Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday and I was going to post about Scotch Pancakes. They have nothing to do with pancake day but a few people had asked about them and I was going to make some and share the experience. Some other time perhaps.
I had to go into town to the dental practice at short notice. There were gale force winds from the South but the high tide was about 40 minutes previously so the Braighe was not closed to traffic and I duly got ready and set off. There was a police car at this end but he was just keeping an eye on things and I drove across. It was still a bit hairy and there were stones on the road so it must have been bad at high tide.
I listen to music much of the time when I'm in the house. Usually in the morning it is BBC Radio 3 Essential Classics. Otherwise I choose from BBC iPlayer or my library on Apple Music. I rarely use my huge CD collection directly any more because it is held in my Apply Music library. I often hear pieces that I've not heard before or I've forgotten about. Sometimes they have an great impact. A few days ago one of those was Karl Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba (The Queen of Sheeba) - Assad's act 2 aria "Magische Töne", recorded in 1967 by Nicolai Gedda with the Orchester des Bayreischen Staatsoper, Munich, conducted by Giuseppe Patanè. It will probably be of little interest to many of my readers but for anyone who enjoys opera I think it is one of the most beautiful pieces of singing I've heard for years. It's available on YouTube here.
Dear Graham,
ReplyDeleteWell, your stormy journey looks quite hairy to me. Good to be accompanied by some music that adds bravura to the adventure. The sheer, elemental power of the wind and the waves is, at times, a reminder that Nature is in charge, we are only its guardians for a time.
And, how beautifully tender the voice of Nicolai Gedda is. One can even describe it as angelic as he reaches the highest notes with apparent and effortless ease. Truly delightful.
Jane and Lance, nature is definitely in charge when it comes to living here. However we get used to living with it even if we do grumble at times. I'm ashamed to say that I wasn't familiar with Nicolai Gedda until I hard this.
DeleteScotch pancakes are my favourite. Served hot and with a generous spread of butter - delicious!
ReplyDeleteI'm relieved you had a safe trip to town. How often does the Braighe get completely closed off?
Jules, as a child I likes butter and syrup on my Scotch pancakes but butter suffices now. I suppose the Braighe gets cut of half a dozen times each winter. A severe Southerly gale has to coincide with a Spring or very high tide.
DeletePhew! As if going to the dentist‘s wasn‘t enough, the drive across looks rather scary to me. I am glad you made it there and back alright!
ReplyDeleteMy sister is the main opera expert in my family; she would probably know exactly who and what you are talking about. I love the opera, too, but my taste is rather predictable in that I believe nobody does opera like Verdi.
Meike, when it's dangerous they close the road so that wasn't too bad. Verdi's operas are grand (I'm not sure that's the best adjective but it's the best that I can rustle up at the moment) and some of his arias are absolutely emotionally beyond compare but I definitely have to be in to mood to listen to his music as I do to listen to Wagner. I probably listen to Mozart, Puccini, Rossini and many others more frequently.
DeleteI saw your weather forecast and wondered about the causeways - I have this mad fantasy to drive my van from North Uist across Benbecula and then to South Uist. Doesn't take much to amuse me 😉, although the bit of your video where the sea hit the windscreen did make me gulp. I hope the dental part of your trip was a success and not too painful 🦷 🪥 🦷
ReplyDeleteJayne, it is possible to drive your van right through the Islands although it's necessary to get a ferry between Barra and Eriskay and between North Uist and Leverburgh on Harris. Whilst the ride can be very wild in the winter it's a beautiful journey the rest of the time. I just needed to have my jaw checked thank you.
DeleteOh my word. I would have been driving with my eyes closed.
ReplyDeleteJayCee, driving with one's eyes closed is generally not recommended!
DeleteSo you can get seriously cut off in a storm then? The modern world doesn't have the answer to every kind of rdmote living does it.
ReplyDeleteTigger, we can be cut off for an hour and a half or a bit more or less depending on the tide and the gale. It's an occasional minor convenience although it can be a problem in a medical or other emergency.
DeleteThere are so many beautiful arias in opera. Permit me to give you a couple of random favourites of mine - I say random, but they rank very highly on the "all time list". There is a CD of La Bohème with Jussi Bjorling, Victoria de los Angeles, and others (I can't find the CD right now) that is far and away the finest performance EVER (for me) of this work, and the Che Gelida Manina aria sung by Bjorling tears my heart out every time. It is both emotionally and technically perfect. The second choice is the performance by the young Luciano Pavarotti when he had a voice rivalled by no other, and did the Gaetano Donizetti opera La Fille du Régiment, with Joan Sutherland (there's a voice), conducted by her husband, Richard Bonynge, and in the "Ah mes amis" aria he hits that sequence of high Cs like no other before or since. There is nothing - nothing - quite like opera. Some things may be better perhaps, much is not as satisfying - but there is nothing quite like it!
ReplyDeleteThank you for those comments, David. The Bjorling La Boheme is available on Apple Music. I shall listen to that. I shall also investigate the young Pavarotti version. I don't know La Fille du Régiment so that is something to explore too.
DeleteBe sure to let us know what you think!
DeleteDavid, this afternoon I decided to do some sketching which I knew I could do whilst devoting most of my brain to listening to La Boheme. It is a truly wonderful rendition and the recording is, amazingly, both sonorous and crystal clear despite its age. The singing is emotional and, with the exception of a couple of irritating attempts at crying (Mimi e Tanto Malata), flawless to my non-expert ears.
DeleteI enjoyed Sir Thomas Beecham's BBC English tones explaining his like for it and his discussion with George V about it.
That will not be that last time I listen to that version and I still have the other version to try.
Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it, Graham. I would have been surprised if you didn't. And you are quite right - the crying is a little irritating. It doesn't last for long, however.
DeleteWow that was a hairy drive. Bill listens to opera but I'm too lazy to organise it. I actually prefer silence, weird I know.
ReplyDeleteDiane, living here one gets used to hairy driving. Silence isn't weird. I love music when I'm doing something where 100% concentration isn't required or when I'm out walking unless I want to listen to the birds and the wind. If I'm reading, for example, I have to have silence.
DeleteGood suggestion to hear this on you tube.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Red.
DeleteYour video reminds me of driving around here in summer, when farmers are watering the Maize crop with huge sprinklers. It's best to drive with the windows wound UP.
ReplyDeleteCro, windows up tends to be the general rule on Lewis.
DeleteThat was a bit of a scary drive, so I hope the dentist trip was worth it :)
ReplyDeleteI seldom listen to music - like Diane B above, I prefer silence most of the time.
Margaret, it wasn't particularly scary because I was expecting it. The trip was just for a jaw check. I love my music unless I need to concentrate. I'm a man - concentrating on one thing at a time is generally enough.
DeleteThe Braighe looks kind of scary to me even though the high tide had receded by then. I wonder why we call dental surgeries dental "practices". I don't want them practising! I want them to do their job with consummate professional skill.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, YP, most of them do.
DeleteOne may speculate why this is so yet I don't use music (of any kind) as background whilst doing other stuff. I don't know why this is so. Music is, to me, a mega distraction. However, I will take the time and sit down (or am being made to sit down) and listen. Yes, listen. When I think back over my life so far I can define it by the music my grandparents, my parents, friends, husbands and, not least, my son introduce/d me to. Trouble is, and this may elicit a smile of yours, sometimes a flick switches in my brain and I hear, literally, whole sonatas, piano concertos, an aria, Mahalia Jackson, Motorhead, my favourite Christmas Carol, you name it - whether I want to or not. It can be a bit annoying at times, yet the upside being that I shall never want for music logged somewhere in my brain when banished to that Desert Island.
ReplyDeleteFirst opera my parents took me to was Zurich/Switzerland. I was in my early teens, awed by the grandeur of the place. Can't remember now what it was. Knowing my parents most likely Mozart's Magic Flute or Figaro. Will ask them. I'll also look (nay, listen) to your particular choice.
The forces of nature, Graham, in search of a dentist. I shall trump you: I once drove to Heathrow Airport (3 hrs round trip) to pick up my sister. It was dark, the rain was belting it down, crossing the New Forest before hitting the M27 I was squeezed in between lorries front and back. My contractions were five minutes apart. Like Margaret Thatcher I too wasn't for turning. What's the worst that could have happened: Giving birth in a ditch, at the airport, at a service station?
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Ursula, I can understand your reluctance to listen to music when you are doing something else. It depends what I am doing. If I need to concentrate 100% on the non-music task then I pause or switch off the music. If I have the radio or music on when driving I always flick it off from the steering wheel when coming up to a hazard such as a roundabout. If I want to listen to something without any distraction then I repair to my living room and sit down with it on my hifi or possibly my television if it's opera or a recorded concert. I have no ability replay tunes in my head.
DeleteYour escapade to pick up your sister seemed a little hairy. As a matter of interest what happened?
As you say, Graham, it was hairy. Yet doable. I do believe in instinct - on a primal level. Neither am I given to panic; will take calculated risks.
DeleteThe steering wheel made for a great grip every time a contraction came gushing. Away from said wheel, the arrival hall, later putting petrol into the tank and trying to conceal the whole situation from my sister were the more testing moments.
What happened? I made it home - on parking so very sorry having to let go of my good friend, the steering wheel. Cooked my sister and my nephew a full British. Doubling up in between. Phoned FOS (father-of-son) at about two, just at the end of a meeting I knew was scheduled - company directors and all, so he was able to make the announcement that it was all underway and hailed as the next new father. Like an opera, Graham, you need to know how to make a drama out of a molehill. Full lungs. Next station hospital. The Angel and I took our time to part, to sever the cord for the first time. From the onset of my first contraction on my way to the airport amounted to a sound twenty four hours. At the end of which I was so very very very happy. Happy out of this world. And, twenty nine and a half years later, still am.
U
Well I'm glad that it all turned out well.
DeleteDo feel free to tell me off. Both my sister and FOS did. Well, actually, my sister held him responsible. Which is ridiculous since he didn't know what was happening.
DeleteI think the lesson to be taken away from that little ditty that you never know who is on the road. BEWARE! One of the worst no doubt the "ghost driver" on motorways. I don't often hear of them in England. In the motherland? Don't ask. There you are bombing down the Autobahn when traffic news tells you there is one - heading your direction. Holy what's it. Having said that, I always felt for the actual ghost driver. Imagine being caught, oncoming traffic streaming (at speed) towards you, no way to turn, no exit. What do you do? Wake up from a nightmare? Best case scenario you are on your own and not with a screaming bunch of passengers in the car. The welcoming committee being, eventually, the police. THE END.
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Ursula, I'm sure that both your sister and FOS did express their views. I would have done in the circumstances. But it's not my place to do so and, given how long ago it was, it would be pretty futile anyway.
DeleteHi Graham...only the other day I was reprimanding myself for not playing any of my CDs from my vast collection...utilising my Panasonic stereo system, both of which are collecting dust!!! And I love music!! I should be ashamed of myself.
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with that particular opera...perhaps I should change that situation!
Take good care. :)
Lee, I sometimes wonder why I keep such a huge collection of CDs which I rarely play but whilst I'm in this house they will stay where they are occupying wall space.
DeleteGlad you made the drive okay
ReplyDeleteThe singing is a Wow, very beautiful, and surprisingly calming.
Thank's, Maywyn, it is very calming isn't it?
DeleteWe haven't had a CD player or CDs in years, these days I use spotify mostly, takes the bulk of music cds out so I can listen usually on my phone when I go for a walk and the app has more selection. I hope your visit to the dentist went without hiccups.
ReplyDeleteAmy is I ever moved I would probably let my collection go because it's so much easier to use Apple Music. I used to use Spotify when I lived in New Zealand but it didn't have the same selection of the music I enjoy back then. I'm sure it will have expanded now.
DeleteYour trip to a dentist was much more adventurous than my own similar venture this eek, Graham. I also went on a steady downpour morning and my window splashes were from the oversize puddles of waters from the roadside due to melting snow and the too frequent potholes. Glad we both made it to our appointments and home again and I enjoyed the brief musical selection as well.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice, I hope that all is okay now after you appointment and that your weather conditions improved quickly.
DeleteI remember a video of yours of crossing the Braighe when I first started reading your blog. It was very hairy, a lot more so that this one you are showing. I like listening to Radio 3 and have listened much more during Lockdown than ever before. Just short bursts is enough for me though and then I have to have peace again. Mostly I like peace and quiet.
ReplyDeleteRachel, I can understand a preference for peace and quiet. If I have to concentrate I switch the music off. I wrote a post on The Braighe a while ago and it had Coastguard video on it. It is certainly more spectacular than my journey was.
DeleteLooks scary to me to drive with the waves coming in across the road like that! But I know you're used to it (while I haven't been driving at all for many years...) Opera has never really been my genre (and I'm very bad at identifying them in music quizzes etc). I listen to music while reading sometimes, but then I prefer instrumental music. And as I do much of my reading via audio books nowadays, that means less music. When writing, I prefer silence (unless there is some other unwanted noise in the background I want to shut out - then I prefer music!)
ReplyDeleteMonica, scary is when the wave are bringing stones over and when that is likely to happen the Police close the road. I enjoy music the most when I'm doing something that requires little mental effort. Having said that I enjoy instrumental music when I'm writing.
DeleteNo opera for me, but that video of the waves on the road got my heart pumping!!!
ReplyDeleteMarcheline, you're so musical I'm surprised at your view of the aria.
DeleteI liked the music playing in your car probably more than the aria but both were good.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens if the braighe is closed and there is an emergency?