But the false culture isn’t giving up. I’m often invited to the republics for various gala performances of musical achievements, exhibits, plenums, and so on, and I often go. I act as the wedding guest and naturally praise everything in sight, or almost everything. But I see through it all, and my hosts see that I see. And both parties pretend that everything is fine. / These musical festivals always begin with the works of famous composers- and that is all baloney. And the opera house always has the première of another opera or ballet on the same theme- national uprising in the distant past. Ant that’s all baloney, too. I chuckle to myself when I see that the symphonies of various composers are written- or at the very least, orchestrated (and that’s one and the same as far as I’m concerned)- by one hand. And it’s a game for me to guess who the composer really is. Most of the time I do guess, because the real composer (usually from Moscow or Leningrad) will also present a work under his own name. /I easily recognize individual styles in orchestration, even if the ‘style’ is nothing more than good craftsmanship, and I’m almost never wrong. << less