medelay

A medley for Monday, I think.




1. From a brochure for exclusive holidays in rural Andalucia (aimed, I venture, at the elderly and wealthy), and run by the extended A-- family.

The A-- wives are the inpiration behind the delicious food for which they have become known producing just the right balance of lightness and quantity. Their husbands' appreciation of good wine ensures variety, quality and a plentiful supply!

Is it just me, or do others too find the words "wife" and "husband" somewhat bizarre? "Partner", sure, but what are those other words about?  Will I be expected to teach this old-fashioned vocabulary in TEFL? (Obviously yes, but I cannot say these are exactly everyday terms in my own part of the world, it will be rather like teaching "commissionaire" or "docking clerk" or "seamstress".)


2. Biscuiterie de l'Abbaye: Galettes des Vikings au Sarrasin.  A packet of bisuits I picked up at a motorway services in Normandy.

[Image source: http://www.boutique-biscuits-abbaye.com/acheter-gateaux.aspx?l=galettes-des-vikings-au-sarrasin&prod=8540 , which also notes: En mémoire du Moulin de la Porte à Lonlay l'Abbaye, autrefois spécialisé dans la mouture du sarrasin, est né un délicieux biscuit, sur lequel figure le célèbre drakkar des Vikings.]


So "sarrasin" is buckwheat. Even in 2010, France's production was exceeded only by China, Russia and Ukraine. Nevertheless, France is a net importer. Buckwheat growing is said to have declined with the arrival of chemical fertilizers, which boosted the productivity of true grain crops. Unlike them, Buckwheat is not a grass but a plant in the sorrel family, originating in Sichuan. (On this and other matters I found the French Wikipedia entry more persuasive than the English one.) Buckwheat retains an association with Brittany, but also Normandy, Augergne etc. It can grow on poor soils and the cycle from seed-time to harvest is only three months.


The French name "Sarrasin" also means "Saracen" and this may reflect a  popular memory (true or not) of the plant being introduced from Morocco.


"Drakkar" (a word known to the English-speaking world only as the "pour homme" cologne Drakkar Noir) is the French word for a Viking long-ship, specifically the Old Norse drekar, the kind with a dragon or snake carved on the prow. Though this has become the iconic image of a Viking long-ship, the drekar is known only from descriptions in Norse sagas; no archaeological remains have ever been found.


Normandy is so-called in reference to the Scandinavian colonization of the 9th-11th centuries. (Or rather Anglo-Scandinavian, since many came from the Danelaw.) The duchy of Normandy came into existence as a forced royal concession to the Viking leadership.  On the evidence of names most of the Vikings who came to Normandy were Danes.




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3. With which slender connection, onto a symphony I've been listening to recently, Carl Nielsen's No. 4, titled Det uudslukkelige : "The Inextinguishable".


I quote Neilsen's further interesting remarks from a Guardian article by Tom Service (these come from Gerhardt Lynge's program note of 1/4/1938).


"Music is Life. As soon as even a single note sounds in the air or through space, it is result of life and movement; that is why music (and the dance) are the more immediate expressions of the will to life.

"The symphony evokes the most primal sources of life and the wellspring of the life-feeling; that is, what lies behind all human, animal and plant life, as we perceive or live it. It is not a musical, programme-like account of the development of a life within a limited stretch of time and space, but an un-programme-like dip right down to the layers of the emotional life that are still half-chaotic and wholly elementary. In other words the opposite of all programme music, despite the fact that this sounds like a programme.

"The symphony is not something with a thought-content, except insofar as the structuring of the various sections and the ordering of the musical material are the fruit of deliberation by the composer in the same way as when an engineer sets up dykes and sluices for the water during a flood. It is in a way a completely thoughtless expression of what make the birds cry, the animals roar, bleat, run and fight, and humans moan, groan exult and shout without any explanation. The symphony does not describe all this, but the basic emotion that lies beneath all this. Music can do just this, it is its most profound quality, its true domain … because, by simply being itself, it has performed its task. For it is life, whereas the other arts only represent and paraphrase life. Life is indomitable and inextinguishable; the struggle, the wrestling, the generation and the wasting away go on today as yesterday, tomorrow as today, and everything returns. Once more: music is life, and like it inextinguishable."


...men et uprogrammæssigt Greb helt ned i de Lag af Følelselivet, som endnu er halvt-kaotiske og helt-elementære. Altsaa det modsatte af al Programmusik, till Trods for at dette lyder som et Program.


Symfonien er ikke et Tankeindhold, uden for saa vidt som Bygningen af de forskellige Afsnit og Ordningen af det musikalske Stof jo er Frugten af en Omtanke fra Komponistens side paa samme Maade, som naar en Ingeniør sætter Diger og Sluser for Vandet under en Oversømmelse. Den er paa en Maade et fuldkommen tankeløst Udtryk for det, der bringer Fuglene til at skrige, Dyrene til at brøle, bræge, løbe og kæmpe, og Menneskene til at jamre, stønne, juble og raabe uden al Forklaring. ...




http://img.kb.dk/ma/cn/forord/CNU_II_04_pr.pdf


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Nielsen's 4th symphony "The Inextinguishable" came out in 1916.  It was a pretty brilliant time for Nordic symphonies. Sibelius had completed the first version of his 5th (fp 1915), but would continue to revise it for another three years. Stenhammar's marvellous 2nd was completed in 1915. Peterson-Berger's 3rd ("Same Ätnam") appeared in 1915 and Atterbeg's 3rd ("Västkustbilder") in 1916; their best symphonies, and both of them highly programmatic.


The Nordic countries had managed to stay out of the world war, until Finland's civil war of 1918 in the wake of the Russian Revolution. There was plenty of indirect impact, and the War and its unprecendented horrors was anxiously discussed, but Nordic neutrality was steadfast so far as the conflict between Allies and Central Powers was concerned.


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