Author Archives: howard

About howard

Wine, Physics and Song is my blog. Roughly speaking, I'm a quantum physicist, working mostly in the foundations of quantum theory, and in quantum computation and quantum information processing. My main focus recently has been understanding the nature of quantum theory by understanding how the possibilities it gives us for processing information compare to what might have been, by studying information processing in abstract mathematical frameworks, using tools like ordered linear spaces and category theory, in which not only quantum and classical theories, but all sorts of "foil" theories that don't seem to be realized in our physical world, but are illuminating to contrast with quantum theory, can be formulated. Sometimes I like to call this pursuit "mathematical science fiction".

Globalquerque music festival: streaming live at KUNM

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Globalquerque world music festival is going on now in in Albuquerque, NM.

You can stream it live here at KUNM.  7 PM to midnight tonight (21 Sep 2012) and tomorrow night (22 Sep), Mountain Time (North America).
Just heard Zeb and Haniya from Pakistan.  Nice stuff.  If the live feed's over, you can check out a version of the song they just played on youtube, embedded below.   Nice intro on a sarod-like instrument.  (Update:  the instrument is a rubab, probably the instrument from which evolved the sarod of North Indian (perhaps better termed Hindustani?) classical music, although the rubab is fretted, while the sarod has a fretless, usually stainless steel, fingerboard enabling the slides and sliding ornaments that are integral to much Indian classical music.  At Globalquerque, the rubab intro was replaced by a beautiful and fairly lengthy vocal introduction, resembling the alap of a Hindustani raga performance.)

Lucevan le stelle: Tosca at Santa Fe

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The stars, seen at intermission from the exterior loggia at the Santa Fe Opera two nights ago, were shining over the Sangre de Cristo mountains, through the gaps between the clouds remaining after a typical New Mexico late summer evening shower.  And they were definitely shining onstage in a performance of Puccini's Tosca.

Tosca is one of the great operas.  (If, like Benjamin Britten and Berkeley musicologist Joseph Kerman, you're one of the doubters on this score, I may address your doubts in another post, but now is not the time.)  And the Santa Fe Opera put on a great performance of it two nights ago.  Not a perfect one, but a genuinely great one.  The sets were a bit unorthodox, with the church setting of act I portrayed with the dome suspended globe-like, its coffered, gilt-highlighted interior toward the audience, at the rear of the stage, which was open to the pinon-covered hills and more distant mesas and mountains of New Mexico.  Stage right and left, chapel gates lined the church aisles, scaled down toward the back for artifical perspective.  And rising ramp-like from front center, the huge painting on which Mario Cavaradossi is working---while standing on it---for most of the first act.  Unorthodox, but very effective.

Brian Jagde (who replaced Andrew Richard, who had been scheduled for this season) sang Cavaradossi with elegant but unfussy phrasing, and a voice that was not huge, nor over-the-top dramatic, but handsome and focused, with a good core and excellent intonation, well suited to the part overall if a bit restrained at times.  Below, I say more about why he is a really superb artist.  Amanda Echalaz, from Durban, South Africa, has been getting some rave reviews for her Toscas at Covent Garden, the English National Opera, and elsewhere.  Her voice is perhaps a bit far over on the dramatic side, rather than lyrical, to be perfectly ideal for the part which seems to me to require equal measure of both.  It is produced with a lot of vibrato, and at least in the first act's scene of love, jealousy, and flirtation, some measure of distortion or strain in high, loud notes---which somewhat paradoxically, seemed to mostly disappear in the dramatic, no-holds-barred extended confrontation with Scarpia that is the second act.  Her acting was superb, and the less-sweet side of her voice does emphasize the possibly more worldly side of Floria Tosca, who is after all a woman in show business (an opera singer, in fact!) at the turn of the 19th century, so the first act did have plenty of humor, tension, and drama.  But she really came into her own in the second act.  With Thomas Hampson playing a relatively suave and controlled but thoroughly despicable Scarpia, singing with effortless control and refined phrasing in a deep, honeyed baritone---no hammy villain he---this was unquestionably a highlight of the season at Santa Fe---as it would have been anywhere.  Echalaz responded to each new piece of calm but implacably studied coercion, each newly revealed depth of evil, with more and more frenzied alternation of despair and rage, masterfully paced and not overdone, at the end almost like a lioness in the cage of Scarpia's office.  And as Scarpia finds out, you don't want to be in a cage with an enraged lioness, especially if you are threatening one of her loved ones. The choral scene at the end of the first act should be singled out too...it's essentially a dark credo sung by Scarpia, with a hugely effective minor modal melody slithering up and down behind him, the orchestra providing a dirgelike, menacing 2/4 groove, and sacristans, priests, church officials piling on in a Te Deum along with a superb boy choir.

There was plenty more excellent singing, and of course fabulous music, in some of the love arias in acts I and III.  Tosca's aria Vissi d'arte (I lived for art, I lived for love") also stood out.    But the high point of this performance, and it was very high, was an aria that may well be the crux of the opera --- Cavaradossi's solo "E lucevan le stelle" ("And the stars were shining", or more literally, "and the stars shone"), in act III.  Waiting to be executed, he recalls how the stars were shining the night he met Tosca, the creaking of the garden gate as she comes to him, her sweet kisses and languid caresses, and so forth... ratcheting up to "That time is gone, I die in desperation.  I have never loved life as much as I do now!"  There have been some great versions of this aria.  Often the emotionalism, the remembered passion and the despair at oncoming death, are heavily underlined by the vocal interpretation, with massive rubato in places, changes in dynamics, a sensation that notes are being tossed or wrenched out into the air.  Under control, this can make for a very effective interpretation.  Roberto Alagna is among the farthest to this end of the continuum among successful interpretations; Giuseppe di Stefano much less so, depending on the performance.  In the superb 1956 La Scala performance with Victor de Sabato conducting and Maria Callas as Tosca (available on CDs from EMI) di Stefano is impassioned but relatively controlled except for some (in my view unfortunate) minor sob/breakdown vocal effects at the very end.  At Santa Fe, Jagde was at the opposite end of the spectrum---with vocal histrionics to a minimum, full, legato phrasing and musical beauty prioritized.  Emotionally, the beauty of remembered times with Tosca predominated, and the final "I have never loved life so much" ("Non ho amato mai tanto la vita!") resonated more than the immediately preceding "I die desperate!" ("muoio disperato").  The music does more than enough to convey the pathos of the situation; Jagde's smooth, focused, firm and centered but not at all harsh or hard, and very slightly dark, voice, and supremely musical phrasing was perfect for this interpretation, and the effect was devastating, perhaps even more effective than a more highly wrought rendition.  It is hard to know---and doesn't much matter---whether this judgement would hold up on listening to a recording, but subjectively, in its effect in context in this live performance, this was one of the greatest pieces of opera singing I've ever been privileged to hear.  It brought down the house.  Crucial to this aria's impact, of course, was the foundation provided by the singing and acting of the leads earlier in the opera, especially the Tosca-Scarpia confrontation by Echalaz and Hampson in Act II.    (If you're curious what Richards might have sounded like had he been able to make it to Santa Fe this season, you can hear Richards sing Stelle in an August 2008 performance at the Bregenzer Festspiele; try to ignore the sobbing in the minute of lovely music that precedes the aria, and following it (although it's indicated in the score, it's overdone here), and you'll get an idea of how Richards sings this. Except for the histrionics, calmer and more centered than most of what you'll find for this aria, and quite beautifully sung...not that far from Jagde's interpretation, actually, though Richard's voice is a bit larger and deeper and his singing just a little less legato.)

Lucevan le stelle is preceded by a long orchestral interlude with Cavaradossi alone on stage, rather Debussyan in some of its harmony and moodiness, although with a bit more standard harmonic motion underneath.  This is probably the place to mention that the orchestra, conducted by music director Frederic Chaslin, played superbly throughout.  Very clear, almost transparent textures much of the time, supple phrasing, excellent timbres from the individual instruments, delicacy when needed but also a tasty bite and crunch from the brass and percussion when appropriate, and plenty of lushness, menace or power as required (which in Tosca, is often).  I've been to the opera at Santa Fe quite a bit over the years and overall this season the orchestra is probably playing the best I've ever heard them play.

When Tosca arrives on the scene just before the execution, which she believes will be faked as Scarpia had promised, the interaction between her and Cavaradossi is not the transcendent love duet that publisher Ricordi had apparently tried to talk Puccini into; Puccini defended this choice on dramatic grounds, and I'm inclined to agree.  There was no letdown musically, vocally, or dramatically, though, as the opera swiftly moved to its [SPOILER ALERT ;-)] dire conclusion.

Santa Fe made a great move here in engaging three major stars---one, Echalaz, relatively newly minted as a star through her replacement of Angela Gheorgiu as Tosca at Covent Garden in 2009, another, Hampson, relatively far along in his illustrious career but portraying Scarpia for the first time and the third, Richards, relatively unknown to be before this but to judge from credits in major roles at places like the Met and La Scala, somewhere near the peak of an important career.  And even though only two of them could make it to Santa Fe in the end, the less well-known Jagde really came through, in this performance, as Richards' replacement.  With excellent support from the orchestra, chorus, and supporting singers, and by engaging fully with each other vocally and dramatically, Jagde, Echalaz and Hampson put over Tosca not just as the highly emotional and musically lush potboiler it is easy to see it as, but as the---to be sure, highly emotional and musically lush---masterpiece it really is.

Debussy on NPR's Performance Today this week...

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Claude Debussy's birthday is Wednesday the 22nd.  NPR's Performance Today is featuring him today through Weds.  You can stream today's show here.  (The player will open hour 1; for hour 2 of the show, click at bottom right.)  Currently (end of the 2nd hour) a really superb performance of "The Perfumes of the Night and Morning of a Festival Day, from Images, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Shao-Chia Lu, conductor.  I haven't listened intensely to the orchestral Images; in this performance, it's really lovely.  Certainly when I listen to La Mer (for both musical quality and influence, one of the key works of classical music) I want more orchestral Debussy in that vein; this Images fits the bill all round, harmonically, melodically, rhythmically, timbrally, the main qualitative difference (the musical content is of course different) being that it is overall calmer.  Perhaps there's something special about the Concertgebouw and Debussy; my favorite La Mer so far is the 1976 Phillips recording, in which they are conducted by Bernard Haitink.  It's on Phillips CD 438-742-2 (bargain two CD set, if it's still available), which also has Haitink conducting them in Images, Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune, Jeux, Dances for harp and orchestra, Rhapsody for orchestra and clarinet, and some short pieces).  Earlier in the show pianist Marc-André Hamelin played three preludes beautifully; I have and greatly enjoy Pascal Rogé playing some of these on CD, and was enchanted by Radu Lupu live, but after this I will probably search out some Hamelin on record.  He's not afraid to be expressive, including rhythmically.  The Rhapsody for saxophone and orchestra, with Hamelin playing the orchestral part on piano, came off less well to my ears, probably not because of the performance but either because it is a more ungainly piece of music, or because it needs the orchestra to sound right.

All or much of the portion of the show that features Hamelin seems to have been recorded live, in a concert hosted by PT host Fred Childs, that also features interesting conversation between him and Hamelin about the music.  Today's show began with two pieces by Hamelin that I enjoyed... in a style that is reminiscent of the side of Debussy that is more involved with stacks of thirds and relatively diatonic melody (rather than fourths and fifths and pentatonic melody), but with a bit more chromaticism (though soft-edged) and to my ears somewhat more standard harmonic progressions, bringing in some of the more restrained aspects of nineteenth-century romanticism, as well as a slight whiff of classic thirties-through-fifties classic jazz and American popular music.

Tomorrow's show will feature Hamelin playing more preludes and a duet with clarinetist Richard Stoltzmann, among other things, so I'd say tune in or stream it.

 

 

CBGB Festival at Central Park Summerstage, NYC

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The "CBGB Festival" of indie/alternative/punk-ish music was happening while we were in New York City.  Between two free concerts on July 7th, one in Times Square and one in Central Park, I chose the Central Park one after checking at bands in both lineups online.  I was sorry to miss Superchunk's appearance at Times Square, and Glint seemed to have promise along with a heap of pretension (some tracks reminded me of Coldplay but with half-swallowed vocals), but most of the other Times square bands didn't excite me too much.  Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! (winning the hard-fought prize for most cumbersome band name) also held out some potential interest.  The Central Park concert was headlined by Guided by Voices, a somewhat familiar name in the midst of a comeback, although I wasn't familiar with their music beforehand.  But I was primarily attracted by the opening bands, all of which have interesting music up online or posted by fans on Youtube.  Cold Cloud Nothings opened, followed by The War On Drugs and then The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.  You can see what I mean about the close-fought contest for most cumbersome band name.  The opening bands suffered a bit from inferior sound--- the headliners' equipment was in place ahead of time and they had more than half an hour of soundcheck after the opening bands.  They also tended to stretch out the songs a bit much...all three bands had mostly well-written songs, but some of them were a bit simple in structure and lacking enough musical material to support being stretched out, especially when that means repetition more than, say, a solo with lots of musical content.  I imagine that in a club with the audience more involved in dancing the extra length might make more sense.  But they all played pretty solidly.  Cloud Nothings' did several songs from their current CD release, Attack on Memory, notably "Fall In" and the lengthy "Wasted Days".

Here you can check them out in a live club gig:

"Fall In" is infectious, upbeat indie rock; "Wasted Days" melds a late 1980s hardcore punk/emo kind of feel (shades of Fugazi, Dag Nasty, maybe Bullet LaVolta) with aspects of classic grunge (Mudhoney, a bit of Nirvana, the heavier side of Soundgarden).  The vocal features a full-throated, rasping chant, almost scream, of "I thought / I would  / be more / than this".  Softer-edged in concert than the CD track; that could be the sound setup or perhaps Baldi sensibly trying to protect his voice.  A long guitar solo was relatively uninspired Dorian-mode noodling though it did build momentum and served a structural purpose in the song; the same interlude comes of better on record.  (However, they appeared to be down one guitarist at this point, as one guitar amp had to be changed out.  (You can check it on Youtube.)  Overall they put across interesting music well, and I'm likely to buy their CD.  Earlier work by Cloud Nothings is apparently primarily a single-musician project from leader Dylan Baldi, and is poppier and sometimes more experimental and ethereal sounding than Memory, but also quite interesting.  With the current lineup, they've made a clear move into a grunge/metal/punk-centered bag featuring anthems of mild negativity like "Wasted Days" and "No Future, No Past" and unflattering first-person portraits of creepish types as in "Cut You", with poppier Hüsker Du-ish stuff like "Fall In" and "Stay Useless" about as mellow as they get.  But they are coming up with quality, memorable songs...listening to the cuts from the new record one is tempted to conclude that they've got it---the thing that makes the difference between a good band, and a potentially great one, even if the record, with a bit too strong of a hint of pastiche of the various styles it draws on, and the down attitude seeming perhaps just a bit forced, is probably just quite good rather than great.

I found The War on Drugs to be a fairly enjoyable listen in concert as well.  Again, some interesting songs (somewhat less variety than the Nothings), some featuring Dylanesque vocals and rootsy music, others with more psychedelic/garage influences.  Less complex songs structurally, and sometimes not really supporting the lengthy treatments they were given.  Long stretches of two measures worth of music being repeated over and over again, featuring at most four chords, need some pretty interesting textural or melodic variety over them, which wasn't always forthcoming from TWOD.  And the songwriting was good, but not as interesting as that from the other two opening bands.  At their website, linked above, you can stream a lot of cuts from their current album, Slave Ambient, which I'm not that into.  Positive online impressions must have come more from some of their earlier stuff.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are much more of a standard indie-sounding band than the previous two--- often playing in a basic alternative rock idiom that you can hear from, say, Snow Patrol and many other bands, featuring guitars chiming eight-note rhythms and such.  But the Pains' songs were pretty good for music in this vein, and often livened up by some bouncy rock-'n roll energy.  The lead guitarist and male lead singer was constantly bouncing around the stage, supplying plenty of visual energy to go with reasonably energetic music.  The female vocalist, though usually supplying backing rather than lead, should have been be higher in the mix to add more complexity to the sound.  Her incredibly long black hair (and let's say it, her rather attractive features) added visual interest.  Allows for a new twist on the term "hair band".  The music was sufficiently interesting that I checked out their CD too...more later, but after a few listenings, it seems really excellent.  in concert, it seemed that compared to the Nothings, they could benefit by adding more variety to their songs, some of which sounded a bit too similar to others.  But their ability to write engaging songs in an indie pop/rock vein suggests they'll develop into something even more interesting.

Guided By Voices had an easier time getting a reaction from the crowd, thanks to being the headliners that many had come to see, and to punchier and clearer sound.  I enjoyed the 2/3 or so of their set that I heard... the songwriting varied in quality, but was mostly pretty good.  Few things grabbed me as really outstanding, though.  Still, I'll probably check them out at more length online.

Vendors were selling microbrews at $8 for less than a pint (a Blue Point Toasted Lager was excellent, though), and San Pellegrino Limonata and Aranciata for $2 (very welcome in the heat and humidity).  With your choice of comfy bleachers, some of which even get shade from Central Park's majestic trees, or an area in front of the stage equipped with temporary carpeting, Summerstage is a great place for a concert, and the price is right too.

Romney's economists tie him to George W. Bush

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I'm not going to weigh in on the merits of the white paper "The Romney Plan for Economic Growth, Jobs, and Recovery," by some of Romney's top economic advisers, until I read it (which may be awhile because I'm not going to create a login at the linked site just to download it). But one point should probably be made: when Barack Obama, or disgruntled Republicans, complain that Romney will just bring us more of the George W. Bush economic policies that helped get us into the present economic difficulties, Romney shouldn't be allowed get off by to dissociating himself from Bush's economic policies. Two of the authors of this study served as chair of W's Council of Economic Advisers: Hubbard from February 2001 through March 2003, and Mankiw from 2003-2005. Hubbard is often mentioned as one of the architects of the 2003 Bush tax cuts. Both are not just authors of this white paper, but advisers to the Romney campaign. Another author, John Taylor, was undersecretary of the Treasury for international financial affairs from 2001-2005. Kevin "Dow 36,000" Hassett was an advisor to the 2004 Bush campaign, but his cv doesn't list positions in the Bush administration.

You could probably do a lot worse than Mankiw or Taylor in particular... my point here is just that with these guys as his main economic advisers, Romney shouldn't be allowed to dodge the legacy of George W. Bush's economic policies. The substantive similarity (or in fact, identity, in the case of extending the Bush tax cuts) of these policies (more tax cuts!) should be noted in this context too.

Rossini's Maometto II at the Santa Fe Opera

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Rossini's 1820 opera Maometto II is not one of the better-known works in the repertory, but the Santa Fe opera's current production, which I attended Aug 2nd, reveals it to be a very rewarding one both musically and theatrically.  I don't know I'm going to end up agreeing completely with the judgement of Philip Gossett, who edited the new critical edition that is soon to appear, and from which Santa Fe worked for this production, that it "is one of the greatest serious operas written during the the 19th century," but it is certainly very good.  Sure, there are stretches of the old rum-ti-tum, I-V-I (this is Rossini, after all) but it takes up surprisingly little of the 3+ hours that the piece runs.  Most of the expository dialogue is musically and melodically interesting, clearly written with care; there is relatively little standard-issue recitative and when it does occur, it's often with interesting twists, like apparently cliché cadences that turn false, or (I think) more, and more unconventional, modulation than usual in such settings.

The plot has some contrived and confusing aspects (though perhaps a read through the libretto would help clarify), but this is opera, so no biggie.  More importantly, some of the contrivance creates an interesting complexity in the relationships between the characters.  Anna, daughter of the Venetian nobleman Paolo Erisso, who commands the Venetian forces in the town of Negroponte, has fallen in love with Maometto II, who wooed her   disguised as a nobleman of Corinth when Anna lived (or visited?) there.  But now Maometto is attacking Negroponte...

The singing at Santa Fe was quite good.  The bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni was superb as Maometto.  He has a burnished, very focused and firm tone, refined and in control, strong but never strained.  His acting was good too, projecting an interpretation of Maometto consonant with the qualities of his voice: refined, very intelligent, though at times shockingly barbaric.  (The latter quality is not so much reflected in the voice!)

Leah Crocetto was outstanding as Anna.  Although I heard some distortion when she unleashed some power in the high register at a couple of points in her earliest stretch of solo singing, her voice seemed to promptly smooth out (perhaps it just needed a warmup) and she sang the rest of the opera with a sweet but complex tone, very lyrically.

The other lead singers did well, but didn't stand out so much.  Mezzo-soprano Patrica Bardon, in a male role as Calbo, a Venetian general, had a strong but at times somewhat rough-toned voice that worked well overall in the part.  Some of her passagework came off quite well but a few times late in the opera she seemed to be having some difficulty with it.  Bruce Sledge, as Paolo Erisso, sang accurately and clearly but his voice was a bit on the small side, especially in comparison with Pisaroni.  This too seems to be in some ways consonant with the director's interpretation of the piece---director David Alden's notes in the program speak of Erisso as "overbearing" and not as "evolved" and "rounded" as Maometto.  He certainly is somewhat overbearing in his attitude toward his daughter, although his voice isn't.  But perhaps his smaller voice helps put across a view of the piece in which Maometto overshadows him. Both Sledge and Bardon are excellent in the ensembles which are such an important part of the piece.

I'll definitely be investigating this opera further, trying to find the many musical epsiodes that came across as superlatively beautiful, and trying to get further impressions of the overall character of the piece.  Was the opera perfect in this performance?  No.  But more importantly, was it magic?  Frequently, yes.  I'm often annoyed at the ease with which American audiences give a performance a standing ovation, especially if it is a prelude to an early exit rather than a long series of curtain calls, but I was happy to join in this one, and the long series of curtainless bows and shouts of "bravo" that it presaged.  (Some did exit early, perhaps on the excuse that a rainstorm seemed to be brewing, and indeed in the final scenes the audience was lashed with some cold wind from the open sides of the theater's midsection, and raindrops even reached the last row where we were seated.)

For an idea of some of the magic in this opera, here are two versions of Anna's aria "Giusto ciel! In tal periglio". First (with 3 minutes of recitative introduction before the aria), Montserrat Caballe from 1968:

 

Second, Joyce DiDonato:

I'm certainly willing to call that one of the great opera arias. But there are plenty of fabulous choruses, duets, and larger ensemble pieces as well as arias, in this excellent opera that I think will become standard repertory with the publication of Baerenreiter's new critical edition.

Delong vs. Romney's economists: the gloves come off

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Brad DeLong takes on the Kevin Hassett, Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw, John Taylor position paper defending the Romney economic "plan".  Mostly bullseyes, I think, though there'd be a lot of food for thought in delving into things further.  I particularly liked Brad's evisceration of HHMT's appeal to the supposed success of supply side notions such as those Romney currently leans on, during the Reagan years:

And the embarrassing reality underlying the Reagan years 1981-1989 is that the rate of growth of America’s productive potential, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, was no faster over 1981-1989 than it had been over 1973-1981. If Reagan administration policies were truly aimed at boosting American growth, they failed—in large part because of the drag placed on investment by the high real interest rates that businesses had to pay in the Reagan years, as they competed for scarce pools of capital left over after the U.S. government had financed the Reagan deficits.

The mythology and hagiography surrounding Reagan has done a lot of damage to popular American political and economic thinking over the most recent decades, in my opinion, and in my view we need a political party, political leaders, and opinion leaders willing to take it on much more aggressively. (I would prefer, in Brad's comparison, to see the period 1971-1980 (inclusive) rather than 1973-1981, though I doubt it would change the comparison much.)

Free concert in NYC: The Bad Plus play the Rite of Spring

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For readers, if any, in New York City today, definitely check out jazz trio The Bad Plus playing their arrangement, "On Sacred Ground", of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.  It's free and outdoors at Lincoln Center at 8:30 PM.  The Brandt Brandauer Frick ensemble, with which I am not familar, opens at 7:30.

If you're wondering to expect, at WBGO's The Checkout you can stream a recording of the whole thing, as well as their radio show on the piece.  TBP pianist Ethan Iverson discusses piano arrangements, transcriptions, and reworkings of the Rite here.

More on upcoming doings by TBP and some of its members here.

I am in New Mexico, so unfortunately won't be able to attend.  I will be going to Rossini's Maometto II at the Santa Fe Opera. Report to follow.

 

Spanish bond yields back up...

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Based on my reading of Draghi's speech that seems to have excited the market so much, and my general view on Euro policy and politics, I'm not surprised that Spanish 10-year bond yields are back up over 7%.  I guess my probabilities are about 40% for the Euro surviving in pretty much its present form (with or without Greece), without very much of the looser monetary policy involved in the third alternative below, and perhaps with a bit more of the political and fiscal integration that Draghi and many other Euro policymakers seem to view as essential to the Euro's survival,  but with Europe facing a lost decade à la Japan; 40% that it unravels fast, at some unpredicable point in time but most likely within the next two years; and 20% that in the face of further crisis, the Europeans finally collectively figure out a reasonable macroeconomic response involving additional monetary stimulus and acceptance of moderate inflation and further Euro devaluation, as well as a turn in the real terms of trade to make the Southern Eurozone countries more competitive relative to the Northern ones (especially relative to Germany).