Nimble Tread

A Toast to Masonry Anchors

It's Shelf Day today, which may seem like no big deal to you, but when you've been waiting as long as I have for a particular octet of brackets, the day becomes one to rival Christmas.  If all goes well in the Do-it-Myself department, the sun will go down on a pair of five-foot-long, wall-mounted, American oak beauties.  If not, I suspect Shelf Day will very handily segue into Pub Night.
For those of you with less involved matters on the docket, Olivier Latry will be giving an organ masterclass at the St. Marylebone Parish Church today.  Sounds like an off-colour euphemism, if you ask me, but I'll bet it gets him lots of chicks.

Off Topic

This strays beyond Nimble Tread's territorial waters, but I got a kick out of Joan Acocella's recent New Yorker article, A Better Place, and thought I'd reiterate her last point, which concerns revisionist history.  The piece focused on the experience of Muslims in Iberia, particularly as seen through the lens of David Levering Lewis' book God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215, which regales readers with myriad ways in which early Muslim society had the edge on contemporary Christian communities.  Lewis argues that Islam paved the way for advanced social systems in Europe by introducing, amongst other things, translated Greek philosophical treaties, elaborations in architectural practices, and a slew of botanical novelties, including dates, saffron, almonds, limes, and apricots.  It makes for interesting reading, but as with much of the modern historical cannon, it's at once apologetic and confrontational in tone, which is hardly going to escape Acocella, who, true to form, is sharp as a tack.  Her final paragraph reads as follows:

I can foresee a time when another matter important to us, the threat of ecological catastrophe, will prompt a historian to write a book in praise of the early Europeans whom Lewis finds so inferior to the Muslims.  The Franks lived in uncleared forests, while the Muslims built fine cities, with palaces and aqueducts?  All the better for the earth.  The Franks were fond of incest?  Endogamy keeps societies small, prevents the growth of rapacious nation-states.  The same goes for the Franks' largely barter economy.  Trade such as the Muslims practiced -- far-flung and transacted with money -- leads to consolidation.  That's how we got global corporations. 
Each new problem in our history engenders a revision of past history.  Many of today's historians acknowledge this, and argue that their books, if politicized, are simply more honest about this than the politicized books of the past.  This pessimism about the possibility of finding a stable truth may be realistic, but it seems to sanction, even encourage, special pleading -- of which God's Crucible, for all its virtues, is an example. 

This is good stuff, and as revisionism is hardly limited to social history, we'd do well to consider its faults and merits before applying it to our pet subjects -- early music for instance. 

If Acocella's take on Lewis's book wasn't enough to capture your particular fancy, her piece also served up a nice amuse-gueule of Frankish sobriquets, the highlights of which centre around Charles I, aka Charles the Great, aka Charlemagne.  Not only did he have a grandfather named Charles the Hammer (Martel), but was lucky enough to be raised by two loving, and amusingly named, parents Pippin the Short and, my favourite of all, Bertha of the Big Foot.  And let's not forget al-Walid the Inadequate, who reigned as an Umayyad caliph for a year, and lived life with distinct flair, a trait that seems to have proven problematic, for , as Wikipedia tells us, "his reputed drinking, singing and immorality aroused considerable opposition" amongst the masses and led to an assassination plot.  Sounds like an eight-century version of David Lee Roth.  What a shame we've given up on juicy semi-official monikers.  Oh the fun we'd have...

Make up Your Mind

It turns out David Garrett damaged his Guadagnini, not his Strad, in his fall, and I get the impression that his PR team has been working overtime this week.  As with his playing, I find myself completely losing interest with this story -- liberally sprinkled with fairy dust as it is -- and it won't be mentioned here again.  What will be mentioned, however, is the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's Night Shift concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall tomorrow night.  It'll be one of those rare opportunities to booze it up while listening to Mozart and Beethoven in an audience hard-wired to iPods rather than hearing aids.  The QEH people are really letting their hair down on this one, installing a DJ in the all-concrete foyer, starting the whole business at 10pm, and letting people come and go as they please during the concert.  I went to one of these Night Shift things last year, and while it wasn't not entirely my scene, I'll readily admit that it was surprisingly fun.  You can find out more about it here.

Fact Checkers?

Whaaaa?  The Indy article about Garrett didn't mention that he went ass-over-teakettle way back in December.  The undramatic people at the Beeb, however, adopted a more matter-of-fact idiom in their telling of the tale.  They even include an injury report -- and a diagram.  Makes for nice Valentine's Day reading.

Sweet Nothings

Tough Week for Violins

It seems as though Ryanair has taken a keen interest in alienating the few passengers still willing to suffer the indignity of flying with them.  The airline has not only refused wheelchairs to disabled people, reneged on travel prizes, and been voted the World's Most Disliked Airline by Trip Advisor readers, but they've now been trying to charge violinists for an extra seat to accommodate their fiddles.  Needless to say, this hasn't been going over well.  Violin cases tend to be larger than the maximum dimensions for carry-on baggage, but only by a bit, and there's typically no trouble getting them into the overhead compartments.  One violinist was nearly forced to pay 300 euros for a last-minute one-way ticket for his violin.  A bitter pill to swallow when his own ticket only cost a hundred.  It's a bad scene, but not nearly as bad as the one David Garrett faced at the Barbican last night, when he tripped, fell down a flight of stairs, and landed on his violin case, crushing the instrument inside, which just so happened to be the San Lorenzo Stradivarius.  The Independent has a piece on it today, and the scene it describes is like something out of a violin snuff film.   J&A Beare have come to the rescue with another Strad (and a team of goons to guard it), but I don't envy Mr. Garrett his situation.  One bad step, and now he's got himself some expensive toothpicks.  The violin can be repaired, though how well and how quickly remains to be seen. 
If you'd like to read about the San Lorenzo's previous owners, or those of other rare instruments, you can do so courtesy of Jose Sanchez Penzo and his singularly titled database, The Way Famous Instruments Went.  Incidentally, Garrett will be at the Barbican tonight, playing the Bruch concerto and taking the smallest steps he can manage.

Candles

A belated happy birthday to A.A. Milne, who penned one of the English language's most addictive poems over 70 years ago.  And I quote:

Disobedience

James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he;
"You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me."

James James
Morrison's Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison's Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea."

King John
Put up a notice,
"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN -
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!"
      James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he:
"You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me."

James James
Morrison's mother
Hasn't been heard of since.
King John said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?"

(Now then, very softly)
J.J.
M.M.
W.G.Du P.
Took great
C/0 his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J.J. said to his M*****
"M*****," he said, said he:
"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don't-go-down-with-ME!"

Birthday Boys

Two great violinists would be celebrating birthdays this week if they hadn't shuffled off this mortal coil: Jascha Heifetz and Fritz Kreisler, the Master and the Mensch, who were born on February 4th and February 2nd respectively.  Thanks to Washington (February 22nd) and Lincoln (February 12th), Americans have Presidents' Week later this month, and it's along similar lines that I propose this week be known as Violinist's Week.  Let's steal some attention back from that pesky little groundhog.  I was originally thinking of calling it Fiddler's Week, but it occurred to me that some people might get the wrong idea and wear the wrong sort of costume to the party, if you get my drift.

Legerdemain

Nimble Tread favourites Rachel Podger and Gary Cooper were on hand at the Wigmore last night to show us what playing chamber music is all about.  They worked through a selection of Mozart sonatas that nearly spanned the composer's lifetime, and delivered the pieces in as chummy a manner as you're likely to see on the aerie of a professional stage.  Their playing was brilliant, but the pair also let their mischievous sides shine through, Cooper with his phrasing and accompaniment; Podger with her bowing and amateur pantomime.  There was even a bit of improvisation involved, most notably Podger's jolly semi-col legno staccato in KV 404's allegretto, which the duo played as an encore.  KV 30 served up some yucks too thanks to Cooper's introduction, in which he mentioned that the young Mozart, knee-high to a toadstool when he composed the piece, had just discovered hand crossing, and clearly relished employing the technique non-stop in this early composition.  The story made for decent enough listening, but the real fun was hearing everyone laugh each time Cooper reached to port with his right hand.  Rhetorically speaking, my friends, that's called metonymy, and Cooper, whether he knows it or not, is its master.