MUSIC SATURDAY - PIETER HELLENDAAL

“Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.” - MartinLuther

Pieter Hellendaal (Born: April 1, 1721 –Died; April 19, 1799, aged 78) was an Anglo-Dutch composer, organist and violinist. He was sometimes distinguished with the suffix “The Elder”, after the maturity of his musician son, Pieter Hellendaal the Younger. At age 30, he migrated to England where he lived for the last 48 of his 78 years. He was one of the most famous composers of Dutch origin in the 18th century.

At the age of eleven Pieter was appointed as an organist of the church of St Nicolas in Utrecht. Five years later his family moved to Amsterdam where he studied with Tartini. By 1743 he was playing the violin in public performances and earned the right to publish music by 1744. For a short time Hellendaal was a student at the University in Leiden and even made appearances at The Hague.

By 1751 he had left for London where he was afforded ample opportunites to perfrom and compose. In the performance of Handel’s “Acis and Galatea” Hellendaal performed solo music between acts. The composition “Glory be to the Father” (a canon) received an annual award from The Gentlemen's Catch Club and contemporaneously his six sonatas for violin and continuo were published.

When he was age forty, in 1762, Pieter moved to Cambridge, where the musical enthusiasm in academic circles around the University allowed him to settle down for the rest of his life. First, he was hired as an organist for Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was able to teach, give concerts, and compose. Fifteen years later, in 1777, he was appointed organist in the Chapel of Peterhouse where he worked until he died 37 years later in 1799, at age 78.

The characteristics of Hellendaal’s music included typical conventions of Italian Baroque music. He assiduously followed the practice of thoroughbass with single thematic devices. Violin sonatas followed the slow-fast-fast, three movement structures of Tartini and his concertos were dominated by fugues and liberation of the viola part.

Peter Hellendaal, a.k.a. “The Younger” was born circa 1756 in London and given his father’s name. He became a violinist, clarinetist, and arranger/composer. He actively collaborated in his father’s self-publishing during the 1790s, helping send to market a stream of various musical publications. For example, to serve the needs of parish churches, he selected and arranged for publication pieces from the Elder’s Collection of Psalms and Hymns. This publication also included one of Peter’s own compositions. The last notice of Peter’s life was from 17 April 1801 when he was the soloist in a benefit concert which performed a concerto written by his father. He died later that year, at the age of 45, outliving his father by only two years.

Here are six Cello Sonatas by Pieter Hellendaal the Elder (op. 5, 1780), played by soloist Jaap ter Linden, Ton Koopman, harpsichord continuo and Ageet Zweistra, cello continuo.

No.1 - 0:00

No.2 - 8:28

No.5 - 19:45

No.6 - 31:33

No.7 - 43:52

No.8 - 54:42

FOOD FRIDAY - RED VELVET CAKE

“One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.” - Johann Wolfgang vonGoethe

Some time ago we visited a friend and she served us Red Velvet Cake. It was quite easily the best we had until that time. We had asked for the recipe, but as we were leaving we forgot about it. It was nice of her to remember and she sent us the recipe by mail. I was surprised to find what the secret ingredient of the cake was, which had made it quite zingy: Sour cherry syrup! This is a sweet and sour syrup made from Morello cherries. We often use this at home for a number of delicious dishes. The simplest thing is to drizzle it over vanilla ice cream, elevating the taste greatly. Here, in this recipe the syrup is spread over the cake, adding to the moistness and improving the flavour of the cake.


Red Velvet Cake

Ingredients – Cake

250g butter, softened

660 g white sugar

4 eggs

30mL red food colouring

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

375g plain flour

250mL buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 tablespoon white vinegar

Ingredients – frosting

375g white chocolate

500g cream cheese, softened

250g butter, softened

Sour cherry syrup (available in bottles in continental groceries)


Method

Preheat oven to 170˚C. Grease and flour three 20cm cake tins.

In a large bowl cream the butter and the sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Mix food colouring with cocoa and add to mixture.

Add flour alternately with buttermilk. Add the vanilla essence.

Mix the bicarbonate with the vinegar, and gently stir into mixture. Be careful not to over mix. Divide batter into three prepared 20cm round cake tins. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Test with a skewer to see if the cake is cooked. Allow to cool.

Melt the white chocolate in a double boiler and allow to cool to lukewarm. In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in melted white chocolate and softened butter. Beat until it is the consistency of whipped cream.

Assemble the cake by placing the bottom layer on the serving dish and soaking the top with a couple of tablespoonfuls of sour cherry syrup. Put a layer of frosting on top of this and set the next layer of cake on top. Add syrup and frosting and repeat for the final layer, finishing off by frosting the whole of the cake.

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ALL ABOUT TARRAGON

“Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.” - Alice May Brock

Tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus) is a species of perennial herb in the Asteraceae (sunflower) family. It is widespread in the wild across much of Eurasia and North America, and is cultivated for culinary and medicinal purposes in many places. One sub-species, Artemisia dracunculus var. sativa, is cultivated for use of the leaves as an aromatic culinary herb. In some other sub-species, the characteristic aroma is largely absent. The species is polymorphic. Informal names for distinguishing the variations include “French tarragon” (best for culinary use), “Russian tarragon” (typically better than wild tarragon but not as good as so-called French tarragon for culinary use), and “wild tarragon” (covers various types).

Tarragon grows to 120–150 cm tall, with slender branched stems. The leaves are lanceolate, 2–8 cm long and 2–10 mm broad, glossy green, with an entire margin. The flowers are produced in small capitulae 2–4 mm diameter, each capitulum containing up to 40 yellow or greenish-yellow florets. French tarragon, however, seldom produces any flowers (or seeds). Some tarragon plants produce seeds that are generally only sterile. Others produce viable seeds. Tarragon has rhizomatous roots and it readily reproduces from the rhizomes.

French tarragon is the variety generally considered best for the kitchen, but is never grown from seed as the flowers are sterile; instead it is propagated by root division. It is normally purchased as a plant, and some care must be taken to ensure that true French tarragon is purchased. A perennial, it normally goes dormant in winter. It likes a hot, sunny spot, without excessive watering.

Russian tarragon (A. dracunculoides L.) can be grown from seed but is much weaker in flavour when compared to the French variety. However, Russian tarragon is a far more hardy and vigorous plant, spreading at the roots and growing over a meter tall. This tarragon actually prefers poor soils and happily tolerates drought and neglect. It is not as strongly aromatic and flavoursome as its French cousin, but it produces many more leaves from early spring onwards that are mild and good in salads and cooked food. Russian tarragon loses what flavour it has as it ages and is widely considered useless as a culinary herb, though it is sometimes used in crafts. The young stems in early spring can be cooked as an asparagus substitute.

Horticulturists recommend that Russian tarragon be grown indoors from seed and planted out in the summer. The spreading plants can be divided easily. A better substitute for French tarragon is Spanish tarragon (Tagetes lucida), also known as Mexican mint marigold, Mexican tarragon, Texas tarragon, or winter tarragon. It is much more reminiscent of French tarragon, with a hint of anise. Although not in the same genus as the other tarragons, Spanish tarragon has a stronger flavour than Russian tarragon that does not diminish significantly with age.

Tarragon is one of the four fines herbes of French cooking (finely chopped parsley, chives, tarragon, and chervil), and is particularly suitable for chicken, fish and egg dishes. Tarragon is the main flavouring component of Béarnaise sauce. Fresh, lightly bruised sprigs of tarragon are steeped in vinegar to produce tarragon vinegar. Tarragon is used to flavour a popular carbonated soft drink in the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and, by extension, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The drink, named Tarhun is made out of sugary tarragon concentrate and coloured bright green. In Iran, tarragon is used as a side dish in sabzi khordan (fresh herbs), or in stews and in Persian style pickles, particularly ‘khiar shoor’. In Slovenia, tarragon is used in a variation of the traditional nut roll sweet cake, called potica. In Hungary a popular kind of chicken soup is flavoured with tarragon.

Béarnaise Sauce

Ingredients

1 tablespoon plus 1 cup unsalted butter, cut into 2 cm cubes

3 tablespoons minced shallots

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon (or more) fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh tarragon

Method

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add shallots and a pinch of salt and pepper; stir to coat. Stir in vinegar, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until vinegar is evaporated, 3-4 minutes.

Reduce heat to low and continue cooking shallots, stirring frequently, until tender and translucent, about 5 minutes longer. Transfer shallot reduction to a small bowl and let cool completely.

Meanwhile, fill a blender with hot water to warm it; set aside. Melt remaining 1 cup butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until butter is foamy. Transfer butter to a measuring cup. Drain blender and dry well. Combine egg yolks, lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon water in warm, dry blender. Purée mixture until smooth.

Remove lid insert of blender. With blender running, slowly pour in hot butter in a thin stream of droplets, discarding milk solids at bottom of measuring cup. Continue blending until a smooth, creamy sauce forms, 2-3 minutes. Pour sauce into a medium bowl. Stir in shallot reduction and tarragon and season to taste with salt, pepper, and more lemon juice, if desired. Can be made 1 hour ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature. 

POETS UNITED - CITIZENSHIP

“I am neither an Athenian nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.” – Socrates

The theme for this week’s Poets United Midweek Motif is “Citizenship”. We live in turbulent times where the mass migration of people is in the news every day. Refugees; political or economic migrants; victims of persecution – religious or otherwise; oppressed people, homeless and desperate risk limb or life in order to find their place in the sun, a country that will accept them and where they can live their life in peace and with dignity.

Many years ago, my family had to leave Greece as the direct result of the political situation in Greece at the time. We resettled in Australia. Had we not left, my parents could have been the victims of the regime of the Colonels’ Junta that was characterised by its intolerance, cruelty, violence, injustice, fanaticism and boundless tyranny. Australia welcomed my family and provided an asylum that allowed us to prosper and contribute meaningfully and valuably to its community and society.

I consider myself a Greek-Australian and although I have never denied or betrayed my country of origin, my allegiance is to the country that accepted my family in our time of need. Sometimes people here ask me what would happen if Australia and Greece were at war. Which country would I support? The question is hypothetical but in such a case neutrality would be my only option. I would be one of the conscientious objectors who would try to convince both sides of the futility of war…

I an Australian citizen who happens to have been born in Greece and who lived the first ten years of his life there. I am neither a Greek nor an Australian, but a citizen of the world…

Citizenship

My homeland is betrayed

By a leader whose bloody reign

Has robbed my children

Of their carefree games

In playgrounds that have been blown up by bombs.

My hometown unrecognisable,

By degrees destroyed

As fractious factions

Escalate the violence

So easily destroying what was painstakingly built.

My home has been made rubble

By my neighbours

Whose loyalties changed,

And from childhood friends

They’ve become bitter enemies out to kill.

We leave it all behind us,

Risking our lives and willingly sacrifice all,

To search for a better place

Where children can smile again

And where my family may live, or maybe even prosper.

I renounce my allegiance,

Tear up my citizenship

Relinquish my nationality,

Abandon all that ties me

To that hellish place I once called proudly home.

Let my erstwhile compatriots

Wielding power call me a traitor;

Let my defection be condemned

By fanatics who take the name of my God in vain.

I am a citizen of the peaceful place that will accept me

And I am willing to work my fingers to the bone

To make there a better world, build a new home

A place where life is worth living again.

Here is a wonderful piece by Ariel Ramirez, “La Peregrinacion” from “Missa Criolla” telling of the flight of a persecuted family to try and find a haven away from the wrath of a mad king - Joseph and Mary and the Christchild escaping to Egypt…

TRAVEL TUESDAY #21 - LONDON

“The hardest thing in life to learn is which bridge to cross and which to burn.” - David Russell

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 Tower Bridge (built 1886–1894) is a combined bascule and suspension bridge in London. The bridge crosses the River Thames close to the Tower of London and has become an iconic symbol of London. Tower Bridge is one of five London bridges now owned and maintained by the Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust overseen by the City of London Corporation. It is the only one of the Trust’s bridges not to connect the City of London directly to the Southwark bank, as its northern landfall is in the Tower Hamlets.

The bridge consists of two bridge towers tied together at the upper level by two horizontal walkways, designed to withstand the horizontal tension forces exerted by the suspended sections of the bridge on the landward sides of the towers. The vertical components of the forces in the suspended sections and the vertical reactions of the two walkways are carried by the two robust towers. The bascule pivots and operating machinery are housed in the base of each tower.

The bridge deck is freely accessible to both vehicles and pedestrians, whereas the bridge’s twin towers, high-level walkways and Victorian engine rooms form part of the Tower Bridge Exhibition, for which an admission charge is made. The nearest London Underground tube stations are Tower Hill on the Circle and District lines, London Bridge on the Jubilee and Northern lines and Bermondsey on the Jubilee line, and the nearest Docklands Light Railway station is Tower Gateway. The nearest National Rail stations are at Fenchurch Street and London Bridge.

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 and link back to this post from your own post!

MOVIE MONDAY - COCTEAU'S ORPHÉE

“Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.” - Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau was a French poet, librettist, novelist, actor, director and artist (born July 5, 1889, Maisons-Laffitte, near Paris, France - died October 11, 1963, Milly-la-Forêt, near Paris). Some of his most important works include the poem L’Ange Heurtebise (1925; “The Angel Heurtebise”); the play Orphée (1926; Orpheus); the novels Les Enfants terribles (1929; “The Incorrigible Children”) and La Machine infernale (1934; The Infernal Machine); and his surrealistic motion pictures Le Sang d’un poète (1930; The Blood of a Poet) and La Belle et la bête (1946; Beauty and the Beast).

Cocteau grew up in Paris and always considered himself Parisian by speech, education, ideas, and habits. His family was of the solid Parisian bourgeoisie (cultivated, wealthy, and interested in music, painting, and literature). Cocteau’s earliest memories had to do with the theatre, in popular forms, such as the circus and the ice palace, as well as serious theatre, such as the tragedies performed at the Comédie-Française. At age 19 he published his first volume of poems, La Lampe d’Aladin (“Aladdin’s Lamp”).

Cocteau was the product of the years immediately preceding World War I, years of refined artistic taste that were devoid of political turmoil. His real exploration of the world of the theatre began when he encountered the Ballets Russes, then under the direction of Sergey Diaghilev. When Cocteau expressed a desire to create ballets, Diaghilev challenged him by saying: ‘Étonne-moi’ (“surprise me”). This famous remark seems to have guided the poet not only in his ballets, such as Parade (1917), with music by Erik Satie, and Le Boeuf sur le toit (1920; “The Ox on the Roof”), with music by Darius Milhaud, but also in his other works; and it is sometimes quoted in his plays and films.

During World War I, Cocteau served as an ambulance driver on the Belgian front. The landscape he observed there was later used in his novel Thomas l’imposteur (1923; “Thomas the Imposter”). He became a friend of the aviator Roland Garros and dedicated to him the early poems inspired by aviation, Le Cap de Bonne-Espérance (1919; The Cape of Good Hope). At intervals during the years 1916 and 1917, Cocteau entered the world of modern art, then being born in Paris; in the bohemian Montparnasse section of the city, he met painters such as Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani and writers such as Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire.

Soon after the war, Max Jacob introduced Cocteau to the future poet and novelist Raymond Radiguet. The 16-year-old Radiguet, who appeared to be a prodigy, advocated an aesthetic of simplicity and of classical clarity, qualities that would become characteristic of Cocteau’s own work. The example of Radiguet counted tremendously for Cocteau; and when Radiguet died in 1923, at age 21, the older man felt bereft of a friendship that had been based upon a constant interchange of ideas, encouragement, and enthusiasms. An addiction to opium, brought on by Cocteau’s grief over his lover’s death, necessitated a period of cure. Jacques Maritain, a French Thomist philosopher, paid his first visit to Cocteau in the sanatorium. Through Maritain, Cocteau returned briefly to religious practice.

These complex experiences initiated a new period in his life, during which he produced some of his most important works. In the long poem L’Ange Heurtebise the poet engages in a violent combat with an angel that was to reappear continually in his works. His play Orphée, first performed in 1926, was destined to play a part in the resurrection of tragedy in contemporary theatre; in it, Cocteau deepened his interpretation of the nature of the poet. The novel Les Enfants terribles, written in the space of three weeks in March 1929, is the study of the inviolability of the character of two adolescents, the brother and sister Paul and Elisabeth. In 1950 Cocteau prepared the screenplay for a film of this work, and he was also the film’s narrator.

Cocteau had enlarged the scope of his work by the creation of his first film, Le Sang d’un poète, a commentary on his own private mythology; the themes that then seemed obscure or shocking seem today less private and more universal because they have appeared in other works. Also in the early 1930s Cocteau wrote what is usually thought to be his greatest play, La Machine infernale, a treatment of the Oedipus theme that is very much his own. In these two works he moved into closer contact with the great myths of humanity.

In the 1940s Cocteau returned to filmmaking, first as a screenwriter and then also as a director in La Belle et la bête, a fantasy based on the children’s tale, and Orphée (1950), a re-creation of the themes of poetry and death that he had dealt with in his play. Also a visual artist of significance, Cocteau in 1950 decorated the Villa Santo Sospir in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and began a series of important graphic works: Frescoes on the City Hall in Menton, the Chapel of Saint-Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer, and the Church of Saint-Blaise-des-Simples in Milly-la-Forêt. His adopted son, the painter Édouard Dermit, who also appears in his later films, continued the decoration of a chapel at Fréjus, a work Cocteau had not completed at his death at age 74.

We recently watched again his 1950 film “Orphée” (Orpheus), starring Jean Marais, François Périer and María Casares. The film appeared as striking and as poetic as the first time I had watched it. While based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Cocteau makes of this an allegorical and magical tale of love, death and the meaning of life. It is a surrealistic masterpiece and one can become immersed in it again and again, becoming lost in its symbols, drawing new meaning with each viewing and enjoying again and again the amazing images.

The film is set in post-war, bomb-damaged France of the late 1940s. Orphée (Marais) is a self-absorbed poet, living in splendid isolation with his beautiful wife Eurydice in. Times are changing and Orphée’s popularity is waning as a new wave of poets is winning the new generation. As a poet he feels slighted and he goes into town with the intention of facing the new age. However, he is snubbed and he becomes enraged. The leader of the new poets, the young Jacques Cegeste, is caught up in a brawl in a bar, which spills out into the street and he is killed by a motorcyclist. Orphée, an innocent bystander, is taken away in a black limousine with the lifeless body of Cegeste by a beautiful and mysterious Princess to a deserted house.

Time runs backwards in this house and the way into the underworld lies through mirrors. Orphée falls in love with the Princess (and so falls in love with his own death). Cegeste’s followers advise the police that Orphée is responsible for the young poet’s death. Ultimately Orphée has to choose between between the Princess and Eurydice, his wife.

Marais was Cocteau’s lover for a time and that’s why he probably landed the role of Orphée. He looks quite like the aesthete poet – self-admiring and narcissistic, obsessed with his reflection in the many mirrors of the film. Maria Casares steals every scene she is in as the Princess/Death, playing her role with aplomb and great gusto. François Périer does a marvellous job as Heurtebise, the Princess’s assistant who “breaks the rules” and falls in love with Orphée’s wife. Juliette Greco plays a small but memorable role, and Maria Dea as Eurydice seems rather insignificant in the film’s main themes – or rather her death is quite the catalyst…

It is an amazing film, the closest poetry comes being filmed. A brilliant masterpiece of a complex and wonderfully creative mind. If you are interested in art, poetry, literature, philosophy, myth and symbolism, you will simply love this film!

ART SUNDAY - VAN GOGH

“I want to give the wretched a brotherly message. When I sign my paintings ‘Vincent,’ it is as one of them.” – Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh, in full Vincent Willem van Gogh (born March 30, 1853, Zundert, Netherlands, died July 29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, France), was a Dutch painter, generally considered the greatest after Rembrandt, and one of the greatest of the Post-Impressionists. The striking colour, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms of his work powerfully influenced the current of Expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh’s art became astoundingly popular after his death, especially in the late 20th century, when his work sold for record-breaking sums at auctions around the world and was featured in blockbuster touring exhibitions. In part because of his extensive published letters, van Gogh has also been mythologised in the popular imagination as the quintessential tortured artist.

The work above is ‘The Road Menders’ of 1889; Oil on canvas, 71 x 93 cm; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. The painting is quite monumental, the four large trees separating the painting diagonally into halves. One the left, the passers-by and the houses, on the left the angular blocks of stone and the road menders. The women in black seem more substantial and solid than the lightly coloured road workers who ethereally seem to almost float above the road they are mending. Yellows predominate in the painting and they are tempered by greens and ochre-browns. The painting displays the style of St Remy based on dynamic forms and a vigorous use of line.

MUSIC SATURDAY - RACHMANINOFF PRELUDES

“The piano is a monster that screams when you touch its teeth.” - Andrés Segovia

Sergey Rachmaninoff, in full Sergey Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff (also spelled Rakhmaninov, or Rachmaninov) was born March 20 [April 1, New Style], 1873, Oneg, near Semyonovo, Russia and died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, California, U.S.), was a composer who was the last great figure of the tradition of Russian Romanticism and a leading piano virtuoso of his time. He is especially known for his piano concerti and the piece for piano and orchestra titled Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (1934).

Rachmaninoff was born on an estate belonging to his grandparents, situated near Lake Ilmen in the Novgorod district. His father was a retired army officer and his mother the daughter of a general. The boy was destined to become an army officer until his father lost the entire family fortune through risky financial ventures and then deserted the family. Young Sergey’s cousin Aleksandr Siloti, a well-known concert pianist and conductor, sensed the boy’s abilities and suggested sending him to the noted teacher and pianist Nikolay Zverev in Moscow for his piano studies. It is to Zverev’s strict disciplinarian treatment of the boy that musical history owes one of the great piano virtuosos of the 20th century. For his general education and theoretical subjects in music, Sergey became a pupil at the Moscow Conservatory.

At age 19 he graduated from the conservatory, winning a gold medal for his one-act opera “Aleko” (after Aleksandr Pushkin’s poem Tsygany [“The Gypsies”]). His fame and popularity, both as composer and concert pianist, were launched by two compositions: the “Prelude in C-sharp Minor”, played for the first time in public on September 26, 1892, and his “Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor”, which had its first performance in Moscow on October 27, 1901. The former piece, although it first brought Rachmaninoff to public attention, was to haunt him throughout his life—the prelude was constantly requested by his concert audiences. The concerto, his first major success, revived his hopes after a trying period of inactivity.

In his youth, Rachmaninoff was subject to emotional crises over the success or failure of his works as well as his personal relationships. Self-doubt and uncertainty carried him into deep depressions, one of the most severe of which followed the failure, on its first performance in March 1897, of his “Symphony No. 1 in D Minor”. The symphony was poorly performed, and the critics condemned it. During this period, while brooding over an unhappy love affair, he was taken to a psychiatrist, Nikolay Dahl, who is often credited with having restored the young composer’s self-confidence, thus enabling him to write the “Piano Concerto No. 2” (which is dedicated to Dahl).

At the time of the Russian Revolution of 1905, Rachmaninoff was a conductor at the Bolshoi Theatre. Although more of an observer than a person politically involved in the revolution, he went with his family, in November 1906, to live in Dresden. There he wrote three of his major scores: the “Symphony No. 2 in E Minor” (1907), the symphonic poem “The Isle of the Dead” (1909), and the “Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor” (1909). The last was composed especially for his first concert tour of the United States, highlighting his much-acclaimed pianistic debut on November 28, 1909, with the New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch. “Piano Concerto No. 3” requires great virtuosity from the pianist; its last movement is a bravura section as dazzling as any ever composed. In Philadelphia and Chicago he appeared with equal success in the role of conductor, interpreting his own symphonic compositions. Of these, the “Symphony No. 2” is the most significant: it is a work of deep emotion and haunting thematic material. While touring, he was invited to become permanent conductor of the Boston Symphony, but he declined the offer and returned to Russia in February 1910.

The one notable composition of Rachmaninoff’s second period of residence in Moscow was his choral symphony “The Bells” (1913), based on Konstantin Balmont’s Russian translation of the poem by Edgar Allan Poe. This work displays considerable ingenuity in the coupling of choral and orchestral resources to produce striking imitative and textural effects.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Rachmaninoff went into his second self-imposed exile, dividing his time between residences in Switzerland and the United States. Although for the next 25 years he spent most of his time in an English-speaking country, he never mastered its language or thoroughly acclimatised himself. With his family and a small circle of friends, he lived a rather isolated life. He missed Russia and the Russian people—the sounding board for his music, as he said. And this alienation had a devastating effect on his formerly prolific creative ability. He produced little of real originality but rewrote some of his earlier work. Indeed, he devoted himself almost entirely to concertising in the United States and Europe, a field in which he had few peers. His only substantial works from this period are the “Symphony No. 3 in A Minor” (1936), another expression of sombre, Slavic melancholy, and the “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” for piano and orchestra, a set of variations on a violin caprice by Niccolò Paganini. Rachmaninoff’s last major work, the “Symphonic Dances” for orchestra, was composed in 1940, about two years before his death.

Rachmaninoff’s music, although written mostly in the 20th century, remains firmly entrenched in the 19th-century musical idiom. He was, in effect, the final expression of the tradition embodied by Tchaikovsky—a melodist of Romantic dimensions still writing in an era of explosive change and experimentation. As such, his music and fame has remained in the forefront of the public’s hearts, while other “experimental” composers of his era have vanished into obscurity.

Here are his 10 Preludes for Solo Piano, Op.23 played by Nicolai Lugansky. These preludes are marvels of textural innovation, harmonic imagination, gorgeous counterpoint (Rachmaninoff's brilliance at counterpoint is really not noticed often enough), and lyricism in all its forms: Bleak, sweeping, stark, doleful, lush.

FOOD FRIDAY - TOFFEE PUDDING

“Absolutely eat dessert first. The thing that you want to do the most, do that.” - Joss Whedon

As the weather becomes more autumnal every day, our diet changes also and we indulge in slightly heavier, more substantial fare that warms and provides energy. English toffee pudding is always appropriate for this time of the year…

Toffee Pudding

Ingredients

60 g butter, plus extra for greasing

180 g demerara sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

2 large eggs

2 tbsp black treacle

220g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting

200g pitted dates

300 mL boiling water

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

For the sauce

120 mL double cream 60 g butter, diced

60 g brown sugar

2 tbsp black treacle

1 tbsp golden syrup

Vanilla ice cream, to serve

Method

Preheat the oven to 200˚C. Grease and flour 6 individual pudding moulds. Cream the butter and sugar together in a food processor until pale and fluffy. Add the golden syrup, treacle and eggs, a little at a time, and blend until smooth. Add the flour and blend, at a low speed, until well combined. Transfer to a bowl.

Meanwhile, blend the dates and boiling water in a food processor to a smooth purée. Stir in the bicarbonate of soda and vanilla. Pour the date mixture into the pudding batter and stir until well combined. Pour the mixture into the moulds and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the top is springy and golden-brown.

To make the sauce, heat all of the ingredients in a pan, stirring occasionally, until boiling. To serve, remove the puddings from the moulds and place onto each of 6 serving plates. Pour over the sauce and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

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ALL ABOUT RUE

“There’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it herb-grace o’ Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference...” – Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.

rue 1 |ruː| verb (rues, rueing or ruing, rued) [ with obj. ]

Bitterly regret (something one has done or allowed to happen) and wish it undone: Ferguson will rue the day he turned down that offer | She might live to rue this impetuous decision.

noun [ mass noun ] archaic

Repentance; regret: With rue my heart is laden.

Compassion; pity: Tears of pitying rue.

This definition above is one meaning of the word rue, the other relates to the herb that the quote from “Hamlet” is referring to. Shakespeare is of course in punning mode in that quote and the herb rue lends itself well to Ophelia’s sentiments.

Ruta graveolens, commonly known as rue, common rue or herb-of-grace, is a species of Ruta in the family Rutaceae grown as an ornamental plant and as a herb. It is native to the Balkan Peninsula. It is now grown throughout the world in gardens, especially for its striking bluish leaves, and sometimes for its tolerance of hot and dry soil conditions. It is also cultivated as a medicinal herb, as a condiment, and to a lesser extent as an insect repellent.

The name Ruta is from the Greek reuo (“to set free”), because this herb is so efficacious in various diseases. It was much used by the Ancients; Hippocrates specially commended it, and it constituted a chief ingredient of the famous antidote to poison used by Mithridates. The Greeks regarded it as a remedy to magic, because it served to assuage the nervous indigestion they suffered when eating before strangers, which they attributed to witchcraft. In the Middle Ages and later, it was considered (in many parts of Europe) a powerful defence against witches, and was used in many spells. It was also thought to bestow second sight.

The stem of rue is woody in the lower part, and tender in the young shoots. The leaves are alternate, bluish-green, bi- or tripinnate, and emit a powerful, disagreeable (for most people) odour and have an exceedingly bitter, acrid and nauseous taste. I rather like the smell of rue, while my mother dislikes it intensely, and my father is quite indifferent to it.

The greenish-yellow flowers are in terminal panicles, blossoming from June to September in the Northern Hemisphere. The first flower that opens has usually ten stamens, the others eight only. In England Rue is one of the oldest garden plants, cultivated for its use medicinally, having, together with other herbs, been introduced by the Romans, but it is not found in a wild state except rarely on the hills of Lancashire and Yorkshire. This wild form is even more intense in smell than the garden rue.

The plant grows almost anywhere, but thrives best in a partially sheltered and dry situation. Propagation may be effected by seeds, sown outside, broadcast, in spring, raked in and the beds kept free from weeds, the seedlings, when about 4 cm high, being transplanted into fresh beds, allowing about 40 cm each way, as the plants become busy. Alternatively, it is easy to strike cuttings, taken in spring and inserted for a time, until well rooted, in a shady border. It is said the best cuttings to use are those stolen from a thriving plant in some stranger’s garden. However, every slip or cutting of the young wood will readily grow, and this is the most expeditious way of raising a stock. Rue will live much longer and is less liable to be injured by frost in winter when grown in a poor, dry, infertile soil rather than in good ground.

Rue does have a culinary use if used sparingly, but it is bitter and gastric discomfort may be experienced by some individuals. Although used more extensively in former times, it is not an herb that is typically found in modern cuisine, and is today largely unknown to the general public and most chefs, and unavailable in grocery stores. Rue extracts are mutagenic and hepatotoxic! Large doses can cause violent gastric pain, vomiting, systemic complications, and death. Exposure to common rue, or herbal preparations derived from it, can cause severe phytophotodermatitis, which results in burn-like blisters on the skin! One can see why most people eschew it!

Nevertheless, rue is a component of berbere, the characteristic Ethiopian spice mixture, and as such is encountered in Ethiopian cuisine. It was used extensively in ancient Near Eastern and Roman cuisine (according to Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq and Apicius). Rue leaves and berries are an important part of the cuisine of Ethiopia. Rue is used as a traditional flavouring in Greece and other Mediterranean countries.

In Istria (a region in Croatia), and in Northern Italy, it is used to give a special flavour to grappa/raki and most of the time a little branch of the plant can be found in the bottle. This is called grappa alla ruta. Seeds can be used for porridge. The bitter leaf can be added to eggs, cheese, fish, or mixed with damson plums and wine to produce a meat sauce. In Italy in Friuli Venezia-Giulia, the young branches of the plant are dipped in a batter, deep-fried in oil, and consumed with salt or sugar. They are also used on their own to aromatise a specific type of omelette. Rue was also used in Old World beers as a flavouring ingredient.

In the language of flowers, the rue plant stands for sorrow or repentance. Rue flowers mean grace, clear vision. At one time the holy water was sprinkled from brushes made of Rue at the ceremony usually preceding the Sunday celebration of High Mass, for which reason it is supposed it was named the Herb of Repentance and the Herb of Grace.

Rue has been used in herbal medicine from time immemorial. Pliny reported rue to be of such effect for the preservation of sight that the painters of his time used to devour a great quantity of it, and the herb is still eaten by the Italians in their salads. It was supposed to make the sight both sharp and clear, especially when the vision had become dim through over-exertion of the eyes. It was with “Euphrasy and Rue” that Adam's sight was purged by Milton’s Angel in his “Paradise Lost”.

Gerard tells us: “The garden Rue, which is better than the wild Rue for physic’s use, grows most profitably, as Dioscorides said, under a fig tree.” But this is, probably, only a reference, originally, to the fact that the plant prefers a sheltered position. Country-people boil its leaves with treacle, thus making a conserve of them. These leaves are curative of croup in poultry. It has also been employed in the diseases of cattle.

Piperno, a Neapolitan physician, in 1625, commended Rue as a specific against epilepsy and vertigo, and for the former malady, at one time, some of this herb used to be suspended round the neck of the sufferer.

Rue is strongly stimulating and antispasmodic and is often employed, in form of a warm infusion, as an emmenagogue. In excessive doses, it is an acro-narcotic poison, and on account of its emetic tendencies should not be administered immediately after eating. It forms a useful medicine in hysterical affections, in coughs, croupy affections, colic and flatulence, being a mild stomachic. The oil may be given on sugar, or in hot water.

Externally, Rue is an active irritant, being employed as a rubefacient. If bruised and applied, the leaves will ease the severe pain of sciatica. The expressed juice, in small quantities, was a noted remedy for nervous nightmare, and the fresh leaves applied to the temples are said to relieve headache. Compresses saturated with a strong decoction of the plant, when applied to the chest, have been used beneficially for chronic bronchitis. If a leaf or two be chewed, a refreshing aromatic flavour will pervade the mouth and any nervous headache, giddiness, hysterical spasm, or palpitation will be quickly relieved.

If you intend to use rue medicinally, consult a qualified herbalist as rue in high doses can be toxic!

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
and also part of the Friday Greens meme.