MUSIC SATURDAY - BONONCINI

“Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.” - Herbie Hancock

Giovanni Bononcini (also spelled Buononcini - born July 18, 1670, Modena, Duchy of Modena—died July 9, 1747, Vienna) is a composer, chiefly remembered as Handel’s rival in England. He studied with his father, composer and theoretician Giovanni Maria Bononcini, and later at Bologna. Precocious musical gifts won him his first appointment, as a cellist, in 1687, and he soon became maestro di cappella of S. Giovanni in Monte.

He moved to Rome about 1691 and in 1698, after a brief period in Venice, settled in Vienna with his brother, the composer Antonio Maria Bononcini. In 1720 he was invited to London by the new operatic organisation, the Royal Academy of Music. His rivalry with Handel and their backing by opposed political and social factions ended in defeat for Bononcini. His backers were a group of noblemen; Handel was backed by the king.

A three-act opera, “Muzio Scevola”, was looked upon as a public competition, with Bononcini and Handel composing the second and third acts, respectively. Handel was judged the winner. This reverse and others led to Bononcini’s loss of support. Eight of his operas were produced in London, the most successful being “Astarto”, “Crispo”, and “Griselda”. Other compositions of this period include an anthem on the death (1722) of the Duke of Marlborough and harpsichord and chamber music.

In the early 1730s he went to Paris, leaving England in disgrace after submitting to the Academy of Ancient Music as his own composition a madrigal actually written by Antonio Lotti. His last work, “Te Deum”, was written in Vienna in the 1740s. Though he was a prolific and gifted composer, Bononcini’s abilities are dwarfed by comparison with Handel’s. Only in opera, where both used the same highly conventionalised idiom, are the two men comparable. Nonetheless, Bononcini achieved a simple and fluent melodic style and the ability to write well for his singers.

Here are his “Divertimenti Op.7” for chamber group, performed by Ensemble Aurora and La Stagione Armonica.

1. No.1 in F major 0:00

2. No. 2 in D minor 8:59

3. No. 3 in A minor 18:39

4. No. 4 in G minor 27:19

5. No. 5 in B flat major 33:34

6. No. 6 in C minor 44:12

7. No. 7 in E minor 53:41

8. No. 8 in G major 1:00:54

FOOD FRIDAY - SOLE PICCATA

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” - Maimonides

We shop at a very good fishmongery where we are looked after because we are regular customers. We pay a little bit extra compared to, say shopping in a supermarket or at fish shop in a shopping mall, but it is worth it because the fish we buy is always fresh and prepared extremely well (filleted or dressed or otherwise got ready for cooking). Quite often, when we ask for a specific type of fish the fishmonger will very discreetly signal “no” with his head and suggest something else, which is fresher or otherwise better.

Sole Piccata

Ingredients

4 skinless fillets of sole (you may substitute with John Dory, turbot or flounder fillets)

Salt and freshly ground white pepper, to taste

1⁄2 cup flour

1⁄2 cup virgin olive oil

4 tbsp. unsalted butter

1 large shallot, minced

1⁄2 lemon, thinly sliced

1/2 lemon, juiced

1⁄4 cup dry white wine

2 tsp. pickled capers

Method

Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. While the pan is heating, blot the fish dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Dredge in the flour, shaking off any excess.

Sauté the fish in the oil until just cooked through, about 4 minutes, flipping halfway through. Remove the fish to a platter.

Deglaze the pan with the white wine, whisking for about 1 minute. Add the lemon juice and capers and stir. Add the butter and stir or whisk to incorporate to bring the sauce together. Pour onto the fish and garnish with the lemon slices.

We usually have this accompanied by a smoky, dry chardonnay, well-chilled and a seasonal green salad (this time of the year, lettuce, spinach and rocket with a simple vinaigrette dressing), and some crusty fresh bread.

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ALL ABOUT CAPERS

“Eating is so intimate. It’s very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life.” - Maya Angelou

Capparis spinosa, the caper bush, also called Flinders rose, is a perennial plant that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and large white to pinkish-white flowers. The plant is best known for the edible flower buds (capers), often used as a seasoning, and the fruit (caper berries), both of which are usually consumed pickled. Other species of Capparis are also picked along with C. spinosa for their buds or fruits. Other parts of Capparis plants are used in the manufacture of medicines and cosmetics.

Capparis spinosa is found in the wild in the Mediterranean, East Africa, Madagascar, South-Western and Central Asia, the Himalayas, the Pacific Islands, Indomalaya, and Australia. It is present in almost all the circum-Mediterranean countries, and is included in the flora of most of them, but whether it is indigenous to this region is uncertain. Although the flora of the Mediterranean region has considerable endemism, the caper bush could have originated in the tropics, and later been naturalised to the Mediterranean basin.

The taxonomic status of the species is controversial and unsettled. Species within the genus Capparis are highly variable, and interspecific hybrids have been common throughout the evolutionary history of the genus. As a result, some authors have considered C. spinosa to be composed of multiple distinct species, others that the taxon is a single species with multiple varieties or subspecies, or that the taxon C. spinosa is a hybrid between C. orientalis and C. sicula.

The shrubby plant is many-branched, with alternate leaves, thick and shiny, round to ovate. The flowers are complete, sweetly fragrant, and showy, with four sepals and four white to pinkish-white petals, and many long violet-coloured stamens, and a single stigma usually rising well above the stamens. The caper bush requires a semiarid or arid climate and has developed a series of mechanisms that reduce the impact of high radiation levels, high daily temperature, and insufficient soil water during its growing period.

The salted and pickled caper bud (called simply a caper) is often used as a seasoning or garnish. Capers are a common ingredient in Mediterranean cuisine, especially Greek, Cypriot, Italian, Aeolian and Maltese. The mature fruit of the caper shrub are prepared similarly and marketed as caper berries. The buds, when ready to pick, are a dark olive green and about the size of a fresh kernel of corn (Zea mays). They are picked, then pickled in salt, or a salt and vinegar solution, and drained. Intense flavour is developed as mustard oil (glucocapparin) is released from each caper bud. This enzymatic reaction leads to the formation of rutin, often seen as crystallised white spots on the surfaces of individual caper buds.

Capers are a distinctive ingredient in Italian cuisine, especially in Sicilian, Aeolian and southern Italian cooking. They are commonly used in salads, pasta salads, meat dishes, and pasta sauces. Examples of uses in Italian cuisine are chicken piccata and spaghetti alla puttanesca. Capers are known for being one of the ingredients of tartare sauce. They are often served with cold smoked salmon or cured salmon dishes (especially lox and cream cheese). Capers and caper berries are sometimes substituted for olives to garnish a martini.

Capers are categorised and sold by their size, defined as follows, with the smallest sizes being the most desirable: Non-pareil (up to 7 mm), surfines (7–8 mm), capucines (8–9 mm), capotes (9–11 mm), fines (11–13 mm), and grusas (14+ mm). If the caper bud is not picked, it flowers and produces a caper berry. The fruit can be pickled and then served as a Greek mezzé. Caper leaves, which are hard to find outside of Greece or Cyprus, are used particularly in salads and fish dishes. They are pickled or boiled and preserved in jars with brine, like caper buds. Dried caper leaves are also used as a substitute for rennet in the manufacturing of high-quality cheese.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,

and also part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,

and also part of the Food Friday meme.

POETRY WEDNESDAY

“Really, most of us just focus on what’s in front of us. We’re too busy putting out the fires of everyday life.” - Aidan Quinn

I am taking a break from Poets United Midweek Motif as I am quite busy at the moment and dealing with some matters that have come up. This week the theme there is “Bullying” so I suggest you follow the link and read some fine poems from the talented crowd that take part there. I am reposting an old poem of mine for some Wednesday Poetry.

Serenata

(As remembered from the Italian)

The pagan tribes of Araby revere the sun

The Saracens all to the moon pay homage.

The stars and winds in blackest Africa are adored

And I my love only your eyes do worship.

In times of strife all men the saints invoke

In hardship everyone to gods does turn,

In tempests raging the sailors Christ recall

But I my love to you in my misfortune pray.

All slaves crave for their freedom sweet,

All prisoners to loose their fetters try,

All cagéd birds to escape their bars attempt,

And I, my love, to you myself enchain.

To war, searching for glory soldiers go,

To power king and noble all would sacrifice

To miser more than life the glint of gold is worth,

But I my love would for your smile expire.

TRAVEL TUESDAY #27 - WARSAW

“Poland should be strong and prosperous and independent and play its proper role as a great nation in the heart of Europe.” - George H. W. Bush

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel!

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest of us!

Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only. Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers will be removed immediately.

Warsaw (Polish: Warszawa), is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly 260 kilometres from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometres from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population is estimated at 1.711 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 2.666 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 9th most populous capital city in the European Union. The area of the city covers 516.9 square kilometres, while the city's agglomeration covers 6,100.43 square kilometres.

Warsaw is an Alpha–global city, a major international tourist destination and an important economic hub in East-Central Europe. It is also known as the “phoenix city” because it has survived so many wars throughout its history. Most notably, the city had to be painstakingly rebuilt after the extensive damage it suffered in World War II, during which 85% of its buildings were destroyed. On 9 November 1940 the city was awarded Poland’s highest military decoration for heroism, the Virtuti Militari, during the Siege of Warsaw (1939).

We visited Warsaw in July 2003 and enjoyed the trip immensely. The people were wonderful, there was an enormous number of things to see, a city of great beauty, art, culture and courage. The Mermaid of Warsaw (Polish: Syrenka Warszawska) is a symbol of Warsaw, represented on the city’s coat of arms and well as in a number of statues and other imagery.

The sculpture in Warsaw’s Old Town Square seen here was designed by Varsovian sculptor Konstanty Hegel. Originally (1855-1928) and now (since 2000) it stands in the marketplace. At other times, it was moved to different places in Warsaw. In 2008, the original sculpture made of bronzed zinc was taken from the market for maintenance work. The sculpture was in a very poor condition due to mechanical damage and numerous acts of vandalism. The repaired original was transferred to the Museum of Warsaw, and replaced with a copy of made by the Jacka Guzery foundry in Dąbrowie near Kielce.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

Add your own travel posts using the Linky tool below, and don't forget to be nice and leave a comment here, and link back to this page from your own post!

MOVIE MONDAY - KRAKATOA

“We cannot stop natural disasters but we can arm ourselves with knowledge: so many lives wouldn't have to be lost if there was enough disaster preparedness.” - Petra Němcová

Sometimes you remember a film you saw when you were a child and the memory of it is so powerful and haunting that you can’t wait to find the film again in your adult years and re-watch it in order to savour those feelings you experienced the first time around. Of course, nothing is the same as it was the first time around, film watching included… We live, we experience more and more, we grow, we change, we become jaded, we see the world differently. No surprise when we re-watch that movie that we may be a little disappointed!

This was the case with the film we watched last weekend, which I had first seen as a child of 11 years. I remember then being completely overwhelmed and watching in awe, breathless with excitement and wide-eyed with amazement. The movie was the 1968 Bernard L. Kowalski disaster/adventure flick “Krakatoa: East of Java”, starring  Maximilian Schell, Diane Baker, Brian Keith, Barbara Werle, Sal Mineo, and Rossano Brazzi.

Krakatoa (Indonesian: Krakatau), is a volcanic island situated in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung. The name is also used for the surrounding island group comprising the remnants of a much larger island of three volcanic peaks which was obliterated in a cataclysmic 1883 eruption, unleashing huge tsunamis (killing more than 36,000 people) and destroying over two-thirds of the island.

The explosion is considered to be the loudest sound ever heard in modern history, with reports of it being heard up to 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from its point of origin. The shock waves from the explosion were recorded on barographs worldwide. In 1927 a new island, Anak Krakatau, or “Child of Krakatoa”, emerged from the caldera formed in 1883 and is the current location of eruptive activity. Just to set the record straight, Krakatoa is actually located west, not east, of Java, a boo-boo that has haunted the film ever since it was released, being widely mocked in the critics reviews which were mostly quite scathing for the whole of the film...

The plot of the movie centres on the recovery of a valuable cargo of rare pearls from a shipwreck close the island of Krakatoa. When the expedition sets off the location of the wreck seems not be a worry as everyone believes that the volcano on the island has been dormant for around two hundred years. The eruption of the volcano in August 1883 will of course prove them wrong. The characters are the ship’s Dutch captain (Schell), his beautiful mistress (Baker) who is fleeing from an abusive husband and looking for her young son, from whom she has been separated, a drug-addicted diver (Keith) with health problems and his girlfriend (Werle), the British inventor of a diving bell (Leyton), an Italian father-and-son (Brazzi & Mineo) team of balloonists and four female Japanese pearl fishers, hired for their diving expertise. One of these girls becomes romantically involved with the younger Italian. By this stage you’d have thought the plot was already bogged down with too many subplots, but there is another one! The captain is forced by the authorities to take on a load of prisoners to be transported to Madura, which of course will cause problems later…

Needless to say, the eruption of Krakatoa and the subsequent catastrophe is what dominates the film. In an unusual approach to making the film, the producers of the movie had the special effects scenes shot before the script had been completed. The script then was written so as to incorporate the special effects sequences! Although now quite dated in appearance, the film’s special effects were considered impressive enough by 1969 standards for it to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (it lost to the sci-fi disaster movie,  “Marooned”!).

Well, watching the film as an adult all these years later certainly made me aware of my age. The film was not how I remembered it and scenes that in that distant time made me feel awed and amazed now raised a smile or even a laugh. The film was utterly and completely demystified and its many shortcomings were blatantly obvious. There were plot holes, bad script writing, abominable dialogue ordinary acting and too much reliance on the special effects (used excessively and repetitively) to carry the movie forward.

So what was the final verdict on this film with a pedestrian, badly paced, and poorly told story and where the special effects were so constant and overwhelming as to become numbing? Well, we actually enjoyed it. First, because it was associated with nostalgia, second because it was a movie you could watch and take the mickey out of, having a laugh here and there, and finally because it revived memories of the old Hollywood (perhaps memories of Hollywood 1950s B-grade potboilers). Maybe if you will watch this film now for the first time you will run out of patience and stop watching it half-way through. Or maybe if you reduce the size of your expectations you may enjoy it too…

ART SUNDAY - GIOTTO

“Every painting is a voyage into a sacred harbour.” - Giotto di Bondone

Known as “the great Giotto”, Giotto di Bondone (Born: 1267 - Death: January 8, 1337) was the leading artist at the start of Italy’s Renaissance and the Florentine School of painting. According to Giorgio Vasari (1511 – 1574), who dedicated a chapter to the painter in his book “The Lives of the Artists”, Giotto was the tipping point of Italian art from the Byzantine style, into the Renaissance.

It is said that that last great painter of the Byzantine era, Cimabue (1240 – 1302), discovered a young Giotto in his rawest stage. As written by Vasari: “One day Cimabue was going about his business between Florence and Vespignano, and he came upon Giotto who, while his sheep were grazing, was sketching one of them in a lifelike way with a slightly pointed rock upon a smooth and polished stone without having learned how to draw it from anyone other than Nature. This caused Cimabue to stop in amazement…” It is from here that Cimabue brought Giotto into the bustling activity of the art world in Florence, where he excelled beyond measure of the time. How much of this story is true, is open for debate, but it is true that Giotto apprenticed in Cimabue’s studio in Florence.

Vasari’s other account of Cimabue and Giotto tells of the young artist painting a fly so life-like that Cimabue continually tried to brush it off the canvas. He also travelled with Cimabue to Rome and there may be several works that Giotto contributed to in Cimabue’s commissions. His earliest individual works include a fresco of the Annunciation and his quite large Crucifix, painted for the Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Giotto also painted in Rome from 1297 – 1300 and created his Badia Polyptych for the high altar of the Badia in Florence, which now hangs in the Uffizi Gallery.

Giotto’s masterpiece is often considered the fresco cycles he painted for the Scrovegni Chapel or Arena Chapel in Padua, with depictions of salvation seen in the Life of Christ and the Life of the Virgin and also a Last Judgment piece. The combined works, completed in the course of up to 7 years, have become known as a defining early masterwork of the Renaissance, going on to influence many artists in Florence and beyond.

Giotto painted other works in Padua, as well as in Assisi, and traveled back and forth between Rome and Florence. These made up most of his later works, including his Madonna altarpiece in the Church of Ognissanti in Florence, from around 1310. The piece, now in the Uffizi Gallery, finds its display in comparison to Cimabue’s Santa Trinità Madonna and Duccio’s (1255 – 1260) famous masterpiece, the Rucellai Madonna.

Receiving a great number of religious commissions in Rome, Giotto also traveled to work in Bologna and Milan. The artist was also an accomplished architect, appointed to work on the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, (The Duomo of Florence). Dante (1265 – 1321) praised Giotto in the Divine Comedy, saying, “Once Cimabue thought to hold the field as painter; Giotto now is all the rage, dimming the lustre of the other’s fame.”

Above is a fresco from the Scrovegni Chapel. It is “Lo Sposalizio della Vergine” (Marriage of the Virgin), painted in 1305 and is one of the series “Scenes from the Life of the Virgin”.  Genre: religious painting Media: fresco Its dimensions are 185 x 200 cm and is found in the Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel, Padua, Italy. While the style is akin to Byzantine art in its formality and use of some conventional pictorial elements (for example the building in the background), the figures are beginning to show a liveliness and informality that goes beyond a simple devotional image. The scene depicted is rich in detail and characterisation, especially as seen in the accompanying figures who do not take centre stage in the work. Joseph and Mary are painted with gusto and their personality comes through, with the viewer not simply being a passive onlooker, but becoming more involved n the scene because of its familiarity and the depiction of the saintly figures as living, breathing human beings.

MUSIC SATURDAY - JACOPO PERI

“Don’t follow trends, start trends.” - Frank Capra

Jacopo Peri (Zazzerino) (20 August 1561 – 12 August 1633) was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera. He wrote the first work to be called an opera today, “Dafne” (around 1597), and also the first opera to have survived to the present day, “Euridice” (1600).

Peri was born in Rome, but studied in Florence with Cristofano Malvezzi, and went on to work in a number of churches there, both as an organist and as a singer. He subsequently began to work in the Medici court, first as a tenor singer and keyboard player, and later as a composer. His earliest works were incidental music for plays, intermedi and madrigals.

In the 1590s, Peri became associated with Jacopo Corsi, the leading patron of music in Florence. They believed contemporary art was inferior to classical Greek and Roman works, and decided to attempt to recreate Greek tragedy, as they understood it. Their work added to that of the Florentine Camerata of the previous decade, which produced the first experiments in monody, the solo song style over continuo bass, which eventually developed into recitative and aria.

Peri and Corsi brought in the poet Ottavio Rinuccini to write a text, and the result, “Dafne”, though nowadays thought to be a long way from anything the Greeks would have recognised, is seen as the first work in a new form, opera. Rinuccini and Peri next collaborated on “Euridice”. This was first performed on 6 October 1600 at the Palazzo Pitti. Unlike “Dafne”, it has survived to the present day (though it is hardly ever staged, and then only as a historical curio). The work made use of recitatives, a new development, which went between the arias and choruses and served to move the action along.

Peri produced a number of other operas, often in collaboration with other composers (such as “La Flora” with Marco da Gagliano), and also wrote a number of other pieces for various court entertainments. Few of his pieces are still performed today, and even by the time of his death his operatic style was looking rather old-fashioned when compared to the work of relatively younger reformist composers such as Claudio Monteverdi. Peri’s influence on those later composers, however, was large.

Here is Peri’s complete opera “Euridice”, a work in one act based on the well-known Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. It is performed by I Solisti di Milano directed by Angelo Ephrikian. They are supplemented by Coro Polifonico di Milano directed by Giulio Bertola.

The painting is “Orpheus and Eurydice” by Pieter Paul Rubens.

FOOD FRIDAY - CABBAGE ROLLS

“You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food.” - Paul Prudhomme

With Autumn upon us and with the temperatures getting lower, we have been enjoying heavier, heartier food that warms us in the cold and dark evenings. This recipe is one that has many traditional variants in many cuisines. Cabbage rolls is a dish consisting of cooked cabbage leaves wrapped around a variety of fillings. It is common to the cuisines of the Balkans, Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe, as well as West Asia. Meat fillings are traditional in Europe, often beef, lamb, or pork seasoned with garlic, onion, and spices. Grains such as rice and barley, eggs, mushrooms, and vegetables are often included. Pickled cabbage leaves are often used for wrapping, particularly in Southeastern Europe. This is a Greek recipe and the dish is called Lahanodolmáddes.

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely grated
2 garlic cloves, crushed
500g beef mince
1 cup parboiled calrose rice
Salt, pepper to taste
1/2 tsp ground coriander seed
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 cup red wine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
400g can diced tomatoes
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh parsley leaves
12-14 large savoy cabbage leaves, bases trimmed (use the inner tender leaves)
6 savoy cabbage leaves (use the outer tougher leaves)
500 mL beef stock
Lemon juice or home-made tomato sauce for serving.

Method
Heat oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrot and garlic. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until tender. Add mince. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon to break up mince, for 5 minutes or until browned. Add spices and stir through. Add wine, tomato paste and tomatoes. Bring to the boil, stirring. Reduce heat to low. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 40 minutes or until sauce thickens. Stir in parsley and parboiled rice. Remove from heat. Allow to cool for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Add four of the inner cabbage leaves to the pan. Cook until just softened. Refresh in a bowl of cold water. Drain and pat dry with paper towel. Cut the tough part of the stem in a V-shape and discard stem. Divide the leaf into two pieces. Repeat process with remaining inner leaves.
Finally boil the remaining outer leaves. Use these outer leaves to line the base of a large saucepan. Drizzle olive oil on top of the leaves.
Place one of the boiled inner cabbage leaves on a flat surface. Place 1/4 cup mince mixture at stem end of leaf. Fold edges in and roll up firmly to enclose filling. Repeat with remaining leaves and mince mixture.
Place cabbage parcels, seam side down, in prepared lined saucepan, making sure they abut onto one another with no space between them. Repeat in layers with remaining parcels. Cover with the remaining boiled outer cabbage leaves and drizzle a little olive oil on top. Cover leaves with a heavy plain ceramic dinner plate. Add the beef stock.
Cook on medium heat for about 30 minutes, checking that the stock doesn't all evaporate away. A few mL of stock should be left behind in the pan when ready.
Remove plate and discard outer cabbage leaves before serving.
Serve lemon juice and heated tomato sauce on side for those who wish to drizzle either of these on top of the rolls just before eating.

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POETS UNITED - BIRDS

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” - C. S. Lewis

This week the theme of Poets United is “Birds”. My contribution below:


From Egg to Earth

The egg has just hatched
And the nestling dreams sweetly;
As flower buds unfurl.

The bird sings joyful
Songs, in noon’s white blinding heat,
Hidden in leafy bower.

As golden leaves fall,
The bird eggs on its offspring,
To leave the nest, fly.

Snow falls and covers
The dead bird: A life cycle ends;
Soon, new beginnings.

TRAVEL TUESDAY #26 - PALERMO

“To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.” - Goethe

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel!

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest of us! Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only.

Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers will be removed immediately.

Palermo is a city in Insular Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old. Palermo is located in the northwest of the island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

The city was founded in 734 BC by the Phoenicians as Ziz (flower). Palermo then became a possession of Carthage, before becoming part of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and eventually part of the Byzantine Empire, for over a thousand years. The Greeks named the city Panormus meaning “complete port”. From 831 to 1072 the city was under Arab rule during the Emirate of Sicily when the city first became a capital. The Arabs shifted the Greek name into Balarm, the root for Palermo’s present-day name. Following the Norman reconquest, Palermo became the capital of a new kingdom (from 1130 to 1816), the Kingdom of Sicily and the capital of the Holy Roman Empire under Frederick II Holy Roman Emperor and Conrad IV of Germany, King of the Romans. Eventually Sicily would be united with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies until the Italian unification of 1860.

The population of Palermo urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 855,285, while its metropolitan area is the fifth most populated in Italy with around 1.2 million people. In the central area, the city has a population of around 676,000 people. The inhabitants are known as Palermitani or, poetically, panormiti. The languages spoken by its inhabitants are the Italian language, Sicilian language and the Palermitano dialect. Palermo is Sicily’s cultural, economic and touristic capital. It is a city rich in history, culture, art, music and food. Numerous tourists are attracted to the city for its good Mediterranean weather, its renowned gastronomy and restaurants, its Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque churches, palaces and buildings, and its nightlife and music.

Palermo is the main Sicilian industrial and commercial centre: the main industrial sectors include tourism, services, commerce and agriculture. Palermo currently has an international airport, and a significant underground economy. In fact, for cultural, artistic and economic reasons, Palermo was one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean and is now among the top tourist destinations in both Italy and Europe. It is the main seat of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalù and Monreale. The city is also going through careful redevelopment, preparing to become one of the major cities of the Euro-Mediterranean area.

Roman Catholicism is highly important in Palermitano culture. The Patron Saint of Palermo is Santa Rosalia whose Feast Day is celebrated on 15 July. The area attracts significant numbers of tourists each year and is widely known for its colourful fruit, vegetable and fish markets at the heart of Palermo, known as Vucciria, Ballarò and Capo.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

Add your own travel posts using the Linky tool below, and don't forget to be nice and leave a comment here, and link back to this page from your own post!

MOVIE MONDAY - THE IMITATION GAME

“I’m a walking, talking enigma. We’re a dying breed.” - Larry David

Alan Mathison Turing OBE FRS (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was a pioneering English computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.

During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bombe method and an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic; it has been estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by as many as two to four years.

After the war, he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the ACE, among the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948 Turing joined Max Newman’s Computing Machine Laboratory at the Victoria University of Manchester, where he helped develop the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s.

Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts, when such behaviour was still a criminal act in the UK. He accepted treatment with DES (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as suicide, but it has been noted that the known evidence is equally consistent with accidental poisoning. In 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for “the appalling way he was treated”. Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous pardon in 2013.

I preface Movie Monday with Turing’s mini biography as the film we watched at the weekend concerned him. It was  Morten Tyldum’s 2014 film “The Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear and Allen Leech. The film is based on the book by Andrew Hodges, “Alan Turing: The Enigma”, the screenplay by Graham Moore.

The film is set in Bletchley Park where the cryptanalysis team, run by Alan Turing, cracked the code of the German Enigma Machine during World War II. The film is well structured in that it alternates between the efforts of the code-breaking team to solve the Enigma code, and the life of the young Alan Turing and the events after the war that destroyed his life. The non-linear narrative and flashbacks allows the viewer to develop an understanding of how complex a man Turing was. The movie is further enhanced by the inclusion of newsreel footage and scenes of the world at war. It is not all doom and gloom, there is quite a lot of humour in the film too.

Benedict Cumberbatch delivers an amazing performance as Turing. It is a fine actor who can convince you that you are looking at a real, living, breathing character replete with his mannerisms, flaws, good qualities and allow you to piece together a mental image of what the person is like, what he may be thinking and what he may be feeling. Keira Knightley turns in a fine supporting role as Turing’s colleague  Joan Clarke. Her role may not be as meaty as Cumberbach’s but she makes the most of her lines and her presence gives Turing a three-dimensional quality and increases the “based on a real story” appeal of the movie. The remaining actors also deliver great performances. The cinematography of Oscar Faura is good, the editing by William Goldenberg crisp and the music score by Alexandre Desplat appropriate and non-obtrusive.

The important thing to realise about the film is that it is not a documentary, it is a bio-pic. Facts do not get in the way of the good story and one has to take the film with a grain of salt. There are inaccuracies, anachronisms and a little bit of lionisation. However, as film it has to do all of that in order to appeal to the masses… The film makes a point about society’s prejudice against anyone who is “different” and deviates from acceptable societal norms. It stretches the truth a little in order to drive home these points.

It was an engaging film, quite seriously watchable, but at the same time one has to keep on reminding oneself, that the Turing one sees on screen is sufficiently different from the real Turing, but yes, one does appreciate somewhat who that person was and what he did. If you want the real truth, read a biography or watch a bona fide documentary. This was a movie!

ART SUNDAY - GAUGUIN

“I shut my eyes in order to see.” - Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin, (Eugène-Henri-) was born June 7th, 1848, Paris; died, May 8, 1903, Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. He is one of the leading French painters of the Postimpressionist period, whose development of a conceptual method of representation was a decisive step for 20th-century art. After spending a short period with Vincent van Gogh in Arles (1888), Gauguin increasingly abandoned imitative art for expressiveness through colour. 

From 1891 he lived and worked in Tahiti and elsewhere in the South Pacific. Gauguin’s art has all the appearance of a flight from civilisation, of a search for new ways of life, more primitive, more real and more sincere. His break away from a solid middle-class world, abandoning family, children and job, his refusal to accept easy glory and easy gain are the best-known aspects of Gauguin’s fascinating life and personality.

During his first stay in Tahiti (he was to leave in 1893, only to return in 1895 and remain until his death), Gauguin discovered primitive art, with its flat forms and the violent colors belonging to an untamed nature. And then, with absolute sincerity, he transferred them onto canvas.

The painting above is “Two Women” was painted in 1901 or 1902. It is Oil on canvas (73.7 x 92.1 cm) and exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum in new York. Gauguin based this formidable composition on a photograph of two women seated side by side on the stoop of a house. The photograph was taken in 1897 by Henri Lemasson in Mataeia, Tahiti (Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence – see it here). Brettell (1988) identifies the younger woman as Teahu A Raatairi and the older woman as Teahu’s aunt by marriage, although Laudon (2003) asserts that the older woman is Teahu. Gauguin painted it just before or after his 1901 departure from Tahiti for the Marquesas Islands.

MUSIC SATURDAY - TCHAIKOVSKY

“Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.” - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) is widely considered the most popular Russian composer in history. His work includes the The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. His work was first publicly performed in 1865. In 1868, his First Symphony was well-received. In 1874, he established himself with Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat Minor. Tchaikovsky resigned from the Moscow Conservatory in 1878, and spent the rest of his career composing yet more prolifically. He died in St. Petersburg.

Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840, in Kamsko-Votkinsk, Vyatka, Russia. He was the second eldest of his parents’ six surviving offspring. Tchaikovsky’s father, Ilya, worked as a mine inspector and metal works manager. When he was just 5 years old, Tchaikovsky began taking piano lessons. Although he displayed an early passion for music, his parents hoped that he would grow up to work in the civil service. At the age of 10, Tchaikovsky began attending the Imperial School of Jurisprudence, a boarding school in St. Petersburg.

His mother, Alexandra, died of cholera in 1854, when he was 14 years old. In 1859, Tchaikovsky honoured his parents’ wishes by taking up a bureau clerk post with the Ministry of Justice—a post he would hold for four years, during which time he became increasingly fascinated with music. When he was 21, Tchaikovsky decided to take music lessons at the Russian Musical Society. A few months later, he enrolled at the newly founded St. Petersburg Conservatory, becoming one of the school’s first composition students. In addition to learning while at the conservatory, Tchaikovsky gave private lessons to other students.

In 1863, he moved to Moscow, where he became a professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory. He became a prolific composer and his work was first publicly performed in 1865, with Johann Strauss the Younger conducting Tchaikovsky’s Characteristic Dances at a Pavlovsk concert. In 1868, Tchaikovsky's First Symphony was well-received when it was publicly performed in Moscow. The following year, his first opera, “The Voyevoda”, made its way to the stage—with little fanfare. After scrapping “The Voyevoda”, Tchaikovsky repurposed some of its material to compose his next opera, “Oprichnik”, which achieved some acclaim when it was performed at the Maryinsky in St. Petersburg in 1874.

By this time, Tchaikovsky had also earned praise for his Second Symphony. Also in 1874, his opera, “Vakula the Smith”, received harsh critical reviews, yet Tchaikovsky still managed to establish himself as a talented composer of instrumental pieces with his Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat Minor. Acclaim came readily for Tchaikovsky in 1875, with his composition Symphony No. 3 in D Major. At the end of that year, the composer embarked on a tour of Europe. In 1876, he completed the ballet “Swan Lake” as well as the fantasy “Francesca da Rimini”.

Tchaikovsky resigned from the Moscow Conservatory in 1878 to focus his efforts entirely on composing. As a result, he spent the remainder of his career composing more prolifically than ever. His collective body of work constitutes 169 pieces, including symphonies, operas, ballets, concertos, cantatas and songs. Among his most famed late works are the ballets “The Sleeping Beauty” (1890) and “The Nutcracker” (1892).

Struggling with societal pressures to repress his homosexuality, in 1877, Tchaikovsky married a young music student named Antonina Milyukova. The marriage was a catastrophe, with Tchaikovsky abandoning his wife within weeks of the wedding. During a nervous breakdown, he unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide, and eventually fled abroad. Tchaikovsky could afford to resign from the Moscow Conservatory in 1878, thanks to the patronage of a wealthy widow named Nadezhda von Meck. She provided him with a monthly allowance until 1890; oddly, their arrangement stipulated that they would never meet.

Tchaikovsky died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893. While the cause of his death was officially declared as cholera, some of his biographers believe that he committed suicide after the humiliation of a sex scandal trial. However, only oral (no written) documentation exists to support this theory.

Here are all of Tchaikovsky’s six symphonies and the “Manfred” Symphony, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich.

Symphony No.1 in g-minor, Op.13 'Winter Reveries':

I. Allegro tranquillo - 00:00

II. Adagio cantabile ma non tanto - 12:23

III. Scherzo. Allegro scherzando giocoso - 24:34

IV. Finale. Andante lugubre - Allegro maestoso - 31:44

Symphony No.2 in c-minor, Op.17 'Little Russian':

I. Andante sostenuto - Allegro vivo - 45:17

II. Andantino marziale, quasi moderato - 56:37

III. Scherzo. Allegro molto vivace - Trio - 01:04:18

IV. Finale. Moderato assai - Allegro vivo - Presto - 01:09:27

Symphony No.3 in D-major, Op.29 'Polish':

I. Introduzione e Allegro - 01:20:17

II. Alla tedesca. Allegro moderato - 01:34:39

III. Andante elegiaco - 01:42:14

IV. Scherzo. Allegro vivo - 01:52:24

V. Finale. Allegro con fuoco - 01:57:49

Symphony No.4 in f-minor, Op.36:

I. Andante sostenuto - Moderato con anima - 02:06:55

II. Andantino in modo di canzone - 02:26:25

III. Scherzo. Pizzicato ostinato - Allegro - 02:36:58

IV. Finale. Allegro con fuoco - 02:42:29

Manfred Symphony, Op.58:

I. Lento lugubre - Moderato con moto - Andante - 02:51:42

II. Vivace con spirito - 03:09:36

III. Andante con moto - 03:18:15

IV. Allegro con fuoco - 03:30:29

Symphony No.5 in e-minor, Op.64:

I. Andante - Allegro con anima - 03:51:59

II. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza - 04:08:47

III. Valse. Allegro moderato - 04:23:26

IV. Finale. Andante maestoso - Allegro vivace - 04:29:47

Symphony No.6 in b-minor, Op.74 'Pathetique':

I. Adagio - Allegro non troppo - 04:44:00

II. Allegro con grazia - 05:02:52

III. Allegro molto vivace - 05:10:42

IV. Finale. Adagio lamentoso - Andante - 05:19:43