MUSIC SATURDAY - BONPORTI

“When you play a violin piece, you are a storyteller, and you’re telling a story.” - Joshua Bell

Francesco Antonio Bonporti (11 June 1672 – 19 December 1749) was an Italian priest and amateur composer. He was born in Trento. In 1691, he was admitted to the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, where he studied theology. There, he also studied composition under the guidance of Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni and, although it is not confirmed, violin with Arcangelo Corelli.

Back in his native Trento, he was ordained a priest in 1695. In 1740 he moved to Padua, where he lived until his death. He influenced Johann Sebastian Bach in the development of the invention, and in fact several of his works were mistakenly included in a set of Bach’s inventions. In reality, Bach had transcribed for harpsichord four violin pieces from Bonporti’s op. X (1712). Bonporti’s musical work consists of twelve collections, published between 1696 and 1736. He died in Padua in 1749.

Musicians curiously sought out the music of this unknown composer good enough to be mistaken for the master Bach. They found a composer of high skill, great originality, and even daring, with very accomplished part writing, where all voices are generously highly melodic in their own right. His weakness is that he wrote in different styles to please a diverse bunch of highly connected dedicatees, so he did not develop his own individual “sound”.

Here are some of his concerti and serenatas, played by Bloomington Baroque, directed by Stanley Ritchie who is also violin soloist.

The photo is of Prato della Valle (Prà deła Vałe in Venetian), which is a 90,000 square metre elliptical square in Padova, Italy. It is the largest square in Italy, and one of the largest in Europe. Today, the square is a large space with a green island at the centre, l'Isola Memmia, surrounded by a small canal bordered by two rings of statues.

FOOD FRIDAY - FRUIT & NUT BARS

“All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.” - John Gunther

I love having a leisurely breakfast with music playing, hot toast, poached eggs, freshly made proper coffee, fruit, freshly squeezed juice… Sometimes though, it’s a mad rush at breakfast time and people have a few sips of coffee and leave the house without eating anything. Bad move, but I have been guilty of this myself on more than one occasion. The answer is to have some quickly portable breakfast food around that can be taken and eaten on the run. Enter the Fruit and Nut Bars:

Fruit & Nut Bars
Ingredients
Olive oil
1 and 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup wholemeal self-raising flour
1 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup sultanas
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of ground cloves
1 tbsp sunflower seeds1 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tbsp roughly crushed almonds
1 cup skim milk powder
3 tbsp margarine
4 tbsp honey
250 mL apricot nectar

Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line an 18 x 28 cm rectangular baking tray with baking paper and lightly grease with olive oil.
Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl, mix well and set aside. Place the margarine and honey in a medium saucepan over a low heat and stir until the margarine has melted. Add to the bowl and stir through, adding the apricot nectar mixing well.
Press the mixture into the pan, spreading firmly with the back of a spoon. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and, while still hot, cut into ten bars. Remove from the tin and serve warm or at room temperature.

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SUMMER JASMINE

“Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns Its fragrant lamps, and turns Into a royal court with green festoons The banks of dark lagoons.” - Henry Timrod

One of the flowers I associate most with my childhood and my grandparents house especially is the Summer jasmine. The delicious smell of the flower-bedecked vigorous climber filled not only the garden, but also wafted into the house through the open windows at night. Even now I cannot smell the flowers and not be transported back to the carefree Summers I spent with my grandparents and remember the wonderful garden that they had.

Jasminum officinale, known as the common jasmine, is a species of flowering plant in the olive family Oleaceae, native to the Caucasus, northern Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Himalayas, Tajikistan, India, Nepal and western China. The species is widely cultivated in many places, and is reportedly naturalised in France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Romania, the former Yugoslavia, Algeria, Florida and the West Indies. It is also known as summer jasmine, poet’s jasmine, white jasmine, true jasmine or jessamine, and is particularly valued by gardeners throughout the temperate world for the intense fragrance of its flowers in summer. It is also the national flower of Pakistan.

Jasminum officinale is a vigorous, twining, deciduous climber with sharply pointed pinnate leaves and clusters of starry, pure white flowers in summer, which are the source of its heady scent. The cultivation of this plant is so ancient that its country of origin, though somewhere in Central Asia, is not certain. In ninth-century Chinese texts J. officinale was said to come from Byzantium. Its Chinese name, Yeh-hsi-ming is a version of the Persian and Arabic name (alyasimin). Its entry into European gardens was most likely through the Arab-Norman culture of Sicily.

In the mid-14th century the Florentine Boccaccio in his “Decameron” describes a walled garden in which “the sides of the alleys were all, as it were, walled in with roses white and red and jasmine; insomuch that there was no part of the garden but one might walk there not merely in the morning but at high noon in grateful shade.” Jasmine water also features in the story of Salabaetto in the “Decameron”. Jasminum officinale, “of the household office” where perfumes were distilled, was so thoroughly naturalised that Linnaeus thought it was native to Switzerland. As a garden plant in London it features in William Turner’s “Names of Herbes”, 1548. Numerous cultivars have been developed for garden use, but also for cultivation in order to harvest the flowers and produce the jasmine oil absolute that is used in perfumery.

The essential oil of Jasminum officinale is used in aromatherapy. Jasmine absolute is known as the “King of Oils”, and its heavy, sweet scent is loved by most people. The flowers release their perfume at dusk, so flowers are picked at night and a tiny amount of oil is obtained by solvent extraction. The result is a very expensive oil, but it can be used in low concentrations so it is not that uneconomic to use it in products. The aroma of jasmine is described as calming and soothing without being soporific, and is indicated for depression and stress, as well as some respiratory conditions.

As a herbal medicine, the oil is used in dermatology as either an antiseptic or anti-inflammatory agent. Jasminum officinale L. var. grandiflorum is a folk medicine used for the treatment of hepatitis in south of China. It has shown anti-viral activity in vitro. This oil can cause irritation in some people if used too frequently or in high concentrations, so use with caution, preferably in low concentrations. A major component of jasmine is benzyl acetate (~25%), which is known to be absorbed through the skin and known to be an allergic sensitiser. Those who show allergies to spicy food, perfumes and cosmetics are most likely to react. However, the power of the scent is such that only tiny amounts are required anyway. Jasmine is also an emmenagogue (stimulates menstrual blood flow) and therefore should not be used during pregnancy.

In Arabic, “alyasimin” means “white flower”, which in turn embodies feminine beauty and temptation. In Asia, jasmine is considered a heavenly flower. In India, Kama, the goddess of love, strikes her victims with a jasmine-laced arrow. In the Western Language of Flowers, jasmine signifies amiability and can convey the message: “You are cheerful and graceful”.

Jasmine is considered to be a sacred flower in Asia. The Hindus strung jasmine flowers together to form garlands and presented then to their most honoured guests. A fragrant emblem of love, jasmine flowers are often entwined into bridal flowers at Indian weddings. This custom is said to promise the bridal couple a deep and lasting affection for eternity. Jasmine is known as ‘moonlight of the grove’ in India due to its ghostly pale flowers.

An ancient Indian myth of a princess who fell in love with the sun god Surya-Deva attempts to explain why the jasmine flower will only open its petals at night. According to the myth, the sun god rejected the princess’s love and she was so heartbroken that she killed herself. Her ashes were scattered to the ground, and from the ashes the beautiful jasmine grew. Since the sun god was responsible for her death, the jasmine flower would only open and release her perfume at night. Throughout history, jasmine has been revered for its aphrodisiac qualities, and known as a plant of love.

This post is part of the Floral Friday meme.

POETS UNITED - WITNESS

“My witness is the empty sky.” - Jack Kerouac

For this week’s theme in Poets United, we are exploring the concepts of “Martyrdom/Witness”. Forgive me if I’ve gone on a tangent, but the image of a flowerless gardenia (a martyr-witness) stuck in my mind…

My Words of Love

My words of love
Are taken by the wind;
My sighs of love
Lifted up high in the air
Unheard, unanswered, wasted
They vanish, taken by the wind.

These four walls
Only they hear me
They listen to my sighs
They share my tears
And ever silently
Are faithful witness to my hopes.

These empty pages
Echo my thoughts, my fears
My joyless days.
Pen, paper, ink know me well by now,
And words are self-propelled
While mirroring my meditations.

The virginal gardenia
On my windowsill awaits:
A martyr of lovelessness
Will only bloom
When other sighs except my own
Will it hear within these walls.

My words of love
Are taken by the wind;
My sighs of love
Lifted up high in the air
Unheard, unanswered, wasted
They vanish, taken by the wind.

TRAVEL TUESDAY #15

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” - Ernest Hemingway

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.

The Eiffel Tower (French: tour Eiffel) is a wrought iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Constructed in 1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair, it was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world.

The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world: 6.98 million people ascended it in 2011. The tower received its 250 millionth visitor in 2010. The tower is 324 metres tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building. Its base is square, 125 metres on a side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was built in 1930.

Due to the addition of the aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres. Not including broadcast aerials, it is the second-tallest structure in France, after the Millau Viaduct. The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second. The top level’s upper platform is 276 m above the ground, the highest accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually only accessible by lift.

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

MOVIE MONDAY - DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES

“I never do anything fun, because I'm a housewife. I hate that word ‘housewife’. I prefer to be called ‘domestic goddess’.’ - Roseanne Barr

We have just finished watching the first season of the 2004 soapie “Desperate Housewives” on DVD, which I must say I was dragged in to watch kicking and screaming. Reading the blurb on the cover and seeing the cover photo, I must say that I groaned. This was a typical chick-flick type of soapie that I was just going to hate and I was going to watch a few episodes and then politely make up excuses and desist from watching the remaining episodes of this mammoth eight-season series…

Never heard of this series, like me before watching it? Well you must have been living on the same planet as me (which is not earth) as every other person on earth has apparently seen this! The show is about suburban life for a group of close-knit housewives who have become good friends and apparently live a “normal” suburban life. However, this is no ordinary suburb as one of their closest friends mysteriously commits suicide. So not only do they have to deal with their own hectic problems and romantic lives, but they have to work out why on earth would a happy housewife suddenly take her own life. Each season of the series brings on a new mystery and more twisted events in the dark and complex lives of the residents of Fairview…

Well, having watched the first season, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. The show is not boring and furthermore it had me hooked. What really sucked me in was that it deals with some serious issues, but it has humour! And that’s the winner for me and that is what kept me watching it. The other winner is that the characters, although anything but normal, do resonate and viewers can immediately recognise them as people they know or have met. Also despite the understandable exaggeration that a soapie plotline indulges in, there are so many situations and dialogue that rings remarkably real. Hats off to the creator of the series, Marc Cherry for getting the mix right.

The other strength of the show is the fantastic cast, especially the female leads who play the housewives of the title desperately well! Terri Hatcher as the insecure and slightly inept Susan Mayer, Felicity Huffman as the efficient and erstwhile successful businesswoman Lynette Scavo (I have a lot of time for this common sense lady!), Marcia Cross as the neurotic perfectionist Bree Van De Kamp, Eva Longoria as the narcissistic, shallow ex-model Gabrielle Solis, and finally  Nicollette Sheridan as the predatory sexpot Edie Britt. The supporting actors are excellent also, as they have to be, I guess, in the cutthroat world of soapie TV…

Overall, an enjoyable, entertaining, funny (although often sensitive and poignant) series. I’m grateful that I was made to watch it and look forward to seeing Season 2! Oh, and by the way I enjoyed the introduction and credits as the idea of using a send-up of famous artworks was fantastic. There is reference to “Adam and Eve” by Lucas Cranach the Elder, “The Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan van Eyck, “American Gothic” by Grant Wood, and Andy Warhol's “Campbell's soup can”. Also alluded to are the lesser known “Couple Arguing” and “Romantic Couple” by Robert Dale (drawn in a comic book style similar to that of Roy Liechtenstein) and a 1940s “Am I Proud!” poster by Dick Williams (showing a woman holding cans).

ART SUNDAY - ELISEU MAIFRÈN

“Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance.” - Charles Lindbergh

Eliseu Meifrèn i Roig (24 December 1857/59, Barcelona - 5 February 1940, Barcelona) was a Catalonian Impressionist painter. After a conventional youth culminating with his enrolment at University to study medicine, Meifrèn decided that this was not his calling. Following his passion for art, he gave up the study of medicine and enrolled at the Escola de la Llotja, where his teachers were Antoni Caba and Ramon Martí Alsina.

In 1879, as a young man, he went to Paris and supported his studies by selling small canvases and sketches of cityscapes. His style was, however, decisively influenced by a brief tour of Italy. Upon his return to Spain in 1881, he participated in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts. Venice. The following year, he married, honeymooned in Paris, and settled there. His first personal exhibition came in 1890 at the Sala Parés in Barcelona, where he presented seventy oils in a rather conventional landscape style, and surprised everyone by auctioning off the works that did not sell, with his friend Santiago Rusiñol acting as the appraiser.

Meifrèn used the proceeds to return to Italy. In 1892, he went back to Paris and began to associate with the Impressionists, with his canvases showing their influence in his more adventurous use of colour. Five years later, he accepted an invitation from the President of the “Gabinete Literario”, and moved to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. His home there became a makeshift art academy, where Néstor Martín-Fernández de la Torre was one of his students.

His fame peaked at the turn of the century, with exhibitions in South America as well as Europe. However, after the commercial failure of his works at the “Real Círculo Artístico de Barcelona”, he decided to move to Buenos Aires. He arrived there in 1903, held his first exhibition shortly after and organised a large exposition of Catalonian painters in 1904, including five pastels by Pablo Picasso.

In 1905, he was offered the position of Director at the “Escola de d’Arts i Oficis de Palma” on Mallorca, accepted, and moved again. He continued to travel however, to France, Italy, Buenos Aires and Brussels, where he participated in the International Exposition, winning the Silver Medal. In 1915, he travelled to the United States to promote himself at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, receiving honourable mention, and won the Grand Prize at an exhibition in San Diego. He then settled briefly in New York, where he displayed his paintings of Mallorca and Cadaqués, a village where he had spent his summers since 1886.

Finally, in 1917, he returned to Barcelona to stay. His wife died in 1924 and he remarried in 1930. When the Spanish Civil War began, he and his family fled to Manresa, where they lived as refugees until 1939. In December of that year, his final exhibition was held in Barcelona at the Sala Gaspar. It was a critical and financial success, but he was too ill to attend. A few weeks later, his health worsened rapidly and he died in February.

Meifrèn was a very prolific, solid and skilful painter and stood out for his landscapes and seascapes, whose initial realism gradually opened up to the boldness of impressionism, although he did not fully espouse this influence until the 1920s–1930s. His later canvases are lively and fresh filled with the sun of the Mediterranean coast.

The painting above is “El Marne” from 1932, showing his fully developed impressionist style. The influence of Monet is apparent in both subject matter, colour and technique. The painting is an oil on canvas, 60.5 x 80.5 cm, and is exhibited in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, in Barcelona.

MUSIC SATURDAY - GEORG MUFFAT

“I’m not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.” - Leonard Bernstein

Georg Muffat (1 June 1653 – 23 February 1704) was a French Baroque composer. He is most well known for the remarkably articulate and informative performance directions printed along with his collections of string pieces Florilegium Primum and Florilegium Secundum (First and Second Bouquets) in 1695 and 1698.

Georg Muffat was born in Megève, Duchy of Savoy (now in France), and was of Scottish descent. He studied in Paris between 1663 and 1669, where his teacher is often assumed to have been Jean Baptiste Lully. This assumption is largely based on the statement: “For six years ... I avidly pursued this style which was flowering in Paris at the time under the most famous Jean Baptiste Lully.” This is ambiguous (in all of the languages in which it was printed) as to whether the style was flourishing under Lully, or that Muffat studied under Lully. In any case, the style which the young Muffat learned was unequivocally Lullian and it remains likely that he had at least some contact with the man himself.

After leaving Paris, he became an organist in Molsheim and Sélestat. Later, he studied law in Ingolstadt, afterwards settling in Vienna. He could not get an official appointment, so he travelled to Prague in 1677, then to Salzburg, where he worked for the archbishop for some ten years. In about 1680, he travelled to Italy, there studying the organ with Bernardo Pasquini, a follower of the tradition of Girolamo Frescobaldi; he also met Arcangelo Corelli, whose works he admired very much. From 1690 to his death, he was Kapellmeister to the bishop of Passau. Georg Muffat should not be confused with his son Gottlieb Muffat, also a successful composer.

Muffat was, as Johann Jakob Froberger before him, and Handel after him, a cosmopolitan composer who played an important role in the exchanges between European musical traditions. The information contained within the Florilegium Primum and Secundum is nearly unique. These performance directions were intended to assist German string players with the idiom of the French dance style, and include detailed rules for the tempo and order of bow strokes in various types of movement, as well as more general strategies for good ensemble playing and musicianship. These texts remain extremely valuable for modern historically-interested musicians.

Here are his 12 Concerti Grossi, played by Musica Aeterna conducted by Peter Zajíček.

FOOD FRIDAY - SUMMER PUDDING

“Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January.” - Hal Borland

We have a range of fresh berries in the greengrocer’s at the moment and this is the time of the year that we get to enjoy a very traditional English dessert. It’s very simple to make, but making it taste good depends so much on the good quality of all the ingredients used.

English Summer Pudding
Ingredients
3 tbsp maraschino liqueur
180 g caster sugar
500 g washed, mixed summer fruits as available (raspberries, strawberries, red and blackcurrants, damsons and blackberries)
180 g plain sponge cake, cut into 1 cm slices
Whipped cream, or chilled vanilla yoghurt

Method
Stir the liqueur and sugar together and bring to a gentle boil. Add all the berries and fruits except strawberries. Stew the fruits very gently and not for too long. They should simply be softened but still retain their shape. Once they are ready put to one side (juice and all) and leave to cool.
Cut the slices of cake into triangles. They do not all have to match perfectly, but you will use these to line a 700 ml pudding basin.
Start by lining your pudding basin with cling film. Then continue by dipping a couple of cake triangles in the juices of the stewed fruits. Lay these in the bottom of the dish and then continue the same way but lining the sides of the basin with cake slices ensuring there are no gaps. Once completed, fill with the stewed fruits including the strawberries. Cover the top with more juice dipped cake slices.
Make sure to not add too much of the juices from the fruits as this may cause the cake to lose its shape. There must be enough to soak into the cake though. Place a saucer on the top of the basin and weigh down with something heavy. Place in the refrigerator and leave overnight. The next day, before serving, turn the pudding out onto a pretty serving plate and serve with either the whipped cream or chilled vanilla yoghurt.

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ALL ABOUT GERBERAS

“The Japanese say, If the flower is to be beautiful, it must be cultivated.” - Lester Cole

Gerbera is a genus of plants in the Asteraceae (daisy) family. It was named in honour of German botanist and medical doctor Traugott Gerber (1710-1743) who travelled extensively in Russia and was a friend of Carl Linnaeus. Gerbera is native to tropical regions of South America, Africa and Asia. The first scientific description of a Gerbera was made by J.D. Hooker in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine in 1889 when he described Gerbera jamesonii, a South African species also known as Transvaal daisy or Barberton Daisy. Gerbera is also commonly known as the African Daisy.

Gerbera species bear a large capitulum with striking, two-lipped ray florets in yellow, orange, white, pink or red colours. The capitulum, which has the appearance of a single flower, is actually composed of hundreds of individual flowers. The morphology of the flowers varies depending on their position in the capitulum. The flower heads can be as small as 7 cm (Gerbera mini 'Harley') in diameter or up to 12 cm (Gerbera ‘Golden Serena’). Gerbera is very popular and widely used as a decorative garden plant or as cut flowers. The domesticated cultivars are mostly a result of a cross between Gerbera jamesonii and another South African species Gerbera viridifolia. The cross is known as Gerbera hybrida. Thousands of cultivars exist. They vary greatly in shape and size. Colours include white, yellow, orange, red, and pink. The centre of the flower is sometimes black. Often the same flower can have petals of several different colours.

Gerbera is also important commercially. It is the fifth most used cut flower in the world (after rose, carnation, chrysanthemum, and tulip). It is also used as a model organism in studying flower formation. Gerbera contains naturally occurring coumarin derivatives. Gerbera is a tender perennial plant. It is attractive to bees, butterflies and/or birds, but resistant to deer. Their soil should be kept moist but not soaked.

Divide up your own gerbera clumps in late Summer or Autumn outside the tropics, or all year round in northern Australia. When planting gerberas make sure that the crown (the part of the plant from which the new growth arises) is 1-2cm above the soil level. This will reduce the likelihood of disease such as rot, which affect the crown and stems.

As cut flowers gerberas are available at florist shops most of the year. If you are growing gerberas yourself, you can pick your own flowers. Pick flowers that are fully open. As cut flowers gerberas should last 10 to 14 days. Careless picking can leave behind a spot that can become infected. Instead of cutting the stem, waggle it at its base until it pulls away cleanly. To arrange the flower cut off the hairy white part on the bottom of the stem, or the flower won’t be able to absorb any water.

In the language of flowers, white gerberas indicate innocence; yellow Gerberas say “I’ll try harder” and orange gerberas say “You are my sunshine”; red gerberas signify “You are a beauty”, while a bouquet of multicoloured gerberas means “cheer up!”.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

POETS UNITED - MARRIAGE

“Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.” - Charles de Gaulle

This week, PoetsUnited has as its theme “Marriage”. My take on this motif is a little unconventional. Here is my offering:

A Marriage of Convenience

The wily politician, has ample words;

So many words that spout forth seductively:

A demagogue inciting followers effortlessly

To ill-advised and thoughtless actions.

He espouses home-grown values,

Homeland, family, religion all uppermost

In his diatribes, while hypocrite that he is,

Has secret vices that make even the broad-minded blush.

His actions wedded to his specious arguments,

Ostensibly show him to be the champion of freedom,

But really fan flames of hatred, bigotry, intolerance

And lead the masses to violent altercations.

He flaunts his trophy wife at every opportunity,

And uses her to gain political advantage,

To further his nefarious aspirations

And breed his dynasty, ensuring a line of succession.

A liar pledging his troth easily

To any cause that furthers his designs,

All his untruths are easily swallowed by the gullible,

Allowing him to quickly ascend the staircases of power.

The politician marries his public office

In a marriage of convenience,

And as we the people, officiate the travesty,

We give him free reign to do as he will with our lives…

The painting above is “The Orator”, by Magnus Zeller (Germany, 1888-1972), painted circa 1920.

TRAVEL TUESDAY #14

“Happy is he who has gained the wealth of divine thoughts, wretched is he whose beliefs about the gods are dark.” - Empedocles

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 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.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus (Greek: Ναός του Ολυμπίου Διός, Naos tou Olympiou Dios), also known as the Olympieion or Columns of the Olympian Zeus, is a colossal ruined temple in the centre of the Greek capital, Athens, that was dedicated to Zeus, king of the Olympian gods. Construction began in the 6th century BC during the rule of the Athenian tyrants, who envisaged building the greatest temple in the ancient world, but it was not completed until the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD some 638 years after the project had begun.

During the Roman periods it was renowned as the largest temple in Greece and housed one of the largest cult statues in the ancient world. The temple's glory was short-lived, as it fell into disuse after being pillaged in a barbarian invasion in the 3rd century AD. It was probably never repaired and was reduced to ruins thereafter. In the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, it was extensively quarried for building materials to supply building projects elsewhere in the city. Despite this, a substantial part of the temple remains today, and it continues to be a major tourist attraction.

Fifteen columns remain standing today and a sixteenth column lies on the ground where it fell during a storm in 1852. Nothing remains of the cella or the great statue that it once housed. The temple was excavated in 1889-1896 by Francis Penrose of the British School in Athens (who also played a leading role in the restoration of the Parthenon), in 1922 by the German archaeologist Gabriel Welter and in the 1960s by Greek archaeologists led by Ioannes Travlos.

The temple, along with the surrounding ruins of other ancient structures, is a historical precinct administered by Ephorate of Antiquities of the Greek Interior Ministry. On 21 January 2007, a group of Hellenic neopagans held a ceremony honouring Zeus on the grounds of the temple. The event was organised by "Ellinais", an organisation which won a court battle to obtain recognition for Ancient Greek religious practices in the Autumn of 2006.

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

MOVIE MONDAY - THE BAFTAs

“There’s a lot of great movies that have won the Academy Award, and a lot of great movies that haven’t. You just do the best you can.” - Clint Eastwood

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is an independent charity that supports, develops and promotes the art forms of the moving image – film, television and game in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awards ceremonies, BAFTA has an international, year-round programme of learning events and initiatives offering access to talent through workshops, masterclasses, scholarships, lectures and mentoring schemes in the UK and the USA.

BAFTA started out as the British Film Academy, was founded in 1947 by a group of directors David Lean, Alexander Korda, Roger Manvell, Laurence Olivier, Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, Michael Balcon, Carol Reed, and other major figures of the British film industry. David Lean was the founding Chairman of the Academy. The first Film Awards ceremony took place in May 1949 and honouring the films “The Best Years of Our Lives”, “Odd Man Out” and “The World Is Rich”.

The Guild of Television Producers and Directors was set up in 1953 with the first awards ceremony in October 1954, and in 1958 merged with the British Film Academy to form the Society of Film and Television Arts, whose inaugural meeting was held at Buckingham Palace and presided over by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. In 1976, HM The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Princess Royal and The Earl Mountbatten of Burma officially opened the organisation’s headquarters at 195 Piccadilly, London, and in March the Society officially became known as the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

BAFTA’s annual film awards ceremony is known as the British Academy Film Awards, or “the BAFTAs”, and reward the best work of any nationality seen on British cinema screens during the preceding year. In 1949 the British Film Academy, as it was then known, presented the first awards for films made in 1947 and 1948. Since 2008 the ceremony has been held at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden, having previously been held in the Odeon cinema on Leicester Square since 2000. The ceremony previously was performed during April or May of each year, but from 2002 since it has been held in February to precede the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ (AMPAS) Academy Awards, or Oscars.

In order for a film to be considered for a BAFTA nomination its first public exhibition must be displayed in a cinema and it must have a UK theatrical release for no fewer than seven days of the calendar year that corresponds to the upcoming awards. A movie must be of feature length and movies from all countries are eligible in all categories, with the exception of the Alexander Korda Award for Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut, which are for British films or individuals only.

The 69th BAFTAs Award Ceremony was held on 14 February 2016 at the Royal Opera House in London. The nominees were announced on 8 January 2016 by Stephen Fry and actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw, with “Bridge of Spies” and “Carol” both having the most nominations at 9 each.  The ceremony was broadcast on BBC One with a two hour delay. The ceremony was watched by 4.5 million people, down from 4.9 million viewers in 2015 and the lowest television audience since 2010.

Despite leading the field in nominations with nine each, “Carol” failed to gain any awards and “Bridge of Spies” won only one; Mark Rylance for Best Supporting Actor. The American film “The Revenant” won the most awards at the event, winning five including Best Film. Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu won the award for Best Director, Emmanuel Lubezki for Best Cinematography and Leonardo di Caprio won the award for Best Actor. Di Caprio's win was his first from four nominations. Lubezki's win was his third consecutive BAFTA, and fourth in total, having previously won awards for “Children of Men”, “Gravity” and “Birdman”. Other winners in the acting categories included Brie Larson, who won Best Actress for her role in “Room”, and Kate Winslet, who won Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Steve Jobs”. Winslet’s win was her third BAFTA. “Mad Max: Fury Road” won four BAFTAs in the editing, production design, costume design and makeup and hair categories. Sidney Poitier was awarded the Academy Fellowship for his contribution to cinema.

Many people regard the BAFTAs as the event to watch in order to predict possible winners for the Oscars, and although there are often concordances, in many other cases the awards are quite disparate. The full list of BAFTA Awards can be found on their website (http://www.bafta.org/)

ART SUNDAY - LUDVÍK KUBA

“The streets of Prague were a fantasia scarcely touched by the twenty-first century – or the twentieth or nineteenth, for that matter. It was a city of alchemists and dreamers, its medieval cobbles once trod by golems, mystics, invading armies. Tall houses glowed goldenrod and carmine and eggshell blue, embellished with Rococo plasterwork and capped in roofs of uniform red. Baroque cupolas were the soft green of antique copper, and Gothic steeples stood ready to impale fallen angels.” - Laini Taylor

Ludvík Kuba (April 16, 1863 in Poděbrady, Bohemia – November 30, 1956 in Prague) was a Czech landscape painter, musician, writer, and a professor in the Academy of Fine Arts. He was a representative of late Impressionism, but was also very interested in folk culture of the Balkans, collecting folksongs, folk tales, customs and cultural heritage.

Kuba was the second of eleven children of Ludvík Luba Sr, a locksmith, and his wife Anna, née Mikšovský. Ever since his youth the young Ludvík showed artistic leanings and of his siblings, only his brother Charles shared this, later becoming a blacksmith specialising in decorative ironwork. Apart from drawing Kuba had talent in music, gradually learning to play the violin, piano, organ and other musical instruments. From 1873 he attended primary school in Podebrady.

In the years 1877 - 1879 he studied at the Prague Organ School at Francis Zdenek Skuherského. He then undertook further studies at the pedagogical institute in Kutna Hora, the director of which at that time was Gustav Adolf Lindner. There, he often painted parts of the historic city and its surroundings. At the same time he began to study Slavic languages and was interested in ethnographic study. After graduating in 1883 he worked for two years as an assistant teacher and also intensively worked on the first volume of the collection “Slavonic Peoples in their Songs”, which came out in 1884. In the same year he decided to leave his teaching career and pursue a profession as an ethnographer and writer. He undertook frequent study trips to Lausitz, Halič, Ukraine and Russia. Most often, however, he visited the Balkans, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

From 1888 he decided to continue his painting education, and at Karl Liebscher’s recommendation, he enrolled in 1891 in the Prague Academy of Painting. In 1893 he went to Paris, where he studied painting at the private Académie Julian. This trip was important to as it was there he met his compatriot Olga Joujovou, who in 1895 became his wife. Soon after the wedding, the couple went to Mostar where Kuba wanted to paint a cycle of Slav traditional life. But this failed to be completed because it seemed to him that he was not sufficiently in control of the technique of oil painting.

He decided to study painting further, this time in Munich, with Slovenian painter Anton Ažbeho. Kuba lived in Vienna between 1904 and 1910, and then, before returning to his homeland, he undertook a three-month trip to Italy, where he visited major art centres, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. From 1911 he settled in Prague. After some disagreements with the Artistic Association Mánes he mainly focused on ethnographic activities, for which he received over the years a number of awards at home and abroad. He undertook a study tour and worked on compiling collections of Slavic Folksong.

In 1921 he traveled regularly with his family to Březnice Pribram, where the parents of his wife had their house. Here he painted genre pictures of the town and surrounding area. From there he also went on trips to paint landscapes in South Bohemia.  In 1937 he participated as a member of an official delegation in an exhibition of Czechoslovak art in Moscow.

During his long life he painted prolifically and almost until the end of his life organised exhibitions of his paintings. He collected over 4,000 folk songs and published widely on ethnographic and folk musical matters. He died in Prague on 30 November 1956 at the age of 93 years. The urn with his ashes was in possession of his only son, Louis Maria Cuba until 1992, when it was deposited in the Urn Grove in Kluk (Poděbrady).

The painting above is “Square in Pardubice”, painted in 1911. This was when the artist had come back to Prague after his further studies in Vienna and this is a confident, freely executed work, capturing the vivid sunlight and bold triangular shadowy area on the left, which nevertheless highlights the warmly glowing ornate building façades.

MUSIC SATURDAY - LIEBESTOD

“Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.” - J.M. Barrie

In the early 1850s, Richard Wagner (1813-1883) began reading the works of the German philosopher Arthur Schoepenhauer (1788-1860). For Schoepenhauer, music occupied a station above all other arts, including poetry, which meant that the text of an opera was relegated to a supporting role. Wagner resonated to this ad he started to show evidence of his exposure to Schoepenhauer by the mid-1850s. “Tristan und Isolde”, the composer’s major operatic project of the decade reflected this influence and the music of the opera assumed an overarching role, soaring above and beyond the lyrics.

Until “Tristan und Isolde”, no one had quite imagined the extent to which music alone could embody drama. In one long musical utterance, Wagner lays bare the inner lives of the opera’s title characters, as their love, doomed from its beginning, finds fulfillment in death. The “Prelude and Liebestod” (Love-Death) comprise the beginning and ending of the opera.

The Prelude opens with the cellos softly playing four notes. The last note fades into an extraordinary chord played by oboes, bassoons, and English horn. This chord, the famous “Tristan chord,” sounds strange because it is an unresolved dissonance, an academic way of saying that it sounds like it is leading to something which our ear finds acceptable and “final”. But because Wagner, at this point, withholds resolution, the chord is, at this point, a beginning without an end.

What follows is a lush orchestral work that charts the psychology of the opera, which itself explores the unexplainable, primal nature of love. The chord returns during the course of the opera, but it is only resolved during the work’s final, ecstatic closing “Liebestod”. It is the culmination of the opera’s tragic events, set in motion when Tristan and Isolde drink a love potion. Tristan, though, has claimed Isolde on behalf of his lord, King Marke. When Marke discovers the lovers together, one of the king’s knights stabs Tristan, who returns to his fortress to die.

Isolde has just arrived to find Tristan dead when the “Liebestod” begins. Her worldly surroundings fade away as she contemplates sinking unconscious into supreme bliss and finally consummating her love with Tristan in death. The passage builds to a climax as “waves of refreshing breezes” begin envelop Isolde (at the words “Heller schallend, mich umwallend” i.e. “Sounding more clearly, wafting around me”) and again as she imagines expiring in “the vast wave of the world’s breath” (“in des Welt-Atems wehendem All”). She sinks down as the winds, over luminous violins, float to a final and satisfying resolution of the “Tristan chord” from the Prelude.

Here is the orchestral version of the “Prelude and Liebestod” played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Georg Solti.

And here is Stephen Fry exploring the “Tristan chord” and its significance to modern music.

And the painting above is “Tristan and Iseult” depicted by Edmund Blair Leighton (1853–1922).