Piper in Clifton

A little excursion to a recital given on a newly restored 100-year-old Broadwood piano led me to stumble on these beautiful stained glass windows by John Piper. Well, not literally stumble on the windows of course - they are still whole. John Egerton Christmas Piper, born in 1903 and probably one of the only people to have Christmas as a middle name, was a twentieth-century artist who created some of the most glowing stained glass windows in England and some of the most vibrant opera set designs - most famously for Benjamin Britten. The vivd blues and warm oranges of the windows in an angular, grey Church made it feel rather like sitting in a kaleidoscope.

Bristol Voices

The city where I went to university was built on tobacco and slave trade wealth. Vast, lavish and crumbling, it teetered on the edge of a gorge, its curlicued terraces spilling down towards the river and the docks.

Though some insisted that street names such as Whiteladies Road and Black Boy Hill had nothing to do with the slave trade, still just their very existence constantly brought Bristol’s queasy and terrifying history to mind. Some days the angles of the buildings didn’t look quite right. Other days I’d walk down the street in bright sunshine and be sure I heard voices.

Writer Julie Myerson's evocative sketch of Bristol as it began her Financial Times column last week.

A turn about Bath

She [Catherine ] hoped to be more fortunate the next day; and when her wishes for fine weather were answered by seeing a beautiful morning, she hardly felt a doubt of it; for a fine Sunday in Bath empties every house of its inhabitants, and all the world appears on such an occasion to walk about and tell their acquaintance what a charming day it is.

Jane Austen's description of a Sunday in Bath in the late 18th-century could apply to a Saturday in the same town in the 21st. Despite the biting cold, today's sun drew crowds of people out into the Georgian town to admire the Abbey, Royal Crescent, Pump Room and the rugby match...

And back again...

On Inhabiting an Orange

All our roads go nowhere.
Maps are curled
To keep the pavement definitely
On the world.

All our footsteps, set to make
Metric advance,
Lapse into arcs in deference
To circumstance.

All our journeys nearing Space
Skirt it with care,
Shying at the distances
Present in air.

Blithely travel-stained and worn,
Erect and sure,
All our travels go forth,
Making down the roads of Earth
Endless detour.

By Josephine Miles

Why this poem? Well the observant might notice that this poem oh-so cleverly ties together themes of recent posts. Travel, footsteps, flying, arcs (of the Clifton Bridge), the meaning of life, and orange for Easyjet (so the latter's a bit tenuous). Phew, how's that for reading what you want into a text! Back from Amsterdam now, so back to Bristol blogging...

Off to Amsterdam...

A Pair of Shoes
Vincent van Gogh, 1886

Though I'm going to Amsterdam by plane rather than on foot...

Philosophical Beethoven

It's been a Beethoven week this week. Last Monday pianist Daniel Barenboim embarked on his complete cycle of Beethoven's 32 sonatas, which is taking place at the Royal Festival Hall. In the opening concert the 65-year-old pianist outlined a quasi A to Z of Beethoven's sonatas, beginning with Sonata No. 1 in F minor, passing through No. 18 in E flat and ending with the epic Sonata No. 29 in B flat. With his unfailing musical wisdom, and despite a few slips of the hand, Barenboim turned the sonatas into discussions about the world - of philosophy, of human nature, of our struggles, failures, efforts and desires. Themes that author Milan Kundera weaves with similar mastery into his The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Kundera's meditation on Beethoven's variations - a musical form opposite in nature to sonata form - is thought-provoking and strangely beautiful. Perhaps something is lost by quoting out of context, but here's a short extract:
Variation form is the form in which concentration is brought to its maximum; it enables the composer to speak only of essentials, to go straight to the core of the matter. A theme for variations often consists of no more than sixteen measures. Beethoven goes inside these measures as if down a shaft leading to the interior of the earth.