Today, exactly three years ago, was a most horrific day for Spain and the whole world. The terrorists blew several trains coming in to Atocha station in Madrid. What was even more terrifying was that the government at that time (Partido Popular or PP) immediately used it to gain votes for the elections which was about to happen 3 days later, by lying to the pueblo español that the terrorists were ETA (the Basques) . They didn't want to say that it was Al Qaeda, since PP, contrary to 97% of the Spanish people, participated in invading Iraq (it was the diabolic triangle : Bush, Blair & Aznar ) . Those politicians ... how could they be so insensitive ?
Apropos insensitivity of people, I believe even deeper in art for the people. Yes, yes, I am still talking about Sapardi Djoko Damono and his masterworks. I have decided today that I am not going to play myself in the first performance of some episodes from Ars Amatoria at the JCOM Festival in August in Jakarta. I am going to give the piano part to my friends, some of them still students. So, I do have to care about the difficulty and accesibility of the piano part, and therefore discipline myself to do it all the time in the future. One doesn't have to be a virtuoso to play my music ; as SDD said, "once my poems are published, they belong to people. They are free to interpret them according to themselves". Which, dangerously enough, can lead to misinterpretations, but that is the risk we should take. Sorry to be old-fashioned, but I deeply believe that we artists should contribute more than we take, with our art. Art should not be used to cheat the audience, or boasting that I am cleverer than them (either by telling that I am writing music for the future or that I come from another planet, far more advanced than the planet earth), or sucking the most of taxpayers money through the governmental subsidies for art. I also will not demand a complex electronic laboratory or helicopters to perform my music : I just need instrumentalists with their instruments and some singers. Back to Bach !
