Bourges Cathedral

 

Cycling Creatures

Every city has its own breed of cyclist. In London cyclists are a cross between thoughtless sheep, brave lions and nimble gazelles. They nip through the traffic, braving road rage, pedestrian rage, black cab rage and bus rage. In Cambridge, cyclists are like a herd of cows, trampling over pedestrians as they thunder along the cobbled streets on the way to lectures. In Lyon, velo'V-ists resemble tourists riding elephants, looking slightly taken aback at the bulky means of transport they've ended up on. In Bristol, it is the continually rolling hills that determine the breed of cyclist. Think mountain goat or mule. Or perhaps an animal that is more red in the face, having puffed and panted its way up the unforgiving slopes, would be more suitable? Maybe Bristol cyclists are like red-faced monkeys?

Martha Argerich plays Chopin

Chopin's Polonaise No. 6

Lift off

The lift is a never-ending source of comment in our office. Not only because the voice announcing the imminent closing of the doors bears an uncanny resemblance to Judi Dench's Dame-worthy voice, but as a result of the temperemental nature of its movements. Up? Was that the button you pressed? Are you sure you wouldn't prefer down? Well, as I'm an adolescent lift testing my independence, I'll take you down rather than up anyway. When one of the two lifts is playing this favourite trick, prepare yourself for a trip around the floors which you never normally visit. Oh yes, the lift will happily deposit you on all those empty floors between the ones to which you actually want to go. So don't be surprised if the person you've just met getting into the lift you've got out of reappears two minutes later in the second lift after an enforced detour. Or perhaps they are just avoiding work...

At the Piano

Pianist Susan Tomes writes in the introduction to her book Beyond the Notes, 'In my experience, pianists tend to read and study more than many other players... It's true that their relative isolation within the world of musicians gives them plenty of time to think.' The truth of Tomes's observation is underlined in Radio 3's At the Piano - five programmes forming a pianistic treasure trove. Five pianists select and discuss performances by those they admire, with the articulate explanations of each choice suggesting that if pianists are isolated beings, their thinking is put to good use. Take a listen at the Radio 3 website.

Happy 2008!

New Year’s morning—
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.

A huge frog and I
staring at each other,
neither of us moves.

Blossoms at night,
like people
moved by music[.]

Extracts from After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa
by Robert Hass

Happy Birthday Beethoven!

A day late, but Happy Birthday to Beethoven!

Bill Bailey and Cockney Music

Enjoy!

In the Bleak Midwinter

As Christmas inches nearer, Christmas music becomes more vocal, undoing a year's worth of hibernation. Not just the cheery songs creating the soundtrack to your Christmas shopping, but carols with their echoes of the past. Yes, it's time to hark the herald in a royal city while watching the shepherds and their flocks who really would prefer to be away in a manger where three kings of Orient would be wishing them a merry Christmas.

Top of my Christmas playlist this year are two settings of Christina Rosetti's beautiful poem 'In the Bleak Midwinter'. Perhaps neither Gustav Holst's 1906 setting nor Harold Darke's early 20th-century take on this plainly spoken poem are the most upbeat yuletide songs, but somehow both settings stand strong in their heartfelt simplicity. No soaring descants or hammed up harmony here - though where would Christmas be without these? - but quiet musings on the birth of Jesus.And which other carols match so exactly the weather this Christmas? The moaning frosty wind has certainly made the midwinter seem bleak.

The best part of the carol surely lies in the final stanza, the last line. 'What can I give him?' asks the poet. (Or her? Or them? - the three most asked questions of the past month?) Rosetti's answer, made even more powerful by Darke's glorious reach up on the final word, is probably the best to the question: 'give my heart'.

Tree of Light

 

Clifton Down, Bristol

Pinch punch

It's the first of the month, which must mean time blogging time!
In the absence of the internet at home, blogging has had to move onto a monthly basis. More to follow...

Moore at Kew