Lady Luck is a Fickle Bitch!

Really, she is.  After smiling all evening on Eli Manning and the New York Giants, she gave one last smile before turning her back on them completely.  On a night when Tony Romo and the Cowboys did everything in their power to loose the game, 3 turnovers added to stupid penalties and dropped passes, Lady Luck for the 24th time smiled down on Tony Romo and blessed the Cowboys with a most improbable victory before 93,579 fans and a nationwide television audience on Sunday Night Football.  Trailing by 13 points at 26-13 with 8 minutes to play Romo and the Cowboys scored 14 points in the final 5 minutes to pull out an amazing victory, 27-26.

The final score shown in the photo above was a classic Romo to Witten 11 yard slant to the goal line where Jason Witten refused to be denied, waltzing into the End Zone for the winning TD.  This sent a heretofore rather despondent crowd into a delirious frenzy of celebration which could be heard for miles around the stadium in Arlington.  Even with the roof closed!  What a way to start the defense of the NFC Crown returned to the Cowboys last year after so many years without.  I hope all the games are not this much of a nail biter, but as they say "...on any given Sunday..." anything can happen.

The Cowboys schedule is OK except for a killer December, 3 road games to cold weather cities with outdoor stadiums,  Green Bay, Washington and of all places, fucking Buffalo two days after Christmas.  This is in addition to hosting the Jets and closing the season at home against the Redskins.  Could this be the Cowboys year? Only the passage of time will tell, but hopes springs eternal.  Especially when that fickle bitch, Lady Luck, decides to smile in your direction.

Your Monday with Mozart once again features the beautiful and talented Anne-Sophie Mutter and her frequent collaborator, Lambert Orkis, as we join them for disc 3 of their recording of all of Mozart's Sonatas for Piano and Violin.  Today's play list includes the Sonata for Piano and Violin in C, K.296; the Sonata for Piano and Violin in E flat, K.380; the Sonata for Piano and Violin in F, "für Anfänger", K.547 and the Sonata for Piano and Violin in D, K.306.  To complete your Monday with Mozart, join Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim over on my tumblr for their performance of Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianosin D Major, K448 recorded live at the Philharmonie in Berlin just last year.

Finally for Monday, we have our weekly indulgence in our mutual underwear fetish with this delicious collection of yummy dudes decked out in their sexiest skivvies found in this edition of Monday's Undies posted down below.  Then over on my tumblr, Your Hottie of the Day! is 'Scruffy and Sculpted'.  That too is a delicious combination, makes my tongue hard just thinking about it... but I digress, lol.  Thanks for the visit, see you again soon.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!

Saturday Evening Concert

Welcome to the Weekend and your Saturday Evening Concert.  It has been another fun week as we conclude our focus on The Grand Pianists with today's featured artist, Martha Argerich.  The documentary footage of her life made by her youngest daughter is not available on line so I could not share that with you.  However I do have some excellent concert footage which we will get to presently.  Once again, I will rely on Wikipedia to gives some more info about the life and times of Martha Argerich:

"Argerich was born in Buenos Aires. Her paternal ancestors were Catalonians based in Buenos Aires since the 18th century. Her maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire, who settled in Colonia Villa Clara in the Entre Ríos province—one of the colonies established by Baron de Hirsch and the Jewish Colonization Association.[3][4] The provenance of the name Argerich is from Catalonia, Spain. She started playing the piano at age three. At the age of five, she moved to teacher Vincenzo Scaramuzza, who stressed to her the importance of lyricism and feeling. Argerich gave her debut concert in 1949 at the age of eight.

The family moved to Europe in 1955, where Argerich studied with Friedrich Gulda in Austria. Juan Perón, then the president of Argentina, made their decision possible by appointing her parents to diplomatic posts in the Argentine Embassy in Vienna. She later studied with Stefan Askenase and Maria Curcio.[5] Argerich also seized opportunities for brief periods of coaching with Madeleine Lipatti (widow of Dinu Lipatti), Abbey Simon, and Nikita Magaloff.[6] In 1957, at sixteen, she won both the Geneva International Music Competition and the Ferruccio Busoni International Competition, within three weeks of each other. It was at the latter that she met Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, whom she would later seek out for lessons during a personal artistic crisis at the age of twenty, though she only had four lessons with him in a year and a half.[7] Her greatest influence was Gulda, with whom she studied for 18 months.

Argerich rose to international prominence when she won the seventh International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1965, at age 24. In 1965, she debuted in the United States in the Lincoln Center's Great Performers Series. In the same year, she also made her first recording, which included works by Chopin, Brahms, Ravel, Prokofiev, and Liszt, which received critical acclaim. In 1965, she recorded Chopin's Scherzo No. 3, Polonaise, Op. 53.

Argerich has often remarked in interviews of feeling "lonely" on stage during solo performances.[8] Since the 1980s, she has staged few solo performances, concentrating instead on concertos and, in particular, chamber music, and accompanying instrumentalists in sonatas. She is noted especially for her recordings of 20th-century works by composers such as Rachmaninoff, Messiaen and Prokofiev. One notable compilation pairs Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 (recorded in December 1982 with the Radio Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under the direction of Riccardo Chailly) with Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 (February 1980, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Kirill Kondrashin).

Argerich is also famous for her interpretation of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3, Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, and Bach's Partita No. 2 in C minor, which she has recorded several times and continues to perform.

Argerich has also promoted younger pianists, both through her annual festival and through her appearances as a member of the jury at international competitions.[9][10][11] The pianist Ivo Pogorelić was thrust into the musical spotlight partly as a result of Argerich's actions: after he was eliminated in the third round of the 1980 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Argerich proclaimed him a "genius" and left the jury in protest.[12] She has supported several artists including Gabriela Montero, Mauricio Vallina, Sergio Tiempo, Gabriele Baldocci, Christopher Falzone [13] and others.[14][15]

Argerich is president of the International Piano Academy Lake Como and performs each year at the Lugano Festival.[16] She also created and has been General Director of the Argerich Music Festival and Encounter in Beppu, Japan, since 1996.

Her aversion to the press and publicity has resulted in her remaining out of the limelight for most of her career. Nevertheless she is widely recognized as one of the greatest pianists of her time.[17]"

The companion piece I have chosen for my tumblr tonight is the 1982 live performance of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto Number 3 by the RSO Berlin and Argerich mentioned in the article above.  Coming up next week, we continue with another  our instrument themed series of posts that I hope you have enjoyed as much as I.  As April is International Guitar Month, I thought I would bring you a week of The Giants of the Guitar,  So something to which to look forward.  

Now for your visual edification this weekend, you will find an excellent collection of lithesome lads who are Naked or Nearly So  posted down below.  There is also Paradise Waiting in the Hottie of the Day! over on my tumblr.  Thanks for sharing part of your Weekend with me, see you on Monday for another week of Music, Men and More!  Until next time as always, Enjoy!

On The Run!

I am in the midst of a very busy Pay Day, having been out running errands already.  I also have lots more to do this afternoon before heading off to work 5-11.  So I thought I should dash in here and put something together for you my loyal readers before I run off again.  So here goes....

As you may well know, Polish Composer Frederic Chopin was a prolific composer of Music for the keyboard and also a Virtuoso Pianist.  Vladimir Ashkenazy, the Russian-born Pianist and Conductor, undertook a project to record Chopin's complete works which resulted in a 13 CD box set.  Your Musical Moment for today comes from CD number 6 which features the Chopin Polinaises.  Included in the play list are Polonaise No.1 in C sharp minor, Op.26 No.1; Polonaise No.2 in E flat minor, Op.26 No.2; Polonaise No.3 in A, Op.40 No.1 'Military'; Polonaise No.4 in C minor, Op.40 No.2; Polonaise No.5 in F sharp minor, Op.44; Polonaise No.6 in A flat, Op.53 'Heroic' and  Polonaise No.7 in A flat, Op.61 'Polonaise-Fantasie',  Additionally, you may hear a marvelous performance of Chopin's Polonaise Brillante, Opus 3 for Piano and Cello by Mstislav Rostropovich on Cello and Martha Argerich at the Piano over on my tumblr.  

Once again it is that time of week when Nichevo goes Daffy for Denim and I have quite the array of buff hunks and hotties in this week's edition of Men in Jeans on display below the play list.  Then to add a little spice to your life, head on over to my tumblr to check out the Ginger in Jeans Hottie of the Day!.  Thanks for the visit, see you again soon.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!