Specs Saved & A Theory

Josef Abel, The Young Franz Schubert, c. early C19th

In Elizabeth Von Arnim's excellent 1929 novel Expiation, newly widowed Millie is discovered to be a fallen woman, an Adulteress, and there is nervous speculation amongst her in-laws as to who the shadowy lover might be. Sister-in-law Mabel chews over one theory:

George? Her own brother-in-law? Oh, no - too shocking. Besides, George always wore enormous spectacles, and Mabel did think it must be impossible to commit - well, what Milly had committed, with someone who wore enormous spectacles.

Chikanobu Hashimoto woodcut of a True Beauty, 1897

Hers is an interesting idea and I'm inclined to agree, for I found that amongst my little stock of specs saved for the blogging rainy day, the agreeable young spectacle-wearers of both sexes favour the tiny over the enormous.

Julian Ashton, Study of Alice Muskett, 1893

Do boys make passes at girls who wear glasses?

Fetching Green D-Spectacles
Jeptha Homer Wade, Nathaniel Old, 1837

And thank you Jim at Road to Parnassus, for reminding me of dashing Nathaniel Old, with his 5 o'clock shadow and studiously tousled 'do, who throws himself into candidacy for a Millie-style Fall.

Image credits: 1: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; 2: Wikimedia Commons; 3: AGNSW via Flying With Hands; 4: Cleveland Museum of Art

Temple Of Mammon

 

Sydney's Temple of Mammon
a.k.a. Crown Casino

There's a new landmark on our city's horizon - a veritable Temple of Mammon. We've been watching this controversial casino inch its way into the sky for a goodly while now, unsubtle as it is by its growing presence. I believe it may even hold the prize for Sydney's Tallest Building at the minute, despite solemn promises from its owner, billionaire Mr. James Packer, it should ultimately be rather more discreet.

Luring gamblers with its golden promises.

Of the controversy, it's a long and tedious story, with three-word phrases like dubious architectural merit, lucrative gambling revenues, lost public space, fitness to operate and gangster money-laundering being bandied about. Such an Australian story, Dear Reader ... 

Stormy skies gather over this beacon to controversy ...

But methinks plenty of jobs for abseiling window-washers lie ahead.

Anyhoo, it looks like it may be finished now, although Mr. Packer is yet to be granted his casino license as there's a bit of rummaging through his underwear drawer to be endured still, and the mythical Chinese High-Rollers are waiting to be jetted in on private planes as I gather our borders are verily still closed to those who are coming merely to indulge in a Hobby, as the Australian Government so quaintly describes Gambling.

Seen from afar on the far right when picnicking
Who knew a casino needed to be so, well, huge?

But now that the Temple is built, there's not much that can be said about it except it's a typical glass-fronted skyscraper that either blends into the skyline or sticks out like a shag on a rock, depending upon your vantage point around the city.

Looking just like another office tower from this angle ...

But a tad more obvious from this.

This weekend I had a closer view than normal when the trusty 325 bus took me directly past it to the newly renovated Sydney Dance Company studios, where I was returning for my Introduction to Tap Dancing in 8 Easy Lessons! It's been a full year since first dipping my toe into the same course which was so rudely interrupted by 2020, and having only had three lessons last year, it was not quite enough to be going on with for practising about the casa and, well, consideration had to be given for all the neighbours stuck at home and whatnot, so it really was like starting from scratch again on Sunday.

New Sunday morning routine starts here at the Sydney Dance Company.

Not even this home for more terrestrially-grounded Hobbies can avoid Mammon's shadow.

Hullo again! 

Image credits: Flying With Hands

Opening Night: Handel's Rome

 

Dear Reader, on our collective journey on the flat plane around the Sun, now is the time when the Pisceans among us get to have their zodiacal moment. For Your Correspondent, being born thusly under the sign of the fishes, there was also the happy concurrence of the return to the stage, after a year of drumming of proverbial heels, of this household's favourite musical entertainers, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra & Choir. Tickets hastily purchased for for Opening Night for the 2021 Season meant both a pressie for yours truly was sorted, and the Pipistrellos went to our first live performance in a concert hall since, ahem, 2019!

Angel Place, the home of The ABO

As ever, a joyous and uplifting programme is on offer, and this launch concert, in the words of Artistic Director Paul Dyer, starts the season with a bang, a flourish of Baroque brass and all the fanfare of the Brandenburg Choir in full voice. A sort of Handel & Friends was the fare for us: these composers' near-concurrent time in Rome was to be celebrated, and we were to anticipate "vibrancy and verve, solace and solemnity and the radiance of hope". 

Early birds are we

And we got it in spades! First up was Arcangelo Corelli's Concerto Grosso in D major, Op. 6 No. 4 (whose twelve concerti grossi were published posthumously in 1714, but played in Rome as early as 1682). As Corelli himself would have arranged things, Paul Dyer augmented the strings with baroque trumpets and a sackbutt, so we started with a thrilling brassy march into Rome. 

Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello's Violin Concerto in C Major, Bre3 came next, where soloist and Concertmaster Shaun Lee-Chen had an opportunity to dazzle us with some energetic playing. Another of the Corelli Opus 6 concerti, No. 7, rounded us out to the interval, when we sat basking in the afterglow of the gorgeous and happy music, before we were treated to the rich and sumptuous acoustics when the choir joined us for George Frederic Handel's Dixit Dominus, HWV 232. 

Handel was aged a mere twenty-two when he composed this stunning commissioned work. Apparently this talented Lutheran ably rose to the challenge of churning out and performing new works for Catholic church services on an almost weekly basis whilst under the patronage of various cardinals during his time in Rome. The luscious Dixit Dominus was probably first performed for Easter Sunday in 1707, when I expect the congregation were as impressed and swept away as we were last week.

The choir's soloists sang like a dream, but a special call out has to be made for twenty-year-old alto soloist, Austin Haynes, above. A songbird, born for the stage; his aria Virgam virtutis was just glorious! 

2021 is looking up!

Image credits: 1-3: Flying With Hands; 4-6: Keith Saunders via Australian Brandenburg Orchestra facebook page