pumpkinstrokemarrow

Before the Bartok, it was explained that for quartets themselves, the three pillars of the genre were Haydn, Beethoven and Bartok. Something that they felt audiences were not quite OK with, finding Bartok a bit strange and difficult. Notwithstanding, we rather liked the Bartok they played. Even the BH, even less of a modern music fan than I am. From which I learn that, presumably, Mozart was not big into string quartets, although he certainly wrote some. Ditto Schubert. Both of whom being pillars of my home consumption.

Then before what was the Surrey premiere of Holloway's Op. 103 No. 5, it was explained that they had done the world premiere of the whole of Op. 103, in Cambridge. Probably in the West Road concert hall. It seems that each part was intended as a portrait of somebody the composer knew or had known and that some of these people were sitting in the audience on the occasion of the premiere. So, in the quieter moments, the Endellions amused themselves by trying to spot the subject of the piece they were playing in the audience. Rather to our surprise we rather liked the piece that we got. There clearly is something to be said for the sandwich course approach to programming; it broadens the horizons a bit without pushing one too far out of one's comfort zone.

Back home took a peek at the Holloway web site at http://www.robinholloway.info/. The chap is clearly very prolific and takes some trouble to make sure that we can know about it. Couldn't take full advantage as our Internet capable PC is not also capable of sound.

Woke up today to a dream about an important person, something I do not recall having done before. The important person being President Obama. It seems that he had been found guilty of some frightful crime, presumably of the political or white-collar variety, and was fighting hard to stay out of jail. The image in the dream was of the president leaving the White House, coming down some steps, preceeded by two short and very burly FBI agents, clearly very used to minding delinquent celebrities. Very big jaws and jowls. Agents I had seen before somewhere. Sundry other minders about. Everybody smoking. Obama holding a half done cigarette with a big dog, the burlies with half done cigars in their mouths. The product, I suppose, of the piece in yesterday's DT about how Obama is struggling to live up to expectations.

In between times I am working on a word puzzle. The puzzle being to find words which can be used in a repetitive way while making sense. The model being the famously obnoxious 'major major major' from 'Catch-22'. So one might have 'sergeant sergeant' and I think the Welsh might have 'evan evan'. I am sure I have come across some good ones in the recent past but I cannot come up with much today. So we have 'had had' which I use quite a bit and it makes good sense to me. Stretching a bit, one might talk about a very red red. And then I thought that there might be a country proverb about it being a bad idea to cross cross cows. Must do better. I am sure that they are out there. Perhaps looking at words with more than one meaning is the way forward.