Today Elf is playing jack-in-a-box and has chosen to open the window and let in the snow. Fly away and escape 2020 with his favourite Christmas cartoon. Many of you will know this song well. The film became a Christmas tradition.
“Walking in the Air” was written by Howard Blake for the 1982 animated film of Raymond Briggs’ 1978 children’s book The Snowman; the fleeting adventures of a young boy and a snowman who has come to life. In the second part of the story, the boy and the snowman fly to the North Pole. “Walking in the Air” is the theme for the journey. This is the original recording of the song with Peter Auty, a choirboy from St. Paul’s Cathedral. His name was omitted from the original credits. He is now a fiftyish operatic tenor.
Today finds Elf in contemplative mood so the window opens in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge University; a place inextricably associated with Christmas. For over a hundred years A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has been broadcast on the radio and more recently on television, from here to millions of people around the world.
Listen to one of my favourite composers and one of my favourite singers. Fantasia On Christmas Carols by Ralph Vaughan Williams, sung by Roderick Williams.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was a composer of great importance for English music. He was born on 12 October 1872 in a Cotswold village. At the turn of the century he was among the first to travel into the countryside to collect folk songs and carols from singers, notating them for future generations. He died on 26 August 1958; his ashes are interred in Westminster Abbey, near Purcell. In his long and very productive life music of every genre flowed in profusion.
Wiener Sängerknaben or Vienna Boys’ Choir is the world’s foremost children’s choral group. It is among the oldest of musical organizations, founded following an Imperial decree of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I on July 7, 1498; the Emperor wished boys’ voices to be added to the choir of the Imperial Chapel, or Hofkapelle. There are actually four choirs that tour the world, though Covid has put that on pause.
A frosty morning made Elf think of wintry things so he asked the boys to sing Sleigh Ride.
Over seventy years after Leroy Anderson created Sleigh Ride, the composition is still ranked as one of the 10 most popular pieces of Christmas music worldwide. Though the word “Christmas” is never mentioned in the lyrics, which Mitchell Parish wrote several years after Anderson finished the composition. Anderson ( 1908 – 1975 ) was an American composer of short, light concert pieces and his music is instantly familiar and sure to cheer us up, whether you want to dance to Belle of the Ball or write at speed to The Typewriter ( which gives me an idea for another blog! )
Elf has put up his Christmas lights and now he’s ready for a bit of culture.
Derived from the Portuguese barroco, or “oddly shaped pearl,” the term “baroque” has been widely used since the nineteenth century to describe the period in Western European art music from about 1600 to 1750, one of the richest periods in music history, including of course, Bach and Handel. Christmas and Baroque music just seem to go together and usually at this time of year, before Covid struck, choral societies would be performing The Messiah, while chamber orchestras had the perfect excuse to perform candlelit concerts in lovely ancient churches.
Arcangelo Corelli, 17 February 1653 – 8 January 1713, was an Italian violinist and composer of the Baroque Era. With a name like that, surely destined to be something great and artistic. I first heard his Christmas Concerto when Classic FM radio station burst onto the scene in the early 1990’s. Enjoy the gentle opening movement and hang around as the strings burst into the lively second movement.
Sunday Smiles in today’s window and I hope this carol brings a smile. Sally at Smorgasbord featured it last year and though I knew the carol I had not heard this version and I kept playing it again. To enjoy to the full watch on the largest screen possible. My desktop has a television for a screen – no not a huge widescreen, but just about large enough to contain the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Carol of the Bells. And everything about this is big and joyful, it’s got everything. Many of us have missed singing in choirs or listening to them so I hope you enjoy this. Let us know if you have ever seen the Mormon Tabernacle Choir live, I wish I had been there.
Today’s window opens on a much brighter note on the other side of the world, with the picture from Western Australia taken by my sister; you can read her guest blog soon.
Carol of the Birds is an original Australian Christmas carol, released in 1948 as part of an original publication called Five Australian Carols; First Set. The music was written by William Garnet James and the lyrics by John Wheeler.
Christmas always has a touch of winter melancholy, especially this year and one of my favourite carols for enjoying a touch of melancholy is Bethlehem Down, made more interesting and poignant by the story behind it
Peter Warlock was the pseudonymn of Philip Heseltine (1894–1930), his choice of Warlock reflected his interest in occult practices! Bethlehem Down was created in a mood of flippancy due to the impecunious state of Warlock and his poet friend Bruce Blunt – both notorious for their Bohemian behaviour. They hoped to earn enough money to get suitably drunk at Christmas; the carol was completed in a few days and published (words and music) in The Daily Telegraph on Christmas Eve. Their plan had worked and they had ‘an immortal carouse on the proceeds’.
But Warlock’s career as a composer, music scholar and critic was cut short; towards the end of his life he became depressed by a loss of creative inspiration and died in his London flat of coal gas poisoning in 1930, probably suicide.
The pandemic has revealed just how many people live alone; we hear and read about well known stars and artists happily living by themselves, presumably as a lifestyle choice. Plenty of ordinary people live alone, perhaps always have done as adults, or since a parent or partner died or after divorce. Many of these are happy living by themselves, self contained. Those elderly people already restricted to home before Covid hit, are not necessarily lonely. A lady in her nineties on our library round told us she was never lonely, as long as she had the twenty books we brought her every three weeks. Of course there are many people who are lonely, young people from broken homes in tiny bedsits, old people who have no family left in the world.
None of these ‘single households’ reckoned on having a pandemic and being prisoners in their homes. Single retired people leading busy independent lives suddenly found themselves described as vulnerable. The people for whom lockdowns and the lack of access to normal activities are so hard are single parents in tiny flats, carers left to cope with disabled children or parents and partners with dementia. Their support network was suddenly pulled out from beneath them.
Being alone is not the same as being lonely. In days gone by lone people might manage a farm by themselves with the nearest humans miles away; being alone really meant that, no radio, television or internet. I can’t imagine what that would be like, but perhaps the company of their dog, farm animals and nature all around was enough. It’s a cliché, but you can be just as lonely in a big city; most of us have probably found ourselves in a new town, at a new job, knowing no one.
When we first moved here sixteen years ago Cyberspouse had a few more weeks working out his notice at Heathrow. When he left for work early on Monday morning with the kitchen flooded ( that’s another story ) I suddenly realised I had gone from a home with five people and a job at Heathrow with thousands of people – I wasn’t actually working with thousands, just moving among thousands each day – to a strange house in a place I knew no one. I wondered if I only existed in relation to other people.
I had time to get used to the idea of joining that large club, widows ( what a medical scandal it is that women are still outliving men ) and the even larger club of women living alone. After the flurry of activity and family visits we are in our second lockdown in England, so now I am officially on my own. Cyberspouse was totally dependable, unflappable and fun, so being on my own was not what I would have chosen, but if others manage to cope so will I. During 2019 we had plenty of time for trips and fun and getting everything in order. In 2020 I learnt to be a carer and the only responsible adult in the house, no more yelling for help when the computer didn’t work. I am cheating slightly, having had family to help out with the official stuff and Cyberson Two, who after doing nothing at school, is now a builder we all depend on, who can turn his hand to anything. The downside is that none of the family live nearby, but it must be hard to truly be on your own.
What else helps? Covid Comforts are what we all need and anyone who has a home and food enough to eat must be grateful. We glimpse on our television screens into the homes of news commentators or our favourite entertainers; they enjoy having the chance to chat and presumably they are coping fine with lockdown. Invisible are those folk in poverty or grieving having lost family to Covid. It may seem to me that everyone is walking around alive while Cyberspouse is not, but 53,000 is our death toll from Covid in the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile in my cosy lockdown retreat I live in a nice little road with good neighbours and a garden to keep me busy. We are allowed to go to the shops for essentials and at the local shops I buy fresh flowers regularly, my lockdown treat to brighten the dark days of winter. We can go out for exercise and use our beach huts; I can sit and chat at the beach hut with the one friend we’re allowed to meet outside. We can go out for medical reasons, so I was quite excited to go on the bus to the hospital for a blood test!
Indoors the lifesaver is BBC Radio, it never goes off; if I can’t sleep I can listen to the World Service. During the day there is news aplenty ( too much ), but also intelligent chat, dramas, serials and music. I have a CD player so I am never without music on tap. Television may have plenty of rubbish, but also interesting or cheerful programmes to watch with dinner on my lap. Writing is absorbing, creative and vital. Photography and crafts are other creatives to focus on.
Connecting with the outside world? The good old fashioned telephone is the easiest way to chat to people, but how many of us would want to do without the internet during Covid? We can blog, Facetime, share political and lockdown jokes on Facebook, go on zoom; my only experience with zoom is the weekly quiz my daughters’ friends do, but it’s good to have something fun to focus on.
What will happen next in the world, in our own countries; will Christmas be cancelled, will those of us in the northern hemisphere cope with winter… look out for Home Alone Two.
Doris danced round the kitchen, her mood lifted. What was this music, that composer who died young, they played it at that concert they went to… Thank goodness for the radio to ease the monotony of kitchen chores. She was having a big tidy up, making space. It was just as well her son and his family were not coming straight to her after flying in from the USA. Their delayed annual holiday was starting with a further two week delay in quarantine at an air bed or b&b; for the best really, she had managed to avoid getting English Covid, she didn’t want to get American Covid. Cassie next door would help her order a big shop next week, though goodness knows what the children’s likes and dislikes would be this year. The top cupboards would have to stay untouched, Doris had not used her stepping stool since lockdown, the last thing she wanted was a fall and end up in hospital on a ventilator. She just needed everything to look orderly so her son would see she was still coping fine.
Doris was startled out of her conducting with the wooden spoon by the phone ringing.
‘Hello.’
‘Good morning, my name’s Natasha and I am calling from…’
‘Hold on a moment, I’ll just turn the radio off, I can’t hear you.’
‘Noo… Wait, what’s that music, I love it, I’ve heard it before, but I can never find out what it is… ’
‘Lovely isn’t it, I know the composer…’
‘Who is it?’
‘…but his name won’t come to mind.’
‘Do you know what the piece is called?’
‘Some rhapsody I think, don’t go away, let’s hope they tell us what it was before the news comes on.’
Doris held the phone near the radio and strummed the counter top with her other hand, it was that time they went with Mary and her husband, narrow seats, no leg room for the men, concerts like that were off the agenda now with social distancing.
‘Oh that was lovely, thank you so much, I’ve tapped it into my phone, I’ll download it later.’
Just as well Natasha caught the presenter’s voice, Doris had been so wrapped up in the gorgeous music she hadn’t heard what he said.
‘You are very welcome Natasha, one of my favourites. I don’t do downloading, I still have CDs. By the way, why were you calling?’
‘Oh er um I understand you were involved in an accident recently and may be eligible for compensation.’
‘No, no I’m fine, I have been very careful, apart from that time with the secateurs, where are you calling from, council covid welfare ?’
‘So you have not been involved in a motor vehicle accident lately?’
‘No dear, I haven’t driven for years and Cassie next door doesn’t have a car. I usually get the bus, but we’re not supposed to use those now. Cassie orders on line for me, I’ll have to get a lot more next week. My son and his family are over from the USA, I think we’ll have a good old English roast and I’ll make him his favourite chocolate cake, even if his wife is on one of her diets and I never know what her children are going to eat… ’
‘Mother’s decided she would like to go out for her birthday.’ ‘We could take her to a film matinee at the Regent Centre’ suggested Roger. ‘No, she wants to go to a concert.’ ‘Even better, free lunchtime organ concert at The Pavilion, sorted.’ ‘I don’t think that’s what she had in mind; she was talking about the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, wants to look at the book when she comes round.’ ‘When did she say she was coming?’ ‘You’re picking her up now.’
Twenty minutes later Roger helped his mother-in-law out of the car and escorted her to the back door via a conducted tour of the garden. ‘I see you haven’t got that gutter fixed yet’ she exclaimed triumphantly. With gritted teeth he ushered her into the kitchen, the kettle was already boiling.
Leaflets were laid out on the coffee table as they sipped their tea.
‘How about Melodies From The Musicals,’ said Roger ‘or a piano recital on Sunday?’
‘Too dull; next Wednesday night at The Lighthouse sounds good’ she passed the brochure to her daughter.
‘Shostakovich, an hour and a quarter, are you sure?’
‘Yes, is that the symphony with the big orchestra and lots of drums? Good, let’s go to that, it may well be my last birthday.’
‘It may be rather loud’ said Roger hopefully.
‘Not for someone hard of hearing’ she retorted.
‘Roger, why don’t you go on the internet and see if they have any seats left? Make sure they’re on the end of the row in case Mother has one of her funny turns.’
He stomped upstairs while the two women perused the brochure.
‘Oh look Mum, the second half is a new commission, can’t pronounce the composer. Making full use of the percussion section, this exciting new composer takes Shostakovich as his inspiration. The fifty five minute work is a profound comment on post soviet, Twenty First Century Russia… sounds a bit heavy.’
‘You’re never too old to try something new’ her mother chuckled.
On Wednesday night Roger queued up for a programme as he waited for his wife and mother-in-law to come out of the ladies.
‘Thought you were never coming out.’
‘Long queue, everyone making sure they went before it started, it is a long piece.’
The old lady was pleased with her seat in the front row and settled back to watch the orchestra manoeuvre onto the stage. The symphony lived up to her expectations, the percussionists put their heart and soul into the performance. She tapped her feet and strummed her fingers on the arms of the seat. The vibrations shook every ache and pain out of her body, she hadn’t felt so alive for years.
As the applause died down she turned excitedly to her daughter and son-in-law.
‘You didn’t fall asleep in that Roger. Do you remember the last time we came here, the poor bloke only pinged his triangle twice; tonight he was in his element.’
‘Do you want to pop to the ladies Mother?’
She shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t mind an ice cream.’
‘We’ll try not to be too long.’
The old lady nodded and watched everyone get up to stretch their legs; she was soon sitting alone staring at the empty stage, wondering how steep the steps were. She stood up; within moments she was perched on the seat behind the timpani; how different everything looked from up here. She admired the array of instruments, drums, xylophones, glockenspiels and chimes; just as fascinating were the selection of implements to strike them. She picked up a stick and hesitantly tapped the drum, then struck it firmly.
A young man in tails strode onto the stage then stopped. An old lady smiled disarmingly at him. ‘You don’t mind do you dear, it is my birthday.’ He looked round nervously, then demonstrated each instrument and let her try.
Backstage the conductor was glad to hear the percussion section practising for the difficult new piece.
As Roger returned with three tubs of New Forest ice cream he was surprised to see his mother-in-law being escorted back to her seat by a member of the orchestra. Settling down, he read the programme with dismay.
‘Oh dear, I don’t think we’re going to enjoy the next piece, we could leave…’
‘Certainly not, I wouldn’t miss it for the world’ the old lady replied.
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 