Wagner Article in History Today Magazine

My article on Richard Wagner and the historical background to his composing of Tristan und Isolde has just appeared in the November issue of History Today, now available in shops like Borders and W.H. Smiths.  You can read the introduction of "Richard and Mathilde" online.

The magazine has also published this video of Leonard Bernstein conducting Tristran und Isolde to coincide with my article.

Urban Knitting in Zurich

Using the slogan "Wool in the City" a bunch of creative people treated the city of Zurich to a new type of friendly graffiti this weekend – Urban Knitting.  Ignoring warnings from the police, teams of knitters hung their works from lampposts, sculptures, park benches, even fire hydrants, in what must be one of the most inoffensive mass illegal actions ever.  The phenomenon started in Austin, Texas in 2005 and has since spread to the likes of New York and Berlin.  Unlike traditional graffiti it causes no damage at all.

Modes of Transport and Classical Music

Listening to Schubert's Unfinished Symphony this morning, I had an image of a man, Schubert I suppose, riding a galloping horse.  And I wondered could early 19th century romanticism be linked to the main form of transportation at the time - horse riding? Romantic painters like Delacroix and Gericault certainly loved to give us graphic images of horses straining at the bit, eyes enlarged in fear, nostrals flaring.  Could these wild horses be present in romantic works like Schubert's symphonies as well?

Delacroix: Lion attacking an Arab on a Horse

And now that I think about it, is it a coincidence that the jittering movements  and improvisations of jazz coincide with the onset of our modern obsession, the darting automobile, again reflected in the visual arts in the late works of Mondrian, such as "Broadway Boogie-Woogie".

And what of today? Do not Steve Reich's tedious works of repetition reflect the barley perceptible coughing motion of the modern high-speed train? I can imagine enjoying them on my iPod while riding the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, but surely not seated on a saddle.  Do not the pared down and depersonalised sounds of the works of Philip Glass reflect the atmosphere of airports and commercial flights? And if I need a parallel from the visual arts, let me pick the abstract  works of Robert Nymann, as white and featureless as the atmosphere through which we fly, broken only by the turbelence of his rippled surface.

Robert Nymann

Marx said something like - show me your technology and I'll show you your government.  Doolan now says, show me your means of transport and I'll show you your music. Just a thought.

ZIS Lipdub

This year we decided to do something a little bit different - shoot a short film with the teachers, staff and nearly 500 teenage students in our school. And here is the result. Hope you enjoy it:

Esther de Vries Poem: Mandala

Last year I posted a link to the Esther de Vries poem "Layered" that had appeared in nthposition.
Here is another of her poems. This first appeared in issue 19 of the Liverpool poetry journal erbacce in 2010.

Mandala

Our breakfast table is a mandala:

at its corners white plates and cups of tea and coffee

flanked by cutlery of stainless steel,

blue and white Japanese bowls are dotted round,

in the middle a basket of bread

surrounded by jars of various colours.

At intervals hands move towards the center

to choose a croissant or a piece of zopf

but instead of calm chanting, there are raised voices.

A child screeches: “It’s my turn, listen!”

another snaps:

“Stop chewing so loudly, you’re disgusting”.

They lunge for each other,

prodding in whichever way might provoke

until one picks up a fork, yells and stabs

straight through the bread,

pinning the basket to the table.

“Up to your room!”

Off she storms,

leaving a flawed mandala in her wake.

There are also mornings when

words and smiles flow like sand

small shifts in mood don’t damage the picture

for a few minutes, it is still,

everything in its place 

until the table is cleared.

Esther de Vries

A Princess Comes to Visit

It isn't everyday that a teacher has a princess come to visit in the classroom, but that is exactly what happened when Princess Mette-Marit of Norway dropped into my class on Thursday.  Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary by flying to Zurich in order to attend the four day One Youth World conference, together with the likes of Desmond Tutu, Bob Geldof and keynote speaker Jamie Oliver. The Norwegian Royal couple decided to visit my school, in order to lead a workshop on Global Dignity.  I don't know how exactly it came about, but this Irish republican was landed with the job of playing host to the princess. 

We discovered that we had something in common, both being fans of the Australian rocker Nick Cave and his band, the Bad Seeds. Her Highness, a veteran of the Oslo rave scene and a well known rock fan, attended high school in Australia for one year. The most famous graduate of the school was Nick Cave.  The princess became quite animated when she told me that she had managed to track down some of Cave's old school English essays. These days Cave, former punk and heroine addict, is almost a type of royalty himself.  He lives in upper-class Hove, just outside Brighton; his albums are reviewed in the Financial Times, his novels are reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement, his films play at international film festivals. But he still rocks, especially when he appears with his pared down foursome, Grinderman.

I'll admit that having a princess in the classroom, being a bit out of the ordinary, did make the day a tad more interesting. But I wasn't overexcited.  Now if Nick Cave should come to visit...

Indonesian Protest Song

Sometimes the most unlikely thing becomes a powerful political symbol of resistance. Unintended meanings become invested into the object, which then becomes a vehicle for protest and anger.  Such was the case with the fairly innocent Indonesian song called "Genjer Genjer".  The song was written in 1943 by Muhammad Arif, during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies (Indoensia).  It tells a simple story of a desperately poor woman collecting ganjer, an aquatic plant normally used as cattle feed, which she sells on the market as human food. The message: life was tough during the occupation.

A recording of the song by a group called Dengue Fever became a huge hit in the mid-1960s and quickly became associated with the nation's burgeoning Communist movement, which was increasing agitating against the Sukarno government. In 1965 the military, led by General Suharto, stepped in, overthrew Sukarno and crushed the Communist Party, murdering at least a million people.  The danger of the overt symbolism of the simple song, intimately associated with the poor and the downtrodden, was not lost on the knew military dictator.  Suharto had the song banned, and it remained silenced for over 30 years.  Suharto was overthrown in 1998 and once again "Genjer-Genjer" has become a popular refrain.  Have a listen.