Project 60 No 48 - Commissioning a piece of music

Yup, new music from a real live composer!

 

So here's how it happened. Someone who gave some money for the GCH stone is a composer and happened to remark that it was a shame that not more of Hay's songs had been set to music and that got me thinking about how mice it would be to have a new setting of one of them for the occasion of the unveiling.

 

Not numbering many - well any - composers amongst my general acquaintance, and never having done anything like this before,  I approached Scottish Opera asking if it was something their Emerging Artist Composer, Lliam Paterson  would be prepared to take on, and if not, could they point me I the direction of someone else who might.

 

In the event they were keen to help. I sent a choice of three poems to Lliam, he picked the one that inspired him the most and once it was done Scottish Opera even 'lent' one of their baritones to record it. I didn't hear it until we played it during the unveiling ceremony, but it was amazing. I shall have it listen to it a few more times before I quite get a handle on it, but I'm looking forward to getting to know it better. I was also given a copy of the score and despite not being a show offy person I am going to photocopy the front page with my name on it, get it framed and hang it on a wall somewhere. 

In addition to this new work we also had a recording of Alasdair Whyte from the University of Glasgow singing one of Hay's Gaelic songs. I was sorry Alasdair couldn't be with us on the day, as he had to be in Ireland but his music was well received and I'm glad that I managed to arrange both an English and a Gaelic song to be performed.

Project 60 No 47 Adding to a National Monument.

And lo! It is done!

 

 

Last Friday morning saw the unveiling of the stone in memory of George Campbell Hay in the Makar's Court in Edinburgh.

 

It was a lovely occasion. There was a press call just beforehand - early because The First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon  and Kezza (Kezia Dugdale, leader of Scottish Labour) had both decided to make statements about the forthcoming general election at 11.00 and obviously the papers had to have people there. I disappointed the journalists greatly by refusing to a) kneel down behind the stone and b) stand holding the saltire fluttering above my head. I have often said I don't do bells and whistles and I certainly don't do stunts!

 

I had been horribly nervous beforehand, in fact pulling the whole thing together had been a nightmare - honestly I would rather have raised twice the amount of money than have to  arrange that. again On the day though I wasn't at all nervous which was great.

 

There was an introduction by the chair of Edinburgh's City Council Culture Department, followed by a short speech from yours truly which was largely an Oscar winning thing - ie I thanked all and sundry and then said a few short words about why Hay should be there. The stone was then unveiled by Gordon Wright, a friend and one time publisher of Hay, we had some music, of which more another day, and then we trooped inside to the Stevenson Room in the Writers Museum where we mingled, and Michel Byrne, the editor of the definitive edition of Hay's poems proposed a toast to his memory.

 

After the mingling we took son No 2 and three good friends out for lunch, and then we all went our separate ways.

 

Some rather surprising people had turned up for the ceremony and I hope I managed to say hello and thank you to everyone who came. But while it was satisfying in a way to see some of the Great and the Good foregathered. the presence of family and friends was what meant the most to me.

 

Lots of people told me it was a great achievement and how proud I should be, but oddly I don't feel that way. Partly it's because of my upbringing which makes me think that if I've done this it can't be particularly special. Partly it goes deeper than that. Yes I started the whole thing going, and yes I fund raised, and yes it was hard work, but at the end of the day it was always going to happen because even if I had had to pay every last penny myself (and I'm very glad I didn't have to!) I would have done that to get Hay there. I'm pleased and glad it's done, but for me it's not a triumph, it's just justice. And I feel quite conflicted because I wonder why it has taken thirty years since Hay's death and a student to come along and get it done. There was no shortage of people coming late to the party in the last few weeks and telling me what I should have done, and how I should have arranged things, and what I'd got wrong and all I could think of was 'If you think you could have done it better, why didn't you? You've had since 1984'. But I didn't say it out loud.

 

And I refuse to end my post on a negative note. After all, it is done, the stone is there, and in the end what does it matter who caused it to be placed? It will be there, a mute witness to the memory of one of Scotland's greatest poets long after I am dead. I like to think that in years to come people will stop at Hay's stone and read it. And either they'll smile and say gently 'Aye, George Hay; now there was a poet' or they'll say 'George Campbell Hay - never heard of him, but perhaps I should check him out'. I'll take either of those as a result. 

Stockholm in Summary (and Pictures)

So there are some things that just do every time you go to Stockholm and visiting the old town, Gamla Stan, is one of them. Generally we just sneer at the tourist tat shops, read menus and I look at the clothes in the windows of the shops and regret all over again that I'm not a size 12 any more. All of which we did this time, with two additions; we bought the poppy bowl and we went for coffee and cake at Sundborg's - apparently Stockholm's oldest café.

 

You know that thing where you go into a cake shop, order something that looks fantastic and then get disappointed when it comes. Well see this? every it as delicious as it looks! 

We did a lot of walking in Stockholm, which was just as well considering how many calories there must have been in those cakes.

We went back to the hotel on Skeppsholmen where we had stayed last time an it was as warm and welcoming and calm as before. Skeppsholmen is an island and we spent most of one day on it. In the  morning we visited the Modern art Museum which  is only a hop, skip and a jump from the hotel. The art was very much hit and miss for us but we knew it would be and I think it's good to be challenged now and again, Some of this took challenging to a whole new level to be honest, but some of it was fantastic. They have quite a few pictures by Edvard Munch which were good and I even bought a little book about him in the extremely well stocked shop. They have a café too

 

We chose to sit outside as it was a sunny day and as we were a bit caked out we contented ourselves with a bowl of soup. It was potato and something, I assume leek. Delicious anyway.

In the afternoon we walked round the island which we hadn't had time to do in December, daylight being in short supply. There's a castle

 

sadly that's horribly out of focus, too much zoom

 

and the three masted sailing ship Tre Kronor (The Three Crowns) which is berthed here. It looked like you might be able to hire her for trips but it may be that that's a future aspiration rather than a current fact. My Swedish is too rusty for me to be sure.

 

And there's this interesting building that looked like it should have been a railway station but obviously wasn't.

 

I also managed a fairly successful picture of  sunset which isn't something that happens often - that's the Royal Palace by the way. It's a bit of a solid block, isn't it?

 

Other things we did; a revisit to the Historical Museum's  Viking section, a trip to the gift shop at the Vasa Museum for family presents for upcoming birthdays, the boat trip which kept us out of the shopping street when the lorry driver ran amok ( I was soooooooooo cold that day! the boat didn't have a lot of inside seats so we spent more than half the time outside. Tactical error. Although the hot chocolate we had in the café when we finally bowed to the inevitable and went inside was delicious.) We found a new museum, the medieval museum,  which was fantastic. No idea why we've never heard of it before because it's been open for donkey's years. It's underground, contains a little bit of the original city wall, and is a bit like Jorvik, the Viking museum in York except that you can walk round it rather than having to ride round it on a time travelling truck. Don't get me wrong, I love Jorvik, but this was better in many ways.

 

And then there was the opera which was just brilliant. The production was the same one of Jenufa that we saw  in Glasgow last year , which we didn't know when we bought the tickets. That's probably a good thing because if we had known I would possibly have said Oh let's not bother then, which would have been a mistake. We'd  really liked that production anyway, but this was so brilliantly sung and played, it was quite overwhelming. I was definitely a bit damp eyed at the end.

In case you were wondering ...

... we didn't get the reindeer skin rug this time either.

What we did get was this

A Matt Jonasson poppy bowl Well I say poppy, it may be that it's meant to be an anemone. Either way, it's beautiful,  goes  well in the living room and I'm very happy with it.

We may be going back to Stockholm in September, in which case we may get the reindeer skin then. Or not.

The Silken Ladder

We went south a couple of days earlier than we needed to so that we could go to a Scottish Opera thing; a concert performance of Rossini's La Scala di Seta in the afternoon followed by a reception with the cast and conductor, and canapés from the excellent Eusebis served on the new-ish balcony and roof terrace.

 

I'm not particularly well versed in Rossini's work, other than the Barber of Seville and The Thieving Magpie, both of which are enjoyable but neither of which have led me to seek out his other work. Too fussy and too shrill is what I normally think when I hear the name Rossini; I also think of tournedos, which is odd as I've never eaten tournedos Rossini and doubt I'd enjoy it.

 

 

La Scala di Seta (The Silken Ladder) is a little one act comic thing. We'd never seen it before and we wouldn't have gone all the way to Glasgow for it has we not been able to combine it with our trip to Stockholm, but we enjoyed it very much. The music was lovely, the singers were good to excellent, and the soprano was wearing a dress that I spent much time drooling over, despite the fact that it was four decades too young and probably six sizes too small for me. If only we could turn back time ...

 

The weather was great and we managed to get out on to the roof terrace for the first time ever ...

Enjoying the spring sunshine in Glasgow

 

This is a bit wonky, but just to show that, like many Victorian cities Glasgow has some very Italianate architecture

 

and some not so Italianate, but at least this photo isn't on the slant.

 

And the OH, enjoying himself.

The Highland Chocolatier

So courtesy of the crack of dawn ferry and BST we had lots of time to do our drive down to Glasgow, so the OH rather uncharacteristically suggested that rather than go straight down the A9  we followed the Perth Tourist Route instead. I was quite happy to do that, I feel I am more than sufficiently acquainted with every inch of the A9 already, and I hate a thing near Perth called the Inveralmond roundabout, so avoiding that was a bonus.

 

We hadn't got very far along this diversion when the OH said something about signs to the Highland Chocolatier, in terms which suggested he had not previously been aware of them. Now Perthshire in general sports a plethora of brown 'tourist attraction' signs, which is why almost every time we drive through it I say brightly 'We really should spend a week here you know and explore some of these things'. Obviously I'm not all that bothered about some of them - Laggan Wolftrax being top of that list for me - but others, like the Highland Chocolatier sounded much more tempting.

 

'Shall we go and have a look?' he enquired. So we did.

 

They weren't doing tours of their production area, but there's a café and a gift shop and a chocolate shop, all in a  pretty little village, and we managed to while away a very happy hour. Obviously we went to the café, which has a pretty courtyard garden

 

 

and is quite nice inside too - I suspect it will look wonderful when all decorated up for Christmas

 

we indulged ourselves ....

 

this is their selection of award winning truffles ...

 

clockwise from top, mango and passion fruit, caramel and liquorice, raspberry and black pepper and dark chocolate.

 

 

As far as it goes I didn't like the dark chocolate one, but I knew I wouldn't because I am a pleb when it comes to chocolate and this was what is generally referred to as  'good quality chocolate with a high cocoa solid content' which for me translates as far too bitter for consumption by a normal human being. Given what a fan I am of John Bull Liquorice fudge I thought I would enjoy the caramel and liquorice one, but I didn't really. I'm a big fan too of raspberries, but I don't generally shake black pepper over them when I eat them, and having tried the raspberry and black pepper truffle that seems to be a good choice. The only one I would contemplate actually buying, were I to win a little something on the lottery, is the mango and passion fruit one and I have to say that that was delicious. 

 

I truly envied them this wonderful chest with the travel/advertising material  on it; I suspect it is a modern copy of something older but I'd still try to find somewhere in my house for it if someone gave it to me!

 

And in their garden I was quite taken with this little feller too.

 

More info on their website, which is here

 

Project 60 Number 46 - The Glasgow Necropolis

Another bucket list one. I've wanted to visit the Glasgow Necropolis for ages. People have been talking to me about it for years and I have a dim distant memory of seeing it featured on an episode of Taggart, probably when the program still actually had Taggart in it!

 

We had a sort of spare day in Glasgow before we set off for Stockholm and I'd hoped we might have time to go to the Cathedral as well as look at the Necropolis, but in the event the OH was working for most of the day so time was limited and the Necropolis was all I got. Still it was worth it. It was a cold  dreich day, but then that's the sort of weather you want when you visit a cemetery really isn't it?

 

Lots of photos, because I found the place amazing. Not convinced the OH was quite as enthusiastic but then he doesn't have an MA in Victorian Studies so Victorian cemeteries don't have quite the same pull for him as for me.

 

 

Spring Daffodils in Glasgow

 

 

A View of the Top - Looks a bit alien - opening pic from Dr Who perhaps?

 

More spring flowers - a cheery corner

 

 

Houses of the Dead

 

I feel this one should have a quotation from Ozymandias  on it, but I can't think of one off-hand.

 

And you get a great view of Glasgow Cathedral from near the top.

 

Home and Safe

Just in case anyone is wondering/worrying, we are home.

 

We were in Stockholm when the terrorist incident occurred, but fortunately for us not in the city centre at the time. We had talked about going shopping that afternoon, but I didn't feel very well in the morning, so said I'd rather have a walk and some fresh air. While we were out walking we passed a board advertising a boat trip round the Stockholm archipelago and that seemed a better bet than hot and stuffy shops. So we had lunch then went off on the boat; came back to the news of what had happened and an eerily quiet city centre.

 

It was a terrible thing to happen in a place that we both love so much, and I think the only other thing I want to say about it is that it seems very unfair for something like this to be visited upon Sweden and the Swedes, who  have done nothing to deserve the sort of unhinged hate that makes it possible for people to think that felling pedestrians with a beer lorry is a laudable thing.