My BMW turned eighteen earlier this year. It doesn’t have Sat Nav so I improvise. My system can even remember previous destinations. I store the slips of paper in the sun visor.
Scene change: I am striding along the South Downs, small grey clouds scudding, sun glinting on the English Channel, thinking:
Perhaps the most interesting piece was Verklärte Nacht, an early effort by Schoenberg for a string sextet. In this little cracker Schoenberg puts the sex in sextet. “The work takes its title from a poem by Richard Dehmel … caused a scandal … tried for obscenity and blasphemy … all copies burned.”
It’s early Schoers using Wagnerian leitmotifs, influenced by the sound world of Tristan und Isolde, but throwing in a bit of Brahms in the approach to development, tonality and form. (Thank goodness for the programme notes.) Well, in layman’s language it was pure filth set to sublime music. But let’s cleanse ourselves with apposite lines by Ogden Nash.
Had I the shillings, pounds and pence,
I’d pull up stakes and hie me hence,
I’d buy that small mixed farm in Dorset
Which has an inglenook and faucet–
Kiddles Farm, Piddletrenthide,
In the valley of the River Piddle.
I’d quit these vehement environs
Of diesel fumes and horn and sirens,
This manic, fulminating ruction
Of demolition and construction
For Kiddles Farm, Piddletrenthide,
In the valley of the River Piddle.
yes, quit for quietude seraphic
Con Edison’s embrangled traffic,
To sit reflecting that the skylark,
Which once was Shelley’s now is my lark,
At Kiddles Farm, Piddletrenthide,
In the valley of the River Piddle.
I’m sure the gods could not but bless
The man who lives at that address,
And revenue agents would wash their hands
And cease to forward their demands
To Kiddle Farm, Piddletrenthide,
In the valley of the River Piddle.
Oh, the fiddles I’d fiddle,
The riddles I’d riddle,
The skittles I’d scatter,
The winks I would tiddle!
Then, hey diddle diddle diddle!
I’ll jump from the griddle
And live out my days
To the end from the middle
On Kiddles Farm, Piddletrenthide
In the valley of the River Piddle.