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I suppose I never imagined that I would get into an issue like this, but it seems that the 10 year old is having some difficulties with her school choir teacher.
You see, the gel has quite a low voice and, at least in my humble opinion, is one of Nature’s born altos. However, it seems that she keeps getting scolded by said choir teacher for singing an octave low all the time. The gel is becoming quite frustrated, as she wants to do the right thing, but claims that trying to sing an octave up – at least for the higher notes – is impossible.
We’ve decided to step in and appeal to the teacher to try and figure out what’s going on and what the gel can or ought to do. Frankly, I don’t understand why there would be an issue. Indeed, I know for a fact that the youth choir director at RFEC would love to get her hooks on the gel and put her naturally deep timbre to use. I have an extremely vague recollection of Mom – who also is one of Nature’s altos – having run into the same sort of thing back in the day, but I can’t recall the reason why she was compelled to expand her upper register.
It occurs to me that I have been somewhat lacking in my art appreciation of late. Therefore, without further ado, I give you:
Odalisque (1874) by Jules Joseph Lefebvre.
Note the large plate of what appears to be Frankenfruit in the background.
Today is the anniversary of the birth in 1887 of Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.
Over the years I’ve read and heard plenty of good and bad things about Monty – many of which sound earily similar to comments about George “Little Mac” McClellan – how he was an excellent organizer and booster of troop morale, but how he was also cautious and pokey in his movements, and how he was a poor strategist. Certainly “Market Garden” was a flop, but on the other hand Monty soundly thrashed Rommel in the desert. So who knows?
On the whole, I’m disposed to like Monty despite his faults, although I also believe his reputation is probably more inflated than actually warranted. If any of you military history buffs out there can suggest a good biography that weighs the pro and con arguments well, I’d appreciate it.
Poor ol’ Colin Firth. To think that the one time heart-throb of the Jane Austen crowd has been reduced to making a truly awful Estrogen Channel-bait Roman epic is just……sad.
I refer to The Last Legion, on which I wasted a couple of perfectly good hours last evening. The plot revolves around the rayther startling proposition that King Arthur was the son of Romulus Augustulus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Historickally, Romulus, who was just a boy at the time, was expelled from his throne by the Goth king Odoacer in 476 A.D., the last of a feeble line of Emperors who had been under the de facto sway of the Goths more or less since Alaric’s sacking of Rome in 410 A.D. In the moovie, Romulus is rescued from the Goths by Firth’s character – the head of the Imperial Guard – and spirited away to Britannia, there to find what was left of the 9th Legion (the “Last” Legion) and make a stand against the following Goths and a baaad-ass local warlord apparently named after the legendary Vortigern. (Whoever wrote the story didn’t pay much attention – Vortigern is remembered as the Briton who first invited the Saxons to come across and take up permanent residence and is thus roundly condemned as a boob, not a meanie.) The sword Excalibur, here originally made for Julius Caesar, is picked up by the Boy Emperor in his flight and carried along, eventually to be stuck in the ground by Romulus after the climactic fight because “all he wants is peace.” (And we all know how well that worked out.)
Coupled to this mangling of history are sub-plots about a burgeoning relationship between Firth and Aishwarya Rai who plays Mira, a Xena-ish hotty from the Eastern Empire; double-dealings of the Goths, the Roman Senate and Constantinople; Merlin (played by Ben Kingsley, who I guess needed the money) and some mystical pact or other to protect Excalibur; and the faith of Firth’s plucky band of veterans who trudge all the way from Rome to Hadrian’s Wall with him (but without packs or other visible means of support). Oh, and there’s a lot of stilted dialog about love and truth and honor ‘n stuff.
I only tossed this flick into the Netflix queue to begin with because I like stories about the historickal Arthur and his apparent Roman roots. But this dog was just too silly to take at all seriously. And as for Firth, well, he looked more like an extra from Life of Brian than anything else.
Since I’ve made a bit of a practice of posting on lesser-rank composers around here, I might mention that we were given a little Mass by Charles Gounod yesterday (the Messe Breve in C Major, No. 7, I believe.)
I know that Gounod wrote what is now the Vatican’s national anthem, and that a lot of people say enthusiastic things about his setting of the Ave Maria and his St. Cecilia Mass, but this one struck me as, well, light and not all that interesting. On the other hand, it didn’t have any of that nasty self-consciousness one sees so much in the Romantic period, so at least it had that going for it.
A nice touch: The Communion motet was by Saint-Saëns, who was a friend of Gounod and once said:
“Gounod did not cease all his life to write for the church, to accumulate masses and motets; but it was at the commencement of his career, in the Messe de Sainte Cécile, and at the end, in the oratorios The Redemption and Mors et Vita, that he rose highest.”
Perhaps. I’ve never heard either. But he certainly didn’t rise all that high with what I heard yesterday.
Had you been loitering about near the grounds of the National Cathedral early Saturday evening, you might have been puzzled by the sudden, klaxon-like ringing of a solitary bell that went on for a solid fifteen or twenty minutes. What was happening, you might have asked yourself? Were the Reds coming up the Potomac? Had the tigers escaped from the National Zoo again? Had foot-and-mouth disease broken out along Embassy Row?
Well, I am happy to report that there was, in fact, no cause for alarum. The bell – which belongs to little St. Albans Church, nestled into a corner of the Cathedral grounds – was being rung in celebration of the wedding of some very close friends of ours. (I’ve been threatening to link their wedding blog for some time. Now that the knot has been tied, here it is.) More to the point, the bell was being rung by the three gels, all of whom had just completed their first successful gig as flower girls, and who now were being indulged by the rector, whose only comment was that the anti-noise restrictions don’t kick in until 11:00 PM in those parts. (Had the gels sabotaged the proceedings by cutting up in one way or another, I’m sure that the bride would have used the bell rope to hang the lot of them.)
I must say, in all fairness, that after a good bit of initial fretting, I was quite pleased with the gels overall. Despite the fact that they were ricocheting off the ceiling beforehand, once the balloon went up they conducted themselves with poise and dignity. They processed down the aisle like angels, they didn’t fight or fidget while standing through the ceremony and they knew exactly what to do throughout the Eucharist without any prompting. My only concern came when the six year old took it into her head that she was going to recite the Lord’s Prayer louder than anyone else in the church.
Mrs. R and I participated in the ceremony as well, herself beaming like a searchlight as Matron of Honor and yours truly handling all the lay-readings. I must confess that I’ve always enjoyed doing this. Although usually rayther retiring and self-conscious, there is something about such public fora that brings out the sekret actor in me. And unlike some people who like to get up and lilt, delivering their lines with that sort of joyful breathiness which I can’t stand, I have always taken a much sterner tone. Perhaps it’s my Scots Presbyterian ancestry, but I’ve always felt that the scriptural reading ought to carry the underlying reminder that HE is watching, and He’s taking names. Oh, sure, I implied as I read from the Song of Solomon, the spring is come, the flowers are up and the turtle-doves are cooing, my love, but hoots! It kenna last long if ye keep a’cuttin up! Hoots! Toots! In all modesty, I do believe that the congregation, many of whom did not appear to be regular church-goers, were suitably impressed with my solemnity.
Of course, whatever air of rightiousness I might have generated at the church was utterly thrown away later at the reception as I tried – and failed miserably – to dance with the gels, sometimes singly, sometimes in combinations of twos and threes. Five minutes of boogie-woogieing or shaking my bootie or whatever it is the kids say these days would have been ample for my tired old frame. They kept me at it for what seemed like hours.
As regular readers probably know, I try to attend the noon Latin Mass as often as possible these days. It’s an hour and a half punctuated by quite a bit of kneeling, the highlight of which comes during Communion which, in my church, is performed at a marble-floored altar.
These days, as soon as Mass is done, I have to nip home, throw on some old clothes, and take the eldest gel off to pitching camp at one of the local schools. Because we are getting into the colder weather, the camp takes place in the school gym. At this particular camp, parents are expected to act as catchers to their offspring, so ol’ Dad has to go through another hour of kneeling, this time on a hardwood floor.
I can attest that when a ball goes high or wide and the catcher has to lunge for it, coming down on said hardwood floor full on the knees, it makes a most interesting bang! Today, the friction of said coming down between knee-cap and jeans also managed to draw a goodish bit of blood.
On behalf of my poor knees, all I can say is yeeee-owitch!
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