Igenlode Wordsmith

I do not recommend playing a concert on 3 hours' sleep (and a twelve-mile cycle ride following a similar one returning at 11pm the night before).
I got through it, but it was a bit unfair on the rest of my section -- of which I'm supposed to be the leader! The effects are of course similar to drunk driving; habit gets you through the actual notes and dynamics, but reaction speed and concentration are affected. I kept losing my place in the complex/repeated passages, which is pretty much my job to keep...

I had been to see 'The Final [restored] Cut" of "The Wicker Man", although it is still apparently missing 7 minutes or about 50% of the shortened material. https://www.rogerebert.com/features/the-wicker-man-the-cut-may-be-final-but-the-film-is-still-incomplete I had just been reading Christopher Lee ("Tall, Dark and Gruesome"), who talks about all the little character parts having been cut, the butcher, the chemist etc., while the archive video introduction warned us that the crucial scene establishing that the protagonist 'had never known a woman' was missing and needed to be inferred in order to understand the plot. I could well imagine that a significant proportion of the film's intended charm might have lain in the background detail (as with the abridged translation of "The Phantom of the Opera"), so this seemed like a good opportunity to see it.( Read more... )

I was amused (and full of admiration) to find this; a fully-rhymed -- and apparently sung by the translator in person -- English translation of the 'Soviet Musketeers theme song'.

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( French version )

( A Russian folk-rock ballad )

I was interested to discover that Rudolf Friml ("Rose Marie", "The Vagabond King") had written a musical "Three Musketeers" in the 1920s, which apparently had great success on both Broadway and in the West End and featured Dennis King in the lead (and Webster Booth as Buckingham!) Intriguingly, it is also advertised as featuring lyrics by P.G. Wodehouse, whom it turns out had a second career in musical theatre in the early part of his life.

But from all I have been able to find out about it, sadly, I think the reason why the work remains practically unknown is that the music just wasn't that good. ( Read more... )

The first Christmas concert of the year took place on December 1st and out of doors... in the rain, unfortunately! We were reasonably sheltered (violins: not waterproof), the music, being closer to the edge of the canopy, got a bit wet from rain blowing in, and the poor young conductor who was stuck out in front had to put his hood up ;-) Amazingly, people did actually stand around under umbrellas and listen.


The mystery pink Linaria is still flowering despite a couple of hard frosts; it appears to have got to the stage of becoming part of the local 'seed bank' in the soil, since I'm pretty sure I didn't plant it in all those places. Which is just as well, because the seed is tiny and hard to collect, and the flowers are pretty and evidently thrive in the somewhat specialised local conditions! It is definitely bigger and more colourful than the native toadflax.

I have been given a packet of dwarf pea seed and have planted some indoors to see if I can get some over-winter peashoots off it (and to see if it is viable). Homegrown peas do tend to be a waste of time, as you get a pathetically small crop for a lot of effort...

Everything else has died back, even the second-generation marigolds and at least one of the kale plants. Except, unexpectedly, for the yellow mesembryanthemums, which are definitely not supposed to be frost-hardy! The seed-pods on those might just ripen, but of course they are currently very soggy indeed...

Apparently this is a fan transcription of Voiceplay's "Hoist the Colours" arrangement rather than an official release; it's still fascinating to see how the various parts fit together and weave in and out. (And I can't even imagine how long it must have taken to do the reverse-engineering involved.)

Original performance recording: https://youtu.be/vO8NEsx9m58

Not their latest, but I actually like it better than Geoff's backlit black leather "God Rest Ye Merry" (it's a trifle distracting hearing an ancient carol being sung with American whoa-ohs, as well).

But I have very definitely fallen down the Geoff Castellucci/Voiceplay rabbit hole in the last few months.
(As have several hundred thousand other people, looking at the shift in their subscriber numbers... :-)

[Edit: tens of thousands. Apparently I can't keep track of significant figures!]

Silent monks sing the Hallelujah Chorus:

I cycled 15–20 miles today in incipient rain without lunch, waterproofs or a map in order to obtain a replacement 'A' string for my violin from the nearest surviving music shop, instead of just ordering one from Amazon like everyone else :-(
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Fanfic progress: I thought I was working my way through Plot Point 14 in the current chapter, but in fact I seem to have slipped over the edge into Plot Point 15, which I'd assumed didn't start until they discovered the hut. Plot Point 14 is evidently extremely short! ( Read more... )

Discovered a new composer today: Ignaz Lachner, a member of a large and once well-known family of musicians, who wrote some very appealing chamber music. About the right difficulty for amateur musicians to sight-read, catchy melodies that are rewarding to perform (at least if one is playing first violin!) and some quite adventurous harmonies -- sufficient to present an undoubted challenge.

We played the A Minor quartet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsE3LShHdiw

Trying out a borrowed violin to use at the rehearsal tomorrow, as mine is in for repairs: it doesn't 'ring' nearly so freely as mine, despite being supposedly a high-quality vintage instrument, and I think the bridge is flatter. A very nasal quality to the sound compared to what I'm used to.

But the most disconcerting thing is that it has no shoulder-rest, so has to be played Paganini-fashion by supporting the weight of the neck on my wrist. If only I'd known, I could have kept back the shoulder-rest from my own violin...