New-created world
Dec. 3rd, 2004 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielLast night was our choir's concert, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
edge_of_ruin and I dutifully turned up to do our bit for the alto section. We were singing Haydn's Creation. I think it went very well. It's a non-audition choir and orchestra (turn up and sing or play), mostly students, and we rehearse and put on the concert in the space of eight weeks. So sometimes we can sound a bit flaky, but it's all done for fun. The choirmaster is very young, and relentlessly enthusiastic and encouraging, so you end up belting things out so that it makes him happy. He looked very happy by the end of last night's concert, I'm glad to say. The soloists were excellent, and we blasted out the last chorus in particular.
While I was surfing around this morning looking for interesting links about the piece, I stumbled across this site, which has hypertext editions of various texts from the Romantic era. I found a brief mention of The Creation in their online edition of Mary Shelley's The Last Man. There are some short sound clips of one of the choruses, 'A New-Created World'.
I have spent a pleasant hour or so poking around some of the other texts on the site, such as British War Poetry in the Age of Romanticism, 1793-1815. John Black's Ode, To the Sons of Britain and America is written in 1812, so hardly about a coalition, but an interesting call for peace nonetheless. The author spends three verses appealing to reason, the thought of widows and orphans, and then cuts to the chase:
Reflections on the Present War by W.W. Deacon (1795) has a couple of interesting verses:
I did not know the word 'crimp', and the dictionary told me that as a verb it means 'to pressgang' so, as a noun, 'one who pressgangs'. This site was more particular: "What the press gang was to the navy, the crimp was to the merchant service – a kind of universal provider. But the methods used, while the gang used the hanger or cudget, the crimp used dollars – and rum."
Unbelievably, that site turned out to be written by someone interested in local history in the Merseyside area, and contains a list of St Helens pubs. It lists both the Gerard Arms and the Lingholme Arms, at either end of the long road on which my mother's house is situated. The Lingholme pub is situated on a crossroads, and we used the phrase 'the Lingholme' to refer to the meeting of the roads and not just the pub. Once again, all roads lead to my home town - or, at least, Internet searches always end there.
edge_of_ruin and I dutifully turned up to do our bit for the alto section. We were singing Haydn's Creation. I think it went very well. It's a non-audition choir and orchestra (turn up and sing or play), mostly students, and we rehearse and put on the concert in the space of eight weeks. So sometimes we can sound a bit flaky, but it's all done for fun. The choirmaster is very young, and relentlessly enthusiastic and encouraging, so you end up belting things out so that it makes him happy. He looked very happy by the end of last night's concert, I'm glad to say. The soloists were excellent, and we blasted out the last chorus in particular. While I was surfing around this morning looking for interesting links about the piece, I stumbled across this site, which has hypertext editions of various texts from the Romantic era. I found a brief mention of The Creation in their online edition of Mary Shelley's The Last Man. There are some short sound clips of one of the choruses, 'A New-Created World'.
I have spent a pleasant hour or so poking around some of the other texts on the site, such as British War Poetry in the Age of Romanticism, 1793-1815. John Black's Ode, To the Sons of Britain and America is written in 1812, so hardly about a coalition, but an interesting call for peace nonetheless. The author spends three verses appealing to reason, the thought of widows and orphans, and then cuts to the chase:
Yet will not Interest's voice prevail?
Reflect, how Commerce must decline,
The loom stand still, and Want assail
The many that must starving pine;
And burdens weigh each nation down,
And wild Despair with fury frown.
Reflections on the Present War by W.W. Deacon (1795) has a couple of interesting verses:
While men the Corpus Act suspend,
On which our Liberties depend,
Who can from prison get?
Since Freedom's brightest gem is gone,
The rays which once with lustre shone,
Is now for ever set?
If Crimps and Spies, both night and day,
Are suffer'd on mankind to prey,
And families divide;
Ah! where is now that sacred claim!
That made with joy each Briton name
His cot, his castle's pride?
I did not know the word 'crimp', and the dictionary told me that as a verb it means 'to pressgang' so, as a noun, 'one who pressgangs'. This site was more particular: "What the press gang was to the navy, the crimp was to the merchant service – a kind of universal provider. But the methods used, while the gang used the hanger or cudget, the crimp used dollars – and rum."
Unbelievably, that site turned out to be written by someone interested in local history in the Merseyside area, and contains a list of St Helens pubs. It lists both the Gerard Arms and the Lingholme Arms, at either end of the long road on which my mother's house is situated. The Lingholme pub is situated on a crossroads, and we used the phrase 'the Lingholme' to refer to the meeting of the roads and not just the pub. Once again, all roads lead to my home town - or, at least, Internet searches always end there.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 07:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 03:12 pm (UTC)Thanks for the links and I like the icon.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-05 03:44 am (UTC)Glad you like the icon ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 05:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 08:03 am (UTC)And when I sing along to the Stones or the Doors, which music my alter ego is demanding at present, the register of Messrs Jagger and Morrison is so far from mine that I completely lose it. Bloody alter ego ought to sing them himself.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 10:17 am (UTC)When singing ABBA numbers with the slum landlord (a tenor), he ideally does squeaky Agnetha, while I take on deep gravelly Frida.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-05 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-05 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 06:31 am (UTC)And thanks for the link to the homepage on Romanticism! I'll have to bookmark it; it looks very useful.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 07:23 am (UTC)Enjoy the site! I've spent much of today poking around it, probably more than I should have!
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 09:50 am (UTC)And thank you for the links, too.
Once again, all roads lead to my home town
Or at least, to the Lingholme, with a choice of ways out of there. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 10:55 am (UTC)Or at least, to the Lingholme, with a choice of ways out of there. ;-)
I wouldn't advise picking the way that takes you into the pub, though.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 01:50 pm (UTC)Though, if it's all the same to you, I'll probably aim to avoid picking the way that takes me into St Helens in the first place.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 12:17 pm (UTC)I'm glad the concert went so well.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 04:45 pm (UTC)Up the Close and Down the Stair
Date: 2004-12-03 04:32 pm (UTC)Is there a Yonhi at t'other end?
Re: Up the Close and Down the Stair
Date: 2004-12-04 01:24 am (UTC)Yonhi?
Re: Up the Close and Down the Stair
Date: 2004-12-04 06:49 am (UTC)Re: Up the Close and Down the Stair
Date: 2004-12-05 03:53 am (UTC)Re: Up the Close and Down the Stair
Date: 2004-12-05 07:18 am (UTC)