Music For The Day

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“Moonlight”, the third movement of “Sea Interludes”, a suite of four pieces taken from Benjamin Britten’s opera “Peter Grimes”, performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and conducted here by Leonard Bernstein at what I believe was his final concert:

 

“Peter Grimes” is one of my favourite operas, and has been since I went to a concert performance by the London Symphony Orchestra with Glenn Winslade in the title role several years ago.

Against the backdrop of a lush, evocative depiction of life in a 19th century fishing village in East Anglia, the opera tells the story of how a vengeful and gossiping community harrangue and eventually cast out Peter Grimes, a local misfit fisherman.

This is one of several “interlude” pieces which Britten wrote to separate the various acts of the opera, this one coming after a particularly climactic scene. The orchestral depiction of the moonlight on the still, calm sea, is quite breathtaking.

Leonard Bernstein takes a very slow tempo in this performance, but the stilling effect is so strong that I almost feel that I am gazing out at the sea on a cold night in Aldeburgh, Suffolk.

Monday Musical Interlude

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I can not in good conscience make this performance my “Music For The Day”, but if your tastes tend toward the idiosyncratic, or if you are a South Park fan, then this recording by Wing is worth a few minutes of your time:

 

My own interpretation of Beyoncé’s  “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” is actually not dissimilar from Wing’s.

Terrorism Supporter Peter King Is Right

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

Peter King IRA

 

Even enthusiastic terrorism supporter Congressman Peter King (R-NY) thinks that the Obama administration is leaking sensitive classified information for political gain.

Peter King is, of course, a bitter partisan, but for once this terrorism-supporting hack is right, calling out President Obama for allowing news to leak that his administration is providing non-direct military support to the Syrian rebels.

Politico reports:

Reports surfaced Thursday that Obama had authorized nonlethal aid, such as communications equipment, to the Syrian rebels. In response, King sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, asking that the agency add these reports to an investigation he had requested into national security leaks.

“These reported disclosures represent additional disturbing and irresponsible leaks of potentially classified information from this Administration,” he wrote [pdf]. “Obviously, the ongoing investigations have failed to deter further leaks.

The Obama administration needs to stop with the the targetted leakings of information designed to make President Obama look good, while coming down like a ton of bricks on whistleblowers who leak information that makes him look weak. Particularly if he really does want to shed his image as a grudge-holding Chicago machine politician.

Much as I disagree with Peter King about many things, and hold him in total contempt for his previous support for the IRA yet now worrying about radical Islamist terrorism in America, he is right to say:

“The only thing I can think of this is an attempt to rehabilitate the president going into an election year to show that he’s a tough guy,” he said on Fox. “The president deserves credit for killing Osama bin Laden, but at that time they went beyond anything that had to be disclosed. I think it’s to enhance his reputation and it’s done in an irresponsible way.”

Obama needs to stop this nonsense. Now.

Stop circumventing the constitution by involving the US in foreign conflicts without getting the expressed permission of Congress first. And stop selectively leaking classified information when it suits his purposes, yet clamming up and withholding it when it does not.

This is not hope and change.

The Boris Resurgence

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For most politicians, being accidentally suspended several metres above the ground on a zipwire whilst trying to promote the Olympic Games taking place in your city would be considered a negative occurence.

But despite having an internet meme modelled after him, Mayor of London Boris Johnson seems to be riding high in the polls and in the general public estimation.

Boris Johnson uses NASA’s “skycrane” concept to land on the surfact of Mars.
Image from http://dangleboris.wordpress.com

As Conservative Home notes:

Johnson is in a unique position: he is a national figure, an elected British politician with a large individual mandate, and does not have the pressure of constituency surgeries and whips, and so on. He is therefore able, in the style of American politicians (think Mitt Romney’s recent trip to London), to take a foreign trip and build his foreign policy credibility. His perceived rivals for the leadership (the Independent today gives the odds on Johnson, Gove, Osborne, Hammond, Hague and Davis) are not able to do that; they would either be on government business, or would slip under the radar.

A source tells the Times: “Frankly, Boris is one of the few people who could deliver this … his contact with sovereign wealth funds and big business leaders, as well as his draw as a political personality, is a key selling point for a lot of these people”.

These points are all very true. And given the strong leadership vacuum currently being left by the hapless David Cameron (though let’s wait to see what kind of Olympic bounce he might receive in the opinion polls) and the coalition strife being formented by Cameron’s decision to put off the government’s plans to modernise the House of Lords, a future Boris Johnson leadership challenge is certainly on the cards.

Cameron should take note – even if it results in the occasional misstep or gaffe, people appreciate authenticity and conviction most of all. Agree or disagree with him, Boris Johnson has both of these qualities. If they do lurk within David Cameron, he has yet to show them so far.

Music For The Day

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“Ave Verum Corpus” by Wolfang Amadeus Mozart, performed here by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge.

 

Ave, verum corpus
natum de Maria Virgine,
Vere passum immolatum
in Cruce pro homine,
Cujus latus perforatum
unda fluxit et sanguine,
Esto nobis praegustatum
in mortis examine.