d practice some Handel I was like ‘uurrgghhhh’. I always carried the red book to my practices but wasn’t too keen on playing any of the pieces.

Recently, I stumbled upon Seong-Jin Cho’s new album, his first baroque album and in it he’s predominantly playing Handel and I was like whaaaaaaattt. How? (He’s mostly known perhaps for playing Chopin). Aaaanyway, listening to the last track, the HMV 434, I couldn’t believe my ears. It’s the perfect piece. The perfect vibe. How did I miss this when I still had the skills to play?

I wonder if I would have been more inspired to play Handel if Cho would have shown me the way with this album twenty years ago. Perhaps not. I don’t think I was mature enough to appreciate Handel the way I do after this week.

So without any specific segue or bridge to my next paragraph, I just wanted to recommend the piece to you all.

I’ve had a very busy week and when things are going ok you have to be hit by bad news it seems and this one is one of those big corporate setbacks; a certain governmental entity is being so unreasonable it even makes our pretty chill corporate accountants dizzy — the issue has to do with something that starts with the letter ‘t’ and ends with a tool that you can chop wood with.

I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s me not being diligent enough about these administrative things, or maybe I’m not getting proactive advise from accountants and advisors, but I don’t recommend Finland as a place to ‘start a business’. It’s similar to health care here — supposedly good but in reality quite broken. Sure, compare it to some other nations and things are OK, but really, year on year decline is quite something.

I’m moving forward and taking it one day at a time and as the house becomes more ready by the hour, I do feel the value of the house coming through. I’m completely exhausted, can’t really sleep well but I’m thinking that a year from now, we’ll be in a completely different headspace.

Painting I made a year ago
The house, a year ago. Scaffolding everywhere, no windows — how did I manage to keep up hope?

Thank you for subscribing to my sometimes very incoherent notes.

Hope you’re doing well,

Hans

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