Harry Gruyaert's photos on Belgium (1981, 1988) | Tchaikovsky's op 6, nr 6

Yesterday evening I had a restful experience when viewing the photos taken by Harry Gruyaert on the past, as time seems to slow down.

Those old photos are nostalgic, and I keep on wondering how life was in Belgium in the 80s, was it better or less good? And I don't know why, I just couldn't co-relate those places to how they look today - is it because of the changing faces in changing time?

Some say that those who like to look at the past, its photos, architectures, paintings, antique objects, ideas, literature... even clothes and accessories, belong to the past and do not look ahead adequately, well, I quite disagree because I do reckon that many aspects of the past still surpass today's, perhaps I don't have time to explore the modern world profoundly, yet those created and accomplished in the past always attract me more, they are something uniquely available to us, a base for us, perhaps once but will never be precisely reproduced again!

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As for the music, I choose a classical song composed by Tchaikovsky, his op 6, nr 6. I always think Schubert's lieder is the best, but I am wrong, Tchaikovsky also composed wonderful pieces and I am glad having explored that. The English translation of this nr 6 is "None but the Lonely Heart", however I prefer to listen to its German version, sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, I like so much her unassuming, gentle voice - "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt", poem by Goethe :

Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
Weiß, was ich leide!
Allein und abgetrennt
Von aller Freude,
Seh ich ans Firmament
Nach jener Seite.

Ach! der mich liebt und kennt,
Ist in der Weite.
Es schwindelt mir, es brennt
Mein Eingeweide.
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
Weiß, was ich leide!

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