French free-to-air TV is dire, so it's much more rewarding to find interesting stuff on YouTube. Here's one of the more tasteful offerings, Hopkinson Smith (see earlier posting) playing some pieces on vihuela: Conde Claros, Cancion del Emperador, and Baxa de Contrapunto by Luis de Narvaez, from Los seys libros del delphin published in 1538.
It's taken from the New York Guitar Festival's third biennial Guitar Marathon. They've posted quite a few other videos of various players, including this one of Paul O'Dette playing baroque guitar: Santiago de Murcia's Passacalles por la E and Fandango.
Other YouTube viewings include Tom Jobim (the man himself), Cellorhythmics (so that's what Alfia Bekova is doing now), and various plectrum guitarists tackling Paganini Caprices, some quite successfully.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
Joyeuses Fêtes
The big present this Christmas was a basketball hoop, purchased with generous funding from Grandma and Grandpa Blake. It wasn't easy to assemble, but with a little perseverance we managed to finish building it by mid-afternoon on the 27th. Now the whole family is shooting dunks and slamming hoops or whatever it is you do with basketball.
The Jenga bricks were popular too. This is Fearnley's 2D prototype pyramid, sadly no longer standing.The DVD of series 2 of The Young Ones finally arrived in the post today, a bit late for Christmas (blame all that fog) but never mind. The children are already memorising the unsuitable script.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Multi-me
Lowri was delighted to spot that I was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours earlier this year, for Services to People who Misuse Substances (I think this means helping them to stop misusing substances, rather than supplying them). I had to admit to her that this was not actually me but one of my numerous alter egos.
I first encountered the problem when I was working at Arthur Andersen, and another Peter Martin transferred in from the Dublin office. We got fed up with receiving each other's post and grudgingly agreed to start using our middle initials to differentiate us (so I became Peter P, he became Peter A).
More agreeable to find myself doubling as a London fashion house ("Peter Martin - a captivating collection of contemporary day and occasion wear"). I still have a label somewhere that a thoughtful friend attached to a birthday present.
I get the occasional music teacher asking me about my violin publications and I have to explain that no, that's not me, that's the other Peter Martin who writes educational string music.
Then there was the eminent journalist Peter Martin, who was the chief business columnist and deputy editor of the Financial Times. He died in 2002 but the FT has set up a Peter Martin Fellowship so his memory lives on.
And's that's all before I start looking on Google, which throws up a staggering range of alternative careers that the real me failed to follow: consultant neurologist, plant scientist, fund manager, lawyer, engineering scientist, herb doctor, lecturer in dental care, surgeon, artist, psychologist, antiques dealer, sociologist, and even "the" musician and songwriter Pete Martin. All this just in the UK. We're a talented bunch, aren't we.
I first encountered the problem when I was working at Arthur Andersen, and another Peter Martin transferred in from the Dublin office. We got fed up with receiving each other's post and grudgingly agreed to start using our middle initials to differentiate us (so I became Peter P, he became Peter A).
More agreeable to find myself doubling as a London fashion house ("Peter Martin - a captivating collection of contemporary day and occasion wear"). I still have a label somewhere that a thoughtful friend attached to a birthday present.
I get the occasional music teacher asking me about my violin publications and I have to explain that no, that's not me, that's the other Peter Martin who writes educational string music.
Then there was the eminent journalist Peter Martin, who was the chief business columnist and deputy editor of the Financial Times. He died in 2002 but the FT has set up a Peter Martin Fellowship so his memory lives on.
And's that's all before I start looking on Google, which throws up a staggering range of alternative careers that the real me failed to follow: consultant neurologist, plant scientist, fund manager, lawyer, engineering scientist, herb doctor, lecturer in dental care, surgeon, artist, psychologist, antiques dealer, sociologist, and even "the" musician and songwriter Pete Martin. All this just in the UK. We're a talented bunch, aren't we.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
It's icy, it's frosty
No chance of seeing the Pyrenees at the moment. In fact, the fog is so heavy that we can't see the end of the garden.
Everything in the garden is covered in frost, even the funnel spider webs.
Most of the mushrooms and toadstools have finished by now, but there are still some splendid specimens enjoying the winter chill. Click to enlarge pictures.
p.s. Fearnley (V) has posted some Golden Wedding pictures on his blog.
Everything in the garden is covered in frost, even the funnel spider webs.
Most of the mushrooms and toadstools have finished by now, but there are still some splendid specimens enjoying the winter chill. Click to enlarge pictures.
p.s. Fearnley (V) has posted some Golden Wedding pictures on his blog.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Reading
It can be hard reading books in French. The books I took back to the library this week were:
Diabolus in Musica by Yann Apperry. One-quarter read. It may have won the Prix Médicis 2000 but I was deeply unimpressed with it. It tries so hard, with its absurdly flowery extended language, but just seems juvenile.
Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee. Half-read. Maybe it's just more difficult in French. But many of the reviewers on Amazon seem bemused by it. Basically it's a set of lectures on literary subjects, supposedly delivered by the protagonist, dressed in a thin coat of narrative so that it passes as a novel.
De la Terre à la Lune by Jules Verne. I didn't even start this because I was so occupied with the others. However this is the one that I've renewed for the holidays.
I'm also ploughing through Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, this time in English but not much more comprehensible for that. I will persevere for a bit longer since it's a novel that has a fanatical following ("The greatest work of literature since Ulysses" and suchlike). 100 pages in and some of the threads are beginning to come together.
Diabolus in Musica by Yann Apperry. One-quarter read. It may have won the Prix Médicis 2000 but I was deeply unimpressed with it. It tries so hard, with its absurdly flowery extended language, but just seems juvenile.
Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee. Half-read. Maybe it's just more difficult in French. But many of the reviewers on Amazon seem bemused by it. Basically it's a set of lectures on literary subjects, supposedly delivered by the protagonist, dressed in a thin coat of narrative so that it passes as a novel.
De la Terre à la Lune by Jules Verne. I didn't even start this because I was so occupied with the others. However this is the one that I've renewed for the holidays.
I'm also ploughing through Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, this time in English but not much more comprehensible for that. I will persevere for a bit longer since it's a novel that has a fanatical following ("The greatest work of literature since Ulysses" and suchlike). 100 pages in and some of the threads are beginning to come together.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Shostakovich
The cheerful strains of the Shostakovich cello sonata have been ringing through the house over the last few days. Again and again and again. Lowri is doing a programme for Radio 3 next month, reviewing the different CDs available of this piece. And there are a lot of them: the BBC has sent her a spreadsheet listing 34 different recordings. A dozen or so are deleted and so don't qualify for inclusion, and a few others haven't made it through the BBC's initial filter, but that still leaves plenty. Lynn Harrell, Yo-Yo Ma, Pieter Wispelwey, Truls Mork - they've all been at it. It's an intense job boiling this lot down into a 45 minute programme, illuminating, eliminating, and coming out with a lucky winner at the end.
All the more intense if you're trying to pack in as much of the work as possible before the end of term which is ...... an hour ago! Three children at home on holiday means serious competition for computer time. The best opportunity comes before 10 a.m. each day (or before 6 a.m. if Christmas day).
It's been frosty and foggy down here. Just like England.
All the more intense if you're trying to pack in as much of the work as possible before the end of term which is ...... an hour ago! Three children at home on holiday means serious competition for computer time. The best opportunity comes before 10 a.m. each day (or before 6 a.m. if Christmas day).
It's been frosty and foggy down here. Just like England.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Still termtime
20th December, and the children are still grinding on at school. They don't finish until Friday 22nd which makes for a damned long term since the beginning of September. And of course there's end-of-term things crowding in. Fearnley was singing in Christmas concerts for the Ecole de Musique on Saturday and Sunday evenings (theme: Walt Disney - none of this Christmas carol nonsense), and running in an athletics meeting in Toulouse on Sunday afternoon for a bit of variety. The best thing about the holidays will be not having to leave the house in the dark for the 8 a.m. school start.
Must bring in some logs and light a fire.
Which reminds me (flames, you know...) - there definitely is something about the lute which inspires intense brotherly hatred. This time the battlefield is the flute-backed vihuela, something that most people manage to remain reasonably calm about. Interestingly, the publisher Matanya Ophee, nemesis of Ness, also appears in this one.
Must bring in some logs and light a fire.
Which reminds me (flames, you know...) - there definitely is something about the lute which inspires intense brotherly hatred. This time the battlefield is the flute-backed vihuela, something that most people manage to remain reasonably calm about. Interestingly, the publisher Matanya Ophee, nemesis of Ness, also appears in this one.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Sublime and ridiculous
If you're interested in looking at any Mozart other than L'Oca del Cairo, the homepage for the Neue Mozart Ausgabe online is at http://nma.redhost24-001.com/mambo/index.php
Another excellent musical site is the Chopin Early Editions collection at the University of Chicago. As they explain it:
"The Chopin collection at the University of Chicago Library includes over 400 first and early printed editions of musical compositions by Frédéric Chopin, maintained in the Special Collections Research Center. Chopin Early Editions consist of digitized images of all scores in the University of Chicago Library's Chopin collection. Users can search or browse Chopin Early Editions via a variety of data points, including titles, genres, and plate numbers."
Have a look at an original edition of say the Mazurkas, compared to a modern Associated Board edition. It's eye-opening to find out which bits are actually Chopin, and just how much has been added by the AB editors: fingerings, pedallings and more.
Actually it's amazing how much musical source material is now on the internet. How about the Jean-Baptiste Lully collection at the University of North Texas - who also have digitised copies of several dozen other substantial 18th century works in their Virtual Rare Book Room. Godfrey's Bookshelf is another super site, with digitised copies of music books by Dowland, Robinson, Hume, Playford and others. And then there are the collections of the major libraries. For instance, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France has an extensive digitised collection of rare books at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ . Search under the heading Musique, and up pops a list of 251 volumes including Fronimo (Galilei), Le Nuove Musiche (Caccini), L'art de toucher le clavecin (Couperin), Il ballarino (Caroso) and others, all viewable and downloadable in full. Magic.
Sometimes scholarship can go horribly wrong. Most of the website of the respected lute scholar Arthur Ness, editor of the pioneering complete works of Francesco da Milano in the 70's, is taken up with long and bitter rants against the publisher Matanya Ophee. This has been going on for years. They're as bad as each other. At one point Ophee was blacklisted from the (normally freewheeling) internet lute mailing list for his endless posts attacking Ness. This sort of vendetta destroys the dignity of both men. Someone should throw a bucket of cold water over them.
Another excellent musical site is the Chopin Early Editions collection at the University of Chicago. As they explain it:
"The Chopin collection at the University of Chicago Library includes over 400 first and early printed editions of musical compositions by Frédéric Chopin, maintained in the Special Collections Research Center. Chopin Early Editions consist of digitized images of all scores in the University of Chicago Library's Chopin collection. Users can search or browse Chopin Early Editions via a variety of data points, including titles, genres, and plate numbers."
Have a look at an original edition of say the Mazurkas, compared to a modern Associated Board edition. It's eye-opening to find out which bits are actually Chopin, and just how much has been added by the AB editors: fingerings, pedallings and more.
Actually it's amazing how much musical source material is now on the internet. How about the Jean-Baptiste Lully collection at the University of North Texas - who also have digitised copies of several dozen other substantial 18th century works in their Virtual Rare Book Room. Godfrey's Bookshelf is another super site, with digitised copies of music books by Dowland, Robinson, Hume, Playford and others. And then there are the collections of the major libraries. For instance, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France has an extensive digitised collection of rare books at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ . Search under the heading Musique, and up pops a list of 251 volumes including Fronimo (Galilei), Le Nuove Musiche (Caccini), L'art de toucher le clavecin (Couperin), Il ballarino (Caroso) and others, all viewable and downloadable in full. Magic.
Sometimes scholarship can go horribly wrong. Most of the website of the respected lute scholar Arthur Ness, editor of the pioneering complete works of Francesco da Milano in the 70's, is taken up with long and bitter rants against the publisher Matanya Ophee. This has been going on for years. They're as bad as each other. At one point Ophee was blacklisted from the (normally freewheeling) internet lute mailing list for his endless posts attacking Ness. This sort of vendetta destroys the dignity of both men. Someone should throw a bucket of cold water over them.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Outdoors and indoors
Correction to my last entry: clearing the leaves IS an ordeal. Especially now that it's colder and damper and they don't want to burn. I did try using the lawnmower to gather them up, but it has now gone off sick and is awaiting a spare part. So I gave myself a change yesterday by getting out the chainsaw and cutting up some of the many large branches still lying around after last January's destructive snowfall.
Back indoors. There's an excellent new website just opened with digital scores of Mozart's entire works, in the authoritative Neue Mozart Ausgabe edition. So I thought I'd take a look at one of his pieces which I'd heard of but never actually encountered, the opera L'Oca del Cairo (The Goose of Cairo - yes, really). It quickly became apparent that Mozart left it incomplete - very incomplete - which is itself a gift because it gives a fascinating view of how he composed. The various songs are complete in the sense that the vocal line(s) and the bass line have been fully composed, so the structure of each song is there. But the orchestral parts are still waiting to be written. Sometimes the orchestral opening to a song has been written, giving a clear idea of the intended style and texture, only to vanish once the voices come in. Occasional important counter-melodies have been written in, just a bar or two at a time. It's the composer's equivalent of an incomplete painting, where the artist's intention is clear enough but the raw canvas is showing through. What's there is good authoritative Mozart, with confident melodies and masterful ensemble work. A shame that he abandoned it.
This evening I did a presentation on the lute and baroque guitar for a music class of 11-14 year olds in Réalmont. They've been studying renaissance music this term and the idea was to bring it to life by presenting it on the instruments of the time. All went well (apart from cutting my finger on the music stand) and they all enjoyed it. A journalist from Le Tarn Libre came along to take pictures so I hope to get a newspaper article out of it.
We were all back in England last weekend for my parents' golden wedding celebrations. Lovely occasion. So many other people were taking photos that I forgot to take any myself. So, no pictorial evidence here yet until someone else sends me some!
Back indoors. There's an excellent new website just opened with digital scores of Mozart's entire works, in the authoritative Neue Mozart Ausgabe edition. So I thought I'd take a look at one of his pieces which I'd heard of but never actually encountered, the opera L'Oca del Cairo (The Goose of Cairo - yes, really). It quickly became apparent that Mozart left it incomplete - very incomplete - which is itself a gift because it gives a fascinating view of how he composed. The various songs are complete in the sense that the vocal line(s) and the bass line have been fully composed, so the structure of each song is there. But the orchestral parts are still waiting to be written. Sometimes the orchestral opening to a song has been written, giving a clear idea of the intended style and texture, only to vanish once the voices come in. Occasional important counter-melodies have been written in, just a bar or two at a time. It's the composer's equivalent of an incomplete painting, where the artist's intention is clear enough but the raw canvas is showing through. What's there is good authoritative Mozart, with confident melodies and masterful ensemble work. A shame that he abandoned it.
This evening I did a presentation on the lute and baroque guitar for a music class of 11-14 year olds in Réalmont. They've been studying renaissance music this term and the idea was to bring it to life by presenting it on the instruments of the time. All went well (apart from cutting my finger on the music stand) and they all enjoyed it. A journalist from Le Tarn Libre came along to take pictures so I hope to get a newspaper article out of it.
We were all back in England last weekend for my parents' golden wedding celebrations. Lovely occasion. So many other people were taking photos that I forgot to take any myself. So, no pictorial evidence here yet until someone else sends me some!
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Leaves, leaves...
...leaves, leaves, leaves, acorns, leaves, chestnuts, leaves, leaves.... I must have raked up and burned several million of them by now. Still, the weather is pleasant and sunny, so it's not such an ordeal. Apparently it's been the warmest November for 50 years or something like that.
Tomorrow Lowri's book club is descending on us. These ladies set an impressively high standard of household loveliness and of catering, and we're not going to try to compete. Nevertheless the hoover has been out today, the piles of papers are being put into cupboards, and the hamster cages WILL be cleaned.
The boys are practising their cycling tricks - wheelies, bunny-hops and riding up and down stairs (OUTSIDE, please).
Tomorrow Lowri's book club is descending on us. These ladies set an impressively high standard of household loveliness and of catering, and we're not going to try to compete. Nevertheless the hoover has been out today, the piles of papers are being put into cupboards, and the hamster cages WILL be cleaned.
The boys are practising their cycling tricks - wheelies, bunny-hops and riding up and down stairs (OUTSIDE, please).
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