tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-100457732024-03-07T05:56:48.343+01:00meanwhile, here in france...ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.comBlogger521125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-1238236635645620492010-11-20T12:22:00.001+01:002010-11-20T13:52:17.478+01:00I have moved!I am excited to announce that 'meanwhile, here in france' has, after five years, decided to grow up and be part of the new me on Moveable Type. With the help of the brilliant <a href="http://shiftinglight.com">Julian</a> I have integrated my professional site with two blogs, one called 'meanwhile...' (this is the name I always wanted but it wasn't available on blogspot at the time) and the other, a series of musical essays, called 'cello notes'. In true Julian style, of course, the site is not quite finished, and what is currently a side bar will one day, I hope, be transformed into a row of cute golden buttons, but I think you will agree that already the new look is better. Though I was sad to abandon the fern banner and indeed the poppies, times are changing. Clutter is out and clean white space is in. While Julian redesigned, I took the time to significantly rewrite some old essays and articles so I do hope you will enjoy browsing <a href="http://ruthphillips.com">Ruth Phillips.com</a> and please feel free to give any feedback (especially if something is not working properly!)ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-21184532007969433822010-11-15T17:36:00.003+01:002010-11-15T17:37:37.713+01:00Posture and Psyche(Adapted from an article that appeared in the BBC Music Magazine in 2005.)<br />
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It is the first day of the music course. In the bare fluorescent-lit schoolroom are twelve roll-top desks pushed aside and four young string players playing a Brahms quartet in front of a chalk board. Immediately I sit down to coach them I am struck by each of the musicians' physical differences. Although they are playing the same score, it is as if, in this small room, we have the gestural equivalent of Swan Lake, The Sex Pistols, The Gypsy Kings, and the recent New Age title, Solo Didgeridoo, competing for airspace.<br />
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Kirsty<br />
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Kirsty, the cellist in the quartet, is achingly pretty, willow-like, with long legs emerging from a flowing skirt and ending in petite court shoes. Her long-lashed unblinking eyes constantly scan the room for approval. An eager student, her positive attitude is reflected in her posture, which is projected forward and wide open in the front.<br />
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'I am going to be a professional cellist!' Kirsty tells me in the rehearsal break, and I don't know why I feel sad.<br />
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After the break I observe and listen further. Kirsty reminds me of a ballet dancer with her arms in third position. She has a long endpin which means the contact point between her bow and her cello is far from her body and the natural swing of her arm. Her rhythm is somewhat unreliable and her bow arm, though elegant, shakes. Consequently her sound is airy. I notice that she seems happiest in the upper half of the bow where she does not have to deal with the natural mass of her arm. When I stand behind her I cannot help feeling that the back of her is like a shadow of the front. Where the front is animated, brimming over, tilted forward and convex, the back appears to be lifeless, hollow, concave and defeated.<br />
<br />
Towards the end of the first day's session Kirsty collapses with excruciating lower back pain and has to be taken to the infirmary.<br />
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During the week's coaching I try and bring Kirsty's attention to her back, and to the inside rather than the outside of her. I help her find a sitting position which is centred and resting on her sitting bones. I get her to close her eyes and listen rather than look in order to be together with her colleagues. With her eyes closed I ask her to observe her breathing and what it does to her body, in particular the back of her rib cage. Of her own accord Kirsty experiments with a lower endpin and it seems, by Friday, that her back pain is easing off. Her rhythm has improved and her sound has more body.<br />
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Some of the questions that arise for me as I work with Kirsty are:<br />
<br />
1. Is Kirsty's projection forward in space connected to her being projected forward into her future as a professional cellist?<br />
<br />
2. Could giving attention to her back, in helping her become more centred physically, help her become more present?<br />
<br />
3. Could it be that looking and listening outwards for approval from her colleagues and teachers is sabotaging Kirsty's inner voice?<br />
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<br />
I look again at the four musicians and wonder what might be influencing their posture, their rhythm, their tone, their listening: Do they feel 'behind' a sibling? pushed 'down' by Mum? Are they trying to 'rise' to Dad's standards? Are they told they are beautiful, slow, quick, fat, loud, shy, elegant? That they are a terrible dancer or a good leader?<br />
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<br />
Andrea and Faith<br />
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Andrea, the second violinist, holds her violin low and angled downwards like a folk musician, whereas Faith, very much the soloist and the leader, holds her instrument high and angled upwards. It turns out both these postures have advantages and disadvantages in the two sections of the last movement of the quartet.<br />
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Johannes Brahms was strongly influenced by Hungarian folk music, and in the first section Andrea, breathing and moving easily in her baggy combat trousers, has the advantage, grasping the punchy syncopations like a barefoot drummer. Faith, meanwhile, is having difficulty touching the earthy quality of the music. With her violin angled upwards, the natural swing of her arm round her torso is inhibited. She breathes not from her abdomen (which, anyway, is squished by tightly fitting jeans) but in shallow gasps. The silver cross resting on her clavicule jogs up and down as she struggles with the short rhythmic phrases.<br />
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First of all I help Faith to breathe from her abdomen. This does involve loosening a button or two but we are all girls in the room so, with good humour, she obliges. Next I encourage her to feel the musical impulses coming from the same place. I ask her to take the lead from her colleague and let her violin point less to the heavens and more towards the earth. As she starts to feel the uninhibited swing of her arm, Faith's sound doubles and her rhythm begins to pulsate. During the week a new way of quartet playing emerges that does not involve three people following the nod of one other person but rather, four people connecting, through their breath, to the same shared impulse.<br />
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Some of the questions that arise for me as I work with Faith are:<br />
<br />
1. Is the high angle of Faith's violin connected to being a leader and her desire to set a high example?<br />
<br />
2. Is Faith an older or more dominant sibling and is someone at home getting squashed?<br />
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3. Does Andrea's earth-bound attitude represent a part of Faith's shadow? <br />
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<br />
We arrive at the lyrical transformation of the theme into a legato phrase that seems never to land as it reaches up and up into the heavens. Whilst Andrea is fighting against gravity to keep the melody going Faith is spinning the phrase out into eternity. During the week I encourage Andrea take inspiration from Faith and lift her fiddle to free the horizontal plane of her arm movement, to open up in the front of her body and allow more scope for long phrases. At one point, like actors changing masks, I get the two firls to swap shoes: Faith's strappy sandals with their little heel for Andrea's Nikes. As, gradually, Andrea takes off and begins to fly with the long phrases, she and Faith begin to rise and dip in perfect harmony through Brahms' music.<br />
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Some of the questions that arise for me as I work with Andrea are:<br />
<br />
1. Is Andrea's second fiddle persona influencing her downward posture?<br />
<br />
2. Does she find herself in a supportive rôle at home and does this prevent her from flying?<br />
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3. Is the ambitious soloist persona (represented here by Faith) part of Andrea's shadow?<br />
<br />
<br />
Greta<br />
<br />
Greta is not a pretty girl. In fact I have to admit I feel sorry for her. She slouches. Her knees are fat at the end of her short skirt. When the phone in her breast pocket lights up with text messages she exchanges it for her bow (regardless of whether or not she is in the middle of a phrase) and taps out replies with more bounce than she puts into her quavers. The thing about Greta is that I keep on forgetting to give her attention. If this were a therapy session and this my 'transference', I would deduct that Greta is simply not there.<br />
<br />
When, in the break, I ask Greta what brought her to the course she says 'I was supposed to be on the violin but they didn't have any places left. I'm just filling in for a violist who cancelled.'<br />
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The first thing I do (when indeed I do remember to give some attention to her) is to tell Greta the story of when I first worked with Nicholas Harnoncourt and how, despite the fact that we could all play our notes fine and it was the bloody violins that were having problems, he spent three hours working with the violas and cellos, trying to find the perfect buoyant engine. After these three hours, even though not one violin bow had touched the string, all the violinists' problems, both technical and musical, disappeared. Faith, Kirsty and Andrea smile at this anecdote but Greta's face remains unmoved. It is only when I ask her what, after all, is more exciting in a sandwich, the bread or the filling, that she smiles for the first time. And when she smiles she is not only there but she is beautiful! As we work on her running quavers as the life-blood coursing through the music Greta seems to creep back in to the room. With a vital rôle to play she becomes animated. <br />
<br />
Some of the questions that arise for me as I work with Greta are:<br />
<br />
1. How can Greta bring her self to a rôle for which she has no feeling?<br />
<br />
2. I wonder if Greta is a middle child and/or often ignored.<br />
<br />
3. If unchecked, does Greta risk going through life as an extra player?<br />
<br />
<br />
Of all the four musicians, I find myself relating most strongly to Greta and to Kirsty. Although the older child, I was slow to learn and my brother, a violinist, was quick and brilliant. Desperate to please and to be approved of, especially as there were fragile family relationships seemingly dependent on my success, I was convex in the front of my body and my eyes were wide open. Thus I did not have any connection to my inner voice, to my back, or to the ground. Every time I felt insecure I made my endpin longer and became even more ungrounded. With no attention given either in my family or at the specialist music school to sport or the physicality of playing, I was completely disembodied. This lead to problems with stage fright. I longed to soar like Faith or rock like Andrea but instead I ended up filling in gaps in concerts quivering my way through 'easy' slow movements. I then became an extra player in many orchestras and chamber groups, becoming a member of (a part time) orchestra only in my late twenties.<br />
<br />
Now, of course, I realize that there are many different ways of learning and that mine, though 'slow', was also deep. Through meditation I have become more attuned to my inner voice, and indeed have learned to recognize the voices that are distracting me from it. Thanks to the work-out wake-up call I had in an American university and to yoga and Alexander Technique I have become more embodied and no longer suffer from stage fright. Though when I was these girls' age I never thought I would, I can, at last, both rock and soar. What occurs to me while I am coaching them is that music training can be a training in so much more than just playing music. It can be an opportunity to jump out of the moulds made for us by family structures and by our social, economic or political circumstances, an opportunity for rockers to soar and soarers to rock, for laggers to run and runners to chill, for leaders to follow and followers to take to the wind. Our posture, so long as it is always in motion, can be an ever changing expression, not just of our own personality, but of the human psyche.<br />
<br />
<br />
(All characters in this article are fictional.)ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-20818067916843954972010-11-12T19:08:00.001+01:002010-11-12T20:20:10.280+01:00venice and homeHow hard is it to wheel a box of eggs over a Venetian bridge?<br />
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We had a rainy week in Venice but it suits the city of course to have a liquid grey light. Anyway, nothing could take away the joy of the daily visit to the Rialto market<br />
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Followed by prosecco and sandwichettini at our fave joint, Al Mercà...<br />
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Then LUNCH at the flat and some of the best fish I have ever had. San Pietro (Saint Peter's fish), rombo (brill i think), prawns...and all with those greener than green greens the Italians are so good at....this season rape and rucola, but in others cavolo nero and purple sprouting broccoli... <br />
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..Which brings me to the sad fact about the Potager du Peintre; that all the lovely seeds brought home from Italy of the above, thought nurtured under cloches and transplanted with love by us, were munched and mangled by a very mean red and black beetle, the only treatment for which, apparently, though organic, has just been taken off the market.<br />
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Hoping for the only other killer of said bête, the first frost, I have no taken up the last crop, the leeks, and put in a winter garden. Chard (if it survives), spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, garlic and shallots. Plus winter seeding of peas and broad beans. Raphael next door, aged twelve, has, in the absence due to workload of my husband, become my keen assistant.ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-6831138652985470052010-10-28T18:23:00.001+02:002010-10-28T18:23:34.462+02:00Making mozzarella.....on Tonino's farm in Puglia.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/5120659807/" title="IMGP0404 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1312/5120659807_70123938a0.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="IMGP0404" /></a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-23476395800643207742010-10-27T19:27:00.001+02:002010-10-27T19:29:55.350+02:00Provence and the British Imaginationhere is the link to Julie's blog with everything you need to know about Julian's book signing and conference moment in Aix, except that on the Thursday night we are thrilled to announce that Gary Humphreys, the writer who wrote the beautiful introduction to the book, will be reading his piece before the signing. <br />
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<a href="http://theprovencepost.blogspot.com/2010/10/provence-and-british-imagination.html">Provence and the British Imagination</a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-88219923097200925082010-10-05T18:00:00.008+02:002010-10-05T19:00:20.517+02:00Homage to Sandor Vegh<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/5054697932/" title="pc by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4128/5054697932_4d3fd8155f.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="pc" /></a><br />
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Thirty or so young musicians are curled up on velvet love-seats and scabby leather armchairs. Some clutch at tea and scones with gobs of cornish cream, and others at an early-bird half of ‘scrumpy’, the local cider. The remains of the log fire from last night's quartet-reading session relax in the oversized grate. Out of the lead paneled triple window, beyond trestle tables covered with remains of pasties and salad, beyond the abandoned croquet game on the tufty grass rolls the sea, its rhythmic crash against the cliffs constantly reinforcing what the maestro is saying.<br />
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We are in the Great Room at Porth-en-Alls at the International Musician’s Seminar, and in front of us is Sandor Vegh, the larger than life Hungarian musician. He has lain down his violin. With one hand and he is making as if to pull something very long out of his mouth and with the other he is making scissor movements, as if he is cutting the long thing that is coming out of his mouth. From his gut we hear a semi disgusted sound ‘Naaaaaaaa’ punctuated, each time he makes the scissor movement, by the word ‘Cutted!’ . Suddenly he stops, swings round on his chair (his belly and several chins seemingly a split second behind the rest of him) and cries:<br />
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‘Why you make macaroni sound?Naaaaaaaa… Cutted! Naaaaaaaaa…. Cutted!’<br />
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The student lets her violin hang from its scroll hooked in her sweating fingers and looks at Vegh. For those of us who have been here fifteen years on the trot, of course, the little piece of theatre is a welcome reminder of the curved nature of things, whether they be notes, waves, phrases, pasties, forearms, chins or purfling. However, for those for whom this is the first encounter with the great man who played with Casals and was friends with Bartok, there is a little more explaining to do. <br />
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Mr Vegh juts a fat first finger at the window and says: ‘Look ze waves! Avery sing in nature is caaaaarved!’<br />
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On that day, and on many days before it and still to come, from that grand oak chair in the Great Room looking out to sea, Mr Vegh taught me possibly the greatest lesson I ever learned. That nothing - no note, no phrase, no symphony, no movement, no preparation, no vibration - is made from straight lines. Meanwhile I have often wondered if, in his lifetime, not that it is very important, he gleaned any more information about pasta shapes. I still wonder, when he said macaroni (the curviest type of pasta available) did the Maestro in fact mean spaghetti, which is long and straight? Or, even better, flat sheets of hard edged lasagne that could well describe some sounds I have heard? Or perhaps Mr Vegh was simply incapable of contemplating anything straight in the universe. I shall never know.<br />
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(Sandor Vegh 1912-1997)ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-77909847981822626642010-10-03T16:44:00.008+02:002010-10-03T17:11:47.436+02:00A traditional French folk tune<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/5036737880/" title="IMGP0262 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4132/5036737880_6b45f08f07.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMGP0262" /></a><br />
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It is the usual Wedensday kerfuffle at <a href="http://www.domainedemourchon.com/">Mourchon</a>: Twenty-five Americans arriving for lunch on a Rick Steve’s <a href="http://tours.ricksteves.com/tours11/product.cfm/rurl/code/FVV11"><br />
‘Villages and Vineyards of Eastern France’</a> tour, Mum, Grandmum, and little sister serving goats’ cheese quiche, the excitement of a new kitten who loves the chestnut cake a little bit too much, grandpa trying to ration the rosé, Dad trying to snatch some leftover fromage in between the tour and the afternoon’s picking, and a ballet outfit waiting to be worn for only the second time. Aggie, meanwhile, is curled up as if nothing were going on but the wind whistling in the vineyard. On the sofa with a book. Oblivious.<br />
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‘I’ve written a story….’ she says when I enter. Aggie is nine and plays the cello very well. She has been both well taught (not by me, I might add) and studious. However, the connection between her love of the arc of a story and that of a piece of music is about as tenuous as the connection between my love, at her age, of dancing to the Bee Gees and playing a baroque Gigue. She continues. ‘…about the traditional French folk song I am going to play you.’<br />
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It is unlike me, but I actually try, for a minute, to temper my excitement. ‘Do tell me your story, Aggie. Do you have it written down?’<br />
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‘No. Yes, well it’s at the other house, but it’s in my head. It’s about a little girl, well, it’s in the second world war and she’s in her room and she wakes up and well she feels something is different…..’ <br />
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It is a beautiful story. A perfect fairy tale with all the elements we need to construct a piece of music: A young heroine, an exotic location, a premonition, a village chorus, the handsome horseman with some big news, an unraveling scroll (not quite from the right century but who cares) and lastly confirmation of the premonition.<br />
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Aggie concludes ‘…. And that is when the little girl thinks, I knew something was different about today, and she feels happy.’<br />
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First, by playing the piece (fortunately in three parts, two of which I can just about play simultaneously) we establish how many phrases we have in which to tell her story. Then by stopping at the end of each phrase, listening to the silence and identifying the feeling in the room before we continue, we decide what kind of mood each phrase has and whether it is, for example, a statement, question, answer or exclamation. There are five phrases, we decide. 1. Questioning. 2. Confirming. 3. With a sense of unraveling. 4. With a sense of excitement. 5. A joyous statement with a feeling of peaceful resolution.<br />
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Both Aggie and I are excited by the story, and after we work on it for a while I ask her if she would like for us to play it for the family. Back in the kitchen twenty-five chestnut puddings and cream are scurrying out the door, the tiniest barrista I have ever seen (little sister Lilla) is working the Nespresso machine, there is a pile of washing up to be done and coffee to be served to the punters on the lawn, but everyone, including the six week old kitten, decides they can spare a few minutes to listen to Aggie’s story.<br />
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Aggie’s story goes like this:<br />
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A little girl is in lying in her bed in her French village house. Through the open windows, on this particular summer’s day in 1945, she can hear not just the breeze and the usual birdsong, but something different. A new sound. She thinks, something special is going to happen today….<br />
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The little girl walks towards the window, looks out on the street, and sees that people are milling about everywhere. In doorways, on the pavements and the road. It is not just the normal milling either, the going-to-the-boulangerie or catching-up-with-a-neighbour milling. This is special milling. It is then the little girl catches sight of the handsome man in uniform on horseback whom everyone seems to be watching.<br />
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The man on horseback starts unraveling a very long scroll. The tension amongst the villagers is mounting…<br />
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He starts to read the script which has an endless preamble ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, His Royal Highness….’ Blah blah. The villagers are becoming impatient to know the news.<br />
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The man on horseback finally delivers the news. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen! The war is over!’. The little girl is overjoyed and thinks to herself quietly, yes, I knew something special was going to happen today.<br />
<br />
Aggie starts playing quietly, sleepily. The sleepiness makes her arm move slowly and heavily producing a perfect ‘Once-upon-a-time’ sound, with core and yet not too definite. She allows a questioning silence between phrases one and two, and yet she is eager to go on with the story so her upbeat has energy. During the second phrase, the fresh breeze at the window and the sense of confirmation make her bow move more briskly and with more attack, causing the sound to be airier with more defined edges. The bow slows down again in the first unravelling passage to keep us on tenterhooks, but speeds up naturally, almost despite itself, as the impatience to tell the news mounts. The breath before the last phrase is almost swallowed in anticipation and with the affirmative joy of the news in the last phrase, Aggie almost throws the bow in exuberation. This causes a brilliant energetic sound that, I think at the time, could sing for Europe at the end of a long war. In the closing bars, with the sense of relief and relaxation, Aggie executes a delicious diminuendo and rallentando. How she does it, I don’t know. I think perhaps it does her. She takes her bow off the string gently and sits in silence. We sit in silence with her. With Aggie the story teller and the little girl in the story Aggie told. <br />
<br />
Aggie the cellist is nowhere to be seen.ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-41311140118310843532010-10-01T18:13:00.001+02:002010-10-06T23:19:46.285+02:00Cellos and Chateauneuf<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/5042147702/" title="DSCN3780 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4085/5042147702_0918786f6f.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="DSCN3780" /></a><br />
<br />
The drive to Gigondas is green and bronze, the hard summer having relaxed in to Autumn. As I enter Rhone wine country, white letters on the slopes spell out 'VACQUEYRAS ET SES VINS', in an unapologetic mockery of the Hollywood sign. A smaller announcement on the road et the start of the village asks us to please take care at harvest time. 'Prudence s'il vous plaît. Vendange.' Presumably it means of the slow moving trucks piled high with grapes, but then I realize there is an emptiness to the request and I can't tell what is missing.<br />
<br />
When I coast up the stony drive of the chateau and park amidst the harvest paraphenalia I am thinking L has been in a good mood of late. Though he says he will not really be able to tell until spring, he is ecstatic about this year's harvest. In fact, last week he said to me 'This is my year'. I am touched that, even at the busiest time in a wine maker's calender, L still makes room for our hour together.<br />
<br />
We are working on a Beethoven clarinet trio he is playing with his son and a friend. Like a painter having worked on cast drawing alone, after almost two years working on form, we agree it is exciting to be contemplating the palette at last. One of L's weaknesses, and he knows it, is that he does not listen well. He takes in information, agrees with it passionately and is so convinced that he is applying it that he does not hear that the idea has perhaps not gone further than his brain. I am talking about clay. (As usual we are mixing metaphors like children baking a cake with salt instead of flour and rice instead of sugar.) He plays the opening phrase of the Adagio with the upbeat on a down bow. I suggest otherwise and he starts again. When I have something to respond to I add in the accompaniment the cello gives later to the clarinet. I watch the crescents of Chateauneuf du Pape that are his fingernails lifting, pulling, pushing, spelling out the notes. Our lines touch. The vibrations meld, and then the unison disintegrates as my line falls away. When we stop playing something has changed in his face. The whole of him is listening to Beethoven ringing in the air, and he is loving it.<br />
<br />
'Now I see' he says after the pause. 'How music is not like painting, but it IS like wine making. Unlike the painter, we, you and I, are given this great raw material. For the musician it is the score. For me...Well, anyone can chuck me a parcel of great old chateuneuf vines....It's about what you do with it. How you learn about it and listen to it...'<br />
<br />
'How, with your hands, you mold it into something people can understand...?' I say.<br />
<br />
'And possibly even something great.' he says.<br />
<br />
Later, when I am lunching with friends at Domaine de Mourchon, we are talking about the grape picking machines. Ninety percent of wine makers in the area, says H, are using it.<br />
<br />
'With its huge rubbery lips.' I say<br />
<br />
'And its ability to tickle and tease the fruit from the vine...' says H. 'But seriously, it is simply much much more cost efficient and noone can prove there is a difference in quality'.<br />
<br />
'And if you had just, as I have' says his wife, K , 'spent three hours at five in the morning filling in five pages of forms for each one of the twenty pickers who have just worked for you for three hours....'<br />
<br />
What was missing in the landscape, I realize, was hands. Also, hats bobbing in and out of the vines. Pickers' picnics at midday at the side of the road.... But is that all just silly romance? Is being sentimental about the season of people crouched down for hours doing back breaking work like saying I will not play off a score that has been printed out by a computer programmer and not written by a musician's hand? I guess the new vintage will tell. Meanwhile, I am glad that cellists have not quite yet been replaced by rubbery lipped machines.ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-1045094613407378892010-09-24T17:48:00.012+02:002010-09-25T13:53:05.941+02:00The shrinking endpin.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/5020738122/" title="IMGP0238 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4150/5020738122_5b913b380e.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMGP0238" /></a><br />
<br />
I walk in to the audition hall with my cello. I pull the end pin out as far as it will go, tighten the screw and stick the spike in to the maple wood floor. I hear some rustling in the third row of the stalls. I think briefly about Martin Finn whom I love. I never really know how to start so I just put my bow on the string and pull. The audition ‘accompanist’ catches me up imperceptibly, brilliantly, and we are off, taking a lugubrious route through Schubert’s arpeggione sonata.<br />
To the seventeen year old me, this classical sonata for the six stringed instrument rather like the viola de gamba is simply a page full of yummy cello tunes in which I can show off my new-found chocolaty sound, not to mention my spanking new figure-of-eight bow changes. I play a note and love it until I am satisfied that it is beautiful and atmospheric and full of character, and then I move on (with the help of my Rolls Royce bow change) to the next one. Even though I am a teenager with short spiky hair dyed blue who loves to go wild on the dance floor (particularly to earthy African music), on the cello, neither rhythm, pulse nor meter are an issue. Not even tempo is an issue. Cello playing, as far as I understand it, is all about sound. Gorgeous, sexy sound!<br />
Towards the end of the exposition I am interrupted by the tinkle of a bell, perfectly in tune with the piano, that signals the judges for the award have heard enough. Shame, I think, as I have a very special colour up my sleeve for the development. A sort of gossamer purple. Anyway, I have certainly made some beautiful sounds in the first half and am pretty sure they will hand over the dosh.<br />
‘Why are you playing it at such a slow tempo?’ says the woman with the bobbed haircut, lowering her spectacles and pushing a sheet of paper to the side. ‘And what about the rhythm?’<br />
I sit in silence. I have no answer to the judge’s question.<br />
‘OK, thank you Miss Phillips’ says the judge. ‘Could you tell the next candidate we are ready?’ <br />
The first clue I find to the answer to the judge’s question is five years later when I realize that each time I feel anxious before or during a concert, I pull the endpin out just a little longer in the hope I will feel more in control. And then I feel even less connected. It takes me another twenty-five to figure out the rest. <br />
<br />
<br />
The endpin started out life as a cushion on which to rest a bass instrument and thus relieve the strain on the classical pantalooned knee. In 1830 it morphed in to a wooden peg a few inches long which allowed the Belgian cellist Adrien Servais to rest his cello more comfortably against his body. (On whether this became necessary because of the size of his Stradivarius or his increasing paunch, views differ). Not everyone adopted it, but it did give women the choice to give up side saddle playing, and the Portuguese beauty Guilhermina Suggia (with her flowing scarlet robe as painted by Augustus John) the opportunity, half a century later, to become the girl cellist’s first heroine. The endpin’s heyday surely came when the French cellist Paul Tortelier invented the bent model adopted by Rostropovitch, with the cello jutting out from his chest like a table, so much so that one almost expected to see a napkin tucked into his dress shirt. Nowadays, with so many cellists straddling modern and period styles, playing with the cello cradled between their knees one day and supported by an endpin the next, the long endpin craze seems to have subsided and a mid-length support is back in fashion.<br />
As I see it, there is a musical parallel with this journey from short to long endpin and back to middling. This journey is from the cello playing a fundamentally rhythmic and harmonic (vertical) rôle in the baroque and classical eras, to a melodic (horizontal) one in the romantic era. In other words, the reason that endpin length increased was a direct result of the increase in long melodic lines in the cellist’s, especially the solo cellist’s, repertoire. But what of the ‘modern’ high endpinned cellist playing a Haydn bass line in a symphony, or indeed Schubert’s arpeggione sonata? Is it surprising (not, of course, that everyone was as extreme as that blue-haired cellist) that the era of the high endpin was also the era of baroque and classical repertoire being played so often in a slow, lugubrious manner, lacking a sense of harmonic rhythm or driving pulse? Was everyone struggling like me?<br />
I started playing the baroque and classical cello in the mid nineties, sort of by accident, because it was becoming apparent that if I did not, I would be locked out of the repertoire I loved more and more: Haydn and Mozart symphonies, Bach cantatas, the Passions. Audiences and concert halls, and even film makers (Tous Les Matins du Monde was THE soundtrack at the time) were becoming increasingly interested by and demanding of the gutsy folksy sound that was (re-)emerging, and period instrument groups were on the up. As soon as I was comfortable with cradling the cello with my calfs I found answers. I changed from being a nervous pulseless perfectionist who wouldn’t play anything until I had practiced it for months, to someone ‘bien dans sa peau’ on stage, risk-taking, and as spontaneous as any folk musician. The main reason for this change was a feeling of abandon as my arm swung around round my torso and back.<br />
Think of any folk culture that has stringed instruments - Indian, folk, jazz, gypsy. The violinists all hold their instruments low on the body and angled downwards to get the optimum connection to the arm’s natural swing round the torso and therefore the rhythm and the harmony. I was not far off when I realized that my desire for more control in concerts was making me want to put my endpin higher and higher. What I had yet to realize was that there was something that went hand in hand with control, and that was abandon.ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-17094017852589535692010-09-21T16:42:00.007+02:002010-09-21T16:50:37.174+02:00Chiaroscuro<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/5011363903/" title="IMGP0211 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4090/5011363903_8691885b6d.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMGP0211" /></a><br />
<br />
A is a nine year old book worm who wants to be a writer when she grows up. Even though she lives in a paradise vineyard in Provence, every time I see her she is curled up on a couch or crouched in a corner, her knees drawn up to her chest, escaping to somewhere else. Usually, I fear, platform nine and three quarters. Once a week I wrench her away from her stories. She drags her cello out of its case and starts to play for me, her eyes still lingering on the book abandoned mid-chapter. It takes a while for A to emerge from the world contained within her beloved pages to the world of bouncing bows and clapping, but we usually get there in the end. <br />
Last week A pulled out a little piece of Lully arranged for cello duet and placed it on the stand for us. The music sauntered along nicely as we played, with pretty thirds and sixths shifting between parts like layers of silky pinks and purples. At about the mid point there was a long and painful chord with a flattened sixth that had the potential to tug briefly at the corseted gut before being resolved. However, when we played it there was no tension. It was time, I thought, to see if we could make the connection between Harry Potter and the intrigue that might have been occurring in Versailles on the day Lully wrote his air.<br />
First of all we dressed up. Although neither of our knowledge of Louis X1V’s designers was intimate, we donned, in our imagination, powdery wigs, corsets, hooped skirts and shoes with bows and, as the music unfolded, we tried to imagine what was happening. Was someone opening a door here, or crossing the floor there? What were they feeling? In love? Hesitant? Proud? Haughty even? Who was the mystery guest and what was their relationship? How was she ushered in? Bar by bar we tried to get inside the gestures of the baroque story. Then came the bar with the flattened sixth. <br />
‘What is happening now?’ I asked.<br />
There was a pause.<br />
‘I don’t know’ said A.<br />
‘Is there anything different about this bar?’ I asked<br />
‘I don’t know’ said A.<br />
Whether or not it was a result of the (recently discussed in the Guardian) fear children have apparently developed in French schools of giving the ‘wrong’ answer or not, it took a very long time for us to establish that something had changed, that the feelings here were different, that we actually felt differently in our bodies. Uncomfortable, unresolved. We played the chord again.<br />
‘There is a memory…’ said A at last.<br />
‘Is it a painful memory?’ I asked.’ If so, of what?’<br />
I asked A what it was that she liked about the story she was reading, or indeed any story. Was there not some kind of painful, or challenging moment, I asked, in every story that made the development and the resolution so satisfying? Would she really want to read a story that went ‘One sunny day the happy girl walked along the beautiful sunlit road and met a very nice boy and they lived blissfully ever after’ or, likewise, ‘The nasty ugly man sniffed the hideous air in the run down city, drew his sword and killed the cat. The end.’<br />
‘She’s been here before…’ said A. <br />
We were getting somewhere, I thought. <br />
‘…When she was a little girl…’<br />
Time was up and lunch was on the table in the sunlit vines. Glasses of the house' own rosé glistened, salad was dressed with home made olive oil.<br />
‘It’s a beginning, A.’ I said. ‘Can you see, though, how important that bar is? that there is no relaxation in this piece without the tension in that bar? no light without shadow? And that there is no right answer, just how you feel?’<br />
‘Yes' said A. 'Can I go back to my book now?’ <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/5011963062/" title="IMGP0218 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4150/5011963062_024918e1de.jpg" width="295" height="400" alt="IMGP0218" /></a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-77155389682937232512010-09-16T18:41:00.001+02:002010-09-16T18:42:49.969+02:00Vendange<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4996344088/" title="IMGP0207 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4088/4996344088_675505c284.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMGP0207" /></a><br />
<br />
'I joke with my friends' <a href="http://www.saintcosme.com/en/history.php">L</a> told me once me at the end of a lesson as he stuffed forty euros into my hand and filled the boot of my Mini with St Joseph and Condrieu for my petrol money, 'and say you are my bio dynamic cello teacher!' <br />
<br />
Driving through Caromb, Beaumes de Venise and Vacqueyras this week to teach the great bio-dynamic wine-maker in Gigondas, I realized I was enjoying the enforced slow pace for once. This was because most of the big white caravans from Holland and Belgium have now been replaced on the roads with little red trucks carrying mountains of priceless red and golden globelets. I idled away watching the sun shine on the grapes that, having been picked by patient hands under the September sun, would be transformed into some of the best wine in the world. And as I idled I got to thinking yet again about L's comment....<br />
<br />
With the lack of response in France to the way I approach music (confirmed recently in the <a href="http://http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/05/french-schools-pupils-feel-worthless?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments">British press</a>) and with my passion for making and teaching it, and the enthusiastic response I always seem to get from doing that, I have been thinking internet coaching then book, video magazine then video coaching then internet book, book with video coaching then internet kindle book....I have been thinking a lot. A visit last weekend from the wonderful <a href="http://http://www.metamorphosism.com/">Mig</a> helped clarify things. Teaching Mig helped me see that teaching without actual touch is hard, and I could not do the internet coaching without at least having a model, and that perhaps I should write the book first.....? <br />
<br />
Most days this week, I made cups of tea, packed paintings, went to the post office, veg shop and boulangerie. I called friends, went for a run and had a long shower then had another cup of tea. Finally today, having achieved most of these tasks and still with time on my hands, I sat down, opened <a href="http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.htmland">Scrivener </a> and created a new project. <br />
<br />
Working title: The Bio-dynamic Cello.<br />
<br />
Another mountain to climb? Bey hey, it's a new day!ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-77031128026891132402010-08-22T19:14:00.001+02:002010-08-22T19:16:53.710+02:00TurkeyHere's a piece I wrote on my experience in Turkey.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4805925072/" title="IMG_0235 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4120/4805925072_87385352cf.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMG_0235" /></a><br />
<br />
I am sitting in a café on Urgup’s main street. The humous here is somewhat overloaded with pomegranate molasses but it doesn’t seem to matter. The Efes beer is cool, ‘The Smile on your Face’ is playing at the bar, and I am looking back on the work we have been doing during the last ten days here in Cappadocia. It’s hard to believe it was only a week ago.<br />
<br />
<br />
Monday.<br />
<br />
<i>They say I circle around you.<br />
Nonsense. I circle around me.</i><br />
Rumi.<br />
<br />
It is my first cello class. Dotted around the room are eleven cellists aged between ten and twenty-one, from beginner to graduate level. Many of them do not meet my eye. One is cowering behind his instrument. Another is playing a muscled version of Haydn’s D major concerto to the wall. Yet another rolls up her sleeve and flexes her biceps in a show of cello prowess. Clearly I am not alone in feeling nervous.<br />
<br />
We create a circle. In the first exercise I ask the group to stand and let their arms swing around their torsos in response to the torso’s movement around the spine’s axis. This, I point out, is the natural movement we make when we walk, and also the root of the bow-swing. <br />
<br />
‘Look ze waves!’ I say, quoting my late Hungarian mentor, Sandor Vègh, sketching, with one hand, an impression of his six wobbling chins whilst with the other the swell of the ocean. ‘Avery sing in nature is cuuuuuuuuuurved!’ <br />
<br />
There is silence. I wonder if, during the following week, I will manage to communicate anything of my circular approach to cello playing in my non-existent Turkish. On this first day I very much doubt it.<br />
<br />
That night, the student concert takes place in a cave that serves as a tea-house and sometime concert venue. The name, Sakli Vadi, means Hidden Valley and indeed the venue feels so secret it seems unlikely that anyone will come. However, while Ellen choreographs the last of the student’s rehearsals, local families arrive and set up picnics. Other visitors stand and enjoy the spicy sausage sandwiches and Cappadocian red wine that are for sale at the entrance to the cave. Two of the faculty waltz on the sandy cave floor as the violists play their Strauss dance. Exhausted from a long opera season back in England I lounge in a hammock strung from two apricot trees. Sounds of a quartet for Ud and string trio, Handel’s water music and Gershwin’s Summertime whirl round the curved enclosure before rising up into the purple evening sky. Candles are lit and the place becomes an alchemical grotto, framing the music and yet setting it free. I contemplate my inevitable return to square concert halls, not to mention flat beds and, without the usual warning of tightness in the throat, I shed the first of many tears. <br />
<br />
<br />
Tuesday<br />
<i><br />
Drumsound rises on the air,<br />
its throb, my heart.</i><br />
Rumi<br />
<br />
In the second cello class we work on the connection between breath and bowing. Inhaling deeply, filling their rib cages with air, the students observe how their arms can float weightlessly up and away from their bodies on the in-breath. I immediately translate this into the movement of the bow arm. The sound in the room opens up and doubles. Subsequent exercises bring smiles of recognition. Nervousness is replaced with ease. Our hearts start to open.<br />
<br />
That afternoon the faculty concert takes place in the caravanserai ‘Saruhan’, an immaculately renovated thirteenth century stopping place for camel trains along the silk road. Before the concert I sit for a while in meditation just off the courtyard. In the quiet concentration it is as if this space has been prepared for us. Only afterwards do I find out that it is the home of the Mevlevi sect, inspired by one of my great heroes, Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi.<br />
<br />
When the concert ends we stay for Sema, the Mevlevi whirling dervish ceremony. After a eulogy to the prophet and a drum sound symbolising the divine order of the Creator, there follows a simple improvisation on the reed flute that, I discover later, represents the first, the Divine breath. At this point I know nothing of the sect, nor of their whirling. I do not know that their turning prayer is based on what they believe and indeed contemporary science has found to be the fundamental condition of our existence, to revolve. The skirts start to twirl, the arms float weightlessly up away from their rib-cages and the dervishes start to spin, orbiting around their heart centre. <br />
<br />
Wedensday<br />
<br />
<i>Every moment and place says<br />
‘Put this design in your carpet!</i><br />
Rumi.<br />
<br />
<br />
It is day three and in class we are working on the opening phrase of Beethoven’s A major cello sonata. Despite her obvious vivaciousness my student plays with a flat sound. When I ask her to sing the phrase she does so with one vowel and no consonants. ‘Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah’ When I ask her to sing it as if speaking it she does so in Sol Fège: ‘La Mi Fa, Do Mi Re Do Re Sol La Sol….’ When I ask her, as a jazzer would scat, to draw on the sounds of her own language to find consonants and vowels both hard and soft, long and short to express the contours and percussion of the phrase, she sings. ‘La di lohm? la ri do loh di la dah dihm’. Now she is speaking a language we all understand.<br />
<br />
The evening event is a jam session held at the adopted headquarters of Klassik Keyifler, the rooftop of Nuray’s elegant ‘Ziggy café’. Below us in town, carpet and dried fruit sellers pack up. Stray cats pad over cobbles. A wedding party hoots and wails. On our table a series of delicate meze arrive including okra, the pulp of wood-fired aubergine and a creamy bean purée. A Turkish jazz singer, an Ud player on guitar, and a kid from the viola class on the electric piano waft through some jazz standards. The food, aromatic rather than spicy is a perfect accompaniment. The next course consists of liver and pastrami that, Ellen informs me, would originally have been cured in the midday heat under a horse’s saddle, and just as the meat arrives at our table, so it does in the musical feast, with Anatolian folk tunes. These are soloed heartily at first by Guc Basar Gulle. Then by Esin Gunduz. Then by the chap at the next table, and then by all the students. On that rooftop in the early hours of the Anatolian morning, the language of music and indeed the Turkish language, seem so intimate. ‘Iyi Aksamlar’ I say to Nuray as we leave. At three o’clock I can almost taste the words for Good Evening in my mouth along with the smoky remnant of aubergine.<br />
<br />
Thursday<br />
<br />
<i>Any movement or sound is a profession of faith,<br />
As the millstone grinding is explaining how it believes in the river.</i><br />
Rumi<br />
<br />
<br />
‘Oranges and lemons from the Mediterranean are stored at the perfect temperature in the local caves here’ Suha, our host at Esbelli Evi informs us. <br />
As we sip their juice over breakfast a colleague asks me what ‘school of playing’ I come from. I look at the curve of the cave wall behind him, and the delicately drawn lines of strata hinting at its history. My history, or ‘school’, feels more like this sandstone than any institution or method. In my class that day, I think, I will doubtless quote Julius Levine (who coached Ellen and I in the US), Steven Isserlis, Timothy Eddy, Sandor Vegh, Andras Schiff, or Sascha Schneider. Or quote any one of them quoting Pablo Casals. I might ask one of them to teach me an Anatolian tune that may have been recorded by Bela Bartok in the fifties, transformed in to one of his string quartets and played by Sandor Vegh to Bartok himself in Budapest or at Casals’ festival in Prades. I will yet again talk about rainbows and waves, tree trunks and wings, gurgling streams and twittering birds, volcanos and natural springs, searching within the images to find the way to move a hand or shape a phrase. The ‘school’ I come from, it occurs to me, does not belong to any country, creed or culture. It is all around us, in nature.<br />
<br />
After my spontaneous and almost incomprehensible lesson in Turkish microtones with Guc, we pile in the bus for the day’s concert in Goreme Open Air Museum. At the entrance I resist what one of my students describes as ‘bubble gum ice cream’ in favour of melon juice and we make our way to the cave church where the students will play solo Bach. Unfortunately Husam could not get permission this year to play in any of the many churches that house the Byzantine frescoes. He was particularly keen on Tokali Kilise in whose chambers are painted the account of the life of Christ in sea greens, powdery blues and ochres, and over whose entrance is painted the transfiguration. When we visit I can see why. As if planting a seed of hope for next year, Esin sings a few notes, and all of us imagine phrases of Bach strung between the painted pillars and swelling under the vaults. <br />
<br />
Friday<br />
<br />
W<i>e rarely hear the inward music,<br />
But we’re all dancing to it nevertheless</i><br />
Rumi<br />
<br />
<br />
The day of our penultimate cello class has arrived. Over my penultimate salad of feta cheese, hot peppers, lettuce, cucumber and yoghurt in Club Urgup’s restaurant, Ellen has been telling me more about the dervishes. I am particularly interested in the hat they wear being the ‘tombstone of the ego’, and in their hand positions, the right hand turned up towards the sky to receive God’s gifts, and the left turned down towards the earth to deliver them back. Inhalation and exhalation. Inspiration and expression. My students are not the only ones making new connections. <br />
<br />
I walk across the hot astro-turf, past the loungers and the signs to the swimming pool. I descend the stairs to the poorly lit and barely air-conditioned basement rooms filled this week, not with conferences or business meetings, but with children making music. I have a spring in my step as I enter the room and see eleven people arranging the chairs in the circle. Eleven people whom, at the beginning of the week, all seemed to be called variations on an Italian designer, but whom I have now come to know as Gulce, Gokce, Gokhan, Pinar, Pelin, Hazel…<br />
<br />
Today I ask the students to voice thoughts they have had recently whilst performing. ‘How beautiful this music is!’ says the first. ‘How nice the cello feels!’ says the second. ‘Same.’ says the third. Then the fourth cellist speaks: ‘During my performance yesterday I thought: My teacher has just taught me this bow stroke. He is sitting over there and must be angry because I can’t do it yet. I am a failure’ There is a silence. ‘My vibrato is pathetic’ says the first. ‘I wish my mum could see me play’ says the third. ‘I am ashamed of my sweating brow’ says the seventh. When everyone has spoken I ask whether thought serves merely a distraction from hearing and following our inner music. I leave the question in the air.<br />
<br />
<br />
That night we are back in Sakla Vadi for the last concert. On the stage under the arc of the cave, violinists and violists squat on scatter cushions and ledges, tandoor pots huddle in every nook, and Turkish teapots hang from the ceiling. I am leading the cello ensemble in an arrangement of Dido’s lament. I look at the smiling faces encircling me, the softened shoulders and the feet planted on the floor of the stage. We draw a breath together, and play.<br />
<br />
<br />
Saturday<br />
<br />
<i>Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,<br />
How it sings of separation.</i><br />
Rumi<br />
<br />
Saturday was to be a day of rest but, inspired by how Ellen ‘closed’ her violin class, I ask the cellists to gather one last time. Instead of taking up separate poses and playing concerti excerpts, the eleven students are sitting in a circle, breathing calmly when I arrive. When I ask them what it is they would like to take away with them from the week’s work, the boy who hid behind his cello says he has learned to sit proud. The youngest member of the group says she thought classical music was deadly serious but all week she has seen people laughing so she has changed her mind. Another says she has realized how powerful the support of a group can be. Most of them say, apparently with some relief, that they have learned that there is a more natural approach to playing. I, myself, find it difficult to speak at all, but I hope I convey how deeply their openness and humour, and their willingness to explore what essentially are new ideas to them, have touched me.<br />
<br />
<br />
Tomorrow I leave my colleagues and students, and we leave Cappadocia. In the bar 'The smile on your face', is still playing on the stereo, but now it has a twist. The muezzin has started up in exactly the same tonality. ‘You’ll catch me whenever I fall.’ sings Ronan Keating, and the muezzin rises on the syllable ‘Al-‘ before tumbling in a series of minor intervals on‘-Lah’. ‘It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart.’ sings Keating, and the muezzin holds ‘bar’ right to its guttal end over the broken guitar chords. ‘Without saying a word you can light up the dark.’ The caller twirls his micro-tones in and around Keating, transforming the East-West mix into one urgent call to love and prayer under the stars. As I listen I realize that, in Klasik Keyifler, Ellen and Husam have created something absolutely unique. With their joint knowledge of Turkish culture, history and geology, and their passion for the International language of music, there is no watering down here. This is not a cross-over festival. This is a real attempt at listening to and understanding each culture, finding what binds and separates them and, just like the muezzin and the ballad singer, allowing each to sing its song fully and passionately side by side.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Ellen Jewett is an internationally acclaimed violinist and teacher, and member of the American-based Audubon quartet. Husam Suleymangil has worked for 30 years in the tourist sector guiding for archeological projects, film crews, educational, family and business tours throughout Turkey.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.klasikkeyifler.org/">Klassik Keyifler </a> holds courses in Turkey from June through September. <br />
http://www.klasikkeyifler.org/ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-13558836201302403922010-08-22T15:55:00.001+02:002010-08-22T15:57:35.344+02:00Croissants and a surprise visitor<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4915665863/" title="IMGP0181 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4915665863_d0f00f0428.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMGP0181" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4915666943/" title="IMGP0183 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4116/4915666943_0e66db2c0e.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMGP0183" /></a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-65166045735087334682010-07-29T08:55:00.001+02:002010-07-29T09:02:17.162+02:00figsFigs from the tree (a few via a <a href="http://shiftinglight.com/2010/07/nature_morte_aux_figues_et_vieux_pot_a_graisse.php">still life</a>)<br />
roasted with garrigues honey, balsamic vinegar and thyme.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4839635917/" title="IMGP0019 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4110/4839635917_634fedbdd4_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMGP0019" /></a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-67802411930824283592010-07-28T14:33:00.001+02:002010-07-28T18:32:46.002+02:00Potager du Peintre 3A noir de crimée tomato from our vine, crusty bread, mourchon oilive oil, salt, pepper. C'est tout.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4837022653/" title="IMGP0017 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4154/4837022653_e99f3c6fd8_b.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="IMGP0017" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4837602859/" title="potager by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4147/4837602859_1606b0eb65_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="potager" /></a><br />
<br />
or, our crop of aubergines burnt on the barbecue and transformed into our favourite Turkish recipes from <a href="http://www.ziggycafe.com/portfolio.htm">Ziggy's</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4837600457/" title="aubergines by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4133/4837600457_f6c40dae66_b.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="aubergines" /></a><br />
<br />
It's good to be home, if briefly!ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-37425097611983651392010-07-15T18:39:00.003+02:002010-07-15T18:43:19.724+02:00The muezzin and the smile on your face<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4786397292/" title="IMG_0199 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4116/4786397292_9ec926da4b_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMG_0199" /></a><br />
<br />
Downtown Urgup. I have a free evening and we choose to try out a new place for supper. It is a nice venue in a garden with the usual exquisite soft stone cave walls that make me wonder why we ever decided to make our dwellings from straight lines. Plasterboard seems like another universe. <br />
<br />
I start recounting my class about curved notes to Julian, quoting first Sandor Vègh ('Avery note is carved') and then one of the students who explained to me that they all learn Russian method (which, as far as I can see is locked elbows and bemuscled shoulders) , and that is why 'all the cellists in Turkey suffer from shoulder problems'. I have a running joke in the class about Dutch landscape as in FLAT (uncurved) notes, but I realize that most of these Turkish students probably have no clue about Holland or how uncurvy it is....<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4786397868/" title="IMG_0200 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4134/4786397868_720633418a_b.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="IMG_0200" /></a><br />
<br />
On and on I go about curved this and curved that. Curved concert halls and bedrooms, curved surfaces of tress, bodies, bows and cellos. The local Efes beer is refreshing. However, over the too-sweet houmous (too much pomegranate syrup?) I start to regret that we didn't go to the incomparable <a href="http://www.ziggycafe.com/ ">Ziggy café</a> for the third time in a row, where the aubergine is deliciously smoked, the aromatics - dill, mint and parsley - perfectly judged, the bean purées like butter and where they have one of my favourite vegetables, okra...<br />
<br />
I am struggling. I am at once trying to let go of my culinary disappointment and blot out fortissimo twang of the tourists at the bar when, suddenly, I know why we are there. 'The smile on your face', is playing on the radio. The muezzin starts up not only in the same key and the same pulse but the same feel as the old favourite. When the song has a lull the muezzin embellishes; when the song is busily letting me 'know that he needs me' it lays back with just a hum; when it rises up in an arc of extatic love, so does the muezzin. 'There's a truth in your eyes, saying you'll never leave me...' <br />
<br />
And than the song modulates and the muezzin is left behind, calling the population of Urgup away from their cafés and to prayer. Lonely. Mildly unnoticed. We pay our bill and head up to Ziggys where we hear Anatolian folk songs (all part of this extraordinary <a href="http://www.klasikkeyifler.org/">festival </a>) and where I eat smoked aubergine to take the taste a way of the houmous. We bask in jazz tunes and micro-tones under a starlit sky till the early hours.<br />
<br />
However, I will never forget what was said, between the muezzin's heart and those of Paul Overstreetand Don Schlitz.ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-56390898613515275012010-07-13T19:10:00.000+02:002010-07-13T19:10:39.888+02:00cappadocia<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4790075849/" title="IMG_0214 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4790075849_e3f229a21d_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMG_0214" /></a><br />
<br />
Bach in eleventh century cave chapels, whirling dervishes and Brahms in a thirteenth century caravanserai on the silk route, breathing and bowing classes run by me (now with additional references to whirling dervishes), Anatolian folk songs in a Turkish café, chamber music with string quartet and ud, a boutique cave house all for the two of us and a balloon ride....This is <a href="http://www.klasikkeyifler.org/">Klasik Keyifler</a> 2010!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4784381050/" title="IMG_0183 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4077/4784381050_d14914b3b0_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMG_0183" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4790791754/" title="_MG_2608 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4143/4790791754_05a93242e3_b.jpg" width="280" height="400" alt="_MG_2608" /></a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-29956935339203005082010-06-19T16:09:00.027+02:002010-06-19T17:12:23.807+02:00A nightmare and Midsummer Night's Dream<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4711609348/" title="IMG_0153 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4023/4711609348_ac36b64fd1_b.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="IMG_0153" /></a><br />
<br />
When you walk out of our production of Midsummer Night's Dream you arrive in a fairy lit flower garden full of poppies, Fantin Latour roses, peonies and alliums. That is, if it is not pouring with rain when you probably choose to disappear under your umbrella. <br />
<br />
We did have one glorious day in England. Luckily for me it was my one day off with <a href="http://shiftinglight.com">Julian</a>. <br />
<br />
My husband has spent the last few months dealing with the proofing, delivery, signing and posting of his <a href="http://shiftinglight.com/book/index.html">book</a>. I have rarely seen him so worn and stressed. The delay in the printing process meant that the fork lift truck arrived at the foot of the Mont Ventoux several days AFTER I left on tour for two months, and not before. Luckily it was the day before they decided to close our beloved 'road in Provence' for ugly tarmacking. Luckily it was not raining. Unluckily Julian was alone. Despite strict instructions in capital letters in red from the printers that the truck should be equipped with lift and trolley and anything else a poor chap might need in the middle of nowhere to unload three thousand books, the truck arrived with neither lift nor trolley, or indeed anything useful at all. Julian was forced to take every box down by hand and walk it to the gallery. He became so exhausted in the process that he fell trying to save one, gashing his leg on something sharp and metal that belonged to the forkless liftless truck. He rushed himself to the 'Urgences' at Carpentras hospital where he ended up with six stitches before coming back to clean up the blood and face the next step.<br />
<br />
The following week was spent in a vigil of dawn till midnight label-checking and printing, packing and visits to the post office. A few home grown lettuces were rescued from the mistral, a bean pole or two erected to try and save our small crop, but that was about it. It seems there wasn't even time to drink. By which, of course, I mean, Côtes du Rhône.<br />
<br />
The first feedback arrived on my iphone while we were driving. 'It is beautiful, stunning but.....' Oh no, we thought. I had flown home for a day and we were driving from Bedoin to Garsington together in search of some relaxation after the great book- birthing. 'But there is a gash in the paper from page forty eight through to page sixty.' We looked out on to the rain soaked 'Autoroute du Soleil' and our hearts sank. Was it a whole batch or a one-off? The hours before the next lot of feedback that confirmed the latter were long.<br />
<br />
Luckily we had some distraction in the form of a tasting at <a href=" http://www.domainedavidclark.com/index.php">David Clark</a>'s bijoux winery. A shy young man, David had recently been featured on the BBC which had caused his modest organic one-man show to explode with success and there were lovely echoes of Julian's New York Times moment in the air as the two men exchanged gifts: An unlabeled 2008 Côtes de Nuits and a book of paintings. Arriving finally at my B and B in Garsington ten hours later, we devoured the Burgundy with relish.<br />
<br />
<br />
Five days later Julian had been to three operas and posted forty more books (the latter not without driving seventy miles in search of a real post office as opposed to a counter in WH Smith). We had walked in his childhood playground in the beech-woods of the Chiltern hills and dined at three gastro-pubs. He descended the stairs of the makeshift auditorium in to the garden of fairy lights, poppies, Fantin Latour roses, peonies and alliums. He was humming the chromatic tune of Britten's exquisite setting of 'I know a bank where the wild thyme blows' (which he will doubtless hum for the next three months) and a tear was in his eye. <br />
<br />
We did it! <br />
<br />
Now the European comments are starting to pour in.<br />
<i><br />
I have just received the most perfect art book ever! sober, splendid, huge and marvellous photography , the brush strokes are vivid...<br />
<br />
BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL BEAUUUUUUTIFULL!!!!!!!<br />
<br />
La peinture de l'air dans les paysages et la pénombre qui étreint la surface tangible des choses. <br />
<br />
The book has arrived and I am very much enjoying soaking up the ambience, countryside, weather, seasons, as portrayed in the wonderful pictures. <br />
<br />
Thank you - a lot of hard work bearing lovely fruit.<br />
<br />
I am so happy to have this book in my hands now! It literally exudes all the love and energy put into it...it is absolutely precious! </i><br />
<br />
There is a glowing write-up on <a href="http://makingamark.blogspot.com/">Making a Mark</a>. <br />
<br />
And now it is pouring with rain again in Garsington. My strings feel like knicker elastic, my bow like strands of damp spaghetti, my cello like an old crate. In the pit we are wearing thermals and hand warmers. Hot water bottles and old tartan blankets rest on our laps behind cellos and underneath bassoons. Meanwhile, back in Provence, the sun is shining. Julian has taken his own stitches out with the help of some vodka. Garden salads are being eaten from the potager, and Julian is at last harvesting his own beetroot, turnips and potatoes, and breathing, no doubt, a sigh of relief.<br />
<br />
Having made this beautiful book, surely, is a dream come true. Almost, indeed, on a midsummer's night.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4711609762/" title="IMG_0156 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4066/4711609762_20f8a61170_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMG_0156" /></a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-57482301705951045432010-06-03T16:52:00.000+02:002010-06-03T16:52:23.094+02:00A blackbird sings at Garsington<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4666555516/" title="poppies by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4059/4666555516_247769f77b_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="poppies" /></a><br />
<br />
I am walking through the formal gardens, on my way to pit for the first night of Figaro at Garsington manor. Giant poppies bob their welcome. Rose petals shimmer in the first summer light. Penguin suits and sequinned ball-gowns mill around picnic hampers on the distant lawn. The breathy sound of a flute emerges from the pit. In the big tree above my head a blackbird is warming up for her debut.<br />
<br />
Although it is a Mozart night, everyone in the pit is practicing Britten for the rehearsal tomorrow. A violist and I are playing the same hysterical sequence, our hands flying up to the Gods of the fingerboard at high speed. We are three semiquavers apart and creating excruciating dissonances. Another violist is doing long calm bows, centering herself. I take her lead, it being far more suitable preparation for one of the most sublime pieces of music ever written. <br />
<br />
The pit and the stalls are full. The conductor arrives. The continuo cello and fortepiano players take their places. Jane is wearing outrageous lime green earrings and Gareth shoves his jeans underneath the piano for a fast getaway. 'We're off to Alton Towers with the kids at the crack of dawn' he explains. The continuo team and the conductor have a mini rehearsal amidst the screaming Britten fragments. ‘You lead that bit’ says Dougie. ‘I don’t know what Gareth will think of that’ says Jane. Gareth is doing something on his iphone. ‘Could Jane lead that bit, Gareth?’ says Dougie. ‘Sure’ says Gareth,…<br />
<br />
The lights go down. A robin has joined the blackbird. An elaborately dressed character bangs a stave on the stage as a way to get the punters to shut up, so we can play really pianissimo. And we’re off. Not to Alton towers but to somewhere as close as you can get, I imagine, to heaven.<br />
<br />
And we are dancing. The speed, arc, bounce and swing of our bows are one. We are one with the bending of the conductor’s knees and the dancing of his feet. The night is drawing in and the magic is encircling us. Susanna sings her aria into the indigo sky. She executes a delicious diminuendo and as her voice trails off, the blackbird seizes her moment. She flourishes, pauses and flourishes again, pitches a high dominant perfectly in tune with the aria and shimmies down back to the tonic, diminuendoing all the while. <br />
<br />
Then there is silence. Then there is clapping and a glass of champagne. And then there is sleep filled with birdsong.ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-51749501553120328482010-05-30T00:37:00.001+02:002010-05-30T00:38:39.608+02:00books 'n roses<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4650588691/" title="IMG_0120 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4650588691_285f5b0a73_b.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="IMG_0120" /></a><br />
<br />
The peintre relaxes very occasionally, so the local gossip goes, in his potager. That is when he is not painting, feeding himself and three cats, emptying a garage and a gallery, building a ramp and preparing eight hundred packages for the <a href="http://shiftinglight.com/book/index.html ">book</a> delivery on its belated (through no fault of his own) delivery date, checking data, preparing labels, printing, addressing, sticking, signing and probably humming. All on his lonesome.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4651202674/" title="IMG_0115 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4651202674_2b816da171_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMG_0115" /></a><br />
<br />
I went home for three days. The books were supposed to be there. We were supposed to be labelling, sticking, licking, posting, printing, packing. A deux. Instead, as they were not, I smelled the <a href=" http://shiftinglight.com/2010/05/rose_felicity_parmentier.php ">roses</a>, and planted the broccoli family. I prepared elderflower champagne for four day fermentation. We walked, ran, lunched....It felt like three weeks' holiday. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4650630465/" title="IMG_0136 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/4650630465_298f9e209c_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="IMG_0136" /></a><br />
<br />
Back in grey rainy Garsington my beloved shows me his ramp and packaging on skype. I make admiring noises. The elderflower champagne is over-fermenting.ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-31291722924838946452010-05-22T22:14:00.000+02:002010-05-22T22:14:54.945+02:00roses<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4630139978/" title="photo by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4053/4630139978_9db89f3ccf_o.jpg" width="300" height="370" alt="photo" /></a><br />
<br />
Two days at home, just in time to see the roses bloom. The mistral destroyed much of the potager du peintre, so I have been nursing it.ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-48888637409853817932010-05-10T19:23:00.000+02:002010-05-10T19:23:14.521+02:00giovanni arteApparently...<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4595494505/" title="-1 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1296/4595494505_9ae72ef9bd_o.jpg" width="242" height="240" alt="-1" /></a><br />
<br />
You can still see the film arte made of our Don Giovanni <a href="http://plus7.arte.tv/fr/1697660,CmC=3194276,scheduleId=3161992.html">here</a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-20506094932083534912010-05-07T13:16:00.005+02:002010-05-07T14:35:27.500+02:00A postcard sandwich.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4583734069/" title="butler tanner dennis by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4583734069_bf24f57af4_b.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="butler tanner dennis" /></a><br />
<br />
We have had the most divine breakfast at our potter and children's book writer friends, David and Sarah Garland. It consists of home made granola with stem ginger and apple compote, a curly kipper and café au lait, all served on our favourite pottery. So harmonious is it all that the Garland mark and the curly kipper practically do a salsa on the plate. Then, under a fleece of cloud and past sun-yellow fields of rape, we drive back to Frome, to the conference room complete with sandwiches and mini-bar, with Delia and Jamie's cookery books lining the shelves, that has been reserved for us at <a href="http://www.butlertanneranddennis.com/">Butler Tanner and Dennis</a>.<br />
<br />
The printers have been hard at work during the night, and there is a new pass to sign off, plus two new sheets to see. My <a href="http://shiftinglight.com/2008/09/bank_of_wild_fennel.php#001912">favourite</a> of Julian's paintings, possibly ever, seems to sparkle. The <a href=" http://shiftinglight.com/2007/07/green_bowl_and_provenale_veget.php#000721">green bowl</a> in the pomegranate painting is perfect for the first time and the <a href="http://shiftinglight.com/2005/07/rougets_two_little_fish.php#000132 ">rougets</a> positively zing! <a href="http://shiftinglight.com/book/index.html">The book</a> is going to be magnificent!!!<br />
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Meanwhile, further down the production line, the Glyndebourne opera programme, with its David Hockney cover, is being pummeled and blown, strimmed, folded, stroked, punched, glued, threaded and bound, just like Julian's book will be next week. The brochure travels down miles of conveyor belt, its various bits drying and readying themselves for the next treatment. Overhead in floppy pipes the wasted rakes, billys and hansels whizz off across the ceiling to the recycling bin, just like bits of leek and mackerel and wheatfield will do on Monday.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4583721351/" title="butler tanner dennis by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4065/4583721351_2ff92fd9c2_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="butler tanner dennis" /></a><br />
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I resist the urge to rub out the name of a certain person on the orchestra list on the back page.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4583713703/" title="butler tanner dennis by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4583713703_28eb150e8a_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="butler tanner dennis" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4584353696/" title="butler tanner dennis by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/4584353696_71a3efb302_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="butler tanner dennis" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4583742181/" title="butler tanner dennis by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4583742181_97eeea3528_b.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="butler tanner dennis" /></a><br />
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'Next up' says our rep 'The Garsington brochure!' <br />
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So there goes Julian's book, sandwiched in between my ex and my current employers' opera programmes! On it's way to Bedoin, and then, perhaps, even, to a bookstore near you!<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4583740769/" title="butler tanner dennis by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4004/4583740769_dee54004b4_b.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="butler tanner dennis" /></a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-39848780914017256272010-05-06T17:13:00.005+02:002010-05-06T17:19:39.877+02:00First Pass<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4584329780/" title="P1040875 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4030/4584329780_c63b2f33af_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="P1040875" /></a><br />
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There are bluebells. There is plump wild garlic and exquisite spring lamb at the <a href="http://www.wheatsheafcombehay.co.uk/home.asp">Wheatsheaf</a>. On one of the surrounding tables in the cool modern dining room, four lads who might, ten years ago, have been downing lagers with an over-sized curry, are talking about beetroot over delicate English salad leaves. On another, three women are sharing a bottle of white wine and discussing birdsong. On the third (for there are only four) a couple are too blissfully happy or pissed, or both, to do anything but hold hands while they digest the fine fayre. As usual, we move from analyzing our food and the ambiance (pretty much ten out of ten, we agree for once, apart from the square plates) to dreaming of our own coffee shop cum gallerybistro/ gastro pub with rooms. There is a Farrow and Ball bedroom in 'The Shed' with a cowbell key, Egyptian cotton sheetage, complimentary organic Fairtrade tea, a tuckbox and a lambskin cushion that is almost as good as having our beloved Manon in bed with us.... but Julian is nervous. Tomorrow is press day!<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4583698509/" title="P1040871 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3325/4583698509_3ca4f44b67_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="P1040871" /></a><br />
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Thankfully <a href="http://www.butlertanneranddennis.com/">Butler, Tanner and Dennis</a> start late due to a system something or other, so we can enjoy an early morning walk and salmon and scrambled duck eggs. We check emails outside the inn in a light rain. We have breakfast and drive to Frome through dingly dells that make us discuss the possibility of moving back to our home country. There is a nice bookshop in which we are assured that the printers we have chosen are sound fellows....<br />
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And then, suddenly, there we are at the first pass. <a href="http://shiftinglight.com">Julian's paintings</a> sliding out all clean and shiny and multiduninous on huge sheets. All on their own. All grown-up. <br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4584336704/" title="P1040878 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4005/4584336704_0a8647d54f_b.jpg" width="400" height="290" alt="P1040878" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4584335782/" title="P1040882 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/4584335782_a768a57d40_b.jpg" width="400" height="210" alt="P1040882" /></a><br />
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It occurs to me that up until now Julian has, possibly for the first time, been feeling what we musicians feel before we go on stage. He tilts his head. Examines two rougets, a leek and a lavender field.<br />
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'Looks great' he says at last, happy as a spring lamb.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4583704891/" title="P1040888 by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4583704891_ff7d39d10b_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="P1040888" /></a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10045773.post-84075817909222666502010-05-03T09:07:00.000+02:002010-05-03T09:07:56.045+02:00purple asparagus<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4574124800/" title="purple asparagus by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3369/4574124800_e93bfced95_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="purple asparagus" /></a><br />
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The blue season is fading. The irises are bowing down with their lanky weight and shriveling up as the touch the ground. Poppies are looming up on the banks and soon it will be sweet honey broom again. As the asparagus fattens and strawberries prepare to make way for cherries, a trip to <a href="http://www.avignon-leshalles.com/legale.html">Les Halles</a> in Avignon reveals a last burst of blue, this extraordinary amethyst-coloured asparagus, just in time for guinea fowl with morilles and spring vegetables for our favourite cooks. <br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4574126268/" title="purple asparagus by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4057/4574126268_905d981300_b.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="purple asparagus" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93563935@N00/4573492601/" title="purple asparagus by meanwhilehereinfrance, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4060/4573492601_00d990e623_b.jpg" width="395" height="300" alt="purple asparagus" /></a>ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16415770207731335935noreply@blogger.com1