Ruth Gipps in Seattle and Sussex

It is only a few days before another new milestone is marked in the unfolding Ruth Gipps revival:  this coming Saturday (25th January), the United States première of her haunting, otherworldly Fourth Symphony will be given by the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Adam Stern.  The concert starts at 2 p.m. (US Pacific Time) in the Benaroya Hall in the orchestra’s home city.  Some other interesting pieces are on the menu as well, including a piece by Mel Bonis, a name I hadn’t known before reading of this concert.  More details are here: http://seattlephil.org/concerts-and-tickets/legendary-women/.  I hope this performance scores as resounding a success as the same orchestra’s première of the Second Symphony in March 2018, and that it brings the music of this remarkable, distinctive composer to ever more music-lovers.

Here’s conductor Adam Stern explaining some of the hidden patterns and ideas that underpin the symphony:

Ruth Gipps’ star is rising on this side of the Atlantic, too: at least two forthcoming British concerts will include her music.  One is a concert at Bromsgrove School (Worcs.), whose first item is ‘Cringlemire Garden’, impression for string orchestra, op. 39: https://www.eso.co.uk/kannehmason-bromsgrove2020/: this will take place a week tomorrow, on Friday January 31, 2020 at 7.30 p.m.

The other is an interesting-looking concert whose centrepiece is ‘On Windover Hill’, a new cantata by Nathan James in praise of the curious chalk figure of the Long Man of Wilmington on the Sussex Downs, but which also includes an excerpt from ‘Goblin Market’, Ruth Gipps’ setting (op. 40) of Christina Rossetti’s poem.  The concert starts at 7.45 p.m. on Saturday, 7 March, at Boxgrove Priory near Chichester.  More information here: https://www.castleymusic.com/onwindoverhill.

Many thanks to all musicians and organisers of these concerts!

Why (still) this blog?

A quick note to record that today, the 6th January 2020, this blog reaches its fifth birthday.  I’m very grateful for all who have read and commented in that time; I hope you have enjoyed the pieces I have written.  And happy feast of the Epiphany!

I must admit that my motivations in writing this blog remain much as I described them in my first post: mainly self-centred!  Really I think of it as a diary of my own thoughts and ideas, a record of people and books and places I find interesting, and an outlet for my obsessions: poetry, music, churches, landscapes and traditions.  I find it a good way of working out what I really think and feel about something, and also of honing my writing-craft.

Often, though, I also feel that I would like, in however small and hidden a way, to record and publish my celebration and defence of things dear to me.  There are things and people in this world, some of them in danger or decline, or dealt an unfair press, or simply deserving of a larger hearing, that I feel the urge to praise, or protect, or ponder.  The blog gives me a way to do this, allowing me, quietly and cautiously, to stand up and be counted, and to give encouragement to others who have similar interests and ideas.  This is why I make my writing public.  Whenever I have made the wonderful refreshing discovery of a like-minded and thoughtful writer, my first feeling is of gratitude, more than anything else, for their courage and generosity: it may be small recompense on my part to inflict this blog on the Internet in return, but, apart from spreading the word about the writers I encounter and mulling over their ideas or stories, it is all I have to give.  

I know, too, that my articles might be read by people who do not share my perspective on things — this is entirely welcome, and opens up an opportunity for dialogue.

Since 2015, various heartening developments have coincided with some of the ideas and interests that have featured here, and I have even made some new acquaintances; this turns out to be one of the joys of blog-writing.  For example, the recent revival of interest in the composer Ruth Gipps has brought me into conversation with other admirers of her music.  And even the blog’s title has taken on new meaning since last October, when the author of the prayer from which I took that mysterious, paradoxical phrase ‘Some Definite Service’ was canonised: he is now Saint John Henry Newman.  The year beforehand, the gist of that meditation had already received special attention in the Church, when the Synod on Youth asked how we can remind the world and our neighbours that we all have, every single one of us, however weak or inadequate we think ourselves, however uncertain the future seems, regardless of our past and irrespective of our station in life, a definite vocation, ‘some definite service’: we are not mere meaningless molecules, but have been created for a cosmic and glorious purpose.

I hope that this blog has been an encouragement to others, and offered the welcome of a virtual wayside sitting-room for netfarers.  If so, it has done its job and I mine.