h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You asked a while back if I was going to any concerts, H*. Yes, one tomorrow night - and Douglas, you can buy a ticket on the door if you like - it's at the same place as last time. (You probably got an email about it anyway!)

Programme:
Jacob: Double Bass Concerto Soloist Diana Milner
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
Puccini: Cristantemi & Two Minuets
Bartok: Romanian Dances
Pachelbel: Canon & Gigue
Elgar: Chanson de Matin
Salut d’Amour
Conductor: Louise Latham
Leaders: Mary Anderson & Brigid Rawling

Regular visitors to Amaretti concerts may have noticed Diana playing double bass with us for the last year. You may not have been aware that prior to joining Amaretti, Diana was Principal Double Bass at the Hallé, a position she held for 26 years. We have persuaded her to stop hiding her light, and play this rarely heard Double Bass Concerto. You may not have thought of the bass as a virtuoso instrument – now is your chance to hear what can be achieved.

Sounds interesting! Short attractive pieces so I'm taking little R again.

Night night all.

MJ
xxx
*But just realised you're away now H. Oh well, you can read this after it's happened!

Re 560.
That's all right, MJ. I'm bigger than you are.

Re 561.
I think I'll come along. Must check the time.
Other Jane tells me that Diana Milner is the widow of Martin Milner, long time leader of the Hallé.

D

Douglas,

>>>>>>>>>....the widow of Martin Milner, long time leader of the Hallé.

That reference to famous musicians, particularly with the reference to death, leads me to wonder why the sad loss of Rostropovich seems to have been buried in the news so deeply that it almost passed without notice. What a wonderful musician and what a sad loss. I was listening to recordings of him only hours before I learned of his death and was only very recently discussing him with a close friend.

R I P

Yes, Mr-p.

I just happened to catch the news of Rostropovich in the closing headlines of the news.

D

Good evening all

I hope you enjoyed your concert MJ (& Douglas?). I love the Brandenburgs and won’t listen to anyone who says they’re twee and over-exposed. I particularly rate No 2, but No 3 is also fine. How was the double-bass concerto? I’ve never heard one of those. The idea appeals but I’ve heard it’s difficult to write a bass part that can play against the orchestra without sounding a bit distorted. I do like prominent bass parts in chamber music, both classical and jazz, so I’d be interested to know what you thought of the concerto. Did little R have a good time?

You will certainly have had a more enjoyable musical experience than I had on Friday night. The leaving do was held in one of those chain pubs called the ‘Slut and Legless’ (or was it ‘Slug and Lettuce’?) with deafening sound a constant presence for the full five hours! Still, some of the younger people enjoyed themselves….I’m given to believe!

It is indeed sad news about Rostropovich. I, too, thought the news was given rather a lower profile than I’d have expected.

Another good result for West Ham yesterday, Mimi; and Fulham beaten today as well. All you want now is for the premiership to be in the bag before Man Utd play you and all might be well. Let’s hope so.

Bye for now

H

Good evening, all.
Yes,H, I went to the concert. It's only four minutes walk from my house. I know because I timed it. I got held up one way or another and did not leave the house until 25 past and was buying my ticket at 29 minutes past.
The double-bass concerto was pleasant and interesting but did not really move me.

Sorry, I clicked on 'post' when I wanted 'preview'.

I looked in a couple of times, when I was taking a break from the gardening, on that thread I started and I seem to have given some people a busy afternoon.

Good-bye for now.

D

Little R and I really enjoyed the concert. The double bass concerto was, as Douglas said, interesting - it was also quite amazing to watch her play as she made it look so easy but some of the music was fairly frantic and the range was from the very lowest note to high harmonics right up (or down?) near the bridge. Not particularly tuneful, though - we didn't come out humming it!

The Bach was most enjoyable and an example of how hard perfect ensemble playing is in such tangled counterpoint but they did pretty well. The Elgar was very beautifully played as was the Pachelbel. I've never heard the Canon played live - I could have listened to them play it again, it was lovely. I found the Puccini Crisantemi quite moving - again, never having heard it performed live before, it was wonderful to hear. On the other hand, those minuets were awful!

I played Bartok's Romanian Dances when I was a child, in my Hungarian violin teacher's Little Chamber Orchestra, so it was great to hear them again - played much faster than we ever managed!

It was good to see Douglas there. Did you mention the Buxton Festival a while back H? Maybe we can all* meet up in Buxton one day?

*Well, as many of us as can get there - it would be a bit of a long trek for Achilles!

MJ
xxx

Hello, again.

<>
She could only just make it. If her arm had been any shorter she would not have got there.

I've just been co-ordinating my diary, calendar and scraps of paper.
Buxton Festival.
7 July Bluebeard - Offenbach.
9 July King Arthur - Purcell
Roberto Devereux - Donizetti
13 July The Trumpet Shall Sound - Niklas Eklund, Trumpet - Jonathan Scott, Organ - Charlotte Ellett, Soprano.
16 July Pavel Haas Quartet.
Marriage of Figaro.

Edinburgh Festival
14 Aug Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
15 Aug Nachtmusique - A wind ensemble playing Haydn and Mozart.
16 Aug The Bacchae by Euripides.

I'm told that the Buxton tickets are to be birthday presents from various members of my family.

D

Hi MJ and all

>>>>>>>>.....how hard perfect ensemble playing is in such tangled counterpoint

Did you happen to catch any of a recent TV programme about Rochester (I think it was) Cathedral? Your references to "hard" and "tangled" could so easily be applied to a brilliant Organ Duet (on one organ) perfomed by the "resident organist" (don't know the proper term) and a seventeen-year-old organ scholar. Not just each playing on his own end of the keyboard, but both using the whole instrument, including pedals. I expected to see a horrendous tangle but they ended up, as they started, as two separate people. Brilliant!! (or did I already say that?)

Bxxxx
xx

Mr-p, that reminds me of the time I watched my late grandma, Lou, playing a piano duet with her old friend "Corner" - I don't know her real name - that must have been her maiden name Lou'd called her by for 50 years, as they'd been studying at the GSM together. (Excuse muddled grammar!) Anyway, they played this duet so aggressively, fighting over the notes in the middle, that eventually they drew blood! It was wonderful to see those two old ladies battling it out on the keyboard! And it sounded pretty good!

In answer to your question, no. But you prompted that treasured memory.

MJ

back again

I see the Pavel Haas 4tet is already sold out, Douglas. I hope you enjoy it; the Janacek ‘Intimate Letters’ is lovely. Jonathan Lemalu is also sold out. I found a different listing on the website giving more details of Flottie’s recital; it still doesn’t give the names of the songs but it looks very attractive “In this programme with Malcolm Martineau she explores French mélodies by Gounod, Fauré, Saint-Saëns and Chabrier, and then takes us swiftly across the Atlantic for music by lyrical masters of American song culminating in some Cole Porter classics.” ‘La Voix Humaine’, The Chamber Players (Schubert 5tet) and Ann Murray also still have availability. I wouldn’t mind seeing Coppelia but there’s only one performance and I’m due at Chester Races that evening (a sort of annual sibling reunion that’s been going on for many years now).

I’ll post some more thoughts on this tomorrow.

goodnight all

H

Hello all,

Just a very quick message - I have only skimmed through the last few, have been in London (Mum's fine, thanks - out on the roof garden at the care home today - lovely!). Was trying to resist the temptation of visiting the boards but couldn't help my curiosity as far as WoM is concerned. Even though I had decided to give it a bit of a wide berth, the thread on Languages really got the itch going so I got in a last-minute post tonight. I am taking great care not to post any messages directly to U-No-Hu but mine is to Jean in response to the afore(un)mentioned!

Last week was pretty hectic, expecting next week to be not very different - my class have their assembly (to parents on Tues. and the rest of the school in two sittings on Thurs. - they are doing Dr. Seuss 'Star-Bellied Sneetches' - anti-discrimination). Great fun but we've pulled it together really quickly and the class is lovely but can be unpredictable ... fingers crossed, it'll be allright on the days!!
WEST HAM Ok, I am going OTT now - on Match of the Day last night, someone said "There is a God ..." and I quipped " ... and he supports West Ham!" Hope you enjoyed your trip to London as well, H, - I will read all messages properly tomorrow. It was really BUSY today - glad I'm not there weekdays! - and not an English accent to be heard in the central part, as my son commented to me! Er, plenty of rucksacks, big bags too ....
Back soon

Love
Mimi
xxxx
xxxx
xxxx

Hello H,

Are you celebrating the Liverpool win? I am - I hate Chelsea!!
Hope they go all the way.

Love
Mimi

Good evening all

<>

You know me so well, Mimi. Chelsea are very easy to hate, aren't they? Enough to make me cheer Man Utd to the Premiership; something that would have been inconceivable a few years ago. I know I can't be impartial but I was amazed to hear Jose Arrogantio claim Chelsea were the better side tonight. I can't see any sense in which that was true. In my book any doubts about the goal have to be balanced against the perfectly good goal that was disallowed. But, that aside, I'll be very surprised if any of the stats - possession, shots on target etc - show Chelsea in a more positive light than Liverpool. As for the spot kicks, only one side seemed to take them seriously. I heard someone on 5 Live say Cech was the best goalkeeper in the world. Well, he must have been on a tea-break during the shoot-out; I don't think he got near any of them.

I think Man Utd will finish the job in Milan tomorrow. What do you think?

bye for now

H

Hello again, H

Hope you've decided to stay up just a little bit later tonight in view of the occasion. Arrogantio - yeah, right!!
I've got my money on Liverpool/Man U final as well.
I've just been doing some work, believe it or not, because we've got no end of printer problems at school - also new computer in resource room which is slowing me down until I get used to it. Easier to do here!

Night night

Love
Mimi
xxxx

Good afternoon all

<>

I was here until about 0015, Mimi but I went to bed then. I listened to some of the comments on Radio 5 Live and even the Chelsea-supporting presenter said the best team won on the night.

<>

You're getting as bad as me, working at home at midnight!

I just dropped in quickly this afternoon in case MJ hasn't seen this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/whatson/prog_parse.cgi?FILENAME=20070502/20070502_1830_49700_42860_30

I actually think the NTB are monumentally unfunny - a bit like Sellar & Yeatman only written by fourth-formers and edited by loss-adjusters* but I'll leave you to judge for yourself. You'll probably get all the references, which is more than I can say for myself.


*apols to any loss-adjusters among you; I'm sure you're all really brimming with incisive wit but it sounds like a job for dreary people.

back later

'Afternoon H

Just wondered about that link - had a look - noted the description, "Entertainment, Comedy" - found that description was the only funny thing about it

Second thoughts now lead me to revise the opinion that there was http://anything funny about it at all. A breach of The Trade Descriptions Act is a serious matter.

I hope I haven't alienated anybody with that opinion; it's a "wery 'umble" opinion but it's mine.

Bxxxx

PS Could anybody please be very kind to this old dodderer, and explain how to highlight something in blue without the Characters "http ://" actually appearing in the posting, as they have done above.

I caught the last 10 mins of that NTB Butterfly thing and found it all distinctly unfunny too. Sort of thing that could have been a 2 minute sketch perhaps (and still not very funny but at least mercifully short!) but to drag it out for half an hour - I'm assuming the first 20 mins was just as dire.

Thought that Truth game (sorry no time to send link) in one of those 6.30 slots was appalling the first week (nasty stuff about cats which I could have tolerated if it had been funny but it wasn't)so I turned it off after the first few mins. However it was quite amusing this week - good enough to cook to anyway. Heard at the end it's a John Naismith/Grahame Garden show so it may get better given the ISIHAC connection.

Goodnight everyone

MJ
xx

PS Don't think we can do the blue highlight here without the http://Mr-p!