Partridge in a Pear Tree

Tags

acrylic paints, Christmas, partridge in a pear tree, traditional songs, Twelve Days of Christmas

Christmassy Painting by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Pre-Raphaelites

Tags

Ashmolean, Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, King Arthur, Millais, Oxford, Pre-Raphaelites, Ruskin

From the closing exhibition at The Ashmolean, Oxford

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Chim-chiminee x 2 Chimchimcheroo

Tags

chimney, Gloucestershire, Mary Poppins, Nailsworth, roofscape

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Deep Purple

Tags

Deep Purple, lilacs, Spring, Vera Lynn

We’ll gather Lilacs in the Spring again….

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Organ Pipes

Tags

Buckland St Mary church, church organ, organ pipes

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Build Me Up, Buttercup!

Tags

Buttercup, Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, Klimt, Lechlade, Oxfordshire border, Thames path, water meadow

Today’s pick-me-up perambulation

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Luthier

Tags

Aeolian harp, Alpenglow, dendrology, gibbous moon, Il Bosco Che Suona, luthier, Magnificent Sorella, master craftsman, Mother nature, musical instrument maker, Pale di San Martino, terroir, topography, Val di Fiemme, violin

Val di Fiemme Photo from Wikipedia

btristan Predazzo (TN) 5 Sept, 2009.

L’abete di risnanza gives you wood

from the Val di Fiemme, the Magnifica Sorella.

In that forest of harmony is Spruce,

cradled by Pale di San Martino;

warmed in turn by Alpenglow and then chilled.

Prolonged, reduced solar activity

narrows its rings; matches them to your wrinkles.

Your belly has developed fine grain lines;

your voice has a sylvan modulation.

You haunt Il Bosco Che Suona,

a seasoned genius, skilled in selection.

Work is a divertimento for you.

The gibbous moon is your precise signal

to select the slow-maturing timber

to be quarter-sawn; air-dried in your shop.

The vibrating air, combined with your breath,

creates singing sap, needles, resin,

responsive, like an Aeolian harp

and the terroir gives you vine ash for your reds,

which stain your hands, transforming you to live tree,

bridging the gap between man, instrument,

climate, topography, dendrology.

When your master craftsman fingers relax

and your touch becomes lighter and lighter

and Fortune fells you just where you have stood,

for aeons, those in your shadow will grow,

more vigorously for having known you

and your arcane method of fusing strength

with Mother Nature’s flexibility.

They will internalise resonances

from tonewoods subject to your discipline.

Autorotation will spread all your skills.

Though, in the beginning was Man and Tree

and an inhospitable mountain range,

now Nature has been given her own voice.

Bach and the Bumble Bee

Tags

Bach, Baroque, clerestory, Sarabande, Scordatura

Male Bumble Bee Photo by Sffubs (Wikimedia Commons)

Scordatura is

an alternative tuning.

In the Sarabande,

Bach’s audience is showered

with Baroque pollen

and hears cello strings vibrate

in harmony with

the frequency of a bee.

The musician’s taut thighs grip;

ground the instrument.

Way up in the clerestory,

there’s a resonance

which might have provoked a hum

from the composer himself.

Brahms and the B52s

Tags

acciatura, Allegro non troppo, B52, Baghdad, Boneyard, Brahms, Cello sonata, Dragon Eyes, Gansbacher, Lechlade-on-Thames, sonic boom, Stratofortress, Ukraine, Wiegenleid

The concert was a couple of years ago, but planes are flying over

as we read of Ukraine being a focus of global interest yet again…

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Two equal partners: piano and cello

bemuse the bat-stilled, fusty atmosphere.

Birdsong, muffled bells quietly interrupt;

counterpoint the sonata’s elegance.

Grace notes, acciatura mesmerise.

I follow an elbow’s flamboyant flash,

the audience transfixed on numbing pews.

The Allegro non troppo fades away.

Mercifully, no one claps before the

Allegretto quasi Menuetto begins.

Brahms played this piano accompaniment,

so intensely, that Gansbacher complained

his cello contribution was effaced.

There is no remonstration possible

as stained windows darken and behemoths,

such as extinguished the lights of Baghdad,

ravage pale skies over Lechlade-on-Thames:

Operation Rolling Thunder, Cold War,

Desert Fox raise apocalyptic heads.

Bikini Atoll, The Vietnam War,

Syria, Kosovo, Afghanistan.

Professional musicians persevere,

as Sarajevo’s lone cellist once played.

And we carry on listening – trying

to sublimate the Stratofortress engines,

sensing we are under the Dragon Eyes,

as they loiter over the leaded roof.

Their performances lead to a Boneyard.

Brahms lovers sense there are no smart bombs,

nor are there conventional munitions.

The faint music from calm spheres in deep space

is a Wiegenleid above sonic booms

and communicates the power of peace.

Willow,Tit Willow,Tit Willow

Tags

Cotswolds, Gilbert and Sullivan, Lechlade, Oxfordshire, Round House, Thames, willows

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart