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How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix Robert Browning (1838) Browning wrote this in 1838 while on a sea voyage from London to Trieste. The incident it describes is fictional but refers to the (real) Pacification of Ghent in 1576, an historical treaty of such political complexity that I can’t be bothered…
MEN OF HARLECH Music c.1794, Words: various versions. Some say the words refer to the siege of Harlech Castle which lasted from 1461 to 1486 – the longest in British history; others say it refers to an earlier shorter siege of the Castle in 1408. Anyway, lyrics were added some four decades after the…
How To Get On In Society by Sir John Betjeman (1958) This delicious mockery of the nouveau-riche British middle-class is spot on. Betjeman has, it seems, made a note of all the pretentious vocabulary he has ever heard used by the likes of Mrs Bucket (pronounced ‘Bouquet’ by its owner, of course) and put them…
There is a gap in the market for a sit-com about a couple of old queens. ‘Viscious’ has all the right ingredients: a failed actor and his long-term partner straight out of Grace Brothers’ department store (‘Suit you, sir’) living in a run-down, faded flat. For stereotype neighbours we have a randy single lady of a…
I came into the kitchen for an early lunch just as the news of Margaret Thatcher’s death was announced on Radio 4, breaking into the final minute of ‘You and Yours’. The continuity announcer was, unfortunately, Neil Nunes, who caught the spirit of the occasion with a cheery ‘OK – that’s an extended News at…
The deaths of Richard Briers and Richard Griffiths have robbed us, far too early, of two of our finest actors. How different they were, the one all nervous energy and crisp delivery, the other avuncular and lugibrious – though such short-hand descriptions hardly do justice to either of them. I would have loved to have worked…
MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB Surprisingly, perhaps, this nursery rhyme is of American origin and based on a true story. Mary Sawyer was a schoolgirl in Sterling, Massachusetts, and took her pet lamb with her to school. The event caused some consternation and the story was picked up by a Sarah Hale, put into verse and…
You knew when you were getting older when policemen were the same age as you. The next stage was when people in shops stopped addressing you as ‘mate’ and started calling you ‘sir’. The step after that was when young ladies stood up to offer you their seat in a crowded train. Today you know…
THE PIGTAIL OF LI-FANG-FU Sax Rohmer (1919) Sax Rohmer was the pen-name of Birmingham-born writer Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (1883-1959), a prolific novelist most remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu. Rohmer wrote both text and music for this ‘Musical Monologue’ in 1919 with the piano part transcribed by the composer T.W.…
My friend the great Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire sent me this link a few days ago without comment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8SofSH-Whk&feature=share Here’s my comment. As you can see, it’s an unpublished performance of Liszt’s Totentanz conducted by Rafael Kubelik with Freire as soloist. For me this is the most thrilling, convincing performance of the work I have ever…