Something bad happened tonight.

I discovered Lazy Dork, a site dedicated to drinking games for movies. This is… terrible for me.

Tonight’s choice? Mean Girls.

Drink Every Time . . .

1. Cady talks about Africa or the animal world
2. The “Burn Book” is shown or mentioned.
3. Karen’s boobs are said or shown to be able to predict to weather.
4. Gretchen says “Fetch!”
5. Regina scolds anyone.
6. Someone does math.
7. The “Plastics” are mentioned as a group.
8. Coach Carr is shown or mentioned.
AND IF YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT TO GET WASTED . . .
Anytime Cady changes outifts. Cute!!

HERE IS A PLAY BY PLAY.

Tonight’s drink of choice is Miller Chill and Calico Jack with Wild Cherry. First up is the Chill. Mind you… we already pregamed with a game of Circle of Death… And now I only have the Jack.

First drink… 11:59.

It’s 12:12. I’m fucked. I can tell.

“GET IN LOSER. WE’RE GOING SHOPPING.”

My nips are too small for piercings okay.

“HE’S YOUR COUSIN”

“YOU GO GLEN COCO.”

“AND NONE FOR GRETCHEN WEINERS, BYE.”

Lucy ate all her shells and cheese. I am sad.

Aubrey just suggested using an empty case as a purse. I want her to do that so badly.

Jesus Christ we’re done. The sexy black principal is holding an assembly because they girls went batshit crazy.

Aka

SHE DOESN’T EVEN GO HERE.

Good night, world.

When I discovered Harry Houdini doing this, I decided it was time for the boys to age up.

Harry very quickly rolled his LTW: Illustrious Author.  I decided he’d do this, rather than science, because he hates the outdoors, and I wasn’t sure about all that gardening.  He was given bookworm as his childhood present.

Eddie Kidd also rolled his LTW early.  He was given photographer’s eye for childhood and he wants a nice photo collection.  This LTW requires him to have a photo collection worth 25,000 simoleans and to have taken at least 10 photos in each location.  He will also be doing the photography skill challenges – which are actually quite hard, as one of them requires filling five full albums, and the albums each have categories of photo in them.  One category has ‘my grandchild’ as an option.  So yeah, not sure we’ll be aiming for that particular collection.

Harry Houdini is cracking on nicely with his painting and writing.  I put a computer in his room to save him sitting outside.  I am starting to put LTW-achieving tools in the bedrooms to see if having the nice colours in there helps.  In time there will be TVs, stereos and loads of artwork in there too.  Each bedroom (Sindy’s, Papergirl and Thomas’s, Piranha and Evel’s, Harry and Eddie’s) has its own bathroom though that doesn’t stop them using whichever they feel like.

On the subject of bathrooms, I do like the new ability to lock doors, though.  Reminder to self: upload housey pics.

I’d heard a rumour that ghost children don’t go to school, but my boys have been going, so that was clearly not true.  Not sure if I’m pleased or saddened by that fact.

Koi is now a toddler and she also has Amaryllis’s hair.  Gen three, you are made of so much win.

This picture is entirely for DB’s benefit.  Adorable, isn’t it?  She hasn’t been to the library to TSAL yet, but she can walk, talk and use the xylophone.

Another gratuitous cute pic, but also a reminder that I had to remove the nomosaic mod when I installed WA as it conflicts – so it might be worth removing if you have it, too – and if it’s been updated, can someone let me know?

Even more people in this family are getting older.  I aged Sindy up despite the game trying to pretend she was younger than Thomas.  I was very pleased the game allowed her to keep the same hairstyle, and I like the dark grey, it’s quite distinguished.

She completed all the painting challenges and painted both Evel Knievel and Piranha’s portraits.  I might make her try for the guitar challenges, but I’ll probably leave them for my future rock star.  For now she can cook and help with Koi.

Papergirl also aged up and hasn’t been able to review or interview yet, but she has only just gone back to work after maternity in the game, so we’ll see.  The businesses remain glitched, so we don’t own any shares right now.  As you can see from her bowl, the fridge glitch is still in operation.  Evel is at level 8 cooking now and has learned and prepared most of the recipes at her level.  She will be promoted to level three next shift.

Piranha is at level two in the grocery store career (her adult trait was friendly, by the way).  She’s going to top out the job, finish collecting bugs and go.  It’ll be a sad day, but there’s little else I can do with her, and I can’t face doing gems, metals and rocks again just yet.  I might leave that until I have a logic sim who can search for BDRs.

She is very much in my good books, though, because looky what we have here!  Now I know why one of Catherine’s DeCasim legacy entries was called ‘Behold the Trilobite Beetle’.  That little sucker has been taunting us for ages.  She eventually found it on one of the beaches in a spot we’d visited dozens of time before.

All my base bugs are here now, and soon we’ll have the WA bug tanks full as well.  This pleases me.

I wasted no time in sending Piranha away to complete the collection.  She, Thomas and Eddie Kidd went to China.  We discovered she could buy Tri-Tip Steak in the food store at the market, so she got to eat her favourite meal.

Thomas caught all the Chinese fish – I think – and has some plums, pomelos and cherries to take home to plant in the garden (he’s now level 9, which might cause me omni-related dilemmas in the future when it comes to kicking him out.  Also: I must remember to get some of Gen 3 gardening).

Eddie Kidd started to go out and take photos.  I discovered taking ghosts overseas is annoying.  They don’t run, they float, which takes a LOT longer than running.  Kids also have to obey curfew on holiday (though teens don’t), which is rubbish!

Fortunately, he can ride a bike.

Photography is an interesting skill.  You don’t see the sim with the camera, you see through the camera in a similar way to the camera phone, though.  We only have the cheapest camera right now, and I suck at using it, so our photos are not very attractive.  I do like the way the game tells you what the subject of your photo is, and what category it will go in, though.  His LTW seems easier than I first thought.  His collection is already worth 34,000 simoleans and he’s at level 7 already and we’ve only been messing about.

Here’s Piranha posing.  Once you ask a sim to pose you can then tell them which pose to adopt.  This could be a handy storytelling thing although we haven’t yet got good photos of sims posing.  The annoying thing about photography is it gtakes you straight into the camera mode as soon as you click to take photo,  so you have to make sure your sim is in the right area.

For some reason I don’t have many photos of China.  One sleep at home later, and it was time for another trip.  Piranha, Sindy and Eddie Kidd are currently in France and have only just arrived, so more on that next time, but…

…with this glowy butterfly, Piranha managed to complete collecting bugs in WA as well!

Join us next time for more France, more photography and more… other stuff.

Some acts toil for years to make their mark. Others never manage to succeed no matter how hard they try. To their eternal frustration, it has taken singer-songwriterThomas Western less than a month to become the talk of the town.

Having moved from Derbyshire to Edinburgh for a spot of postgraduate study and musical adventure, Western’s first month was a whirlwind of activity. He got his first local radio appearance, had his EP in several shops, featured on some prominent blogs and managed to become ‘musician in residence’ at the capital’s much loved Bowery venue.

Not all of this was part of a master plan, as Western happily admits. On his serendipitous Bowery meeting after a Jesus H Foxx gig, he says: “I met Ruth who runs the place, and half-jokingly asked if I could play every week. She said yes”.

As part of the link-up, Western will also produce an album – another unique offshoot of the collaboration between performer and venue. “The plan is for me to write three songs each week to play, then to record and release them as an album at the end of it all”, he enthuses.

After starting out as a drummer, Western has moved on to solo work, although he admits he was “too scared for a long time”. But he says that this also acts as a spur: “In playing by myself I am totally accountable to myself and if the music isn’t good enough, then it is my responsibility to work harder at it”.

Western’s musical style is, at times, similar to the 1960s California folk scene epitomised by Tim Buckley – his vocal style is also not dissimilar, singing in octaves other artists would never dare attempt.

Citing his influences as Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Will Oldham and Jeff Buckley, it’s easy to see where the inspiration has come from in tracks like ‘Plough’ and ‘Your Front Door’, the latter featuring on Western’s wonderfully homemade and packaged EP ‘Quite Early One Morning’. There is also something charming and old fashioned about finding a CD in a shop which appears to be made from paper and UHU glue, potentially falling apart at any moment.

Western plans to release a solo album in addition to his Bowery sessions album. Beyond that, he doesn’t rule out playing as part of a band again. “There is a joy to playing with other people that is lacking from solo performance, so I would really love to get an ensemble together at some point,” he says. “It is dependent on meeting the right people though.”

Given how much Thomas Western has achieved in the short time he has lived in Scotland, by this time next year he could be running the country, although surely he’s too honest for that.

Words: Stevie Kearney

Thomas Western’s EP is available from emusic and iTunes, as well as Avalanche in Edinburgh. His Bowery album will be released later this year and his first full solo album is due to be recorded in early 2010.

In recent weeks, I have been involved in discussions about whether vaccines cause autism and whether certain treatments for autism are “quack” treatments and therapies.

For the record, I do not believe vaccines cause autism, nor do I believe in many of the other conspiracy theories surrounding autism. And I believe a significant number of autism therapies and treatments are indeed “quack” therapies and “quack” treatments.

“Big money” and/or ”Big Pharma” and/or whoever else is allegedly involved always seem to be the culprit in these conspiracy theories.   As if, when a person or company or group of them crosses an arbitrary financial line or exceed a certain profit margin, they have suddenly changed camps or are required to do so by some unspoken law of duplicity.
 
For one thing, it makes more sense for “Big Pharma” profiteers to develop an ongoing treatment that will keep autistics hooked for life than to infect them with a few vaccines that they only have to pay for every once in a while. For another, it seems that the entities which do offer autism treatments for life are “quack” in nature.

Existing research suggests that vaccines do not cause autism: Genetics do. 137 scientists in 50 locations in 9 countries around the world did a study in which the genome of 1,600 families with autism was mapped.  Common genes were found which are believed to cause autism.  Peer-review of these studies has made the initial results valid. An autism genome database exists for anyone who cares to look at it, and hardly a month goes by when additional research identifying the genes which cause autism is not published. 

I notice that no group of conspiracy theorists ever pools their money to pay an independent researcher to do an objective study that actually yields results contrary to the published and peer-reviewed findings of all the existing research studies to date.
 
I notice that even when independent researchers produce results which say that vaccines do not cause autism, or that environmental toxins do not cause autism, then we have a gaggle of conspiracy theorists proclaiming that someone has gotten to those independent researchers.
 
I notice that when Andrew Wakefield or others produce results which suggest that autism is caused by vaccines or something else, that no other researcher can produce identical results, even when these researchers are independent. And invariably, those independent researchers who cannot verify the Wakefield research or the “environmental toxin” research are accused by conspiracy theorists of being gotten to by “Big Pharma” and/or their sympathizers.
 
This holds true all around the world.  No matter what country conspiracy theorists live in, no matter what political ideology resides in the country, no matter whether or not the country in question has a pharmaceutical industry or not, Big Pharma, and also World Governments/Big Brother, is always implicated in the conspiracy theory.

Even countries which have no pharmaceutical industry are somehow accused of being complicit in this conspiracy.
 
Never can it be that the multitude of research which is commonly accepted by the majority of the public be true.

During my time as an autism advocate, I have heard all kinds of theories. I have heard that it is the Big Pharma’s doing. I have heard that it is a joint Big Pharma/World Governments collusion.  I have heard that it is the Illuminati. I have heard that autistics are really Indigo Children — a sort of alien/human hybrid.  I have heard that autism is simply demon possession.
 
But the one thing I notice is that when you say to people, “No documentation can be produced to prove anything you allege. Show me the documentation. Show me the video of the secret meetings.  Produce evidence that the Illuminati is involved. Let’s see this alien DNA you’re talking about,” what you get in return is not proof, but accusations veiled in smoke-and-mirrors rhetoric. 

I have been accused of being a Big Pharma shill.  I have been accused of being in the employ of  WOrld Governments and Big Brother.  I have been accused of being an uneducated, ignorant fool.

(to be continued)

Thomas D. Taylor
Co-Creator
MIDNIGHT IN CHICAGO

Ohja damit hat er wirklich zu tun .

Model: Thomas (Hearbreak)

Photography: Kari Bye

So this was my first post to this blog. Just testing and thinking.

]]> http://appellationmountain.net/2009/11/29/sunday-summary-112909/ Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:27:02 +0000 appellationmountain http://appellationmountain.net/2009/11/29/sunday-summary-112909/

If you’re in the US, here’s hoping you had a lovely Thanksgiving.  This summary is almost certainly incomplete as I’m filing it before departing for Michigan on Thursday.  But unless Brangelina announce a Thanksgiving Day adoption surprise, that’s probably not the end of the world.

Just in case you’re traveling, here’s the planes, trains and automobiles take on baby naming:

• Renault is calling its new electric car the Zoé.  According to the Daily Mail, this has resulted in quite the flap in France, where Zoé is a top twenty name for girls.  Parents have started online petitions; Renault says it is sticking by the name;
• I’m not familiar with the site, but Targana is reporting that a woman gave birth on a train and named her son Lalu – after politician and former Minister of Railways Lalu Prasad Yadav;
• And just to complete the trifecta, the baby named AirAsia after arriving aboard an Air Asia flight has been gifted with free flights for life.

A few other interesting links:

• Sebastiane is back, and she’s posted about some gems.  I quite like Svante and company, as well as Kaija – you might recognize her as a Finnish nickname for Katherine, but she’s also a Latvian name meaning seagull;
• Nancy had added prompts to her baby name site.  It’s far more helpful than asking your husband if he thinks his style is classic-modern or more modern-traditional?  Help her build the list here;
• Namberry has a fun list: 20 Lost Literary Girls’ Names.  I love Thisbe – though as Kat commented, it may not be the best reference to inspire a child’s name;
• I always tell myself not to be surprised by names spotted by Bewildertrix.  Then I click on one of her posts and see that Charlie Chilli has arrived;
• Would you name your twin sons Canyon Clay and Cavern Cane?  For Real Baby Names spotted that unusual set.  I do know another boy called Canyon, from our old ‘hood.  On his own, I rather like it.

I love a good celeb-with-offspring event for namespotting.  This Celebrity Baby Blog story mentioned a few interesting combos:

• Mary James – James Marsden’s daughter; 
• Medium’s handsome husband Jake Weber has a son called Waylon;
• Chef Wolfgang Puck passed on his first name as a middle for sons Alexander Wolfgang and Oliver Wolfgang;
• Hamish Linklater of The New Adventures of Old Christine has a darling daughter, Lucinda Rose.

In honor of Thanksgiving, Nameberry posted on Tom – as in turkey.  Thomas wears quite well on a little boy, and is the name of a dear friend of ours, too.  But ’round our house, Thomas is a train.

This blog post proves that some dads are really into baby names.  (Arthur, are you reading?)  The couple came up with four interesting choices.  Their daughters are Rica Emmanuele and Nadine Ysabele; their two sons are Joseph Leonele and Andre Ezekiele.  It almost makes me hope they’re planning on a fifth so I can see a shortlist of possibles!

Speaking of interesting sibsets, check out Nancy’s post on this 13-and-counting clan from England.  I won’t list them here, but let me say this: Morpheus and Peppermint are among the siblings.  I can hear you mousing over already …

Thanks for reading!

Artemisia, Antonia, Aurelia, Arabella, Clara, Clementine, Cleopatra, Crescentia, Dulcinea, Ernestine, Ebelina, Eloisa, Fenella, Fernanda, Genevieve, Gwendoline, Hazel, Hortencia, Imogen, Idahlia, Ishbel, Lucinda, Louella, Leagora, Linnea, Margaret, Maddalena, Maple, Madelie, Nataline, Ophelie, Octavia, Orlantha/Orlanda, Polly, Romilly, Rosalie, Tallulah, Valentina, Violet.

Abraham, Cato, Ezekiel, Emmett, Evander, Edward, Hugo, Ira, Jay, Lazarus, Lysander, Leander, Ned, Orlando, Perrin, Rupert, Russell, Sullivan, Thomas, Theodore, Willoughby.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

For me, this opens up the possibility that the modern interpretation of John 14:6 might only touch the surface of what Jesus was really saying and that the opportunity to dig deeper into the meaning brings us to a realization that this conversation wasn’t ever supposed to be some Calvinistic approach to how God might or might not work, but that it is solely about how important Jesus saw his relationship with Thomas, and also how important our relationship is to Him. See, I find it interesting that people within certain theological circles are willing to advocate that Christianity is about relationship and yet condone an almost mechanistic approach to their theology, so, I would ask, which one is it???

Despite a spate of head colds in the household, Thanksgiving came off very nicely. My sister Andrea is visiting us, and she was a tremendous help in the production of a fully edible turkey. I even pulled out some of my nice dishes that have been boxed up since we left Oregon in 2005. Yesterday was spent shopping for pants for my sister’s trip to The Nutcracker with a friend she met in Arizona who is now attending Simmons in the GSLIS program (I know-crazy coincidences!) Today Andrea and I are going to the Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science, and Erik and I are hoping to squeeze in a movie sometime while we have a babysitter. Other than that, Thomas has off on Monday as well, but luckily Erik doesn’t work that day.

Habs gestern verpeilt. Greife das Motto von gestern nochmal auf

]]> http://nicoleishida.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/happy/ Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:28:59 +0000 Nicole http://nicoleishida.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/happy/

Yes, we had Thanksgiving and a day off today and many, many other activities between my last post (whenever that was) and now…

So, while Curious George is buying me a precious five minutes between loads of laundry, I thought I’d post a couple of fun photos taken the other day while Thomas was “helping” me strip the bed.

I’ll be back with more appropriate holiday-themed photos shortly. We’re pulling the Christmas books out of the basement tonight.

(Picture taken by Thomas Tu)

She is torn away. Like the snapping of a ripcord, her proteinaceous ties to the undulating surface of the cell surface are clipped. She is freed to be jostled violently by the Brownian currents of the syrupy extracellular fluid. They get her nowhere, not that it matters; she has nothing to do, no one to meet, no place to be. Circumstances have pulled her together; they will probably break her apart. 

The tides are particularly rough now. Jumping, tossing, turbid waters. For a moment, she doesn’t even notice she is airborne. Things resolve. She is trapped in a gluey droplet of water, floating through alveolar space. Dozens of other prisoners are here, deaf and mute. They occasionally bump each other, but remain oblivious to the outside. They are refugees in their own world, each pregnant with their own story. Boredom reigns.

An uninterested gaze from the watery ship sees endless fields of cells, bowed down in a valley. Pastures of the vibrating scrublands of cell surface molecules seem to churn and turn themselves inside out continually. Looking closer, like clusters of mushrooms pushing up through the warm soil, thousands of viruses reach the surface. They are freed, gasping like sea-wreck survivors, and engage in their lost, wandering dance. Some join their lonely armada, now hundred thousand strong. 

Convection currents push her forward in a drunken meander. As they flit like a leaf caught in the breeze, the acute curvature of the valley underfoot eventually flattens out as they travel up into the bronchioles. Scrublands are replaced by a flooded forest of beating villi. Each finger beats in synchrony with its neighbour, so that at this height they look like sheaves of wheat in a gusting storm underneath an ever deepening lake of mucus. 

By their hundreds, water droplets are cast into the lake by the wind currents. Viruses are trapped by the burrs of antibodies and weighed down by mucus. Their useless bodies either are swept up by the motion of the villi or sink to be devoured by the occasional immune cell. Waves of mucus push forward, building up until a nervous trip-wire snaps… 

A sick man coughs in a crowded elevator. 

Slingshot forward. The forest transforms into a pane of scratched glass, planed flat by velocity. Droplets yield, deform and split. She looks around; they are still mute, still blind, still deaf despite the chaos. They are whipped up past the bronchus, trachea, larynx, pharynx, uvula, tongue. 

It’s less crowded out here. Huge groaning mountains of saliva have joined them on the way. As they all shed speed, the boulder-like droplets are baited away by the gentle force of gravity like migrating whales; their condemned Jonahs to die on the dry ground. The formation is dispersed, three sheets to the wind. The majority spread off into the distance, forgotten and doomed to a vast holocaust of evaporation. 

An abusive gust jerks her droplet violently. She is swept down a moist chimney with thousands of others. Tongue, uvula, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchus. Flashbacks of tangled and mangled bodies of viruses act out in front of her. Diffusion steadies its hand on the rudder and slowly… eventually leads them deep down into the lungs. They finally beach. 

Almost immediately, she is arrested and strapped to a cell surface. The thick tarpaulin of cell membrane swallows her. The room bubbles with acid and caustic substances. The cut of the acid drives her to burrow hard into the walls. So hard that she tears her skin off and emerges on the inside of the cell, naked and disoriented. All she wants to do is leave her story so that she is not forgotten. This is all that she thinks of as the cell tears her apart, limb by limb. A message slips out of her. It is stumbled upon by a curious cellular factory manager. He translates it out of curiosity… 

6 hours later, a daughter virus buds from the surface of the cell. She is torn away.

-TT

(Picture taken by Thomas Tu)

Atticus Bart, Atticus Bede, Atticus Jago, Atticus Roan, Atticus Cillian.

Atticus Emeric Wolf

Atticus Guy Steven

Atticus Ira Thomas

Atticus Jasper West

Atticus Barnaby Jude

Atticus Jay Thomas

Atticus Leo Walter

Atticus Lysander Penn

Atticus Lev Henry

Atticus Reuben Francis

Atticus Benjamin Rex

Atticus Sebastian James

Atticus Nathaniel August

Atticus Henry Raphael

Atticus Jacob Paul

Atticus James Baxter

Atticus Baxter Rowan

Focusing on a couple of authors today –

THOMAS, Jan – One of the boys’ newest favorite authors – I think I’m going to wear these books out before we can return them to the library:

• A Birthday for Cow
• The Doghouse
• What Will Fat Cat Sit On?
• Rhyming Dust Bunnies
• Can You Make a Scary Face?

BOYNTON, Sandra – She has been a favorite of both my boys since we started reading to them when they were itty bitty newborns (OK, so I’m guessing on part of that, but they both love her books now! )

• Hippos Go Berserk
• One, Two, Three!
• A to Z
• Barnyard Dance

Dr. Seuss – We honestly haven’t read a ton of his books, I think I might have gotten a bit burnt-out when I taught pre-school and nannied, but they’re starting to make a return in the household!

• Oh, The Places You Will Go! (moms, I don’t suggest this one if you are at all hormonal, my oldest wanted to read it everyday when I was pregnant with B and I lost is everytime…sigh, lol)
• ABC
• There’s a Wocket in My Pocket

I’ve been a bit concerned about the state of Thomas and Papergirl’s marriage of late.  They’ve not been wanting to try for a baby, he’s been rolling wishes to speak to Sherry Bunch, and she’s been rolling wishes to befriend her male acquaintances.  So I sent them for a romantic break in France.

Of course, I got them doing some skilling, learning and exploring, too.  There are new grape varieties in France.  We discovered three and Thomas harvested some for us to plant at home.  They also act as bait for the French fish, and ingredients for nectar.

Thomas had a go at making nectar with grapes, lime and apples.  The game told us it was disgusting, which might be a fair point.  You can purchase a billion different varieties of nectar at the store onsite, which makes me think the nectar skill and LTW might be very difficult indeed.

Papergirl was sent rummaging to see if she could build up her journalistic skills writing some stories on her French buddies.  She could rummage, but never enough to dig up any dirt (or indeed find anything exciting).

She spent a lot of time buttering up the locals to improve her charisma.  She can talk about her adventures and discuss the local gossip with them.  She can’t interview them, sadly.  On the phone, you can talk to friends in France, or long-distance friends (back home) and when you get home you can also call your long-distance holiday friends, and I’ve heard you can invite them over.  It’s now my ambition to gain spouses from these destinations for future Dayes.

Here, Papergirl is learning songs.  She learned two songs from the shopkeeper.  When she sang one, ‘Je T’aime’ back to him, they got a negative moodlet because he was in a relationship.  Ha.  I didn’t notice her gaining any music skill from the songs though.

In the bedroom she taught the songs to Thomas and he sang the love song back to her.  I spammed their romantic interactions but they had no try for baby option come up, and I thought maybe it just couldn’t happen in France, so I sent them to sleep.

The next day I sent Papergirl off to visit the sights and talk to more locals, while I got Thomas to read his fishing books then carry out his main mission here, to catch the unique fish.

He didn’t seem too impressed with frogs.

Snails were perhaps a little more impressive, given their size.  You can also catch crawfish in France (and some more normal fish).  Fishing here can all  be done in the same place and seems fairly straightforward, but in China I think it’ll be more of a challenge given the number of fishing books and fishing spots for that place.

Papergirl enjoyed whizzing around on the motorbike.  I also sent the two of them for a romantic meal at the cafe in France but she couldn’t eat grilled salmon, so she still hasn’t eaten her favourite meal (Thomas has had key lime pie now, hurrah).

Fortunately, this is not Thomas displaying his sexytime moves.  We bought a camera and Papergirl can ask people to pose.  She didn’t take a picture, but I’m considering letting Eddie Kidd do one of the photography based LTWs so he’ll inherit it on his child birthday (assuming children can use cameras).

After a lot of faffing about (and some obligatory bathroom flirting), they finally succumbed.

Another baby is on the way – and only a few hours before they had to come home.

Evel has started cooking up some of the fancy new WA recipes.  Here she’s seen cooking felafel.  She’s so skillful, she doesn’t even need to look at what she’s doing.  A very cute thing (that will probably become annoying) was that she sang the song she learned in China while she was cooking.  Aw.

Now here’s something exciting.  Look at the bottom option Thomas has here.  It says ‘fertilise garden with best fertiliser’.  Now that seems a very useful new interaction indeed and a much less timewastey one than having to do all the fertilizing manually.  Oh, and we learned more about that darn omni at the science facility.  You can only feed or harvest it at certain times of the day.  Iiiinteresting.

I’m not entirely sure I approve of pregnant women driving around Sunset Valley on mopeds without helmets on.

I sent Papergirl out to do some interviews and reviews to make the best use of her pregnancy… only… nowhere was available to review?  Whaaat??  I hope this is merely the Sim nanny state enforcing new restrictions on pregnant sims and not some patch/WA glitch that has stopped journos doing journalistic things, or I will NOT BE IMPRESSED.

Cos, yeah, she can’t interview, either.  She went to the library to read Totally Preggers and build charisma.  I got her to give a flirty introduction to some townie because I thought it might be better for charisma (I wasn’t going to have her take the flirting anywhere other than that).  Only Abe chose that moment to enter the library and he wasn’t best impressed with his daughter-in-law’s behaviour.  He wasn’t even impressed when she told him a fifth grandchild was on the way, and last time I saw him, he had a wish to have five grandchildren, so you think he’d be over the moon.  Maybe being the living dead has given him a bit of a sense of humour bypass.

His oldest granchildren both aged up.  I was all ready to get Piranha out looking for a spouse to turn into a purple ghost (I like the idea of favourite colour ghosties)… when I realised I had chosen her traits so far and would have to roll her YA trait.  She rolled… whatever and she did NOT roll Gold-digger.  No biggie, I had enough LTH to buy her a change, but reroll as much as I liked, Gold-digger would not come up.

So now she’s just after swimming in cash, which will be a doddle, and is back out looking for the mythical trilobite beetle.  She can have a few more bug hunts overseas, top out a part-time career and (pleeeeease) find that darn bug, and then I’ll let her live her life and make room for Gen 4.

Evel is much better behaved than her cousin.  I chose workaholic for her and she’s (of course) going to be a Five Star Chef.  Next time I play I’ll get a better picture of her – she aged up just as I was about to go out and I didn’t have time to get a good shot.

And finally…. I let Papergirl read Totally Preggers but nothing else and she didn’t go to the spa or have a back massage.  She was mostly happy throughout.  I chose one of this baby’s traits.  Koi Daye likes black and key-lime pie, so should be easy to please.  She rolled clumsy and I chose friendly.  I’m hoping she will test out super-popular via the medium of tag.

Join us next week when we should hopefully have a house full of old people and ghost children, we should discover what colour Koi’s hair will be and we’ll find out if Papergirl can ever conduct an interview or review again!

Tout d’abords bonjour, je m’appelle Thomas, plus souvent appelé Tito de la Vega, j’ai 17 ans, j’habite dans le sud de la France, près de Perpignan, dans une ville qui est une sorte de Californie française ( Okay, j’en fais un peu trop là ) .

Que vous dire sur moi ? Je suis en 1ère ES dans le Lycée le plus cool de Perpignan et je suis passionné par le net et en particulier par les Web-chroniques et divers blogs retraçant l’actu avec un point de vue décalé. C’est pour cela que je me lance à mon tour dans l’aventure ( Autant dire que c’est pas gagner .. ) .

D’ici peu de temps je posterai mon 1er article, le temps que j’organise un peu mon blog et là ce sera le début de l’aventure, sur ce, bonne soirée.

Mister de la Vega

The following is the contents of the 1964 Programme, held by Bayan Northcott and photographed when I visited him.

[p 1]

Wardour Castle

Concerts and Lectures

16–22 August 1964

President Michael Tippett

Musical Director Harrison Birtwistle

Price 5’-

[p 2]

[map of Tisbury]

[p 3]

Contents

Acknowledgements                        4

The Composers and Artists            5

Programmes

16 August            Lecture            13

Concert            13

17 August            Recital            19

Concert            19

18 August            Lecture            25

Concert            25

19 August            Recital            31

Discussion            31

20 August            Recital            37

Lecture            37

21 August            Concert            41

22 August            Concert            41

[p 4]

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Headmistress, Miss C. B. Galton, and the Governors of Cranborne Chase School for kindly allowing us to use the Castle, both for the Concerts and the Summer School; and the following people for their invaluable assistance:

Mrs. M. I. Mackintosh

Honorary Secretary

Mr. H. O. Young

Honorary Treasurer

Miss G. Selby-Smith

Honorary Librarian

Mrs. T. Hetherington

Miss Caroline Philips

Mrs. R. Porteous

Mr. Michael Thomas

for the loan of organ and harpsichord

The Revd. C. J. Godfrey

for the use of Donhead St. Andrew parish church

The Ministry of Works

for the permission to use the grounds of the Old Castle

Cover Design and Book            Anthony Denning

Programme Notes                        Anthony Gilbert

[p 5]

Notes on the Composers and Artists

[p 6/7]

Harrison Birtwistle

was born in 1934; he studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Music. He is now teaching music at Cranborne Chase School. His works include: Refrains and Choruses, performed 1959 Cheltenham Festival; Music for Sleep, a work for children; Chorales for Orchestra; The World is Discovered, performed at this year’s I.S.C.M. Festival; Entr’acts and Sappho Fragments, performed at this year’s Cheltenham Festival; and Three Movement with Fanfares, commissioned by The Worship Company of Musicians for this year’s City of London Festival

Peter Maxwell Davies

was born in Manchester in 1934, and studied  1952-57 at Manchester University, and Manchester College of Music; 1957-58, Italian Government Scholarship; studied composition with Petrassi in Rome. Director of Music at the Grammar School, Cirencester, and for the past 18 months he has been at Princeton, New Jersey. His works include: Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, 1955; Five Piano Pieces, 1956; Alma Redemptoris Mater, 1957; St. Michael, for wind instruments first performed at the Cheltenham Festival, 1957; Prolation, for orchestra, 1958; Five Motets for a capella choir, 1959; O Magnum Mysterium, for choir, instruments and organ, 1960. His Sinfonia was presented at the Cheltenham Festival by the English Chamber Orchestra in 1962

Anthony Gilbert

was born in London in 1934. He started to study music in 1958; harmony and counterpoint with Anthony Milner; composition briefly with Mátyás Seiber; then since 1959 with Alexander Goehr. Works include: a Duo for Violin and Viola, a Serenade for Six Instruments (commissioned by the S.P.N.M.); and a recently completed Mass for choir and brass.

Alexander Goehr

was born in 1932 in Berlin. Son of the conductor Walter Goehr. Was brought to England as a baby and educated. Studied composition at Royal Manchester College of Music with Richard Hall, and in 1954 was awarded a French Government Scholarship and student at the Paris Conservatoire with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. For some years taught at Morley College and now works part time at the B.B.C., and its chairman of the Society for the Promotion of New Music. Principal works include: Sonata for Piano, The Deluge; Cantata after Leonardo da Vinci; Suters Gold; Cantata on a text by Eisenstein; Violin Concerto; and Little Symphony.

Michael Tippett

was born in 1905, and at the age of 18 entered the Royal College of Music where he studied composition with Charles Wood and R. O. Morris, and conducting with Sir Adrian Boult and Sir Malcolm Sargent. In the early ‘forties he was the Musical Director of Morley College and was closely associated with Walter Goehr, who have many first performances of his music from this period. Works from this period were: Concerto for Double String Orchestra; an Oratorio; A Child of Our Time; and the First Symphony. In 1953 Covent Garden gave the first performance of his first opera, A Midsummer Marriage. In 1953 his second opera, King Priam, was given its first performance in Coventry, late at Covent Garden. This Piano Sonata to be played tonight was written shortly after “King Priam” and was given its first performance by Margaret Kitchin.

Hugh Wood

was born near Wigan in Lancashire in 1932. He started to study music when he was 22; academic work with Dr. Lloyd Webber and later with Anthony Milner; composition with Iain Hamilton and then with Mátyás Seiber. His compositions include: a set of variations for viola and piano; instrumental songs to texts by Christopher Logue; a trio for flute, viola and piano; quartets, the second of which was commissioned by the B.B.C. for the 1962 Cheltenham Festival. Several of these pieces have been broadcast. He has taught at Morley College for five years and also, latterly, at the Royal Academy of Music. He is married to the pianist Susan McGaw.

[p. 8/9]

Richard Adeney

wad born in London in 1920. He studied music at Dartington Hall and the Royal College of Music. He is now the principal flute of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and English Chamber Orchestra. Hs is unmarried and keenly interested in photography.

Lucy Berthoud

was born in Hertfordshire in 1942. Three years later she went to live in New York and there, at the age of 11, started to learn the flute with Ruth Freeman of the Julliard School of Music. When she was 17 she came to England and studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Derek Honner; in 1963-64 she went to Paris to study with Fernand Caratgé

John Carewe

was born in 1934 and studied with Roger Desormiere, Walter Goehr and Olivier Messiaen. For several years assisted John Pritchard with the Musica Viva Concerts in Liverpool, and has appeared as conductor with principal orchestras in this country. Is particularly interested in performance of new music and has given many first performances of works by young English composers.

Lamar Crowson

was born in American but completed his musical training with Arthur Benjamin at the Royal College of Music, with he is now professor of the piano. Among the many awards he has won are the Chappell Gold Medal, the Harriet Cohen International Medal and two first prizes for chamber music at the Munich International Competition. His is will known for his solo and chamber music productions.

Barbara Elsie

was born in Yorkshire in 1938 and at the age of 16 won a three-year Scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music in London. Her teacher was Winifred Radford, with whom she still works. Her oratorio repertoire is extensive and she performs regularly with principal choral societies in Great Britain. Since her first important engagement at York Minister in 1959 she has broadcast a cantata for her, and consequently she was invited to take part in the first performance of his opera “English Eccentrics,” which had u

Osian Ellis

was born in Flintshire. He started to play the harp at the age of 10 and at 17 he won scholarships which took him to the Royal Academy of Music, where he is now a professor. He has brought the harp into great prominence with his concert appearances, recitals and broadcasts, and he has taken part in most of the major European festivals. His performance of Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro with the Melos Ensemble was awarded a Premier Prix in 1962 by the French Society of Authors and Editors of Music. Ossian Ellis is an authority on Welsh Folk Music.

Emanuel Hurwitz

was born and educated in England. At the age of 14 he won the Bronislaw-Hubermann Scholarship for the Royal Academy of Music which was adjudicated by Hubermann in person. In 1939 he became the youngest member of the London Philharmonic Orchestra; he has played solos and obligatos with his orchestras and has always been singled out by the critics for his excellent performances. Since the war he has been leader of the Jacques Orchestra and is now leader of the English Chamber Orchestra. In 1954 he formed a string ensemble which has gained considerable success playing music of the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries. He has been a member of the Melos Ensemble since 1955.

[p 10/11]

Margaret Kitchin

was born in Switzerland and studied with Jacqueline Blancard. She has played all over Europe, giving recitals and as a soloist with all the leading orchestras, playing classical and many modern works in which she specialises. She has given many first performance of modern works, including the Piano Sonata by Alexander Goehr, and work by Ian Hamilton, Peter Maxwell Davies, Peter Racine Fricker, etc.

Susan McGaw

studied at the Royal Academy of Music where she son the Liszt Scholarship and many other prizes. On leaving she won a Caird Scholarship and one from the French Government, and studied in Paris for two years with Yvonne Lefébure Since returning she has played regularly in London and the provinces. She is a frequent broadcaster. He husband is Hugh Wood. They have a son and daughter.

Gervase de Peyer

was a scholar at the Royal College of Music and completed his studying under Frederick Thurston in 1958. He has played for many of the London symphony and chamber orchestras and is at present principal clarinet in the London Symphony Orchestra. He is well known as a soloist and has performed with nearly all the major orchestras in the country under many well known conductors. He has also appeared at many festivals, including Edinburgh and Holland. He has made records for Decca, H.M.V., l’Oiseau Lyre and Parlophone.

Neill Sanders

was born in London in 1923, son of violinist, and has a brother who plays the flute. He won an open scholarship to the Royal College of Music in 1939, after which he did a season with the Scottish Orchestra before becoming principal horn with the L.S.O. He spent seven years with Denniss Brian in the Philharmonia Orchestra and is at present co-principal in the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra.

Michael Thomas

is at present recording concerts and making permanent recordings of music of keyboard instruments of exceptional historical importance on the continent and in England and Ireland. During the past few years he has recorded recitals on most of the famous old harpsichords, organs and clavichords. He is a person who has made the most thorough study of the technique, phrasing and ornamentation of old music and has, through his long experience and experiments with old instruments, learned how these techniques may best be applied to the old instruments that were used in historical times.

Terence Weil

studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won numerous prizes for Chamber Music including the Sir Edward Cooper prize. He was a member of the Hurwitz String Quartet until it disbanded in 1951. He has been principal ‘cello of many chamber orchestras but is at present free-lancing. He is a founder member of the Melos Ensemble.

[p 12]

[advertisement, Universal Edition, for the path to the new music by Anton Webern]

[p 13]

Sunday 16th August

5.0 p.m. Lecture

in the Assembly Room

8.30 p.m. Concert

in the Assembly Room

[p 14/15]

Music in Our Time

Lecture 5.0 p.m.

ALEXANDER GOEHR will lecture on certain aspects of contemporary music with particular reference to works being performed in the evening concert.

Concert 8.30 p.m.

Introduced by MICHAEL TIPPETT

A concert of contemporary English Music

Promoted by: Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Society for the Promotion of New Music

Barbara Elsie            Soprano

Margaret Kitchin            Pianoforte

Peter Maxwell Davies            Pianoforte

Richard Adeney            Flute

Gervase de Peyer            Clarinet

Neill Sanders            Horn

Osian Ellis            Harp

Emmanuel Hurwitz            Violin

Terence Weil            ‘Cello

John Carewe            Conductor

Three Piano Pieces, op.5            Hugh Wood

These pieces were written for my wife to play, the first for a Wigmore Hall recital in January 1961, and the whole set for a midday recital at the 1963 Cheltenham Festival. the first, Lento, consists of a long tune with rises to a climax, after which some introductory material is heard again. The second, Energico, is the longest of the three, a rondo with episodes and an introduction; the first episode features constant trills, the second is lyrical, in a slower tempo. The main theme appears in a different register each time. The third piece, Calmo, is very short, reminiscent in its materials, valedictory in its nature.

[p 16]

Monody for Corpis Christi Harrison Birtwistle

[lyrics reproduced in original]

The first movement is a simple arch whose main member is the vocal line (to which all other parts are embellishments and from which they may be said to stem). Its rise and descent are emphasized by the gradual addition of instruments from the beginning and their subtraction towards the end, and by the gradually increasing complexity of the instrumental episodes separating the couplets.

This movement leads without a break into an instrumental fantasia Quasi fanfara in contrasting sections, at first very short and static, then longer and more flowing, the whole serving as a transition between the different levels of tension of the two movements for voice.

The third movement follows without interruption and again the overall form is very simple. Each stanza grows in intensity towards its end; in between the two there is a brief instrumental episode ending with a flute cadenza.

Sonata for Piano Anthony Gilbert

This sonata was written in 1961-62 and was first performed by Margaret Kitchin at the S.P.N.M. Cheltenham Festival concert in 1962. There are three movements:

1. Vivace. The overall shape is that of classical sonata form with two contrasting subject-groups, a bipartite section of development in which each group is treated in accordance with its individual character, and an elliptical reprise and coda.

2. Cantilena is a simple, song-type movement in three sections of continuous variation. The middle section, characterized by a pedal, forms a central point of repose for the whole sonata, while the third part recalls the other two and has the function of a coda.

[p 17]

3. Scherzo. This opens with two contrasting motifs and the first part of the movement is concerned with their development and gradual integration. As they become more completely combined the section reaches a climax which triggers off Trio 1, a set of short variations on a rhythmic motif. After a short link using first-section material there follows Trio 2, which is free and rhapsodic in character, and has echoes of the first and second movements. The final section is a telescoped and varied version of the first.

Sonata No.2 for Piano Michael Tippett

This Sonata was written early in 1962 and first performed by Margaret Kitchin at the

Edinburgh Festival of that year. It is in one continuous movement.

Composed very shortly after the completion of “King Priam,” the sonata derives form from the dramatic structure of at opera, and some of its materials from the orchestral piano part. It constitutes a complete departure from normal sonata procedure in that there is virtually no development; the sonata grows by statement – the constant addition of new material and by variation and repetition of material previously given. Constant use is made of new materials and by variation and repetition of material previously given. Constant use is made of contrasts: contrasts of texture, contrasts of tempi and timbres and contrasts between static and dynamic. Towards the end the phrases and motifs get shorter and tension grows until the final page, which is a coda concerned with the elimination of the principal motifs.

INTERVAL (25 minutes)

Five Little Pieces Peter Maxwell Davies

(first performance)

The five little piano pieces were composed between 1960 and 1962.

Suite, op. 11            Alexander Goehr

This work was commissioned by the Aldeburgh Festival Committee for the Melos Ensemble who gave its first performance in June, 1961. The object was to produce a piece of light, serenade-like character with an important part for flute and harp. There are five movements.

The first is a quick movement in three main sections. The first and second of these alternate two sharply distinguished types of material in continually varied forms; the third in contrast is a flowing section for solo flute with string accompaniment. There are two repeats: the first section is played again immediately, and the second again after the third.

The second movement is an Intermezzo for harp in improvisatory style. The structural principle is the note-by-note changing of two superimposed chords by pedal shifts.

The third movement is a Scherzo. This is very lightly scored, being almost all in one part over a pedal. Of its two main motifs, the first on the ‘cello is recognisable as the clarinet motif from the first movement in equal notes. Its “head” is used throughout the movement as a sort of punctuation mark dividing sections. The Trio comes right at the end and is for the three stringed instruments only; finally there is an eight-bar coda on scherzo material.

The fourth movement is an Arietta for solo flute, backed by a horn pedal of three notes, with brief answering figures on viola, ‘cello and harp.

The finale is a true Quodlibet in which short blocks of material from all the previous movements are juxtaposed mosaic-wise. There are two cadenzas: one for flute on Scherzo material, and one for harp on Trio material. The whole is held together by a horn-call which recurs like a rondo-theme, and whose origins are revealed to the sharp ear on its final appearance.

[p 18]

[Advertisement for UE composers Harrison Birtwistle and Hugh Wood]

[p 19]

Monday, 17th August

5.0 p.m. RECITAL

in the Old Kitchen

8.30 p.m. CONCERT

in the Assembly Room

[p 20/21]

Early Organ Music            Recital 5.0 p.m.

Peter Maxwell Davies will introduce and play early music on a newly restored Snitzler organ. Works by: Dunstable, Taverner, Byrd, Tomkins, Gabrielli, Scheidt, Zipoli etc.

The Organ

The organ belongs to Peter Maxwell Davies and was made by Snitzler in 1768.

Snitzler’s soundboards have little pallets directly under the keys which are operated by a pin on the underside of the key, thus giving an extremely light and responsive touch. The disadvantage of this method is that the wind channels are small, so that it is only possible to play three or four rows of pipes at once.

This organ originally possessed an ordinary stopped Diapason 8’, and open Diapason 8’ which contrasted with it, a Dulciana with tongues and beards, and a very small scale, also 8’, and small Dulciana Principle: the effect was rather soft and lacked virility. The pipes were therefore transposed to give a stopped Diapason and Principle, and the Dulcianas became the 12th and 15th. In this way the incisive Snitzler tone was immediately regained.

Chamber Concert            8.30 p.m.

Melos Ensemble

Lamar Crowson            Piano

Gervase de Peyer            Clarinet

Emmanuel Hurwitz            Violin

Neill Sanders            Horn

Terence Weil            ‘Cello

Pianoforte Trio in F sharp minor Haydn

Haydn’s Piano Trios belong rather to his piano music than to that for string ensemble. The keyboard plays a dominant part in all of them and the use of the violin, and particularly the ‘cello, is held by some authorities to be optional. The first editions describe them as “Sonatas pour le piano-forte avec accompagnement de violon et violoncello,” and the violin rarely goes above 2nd position, the ‘cello merely duplicating the bass of the piano.

This interesting work is one of a group of three composed in or before 1795 and dedicated to his English friend, Mrs. Schroeter.

There are three movements, the first of which, a sonata allegro, is notable for its wealth but as it reaches the dominant cadence it acquires a minor flavour, providing an excuse to plunge straight into A for the middle section. The procedure in reverse brings back the tonic towards the end.

The Finale is a Minuet in F-sharp minor of great beauty, with a trio consisting of the same material transplanted to the tonic major. Without going beyond the canons of Haydn’s normal minuet procedure, it provided a most satisfactory ending to the work.

[p 22]

Six Little Piano Pieces, op. 19            Schoenberg

Light, tender

Slow.

Very slow.

Quick, but light.

Somewhat quick.

Very slow.

The first five of these pieces were written on 19th February, 1911; the sixth was written in June, just four weeks after the death of Mahler, to whom it constitutes a kind of epitaph.

Around this time perhaps more than at any other period Schoenberg was preoccupied with problems of form – particularly of finding more appropriate vessels for his rapidly evolving atonality. There is no doubt that he was struck by the aphoristic manner of Webern’s op. 6, and particularly of the violin pieces op. 7, to the extent of being impelled to see what possibilities the very short form held for himself.

In addition, in these little pieces we find him for the first time calling into question the traditional relationship between melody and accompaniment, and investigating the possibility of more interesting functions for the latter. So, for example, in Nos. 1, 2 and 4 it becomes merely an extension or feature of the melody, serving to heighten its expressiveness in various ways, and No. 6, the strangest piece of all, is concerned with the almost elimination of both elements.

Seven Sketches, op. 9            Bartok

These piano pieces were composed between 1908-10, and are, in a way, a diary of Bartók’s development as a composer in these years. The first ones reflect his early preoccupation with western mannerisms – particularly impressionism; the later ones show his growing interest in the folk-idioms of his own land.

1. Portrait of a Young Girl: to wit, Marta Ziegler, its dedicatee, whom he married in 1909. A short piece in ternary form, betraying the influence of, surprisingly enough, Busoni in its harmonic style and its treatment of material.

2. A Swing. Two motifs are used in alternation: the first a rocking, polytonal figure, the second a bagpipe tune in not quite a whole tone scale.

3. is dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Z. Kodály. The lack of title emphasizes Bartòk’s abandonment of impressionism; the piece is simply a rhapsodic melody unfolded in rubato-parlando style over an accompaniment of major tenths.

4. is another rhapsodic piece. After an 11-bar introduction a Hungarian-style melody is presented in varied forms over a florid accompaniment.

5. A Rumanian Folk Melody, and 6., a dance in the Valachian manner, are still closer to popular sources, and foreshadow the Bartók of Mikrokosmos.

7. In this piece, perhaps the most interesting of all the Sketches, brief modal phrases succeed one another with striking juxtapositions of tonality; there is a gradual metamorphosis to irregular rhythms and whole-tone scales, and in the long code to note-clusters.

Première Rhapsodie for clarinet and piano            Debussy

This piece was written in 1910 as a test piece for clarinet competitions at the Conservatoire at which it was Debussy’s duty to adjudicate. It was subsequently orchestrated (the style of the accompaniment seems to indicate that this was his intention all along) and in this form is said to have been regarded by Debussy as one of the most pleasing pieces he had written.

It is freely constructed (as befits a Rhapsody) from static blocks of contrasting material in three main categories: slow and dreamy, poco mosso and scherzando, sharply juxtaposed or joined by brief linking passages.

Four Pieces for clarinet and piano, op.5             Berg

These pieces were written in the summer of 1913, and are dedicated to Schoenberg’s “Society for Private Performances,” under whose auspices they were first played more than six years later. Their epigrammatic style is an untypical of Berg as Schoenberg’s op. 19, their obvious model, is of him.

1. The clarinet’s opening six-note figure is a skilful simultaneous exposition of all the motivic elements of the piece, which in any case all spring from the single governing principle of intervallic expansion. Its form is very simple – the piano and clarinet move in opposite directions to the central climax which is held for two bard and then quickly falls away to a code of static harmonies.

2. This utilizes the same motivic elements as No. 1 in a pianissimo conflict between two kinds of ostinato accompaniment in the piano and a simple melodic line in the clarinet. The climax is expressed without rising above p, simply being the point at which the conflict resolves in favour of one of the ostinati.

3. Another very quiet piece, falling into four sharply contrasted sections, the first two quick and nervous, the third slow and flowing and the fourth an elliptical reprise and headlong code to be played as quickly and quietly as possible.

4. This piece takes farther the idea inherent in No. 3. The contrasted sections, each characterized by a different ostinato, are again present (though the speeds are the reverse of those in No. 3); likewise the sonata-like reprise before the code. Now, however, in spite of the ostinato, the piece is not static: it is aimed at the explosive climax which ends the first part of the code. The coda proper is simply three bars of echo.

INTERVAL (25 minutes)

[p 24]

Fantasia in C minor, K475            Mozart

This piece, written in 1875 for his gifted pupil Thérèse von Trattner, is one of four Fantasias for the piano composed in Mozart’s later years. It was customary for him to precede performances of his sonatas with an improvised introduction in the same key; the present Fantasia, published by Mozart as a prelude to the Sonata K457, may be taken as a fairly close indication of the nature of these improvisations.

It is made up of five contrasted open-ended sections: the first Adagio, the second a D major episode in the same tempo, the third a stormy Allegro in two halves, linked by a brief cadenza to the fourth, Andantino in B-flat; the fifth is another stormy Allegro. The whole is rounded off by a recapitulation and code on first-section material.

The organization of keys is interesting. The first, third and fifth sections are unstable and constantly modulating, any affirmations of the home (or any) key being rigorously avoided. The second and fourth are anchor sections firmly in keys two removes [sic] from home on the dominant and the subdominant sides respectively – so that the acute ear may sense an implied tonic midway between. However, not until the final section is the home key reached and established.

Trio for Piano, Violin and Horn, op.40            Brahms

This is one of a group of works composed after Brahms’ resignation in 1864 as Director of the Vienna Choral Society. It is a very much a horn trio; the horn part is as it were the backbone of the work, and the character of all the melodic material is determined by its appropriateness to that instrument.

The first movement is an Andante of unusual design, with boldly planned key relationships. There are two balancing sections, each in two contrasting parts, organised as follows: Andante in E-flat (2/4 time); poco più animato in C minor and G minor (9/8); Andante in E-flat; poco più animato in E-flat minor and B-flat minor, leading to a final Andante in G-flat which modulates back to the home key at the final climax.

The Scherzo begins with a long (12-bar) upbeat to the principal motif, whose four bars of 2/4 rhythm in 3 contrast strikingly with the overall 3/4 pulse.  The whole of the first section is built up from the material of these first 16 bars – a secondary motif given out by the horn on the next page plays little part in the growth of the movement. The Trio in the subdominant minor is less exuberant and decisive in character; the melody owes its outline to the “upbeat” motif of the previous section. After 76 bars uninterrupted by any form of full cadence the Scherzo is given de capo.

In the third movement, Adagio mesto in E-flat minor, there are four sections whose exact symmetry and the economy of whose material are belied by the flowing, almost rhapsodic manner in which the music unfolds.

The Finale is a lively movement in sonata form, through whose many modulations the horn is handled with such adroitness that accidentals seldom appear in the part.

[p 25]

Tuesday, 18th August

5.0 p.m. Lecture

in the Assembly Room

8.30 p.m. Concert

in the Assembly Room

[p 26/27]

Quartet for the End of Time            Lecture 5.0 p.m.

Olivier Messiaen, the Man and His Music

given by Hugh Wood

Concert 8.30 p.m.

Members of the Melos Ensemble

Emmanuel Hurwitz            Violin [viola]

Gervase de Peyer            Clarinet

Terence Weil            Violoncello

Lamar Crowson            Pianoforte

Clarinet Trio in E flat K498            Mozart

Andante;

Menuetto;

Rondo – Allegretto

The year 1786 was a trying one for Mozart. He was heavily in debt, his newly completed Marriage of Figaro had been withdrawn after only nine performances, and he had lost his third son. Nevertheless in the space of only six months he managed to turn out eight masterpieces, of which this Trio is one. It was written for his friends Francisca Jacquin and Anton Stadler with Mozart himself playing the viola part.

The unusual choice of instruments gives a mellow, closely-knit ensemble capable of considerable expressive power, and it was no doubt with this possibility in mind that Mozart made the first movement an andante rather than an allegro, almost – but not quite – discarding the sonata in favour of the song-form. The movement grows continuously from the motif in the first bar, and very little other material is introduced,

The second movement is a vigorous Minuet with a Trio effectively contrasting the timbres of the clarinet and viola in dialogue.

The theme of the final Rondo springs from a fragment of the “2nd subject” in the first movement. Little important music is given to the viola in the first section, in order to heighten the effect of its striking C-minor entry in the second episode. Save for a few bars of A-flat melody in the central part, its rôle is secondary until nearly the end, during a final brilliant reworking of the Rondo theme.

[p 28]

Four Impromptus, op. 142            Schubert

This is the style under which, mainly for commercial reasons. Schubert published the first of four piano sonatas written during the last 10 months of his life. And although undeniably a sonata of sorts, there is a certain looseness about its construction which suits its new name better.

For instance, in the first movement, Allegro moderato, there is an F-minor first subject and an A-major second subject, but where we might expect a development there is a longish passage of new material which moves into all sorts of interesting keys but does not grow. This innovation is taken a step further when the passage is reintroduced in the recapitulation, and at last Schubert’s scheme – a simple binary form – becomes apparent.

The second movement, Allegretto, is a Sarabande and trio going hand in hand with the first movement in key and character.

The third, Andante, is a set of variations on a tune from Rosamunde.

The finale, Allegro Scherzando, is in clearly defined ABA form, but the manner of organising the material in the outer sections gives it certain Rondo characteristics. It is perhaps the most imaginative of the movement. Cross-rhythms abound, the harmonic structure is striking, and the lead back from the central to the final section is magical.

INTERVAL (25 minutes)

Quatuor pour la fin du temps Olivier Messiaen

“And I saw another might angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was on his head, and his face was as the sun, and his feet were as pillars of fire… and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth… and standing upon the sea and upon the earth, lifted up his head to heaven; and he swore by him that liveth for ever… that time shall be no longer; but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound the trumpet, the mystery of God shall be finished…” (Apocalypse of St. Jonn, Chapter X).

Conceived and written during my captivity, the Quatuor pour la fin du temps was first performed in Stalag Villa on 15th January, 1941, by Jean le Boulaire (violin), Henri Akoka (clarinet), Etienne Pasquier (‘cello) and myself on the piano. It was directly inspired by the above quotation from the Apocalypse. Its musical language is essentially immaterial, spiritual, catholic. Modes which, melodically and harmonically, realize a kind of tonal ubiquity, being the listener nearer to eternity in space or the infinite. Special rhythms, not bound by regular metre, powerful serve to put the temporal at a distance. (All this is but mere tentative stammering if one thinks of the overwhelming grandeur of its subject).

This “Quartet” is in eight movements. Why so? Seven is the perfect number, the six days of creation sanctified by the divine Sabbath; the seven of rest extends into eternity and becomes the eight of undecaying light, of unalterable peace.

1. “Liturgy of Crystal.” Between three and four in the morning, the birds awaken: a blackbird or solo nightingale improvises, surrounded by a fine sprinkling of sound, a halo of trills lost high in the treetops. Transfer this to the religious place, and you have the harmonious silence of heaven.

2. “Vocalise, for the Angel who announces the end of Time.” The first and third parts (very short) evoke the power of this mighty angel arrayed in cloud with a rainbow upon his head, who places one foot upon the sea and the other foot upon the land. The “middle section” depicts the impalpable harmonic of heaven. Gentle cascades of orange-blue chords on the piano surround with their distant carillon quasi-plainchant recitatives on violin and ‘cello.

3. “Abyss of the birds.” Clarinet solo. The abyss is Time, with its sadness, its wearinesses. The birds are the opposite of Time; they are our desire for light, stars, rainbows and paeans of jubilation.

4. “Interlude.” A Scherzo, more extrovert in character than the previous movement, but linked with them, nevertheless, by a number of melodic “reminders.”

5. “Praise to the Eternity of Jesus.” Jesus is considered here as the Word. A long ‘cello phrase, infinitely slow, magnifies with love and reverence the eternity of this might and gently Word, “whose years shall never be exhausted.” Majestically the melody spreads out, into the tender and sovereign distance. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

6. “Dance of fury for the seven trumpets.” Rhythmically, this is the most characteristic piece of the set. The four instruments playing in unison take on the sound of gongs and trumpets (the first six trumpets of the apocalypse following by various catastrophes, the trumpet of the seventh angel announcing the consummation of the mystery of God. Use is made of added values, augmented or diminished rhythms, and non-retrogradable rhythms. Stone music, formidable granitic sound; the irresistible movement of steel, enormous blocks of purple fury, glacial drunkenness. Listen above all to the terrible fortissimo augmentation of the theme with its notes all changed in register which comes towards the end of the piece.

7. “A confusion of rainbows, for the Angel who announced the end of Time.” Certain passages for the second movement return here. The almighty Angel appears, and so, particularly, does the rainbow which he wears (the rainbow, symbol of peach, goodness, and of all vibration in light and sound). In my dreams I hear and see groups of chords and melodies, known colours and shapes; then after this transitory phase I move into the unreal and experience with ecstasy a whirling and mingling together of superhuman sounds and chords. These fiery swords, these torrents of blue-orange lava, these sudden starts: these are confusions, these are rainbows.

8. “Praise to the Immortality of Jesus.” A broad violin solo, acting as pendant  to the ‘cello solo of the 5th movement. Why this second praise? It is addressed more particularly to the second aspect of Jesus, to Jesus the Man, to the Word made flesh, returning immortal to give us His life. It is all love. Its slow climb to the heights is the ascension of man towards his God, of the child of God towards its Father, of the beatified creatures towards Paradise.

– And I say again what I said above: “all thus us but mere tentative stammering if one thinks of the overwhelming grandeur of its subject.’

(Notes translated from score by Anthony Gilbert)

[p 30]

At the age of 56, Olivier Messiaen is almost certainly the most distinguished composer working in Europe today. He was born in 1908 at Avignon, song of a Shakespearean scholar and a poetess. He entered the Paris Conservatoire when he was only 11, and there studied the organ under Marcel Dupré, theory under Maurice Emmanuel and composition under Paul Dukas. At 18 he won the first prize for counterpoint and fugue, and he went on to win first prizes for piano accompaniment, organ playing, improvisation, music history and composition. His first mature work was, like so much of his later output, for the organ: Le Banquet Céleste, written in 1928. The Eight Preludes for piano followed in 1929: it was on the recommendation of Dukas that they were published. In 1931 he was appointed organist at the Great Organ of Holy Trinity, Paris. Other works of these years include Les Offrandes oubliées, L’Ancension, the Theme and Variations for Violin and Piano, and the Nativité du Seigneur cycle for organ. In 1936 he appeared as the leader of a group of young musicians calling themselbes “La Jeune France,” the other being André Jolivet, Daniel Lesur and Yves Baudrier. In this year also he was appointed professor at the Ecole Normale and at the Schola Cantorum. Works 1936-39: Poemes pour Mi, Chants de terre et de ciel, and the Corps glorieué for organ.

Messiaen enlisted at the beginning of the war and was taken prisoner during the fall of France in 1940. It was in a German prison camp in Silesia that he wrote the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1941). This work was the harbinger of the most prolific period of his career. He was repatriated to occupied France and then wrote the Visions de l’Amen for two pianos, for Trios petites liturgies de la Présence Divine (the first work of his to become widely known after the war), the immense piano work Vignt regards sur l’Enfant Jésus, the similarly large-scale song-cycle Harawi, and then his chef d’oeuvre the Turangalila Symphony. This was written in 1946-48 and has been performed many times all over Europe and in America since its first performance in Boston in 1949. In 1953 and 1954 two performance took place in London, conducted by Walter Goehr. The work has recently been recorded.

On his return to France, Messiaen had been appointed professor of harmony at the Conservatoire, and before the end of the war a lively group of young pupils had gathered themselves round him, including the 19-year-old Pierre Boulez. The title of his appointment was changed in 1947 to that of Professor of Aesthetics, rhythmic studies and of the analysis class; a wider range of pupils now included Karheinz Stockhausen, Jean Barraque, Yannis Xenakis and Gilbert Amy. During the years 1947-53 Messiaen gave classes at various musical centres, including Budapest, Sarrebruck, Tanglewood and Darmstadt. His Quatre Etudes de rhythme for piano was begun on Darmstaft in 1949, and this work has had a great influence on composers of the Darmstadt circle. Other works of this time: Canteyodjaya for piano; the Cinq Rechants for choir; the Messe de la Pentecote for organi; Le Merle Noir for flute and piano; and the Livre d’orgue.

During the last 10 years Messiaen’s name has become well-known all over the world and his importance recognised as one of the sources of new musical thought. Latterly his works are even to be heard in England, where in particular his organ music now received regular performances. A recent group of works springs from the composer’s lifelong preoccupation with bird-song: the Réveil des oiseaux (1953) for piano and orchestra; the Oiseaux exotiques (1956) for piano, wind ensemble and percussion, and the piano work Catalogue d’oiseaux (1959). More recent still is Chronochromie (1960), an important work for large orchestra, and the Haikai for piano and clarinet solo and chamber ensemble (1962).

Hugh Wood

[p 31]

Wednesday, 19th August

5.0 p.m. Recital

in the Old Kitchen

8.30 p.m. Discussion

in the Assemble Room

[p 32/33]

Flute and Harpsichord

Recital 5.0 pm

Lucy Berthoud            Flute

Michael Thomas            Harpsichord

Suite in D Major            Rameau

Sonata in B Minor            J. S. Bach

Ordre in B Minor            Couperin

Sonata No. 6 in E Minor            J. S. Bach

Rameau and Couperin

Couperin (Le Grand), 1668-1733. His music for clavecin was called “Ordres,” another name for suite. They were published between 1713-30 with varying numbers of movements, some with 10 or 15 and the longest 23. He was a master of a musical miniature and pieces include portrait studies and nature sketches, e.g. Les Tricoteuses and Les Petits Moulins a Vent.

Rameau, 1683-1764. He was the most prominent figure of his day in French opera but won fame in all musical arts including writing for the clavecin in which he followed Couperin. Picturesque titles of his music for harpsichord include La Poule and Les Tourbillons.            G.S.S.

Flute Sonatas J.S. Bach

Bach wrote six flute sonatas, the first three have a fully written up part for the right hand of the harpsichord and can, therefore, be regarded as trio sonatas with the harpsichord playing the solo melodic part as well as the base. No. 1 in B minor has a long first movement marked andante in which the flute and the harpsichord alternate in a long melodic line and, of course, often play the two subjects against each other. Indeed both subjects are played together in the very first line. The faster semiquaver subject can really be regarded as two parts in quavers, as is so common in much of Bach’s music, which looks like a single part. It contains no harmony but tonic and dominant till the third bar. The harmony changes abruptly when a chromatic movement is introduced. This is, of course, developed in the course of the movement. The middle section of the movement is a much lighter subject in quick moving triplets. This is perhaps the longest and one of the most beautiful movements in all the Bach sonatas. The 2nd movement, a largo, is really a development form the siciliano but considerable complications and additions have arisen in the rhythm by the second bar. The 3rd movement is a short movement marked presto and starts with a canon with the harpsichord following the flute nine bars later. This time there is a chromatic climbing movement. The movement is in the form of a fughetta without cadence to the end. The last movement is a jig but of the highly developed type and note suitable for dancing in so far as the first beat of the three semiquavers instead of being an articulated down beat is actually a sustained syncopation in the very first bar. Again this contains a canon but it is at the unison pitch instead of at the 5th, the harpsichord entering in the fourth bar. Bach’s flute sonata No. 6 begins with an adagio but which is a completely expressive work and it would be difficult to say that it was closely related to any of the dance movement but bears more resemblance to a slow movement by Quantz. The 2nd movement is allegro in straight-forward binary form and in the Italian style. The 3rd movement is again a siciliano. The 4th movement is allegro again in binary form.

[p 34/35]

The Harpsichord

While engaged in restoring harpsichords, Michael Thomas became interested in two types of this instrument, which seemed to him to be particularly fine: one being the Italian and the other the French type.

After much experimenting independent of any specific model, Michael Thomas constructed this instrument in which he has sought to incorporate the best qualities of each type.

He uses the light construction and small bridge found in the Italian model, thus giving it simultaneously a deep hollow resonance and an enormous harmonic range; and by bending the wood of the curved side only as far as it will naturally and easily go, he has obtained the depth of tone of the French instrument. A clear attack on each note is achieved by the use of quills for plucking the harpsichord.

Opera Today            Discussion 8.30 p.m.

Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell Davies, Michael Tippett

Chairman: Harrison Birtwistle

Opera Today

Michael Tippett’s activities in the operatic field are already well known to all. His two works for the stage, dating from 1952 and 1961 respectively, for which in both cases he was his own librettist, are among the most striking and original contributions to opera this century.

Peter Maxwell Davies has for the past two years been working on his first opera, based on the life of John Taverner, and now nearing completion.

Alexandr Goehr began, and abandoned, his first opera some years ago. Its subject was the Women of Troy, and a fragment survives in the orchestral work Hecuba’s Lament. His activities in recent months as musical director of various stage productions at the Mermaid Theatre have resulted in his increasing absorption with music on the stage, and he has recently been commissioned to write an opera on the play Arden of Feversham.

[p 36]

[advertisement for Schott’s composers: Banks, Blomdahl, Davies, Franciax, Fricker, Gilbert, Goehr, Hamilton, Hartman, Henze, Hindemith, Huber, Nono, Orff, Rainier, Schoenberg, Schuller, Searle, Seiber, Stravinsky and Tippett.]

[p 37]

Thursday, 20th August

5.0 p.m. Recital

in the Assembly Room

8.30 p.m. Lecture

in the Assembly Room

[p 38/39]

Matinee for Erik Satie            Recital 5.0 p.m.

Susan McGaw            Piano

Four songs without words Mendlessohn

F sharp minor op. 19, no. 5

B minor op.67, no. 5

F minor op. 62, no. 3

A minor op. 38, no. 5

1st Gymnopedies Satie

3rd Gnossiemme Satie

Vieux sequins et Vielles Cuirasses Satie

Passion Sonata no. 6, A major            C. P. E. Bach

Allegro

Adagio

Allegro

Pieces friod 1st set            Satie

Airs a faire fuire Satie

Three songs without words Mendelssohn

G major op. 62, no. 1

D major op. 85, no. 4

A major op. 102, no. 5

Erik Satie: 1866-1925

The amount of discussion of a non-musical nature aroused by Satie’s eccentricities led people for many years almost to forget he was a musician; now, with the arrival of new eccentrics on the musical scene, most people have even forgotten Satie the lunatic. Even when, at the age of 54, he suddenly found himself hailed as leader of the Parisian avant-garde, it was less as a musician than as High Priest of a new aesthetic cult devised by Cocteau that he was worshipped, and rarely at any period since his death have any but a dwindling number of devotees taken the trouble to disregard the funny words and listen simply to his music.

This is a pity, because although undeniably a most interesting character in many ways, it is in the light of his contribution as a composer pure and simple that he new deserves to be considered.

Maybe he never produced a large-scale masterpiece, and maybe his influence is not as profound or as far-reaching as other influences this century; nevertheless, musically he is a true original, and the best of his work has a timeless quality that puts it in another category altogether from all the bizarrerie.

His was a fairly prolific composer, the bulk of his output being for the piano, either solo or duet, and this portion of his work contains his best and most characteristic pieces. Few of them are long; most are in groups, generally of three; and quite often, like the Gymnopédies and the Sarabandes, they are just three ways of looking at the same idea.

He had a way of anticipating points of technique in other composers by some 15 or 20 years. In his earlier piano pieces are to be found harmonic innovations used much later by Debussy and Ravel; slightly later pieces gave Stravinsky his mechanical accompaniment figures, and in later ones still, in particular the “3 Valses du Précieux Dégoûté” and the 20 “Sports et Divertissements,” his masterpiece, we find utilizes Messiaen’s techniques of incantatory repetition and the systematic juxtaposition of brief unrelated phrases.

The groups of pieces we are to hear this afternoon are among his best-known and least-known works. The Gymnopédies were published in 1887 and quickly achieved popularity; Vieux Séquins et Vielles Cuirasses (1914) belongs to a period of advanced buffoonery through which Satie went during the years following his celebrated return to the Schola Cantorum

[p 40/41]

Lecture 8.30 p.m.

Musical Characterization in Mozart Opera

with particular reference to Don Giovanni

Stephen Pruslin, Princeton University

Friday, 21st August

8.30 p.m. Concert

at Old Wardour Castle

Saturday, 22nd August

8.30 p.m. Concert

at Donhead St. Andrew Parish Church

[p 42/43]

Concert 8.30

Nocturnal

A concert in the open air* of English and Italian echo-music from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for brass and voices.

Given by: Gabrieli Ensemble and Choir conducted by Peter Maxwell Davies, Alexander Goehr.

Music by: Maschera, Isaac, A. and G. Gabrieli, Locke, etc.

* Under cover if wet

Concert 8.30 p.m.

Participants Concert

A concert given by the participants of the summer school

Conductors: John Carewe, Michael Tippett

Morgengesang C. P. E. Bach

Symphony Haydn

Sequentia Sanctia Evangeli Secundam Lucan, in illo Tempore XXII 14-20 Peter Maxwell Davies

(first performance written for the summer school)

Fantasias Gibbons

For these concerts a more comprehensive programme will be available on the day.

Nathan Pacheco, Amare Di Nuovo with Italian/English Subtitles!