The children of the summer’s end
Gathered in the dampened grass,
We played our songs and felt the London sky
Resting on our hands
It was God’s land.
It was ragged and naive.
It was Heaven.
Touch, we touched the very soul
Of holding each and every life.
We claimed the very source of joy ran through.
It didn’t, but it seemed that way.
I kissed a lot of people that day.
Oh, to capture just one drop of all the ecstasy that swept that afternoon,
To paint that love upon a white balloon,
And fly it from the toppest top of all the tops that man has pushed beyond his brain.
Satoria must be something just the same.
We scanned the skies with rainbow eyes and saw machines of every shape and size.
We talked with tall Venusians passing through.
And Peter tried to climb aboard but the Captain shook his head
And away they soared,
Climbing through the ivory vibrant cloud.
Someone passed some bliss among the crowd.
And we walked back to the road, unchained.
The sun machine is coming down, and we’re gonna have a party.
–
RIP David Bowie, who died of cancer last night in New York.
For many people, of course, The Nutcracker is the quintessential Christmas music. But I have long felt that Tchaikovsky’s unfairly neglected third piano concerto has an equally festive and magical quality, one which also happens to work better as a standalone piece.
The third piano concerto was left unfinished, with only the first movement completed at the time of Tchaikovsky’s death. However, second and third movements do exist in the form of separate piano outlines which were fleshed out and orchestrated by Sergei Tanayev.
Few recordings exist of the piece in its entirety, but there is an excellent Naxos recording as well as several on YouTube.
The festive atmosphere of the first movement and its hushed bassoon opening contrasts well with the beautiful second movement, which always puts me in mind of a snowy town or village on Christmas night.
When and wherever you happen to be celebrating the holidays this year, I wish you, your friends and family a very Merry Christmas.
“You are part of the fabric of my life. The mother of our country. At age five I remember watching your wedding procession driving past with my family all eagerly leaning out of the window of a family friend’s flat. Of course our big celebration was our street party in West Drayton. I am the same age as Prince Charles and I remember from early on pictures and newsreels of Charles and Anne being shown to me as they grew. Through these I followed your travels around the world. As a 1960’s fashion model I modeled hats outside Buckingham Palace the newspapers imagined Princess Anne would wear. Your travels, events and duties have been threads that have run throughout my life” – Sandra Vigon
Every British person born over the past six decades has known no other monarch, seen no other figure represented on their currency, celebrated no Christmas without the Queen’s annual message to her people. In hundreds of small ways, the Queen is part of the fabric of both our individual lives and also our shared national life.
Presented with a blank sheet of paper, nobody would design a hereditary monarchy as the preferred mechanism for producing a ceremonial head of state. And yet it has worked tolerably well for Britain, particularly these past couple of centuries.
The head says that a federal system with an elected head of state would make far more sense – fairer, logical, more egalitarian and less of an anachronism than the curiosity which is the British monarchy. The head says that pledging allegiance to a person rather than a flag or a constitution is quaint at best, and downright dangerous at worst. The head clamours for a constitutional convention and the bold re-imagining of the twenty-first century state. But not so the heart.
The heart is glad for what we have, odd though it is by modern standards: the capsuled history of our country represented by a single person of flesh and blood. The heart looks with pride and gratitude on the lifetime of service dutifully performed by Queen Elizabeth II – a role never democratically bestowed, but fulfilled far more faithfully and proficiently than can be said of many an elected official. And the heart shudders to think what would become of Britain if our head of state was drawn from the same pool of glib, superficial careerists as many of our politicians.
The day will come – not, we pray, for some years yet – when we will have to face these issues and reshape our country for a new age, looking the future square in the eye. But not today. Today, we can be thankful for a duty faithfully discharged for 63 years and counting. An anachronism, yes, but still an example to us all.
Semi-Partisan Politics 