Friday, 4 May 2012
hello?
Saturday, 3 July 2010
vignettes from the great clear out (6)
several people have helped us today SO much, I can't quite believe what they accomplished between them! Praise the Lord for Christian friends who willingly gave up their time and energy on this very hot day.
Two gardens readied for our departure (from pretty parlous states), cupboards emptied and cleaned, things taken to charity shops, shipping cartons constructed and a lawnmower cord severed by exciteable mowing!
Also came across a little note from when I was reading The Shack. On p.90 we come across God (Father) listening to funk. Which reminded me of The Mighty Boosh - a couple of stellar episodes about jazz, exploring our ignorant prejudices about it as well as mocking its producers and enthusiasts.
Wasn't quite so convinced by some of the theological speculations in The Shack, it has to be said. For example, Young suggests that "fathering" was most lacking when creation was broken and that's why God appears as "Father" (p.94). But don't the eternal relationships within the Trinity shed some light the other way - towards our meagre understanding of what father-son means? Of course, I mused, that formulation seems to leave "woman" out of the picture, which is not good. James Jordan's provocative thoughts on hair and glory may give us some pointers here... [PART 1] and [PART 2] of his "liturgical man / liturgical woman" essay, another collection of not-wholly-convincing speculations slightly more to my taste!
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
UCCF is not dull
A very amusing tribute to theologian Wayne Grudem, in the style of Grease...
http://thebluefish.org/2008/02/my-karaoke-heroes-aka-south-west-relay.html
Some delightful book plugs inspired by various TV memes and bods buzzing around in 2008...
vignettes from the great clear out (5)
Versions 1 and 2 of a Film/TV Music quiz.
The earlier one is on faded old manuscript paper in my childish hand, and was performed by me and Ad on piano and euphonium at the Widcombe Baptist Church New Year's Eve party and talent show in 1992 (or maybe 1993). One of our finest collaborations. Completing Halo on the X-Box a couple of years ago is not far behind, especially given my incompetence at such games.
The later version was longer (32 themes!) and for piano solo, and was put on while people had some drinks and nibbles at our friends' wedding in December 2006 (or thereabouts). One team got 100%, which was impressive - and scary, because some of the themes were obscure and, I thought, only in my head... It is written in my slightly maturer hand without the use of musical notation, in the back of the old account book.
Ahh, nostalgia, followed by disposal. Definitely the way to go...
last concert with Jane
...and the penultimate one in Cambridge for quite some time, if all goes according to plan with our shift eastwards. I was under the influence of man-flu, ibuprofen and paracetemol so my emotions were suppressed in the service of finger art, but it was still exhilarating and moving (for the performers, at least, though the audience seemed quite happy, too!) It was nice to end with Brahms 3, which has long been a goal, and very gracious of Jane to indulge me by learning my Fantasy in G minor, which has been performed once before, in Cricklade College, Andover, by another great violinist, Daphne Moody - also a pupil of Grinke in the 70s... small world! There were quite a few kids in the audience last Wednesday at the URC, and they all said they liked my piece the best - so take that, Mozart & Brahms.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sonata No.18 in F major
Andante cantabile
Allegro
Andante con variazione
Written in 1788, this was Mozart’s final violin sonata, though by no means his most dramatic. There is an almost serene gentleness to the outer movements, with touches of cheeky humour, and only the central Allegro (in sonata form) betrays any agitation. As was customary for the classical period, the piano takes centre stage and most of the good melodies.
Johannes Brahms
Sonata No.3 in D minor, Op.108
Allegro
Adagio
Un poco presto e con sentimento
Presto agitato
Brahms’ last violin sonata is a much darker, brooding work. Mystery, and a sense of circling round something unpleasant characterises the opening movement. There is tremendous stasis in the harmony—the whole development section is worked out over a dominant pedal, like an insistent drum beat, a menace that is only finally put to rest in the coda over a tonic pedal. The slow movement brings much needed warmth before an ambiguous scherzo and brutal finale.
In this last movements the composer completely upsets the pulse and the expected rhythms, pushing his idiom and his interpreters to their limits.
yours truly
Fantasy in G minor (1998)
This Fantasy is a teenage pastiche of all that I loved about romantic virtuoso music. Taking in Verdi’s Requiem, Grieg’s Piano Concerto and Peer Gynt Suite, James Bond and a Rachmaninov prelude (plus a few others) I weave together three themes—one martial, two reflective—in various minor keys, before the triumphant conclusion in the tonic major. There are a lot of notes—I apologise for that… what can I say? I was young and foolish.
Monday, 7 June 2010
vignettes from the great clear out (4)
My old account book from Downing days. Fiscal rectitude was drummed into me by the folks, and I kept (almost) comprehensive accounts up to the Christmas of my second undergraduate year. Weekly expenditure seems to have fluctuated somewhat: £231 in w/b 18th March 1999 down to £6.76 for October 18th-24th 1999 (though mostly around £70 p/w). Wonderful to see how I was sustained by gifts from Grandma and Auntie Celia, complaint to the railways that netted me various vouchers, and the odd psychology experiment.
I was quite pleased with owning several credit cards and being generally a liberal sort of chap, so there are numerous receipts from the Eraina Taverna and the Ghandi for hundreds of pounds, which I used to pay on behalf of whatever party I was with, and then recoup. If I'd have been smart I'd have charged a fee for that service of course!!
A Star Wars game in an envelope. I designed and made some sort of board game (back in 1996?) based on those rather fun novels by Timothy Zahn that are set in the years after Return of the Jedi. Some of the biro artwork is quite neat, though I say so myself, but I think it's value as a game is probably rather limited!
the heart of Romans 10
Last week at Hope, we heard a great sermon, passionately and warmly delivered, from Robin Whaley, who works for Eden Baptist. The text was Romans 10:5-15, part of our long series on Romans that should come to an end in August. RW took a 'trad' line on imputation of Christ's righteousness, which is perhaps a slight puzzle (search for "imputation" on David Field's old blog to see just a small amount of the theological musings it has generated...) and not actually in Romans 10 itself, so that didn't really distract from what was an excellent exhortation.
The question is, who can be saved? Relevant for believers and nonbelievers...
The simple answer is, you need to be "righteous", in a right standing with God
Two ways to get righteous - one that doesn't work (trying to clean yourself up and keep the law 100%) and one that does (verses 6-8). This is righteousness by faith, that is given by God.
This was always God's plan A, saving faith in Jesus. We don't, can't and never could do God a favour! (tragic illustrations of the Hindu holy man rolling across India, and Robin's own pre-Christian misconception of what would improve him) Instead, He draws near to us.
God does use people in His world, however, not least in sharing this good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. The call to "preach" - see verses 14-15 - is not for a select few extroverts, but for all of us. Let's get passionate about it (alongside our other worthy passions).
This message is huge in importance (the Torah pointed to it; it is the centre of history), in scale (v.12 tells of a vast new community) and in power (able to bring sinners to God).
Meditate on it and get excited!
Thursday, 3 June 2010
vignettes from the great clear out (3)
Very neatly organised in swanky plastic wallets, the old notes from a Pilgrim Homes conference on elderly people in the church, whih a team from Rock went to a few years back. Brought back memories of a care home close to my heart, Bridgemead, in Bath, set up by Christians about 20 years ago - one was our family GP, another was a local businessman and chess player who was a good friend to me when I was in my teens. I used to go in and play the piano for Sunday afternoon church services, taking a stroll down leafy Cleveland Walk from our bungalow near Sydney Gardens. Now that my Mum works for another care home in Bath (doing a heroic job in a place where her employer simply does not put in the resources necessary) I have yet more reason to consider Bridgemead the only really decent place I have come across for elderly people who are not able to live on their own. Sounds like Pilgrim Homes have a tremendous reputation, too, though, so let's hope that more such places are opened.
An old L'Abri cassette catalogue - listing all sorts of interesting letures I shall not have time for! The ones of various bits of classical music looked partiularly interesting. Nevertheless, it went the way of all flesh... I am surprisingly cheerful about offloading all these old (and some new) bits and pieces, so praise the Lord for that. Hopefully a good sign that my treasure is in heaven.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
profitable insomia
http://www.calvin.edu/worship/stories/ethnodoxology.php
I particularly enjoyed what various peoples had to say about the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah: like a jet engine, "crying music" or “not steady.” This last group "wondered how a song with so many high and low pitches and loud and soft volumes could be considered fine art". Ouch.
Also managed to rip 18 more albums to the back-up drive. Don't want to take all 600 CDs to the othe side of the world when they can sit in the attic and something the size of a large filofax can do the business.
Which is not to say that doing without most of my sleep tonight will be pain free in the hours to come. Perhaps the possible collapse of the old laptop has been preying on my mind rather too much. There are a LOT of files on there (not backed up since about Christmas, alas) I would be very sad to lose! And almost all of our projects for the next 6 weeks will be up the creek... Back to praying not preying.
Saturday, 29 May 2010
vignettes from the great clear out (2)
Came across some compositions by me. A work claiming to be the solo piano arrangement of the finale of a concerto in A major (entered into a "perform your own composition" class at the Mid-Somerset Festival in 1996?), which never actually existed in any other form except for several drafts of the first 20 bars of so full score. There are a great many drafts of the most recent classical piece I tried to compose - sometimes for clarinet, sometimes viola, sometimes euphonium, and with various attempts at writing out the piano part. A sad end to what could have become quite a nice pastiche work if on;y I'd had the time!
Also came across equivalent material from the 60s in the form of Gordon F's sketchbooks. More completed compositions than I managed - lots of short works for intermediate piano, and the drafts for his excellent Prelude & Fugue, which I've performed a few times.
Plus the copies of pieces I was asked to record for my sister to sing a few years back when she was well enough to be going to the Welsh College of Music and Drama for woodwind and voice on Saturdays. And a lovely handwritten note (her writing is a perfect feminine version of Ad's!)
...
If I didn't have man flu and thus no strength to spare I'd be bawling me eyes out at all these dusty home-made pieces of culture and history.
vignettes from the great clear-out (1)
Nostalgia at every turn, as our house has spilled its guts all over the floors.
Sunday, 16 May 2010
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Kirk on resurrection in Christianity Today
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
maybe Orthodoxy is everything... ;-)
Friday, 12 March 2010
Geography is everything
...as a teacher at my school used to say, and as my brother, who now teaches it at a posh and overachieving school (even more than the one we went to!) is fond of reminding me.
Well, here's a fascinating Christian geographer's blog. It's not all maps and colouring in, you know.
So interesting that I'm putting it in the sidebar too, if I can remember how to do that...
no Psalm 8 without Hebrews
Jesus Christ is the one who makes most sense of that Psalm and indeed of everything.
And while we're on the subject of nostalgia, Hebrews and Psalm 8 were right there at the start of this blog (eke and mild and Hebrews 13). Glad to know I haven't moved on from what is important, but, rather, I ought to have moved further into it. Like the fractals, I hope to be going round and round, not in circles of emptiness, but in spirals of ever-increasing richness. That's what growing up is about, and thus what growing up into Christ all the more so. And, of course, it can't be done without Christian brothers and sisters, so praise the Lord for the church, too.
nostalgia and productive chat
We had Tim Keller from Redeemer Presbyterian in Cambridge last week to speak at Great St Mary's the Corn Exchange for "Passion for Life". Saturday (which I didn't hear) was the Reason for God; Sunday (which I did) was Counterfeit Gods. Each evening was loosely based on key ideas from his two best-selling books. By all accounts the Sunday one was better - I certainly found it stimulating, and it contributed greatly to the conversation started between Dave and Dave months ago, which I joined in the Panton Arms shortly before we wandered up to hear Keller.
What a great chat that was - stimulating and intimate, the history of philosophy, the perspective of faith, music, searching, questioning, formulating, reformulating, just what our brains were made for. Looking forward to continuing. Probably have to read some Schopenhauer, now...
It really took me back to the panelled rooms of Downing College at the end ofthe last century, staying up all night with green tea and my agnostic best friend and best man, whiling away the hours on everything - not to mention back to the studying itself, a historical whip-round political thought and ethics from Plato to Nietzsche (in amongst more prosaic [and poetic for that matter] stuff on medieval social history or Renaissance literature).
And that got me thinking about another friend who stayed up all night patiently trying to explain chemistry to me (in those days I was still under the impression that A-level chemistry was "true" and was pleased with myself for having done some science as well as all the arty-farty business), while writing beautiful fractals on the computer. We managed to discuss Reformed theology and the Christian life quite a bit, too, and it was great to see him again at my 30th in the summer after a gap of many years.
Praise the Lord for such wonderful experiences, and for keeping me following him since then. What a wonderful world, what wonderful creatures, what a wonderful Creator.
O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.
From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [c]
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Economist and the earthly city
“The [Reagan] White House was as mysterious as a ghost ship; you heard the creak of the rigging and the groan of the timbers and sometimes even glimpsed the crew on deck. But which of the crew had the helm? …It was impossible to know…
If someone evidently had the helm, General Haig saluted. If not, rather than let drift and uncertainty give any comfort to America’s enemies, he had acquired the habit of seizing the wheel himself.”
Grand sentiments, steely nerves, national business – all in a day’s work for the rich and powerful, I suppose. Even the little people like me can get dewy-eyed about this sort of stirring stuff, actual or fictional (as happened when I re-watched the ludicrous yet strangely charming cornfest that is Independence Day over lunch on Tuesday). But let’s be aware of the mythic and ideological guises of the state, the nation, human hierarchies, construals of enemies, and so forth. Let’s remember what really lasts, where the city with foundations comes from, who it comes from, and what really counts...
Friday, 26 February 2010
the mini-series has concluded
Ludvig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Violin Sonata No.3 in E flat, Op.12, No.3
I Allegro con spirito
II Adagio con molt’ espresione
III Rondo (Allegro molto)
Beethoven’s first three violin sonatas were dedicated to his teacher, Salieri (an Italian composer who didn’t poison Mozart). They display clear adherence to classical forms and were designated sonatas ‘for piano and violin’, with the emphasis definitely on the piano. In these early works Beethoven was writing music for the concert platform and music to pay the bills, not music driven by a need to express deep inner passions. There is a certain foursquare-ness to the design of this sonata. Nevertheless, more than its fellows in Op.12, this third work looks forwards. The opening Allegro sticks to the letter of classical sonata form, but is busting with dark, wayward harmonies and crams in far more notes than one might expect from such a stately opening. The Adagio’s extended coda gives space for plenty of jolts and surprises, characteristic of the composer’s maturity. In the final Rondo Beethoven employs his skills in counterpoint to good effect, along with a gift for folksy melody that one normally associates with Dvořák or Grieg.
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Violin Sonata No.3 in C minor, Op.45
I Allegro molto e appassionato – Presto
II Allegretto espressivo alla Romanza – Allegro molto – Tempo I
III Allegro animato – Prestissimo
Twenty years separate Grieg’s second and third violin sonatas. The earlier work was carefree, experimental in form and infused with Scandinavian folk music. This sonata – and particularly the first movement – is angry, extremely simple in structure and more sparing in its melodic inspiration. The opening theme rushes around before collapsing into the more lilting second subject. The development offers mystical cascades and a violent bass, ending up in a flurry of gruff diminished chords that fade away into a quiet false recapitulation. The real recap is impossible to miss! And see if you can spot Grieg’s jazz moment just before the coda. Norway seems to exercise more influence over the sweeter second movement, a simple ABA of melodies that do the hard work and various patterns of accompaniment that don’t. In the C minor third movement, a binary AB/A’B’, we are subjected to constant buzzing and foot-stomping (A) alternating with pure romantic indulgence (B). The insistent coda may be in C major, but was Grieg protesting too much in this, his final chamber work?