Breakfast Blogging: Opinion(ated) Scribbling for No Apparent Reason
Year: 1985
Author: Lynley Dodd
Illustrator: Lynley Dodd
Hairy Maclary
felt bumptious and bustly,
bossy and bouncy
and frisky and hustly.
He wanted to run.
He wanted to race.
But the MAIN thing he wanted
was something to chase.
Greywacke Jones
was hunting a bee.
BUT ALONG CAME HAIRY MACLARY…
and chased her up high
in the sycamore tree.
In an attempt to get into the right frame of mind for Lent, I’ve been increasingly returning to my beloved medieval chant for my daily listening allowance (it helps that such material makes for great writing music too!). The Hilliard Ensemble is one of my favourite acts, and since I tend to prefer female voices, that says a lot. Their usual repertoire is impressive – just listen to their Pérotin or Lassus – but when they teamed up with jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek, the result was almost surreal. This version of Pierre de la Rue’s motet was my first encounter with the Hilliards, and one of my first tastes of early music. Twenty years on, the affair is still going strong.
At its most basic, money is a tool that enables us to meet our individual needs. As a form of potential energy that empowers us to generate change, it is neither good nor bad. Yet many people react emotionally to issues concerning finances, unconsciously condemning currency itself, the manner in which money is spent, and people who live lives of financial abundance. Individuals who are rich in gifts such as high intelligence are acknowledged for their positive traits while those who have acquired material riches or aspire to become wealthy are frequently judged harshly. However, wealth is not a trait upon which judgment can be legitimately passed. It tells us nothing about how a person lives, what they believe in, whom they care for, or the scope of their values. Like any blessing, wealth is merely an instrument of purpose that can be used both constructively and destructively.
From an early age, people learn to court wealth while simultaneously associating money with greed, selfishness, and unethical behavior. Consequently, this idea becomes entrenched in their hearts as envy. To attain a balanced and rational comprehension of money, as well as a fairer perspective of wealth, we need to recognize that outward manifestations of wealth tell us little about the individuals enjoying those blessings. When we feel the finger of jealousy prompting us to draw unflattering conclusions about people whose lives seem more financially secure than our own, we should remind ourselves that there are many elements of their circumstances we cannot see. Their wealth may be the result of long hours of taxing labor, they may donate a large percentage of their resources to charitable causes, or their bounty may be an incidental aspect of a life spent doing what they love. Ultimately, we can heal our hurtful associations with money by turning a blind eye toward both wealth and poverty when interacting with others and instead focusing on the individual before us.
If you take a moment to consider you own feelings regarding money and wealth, you may discover that you equate financial prosperity with happiness, power, security, independence, or self-indulgence. Money itself, however, is none of these things. You can begin developing a healthier view of wealth by simply accepting that while some possess great wealth and others do not, we all have the potential to create lives of beauty, substance, and wisdom using the resources we have been granted.
DailyOM
(Makes 12 skewers)
Ingredients:
80g fine cut orange marmalade
1 tbsp olive oil
200g Gressingham duck mini fillets
3-4 spring onions, sliced
Sesame seeds
Method:
1. Mix the marmalade and oil in a bowl and add the duck fillets. Leave to marinate for 30 minutes. Make sure the duck is fully coated in the marmalade, then thread onto wooden skewers with the sliced spring onions.
2. Heat a griddle to high and cook the fillets for 3 minutes each side. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.
Chopin and the study
But even Chopin’s relatively small, select audiences complained that he played too quietly, and the sort of piano he preferred, a Pleyel, was dismissed by Liszt as a ‘Pianino’. In 1837, for a recital Liszt gave at La Scala, Milan, to an audience of 3,000, he used an Érard with a range of seven octaves – the same as most modern uprights and only three notes less than a modern Steinway. Next day, Liszt wrote to Érard: ‘Let them not tell me any more that the piano is not a suitable instrument for a big hall, that the sounds are lost in it, that the nuances disappear, etc. I bring as witness the 3,000 people who filled the immense Scala theatre yesterday evening from the pit to the gods on the seventh balcony (for there are seven tiers of boxes here), all of whom heard and admired, down to the smallest details, your beautiful instrument.’
Liszt was taught by Carl Czerny, a pupil of Beethoven. But Chopin’s 24 studies, in two sets, Op. 10 and Op. 25, are not only the basis of modern piano technique but great music which is deeply rewarding to the listener.
A performance of Chopin’s Revolutionary Study like Louis Lortie’s is inconceivable on a piano of 1830, when the music was written. On the other hand, not only the transparency but the intricacy of his textures in a work like the fourth Ballade cry out for a thinner, more limpid sound and a lighter action than the modern Steinway’s. This is, perhaps, the most famous of all Chopin’s studies and its romantic nickname came from a rumour that he wrote it in anger at the Russian occupation of Warsaw. ‘Heroic’ would be an equally good title. In most piano music, the fingers of the left hand need to do less work than those of the right, but here it’s the other way around – the left hand is constantly rushing about while the right gives the orders. Liszt played some of Chopin’s second set at the Salle Érard in Paris in 1837.
The Daily Waffle 