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

It's a long weekend here in Ireland, with Monday off. I've a busy 10 days planned.

Today Friday - my brother and his wife are up in Dublin so we'll go out for tapas this evening, and they'll stay in our house.

Saturday - But we won't get to see them tomorrow because Mrs G, Iz and I are leaving the house at 6:30 to head up to Belfast on the train. We're going to see the Royal Shakespeare Company putting on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Home late from Belfast.

Sunday - we plan to drive down to Wexford. We haven't stayed in our mobile home at all yet this year as it was too cold up to about 2 weeks ago. We'll stay Sunday night.

Monday - perhaps go for a walk along the Raven peninsula (out by the forest, back by the beach) and then home.

Tuesday - small choir are having the last rehearsal before our concert

Wednesday - the final year art students in Iz's college are putting on an exhibition of their work - including dress design, makeup, stage design, fine art, photography and visual media. Also have to bring Iz for a rehearsal for her bassoon exam.

Thursday - Big choir are finished for the summer so my Thursday evening is remarkably empty.

Friday - also free for me, although Iz is doing her bassoon exam, so we'll no doubt be celebrating / commiserating

Saturday - going to a concert: Hayley Westenra, the pure-voiced New Zealander

Sunday - I have to work in the morning, but in the evening we have small choir's Summer Concert - a selection of songs to do with childhood, including arrangements of nursery rhymes and other stuff. Should be good.

Keeping fingers crossed for the exam today.

As am I.

The bassoon exam went reasonably well, apparently.

So Iz didn't have *her* fingers crossed at least.

It might be hard to play a bassoon that way.

Well, I've got to the end of my busy week/ten days. It didn't all work out as expected.

The weather was so good on the first weekend that we decided to hang around in our back garden rather than spending hours in the car going down to Wexford. So that gave us a bit more time.

The concert of Nursery Rhymes and Songs relating to Children went well. One of the composers was present, as was the daughter of another of the composers, which was good.

Are there any examples of any of those works on line so we can get an idea of what they were like?

The nearest I have been to doing anything like that was in Honnegger's "Danse des morts" where he incorporated a French folk song "Dansons la carmagnole" which suddenly emerges out of the cacophony.

Most of them have only been performed a few times. This link has a button so you can hear the four Estonian lullabies by Tormis.

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=W11054_67601

Curious that the conductor claimed a first performance of the Groocock nursery rhymes. They were done by the TCD College Singers and (I think) others a long time ago.

Yes. I know that my other choir sang them on 4 Dec 1947, in the year they were published.

Is it possible that it was a regional first performance? The group I sing with will sometimes have the distinction of giving the first Boston-area performance of a piece.

I think the conductor just didn't ask the right people.

All performances of these Nursery Rhymes would have taken place in Dublin, where they were written. He could have asked the composer's daughters, or his widow.