Overheard at the new job

The phone system seemed to have taken against one of my colleagues today. After losing a call, she explained the situation thus:

"My jam just phoned."

The prodigal son: compiling the libretto

Two Sundays ago, I think it was, the Gospel reading and sermon at the morning eucharist concerned the parable of the Prodigal Son. I felt a sudden attachment to him, the themes of forgiveness and a father/son reconciliation striking a particular chord with me. For what was probably the first time since my father's death last October, I found myself not evoking his memory in the prayers of intercession (the words "hear us as we remember those dear to us who have died in the faith of Christ" were always sure to set me off), as I'd been struck by the idea of setting the parable to music in the form of a cantata.

It's been a while since I wrote anything even remotely large-scale, and with something of this sort, it's essential I get the text right before getting going with the music. First off, I sought out my Bible (my father's copy, as it happens) and read the parable thoroughly, realising almost immediately that some cuts would be necessary. Given that this cantata is to encapsulate my reconciliation with my father (albeit posthumously), the elder son's angry tirade about his father's seeming favouritism would feel out of place. To my mind, the key moments are his brother's resolve to seek their father's forgiveness and the latter's joy at the safe return of his younger son.

Thus shorn, the plot looked like this: younger son demands his inheritance, scarpers and promptly spends it. Famine strikes and he finally comes to his senses - cue big aria. He sets off home, only his father sees him long before he's even got there, rushes out to meet him and immediately orders a big "welcome home" party. Later, big brother gets back from a hard day's work, sees what's going on and isn't best pleased - cue the father's turn to sing an aria about why he's so happy.

So far so good, but I wasn't entirely convinced by having great acres of plot narrated by a choir, so replaced them with another soloist (an alto, maybe a countertenor) and promptly regretted their absence (I'm a choral singer myself, I like having things to do). "Aha," I thought, "we need chorales!" - except finding several appropriate hymns would be pretty difficult, not to mention that in this day and age, I needn't follow Bach's example to the letter. How about prayers, which'd work equally well as a means of reflection?

This is where the internet came in useful. Nothing's finalised as yet, but I like the idea of starting the whole thing off with Mother Theresa's belief that "in this life we cannot do great things; we can only do small things with great love". For the very end, I can think of nothing to beat the post-communion prayer - let's face it, the words "when we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home" are too good to pass up. I still need to find a suitably celebratory text to depict the merry-making on the son's return, but have high hopes in the abilities of my various contacts.

I'm allowing myself one instance of copying the great JSB - well, I was rehearsing the St John Passion for a good deal of last week, you try escaping it! - in that the younger son's decision to return home is to be set against the choir singing different words, taken from James Gibbons' Act of contrition. That said, I may well leave out whatever instrumental accompaniment there is elsewhere (organ or strings, I've yet to decide) from this passage: besides providing a good contrast with the only other aria in the piece (the father's, which wouldn't involve the choir), I find unaccompanied voices a very moving medium, which would make it eminently suitable for the younger son's newly-discovered humility.

In other respects, however, I shall be taking a more modern view: for instance, it would make sense for the thanksgiving chorus still to be going on in the background when the story is taken up again with the elder son's reaction on returning from the field. Some parts will still be independent from what has gone before and what follows, but for the narrative to flow I plan to make an exception of these: where there is a clean break, it has to be for a reason.

One (admittedly very minor) point continues to bother me: the two male soloists are defined by their roles, so what of the alto? "Narrator" sounds incredibly glib and I can't very well call her an Evangelist as the words she sings are Christ's. I know I'm going against the grain by having the tale told by a high voice - settings of the New Testament traditionally cast a tenor as the Evangelist and a bass as Jesus - but just writing "solo alto" next to the part would be a bit weak ...

A puzzle

I started my new job on Tuesday, and now, after a mere four days' work, I've received a new contract in the post for a permanent position. Out of the blue.

Now admittedly my deputy manager did ask me on Thursday if I'd be interested in staying on for the full six months (which I was) but was careful to say that she was seeing what she could do. I took this to mean that she'd have to justify the expense of keeping me on for longer to the financial department.

Even so, there's a world's difference between a temporary contract, be it for six weeks or six months, and a permanent one. While it's possible they wanted to give me a pleasant surprise, it still strikes me as odd by way of business practices. Not to mention that I've not even been there so much as a week and we've yet to start selling tickets. I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but can any employer tell much about new staff in the space of four days?

Now I will admit that two events at work speak very much in my favour: I've been asked to go accompany the deputy manager to go through the Festival programme at a nearly-housebound patron's house on Thursday (being stronger on the musical side than anyone else), and I'd also taken it upon myself to contact the various classical CD shops in the city centre to double-check how many copies of the brochure they'll be needing. Knowing I was only taken on for six weeks initially, there was no way I was going to let the chance to make a good impression slip me by - a question of making damn sure they'd miss me come the end of my contract.

For all that, I've still niggling suspicions. For instance, it's odd that, according to my temporary contract, I'm required to give two weeks' notice before leaving, whereas in this permanent one, it's a mere week - surely it should be the other way round? I'd like to hope an organisation of this calibre is not capable of mistakes like this, so if you can think of another explanation, let's have it.

UPDATE (18:15, 20/03/2006) As my mother suggested, a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was up to. Turns out we'd all been sent a second contract, and Muggins here, with his ethics, just had to be the one to bring it up.

First day at the new job

The Edinburgh International Festival box office clearly takes training very seriously. There is admittedly a lot to get through, but it appears all of this week is going to be spend getting us up to the standards they expect - which includes being taken round all the Festival venues so we can advise customers on visibility, ease of access, any issues which may be of concern to them when they're buying tickets. I'm seriously impressed.

Just as importantly, there's a relaxed working atmosphere in the building and I don't believe any of the six of us need have any concern about fitting in. The work already looks enjoyable and we've not even been let loose in the place.

Best of all, working on the computers has given us a sneak preview of this year's Festival programme. I'm not at liberty to divulge any of the details, but believe me, we're in for several treats.

More ch-ch-ch-changes

I was going to leave this until the first anniversary of this blog (coming up next month, folks!) but why wait?

With reviews accounting for quite a proportion of my posts, I've decided to grant them a page of their very own. If you're looking for old reviews, they're all over at the new site, Edinburgh Arts.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Observant readers will not need me to point out that my name, as given at the bottom of this post, has changed. I got so fed up with people shortening Tony - itself a diminutive of the name my parents gave me - that I introduced myself as Anthony at the interview for my new job.

I've no objections to you continuing to address me as Tony, but have the temerity to shorten it and words will be had. I may even set the dog on you.

Blessed are the cheesemakers

I've come to the realisation that I'm frequently unwilling to give my opinion on sensitive matters. A look back at my posts on here and comments on other people's blogs will show up the frequency of the words "seem", "appear" and heaps of conditionals in my writings, deliberately distancing myself from extreme views which sit uncomfortably with me - a defensive mechanism, if you will.

One things I've noticed I will do, when a delicate subject gives rise to a huge argument, is go to some effort to smooth over the troubled waters. An online gay community of which I'm a member recently saw a message thread concerning the inclusion (or otherwise) of straight people on the site get hopelessly out of hand, personal insults creeping in along the way with no sense of resolution in sight. While I did put forward a plea for tolerance (in all sorts of ways), my main aim was to draw out the deficiencies in both arguments, a post which unfortunately - though perhaps not unexpectedly - got lost in the crossfire. (How is it discussion threads are doomed to go round in circles or hopelessly off-topic?) It's not evident trying to calm everyone down.

The one time I will, and have, put my neck on the line is when someone I care about is unjustly attacked. I'm immensely protective of my friends, even of acquaintances with the potential to become friends. In this same online community, a new arrival struck up conversation with me and later, for reasons as yet unexplained - I think it's a simple misunderstanding masquerading as something infinitely more complex - found his profile suspended. Feeling a little responsible for what had happened (and no, I'm not going to go into the reasons) and fuelled by my own sense of ethics, I promptly took up his cause; although we're still waiting for a result, it's cemented this potential friendship.

This diplomacy thing is pretty difficult though: my interventions in cases involving only a limited number of people have thus far been fairly successful, but as my experience with larger-scale conflicts show, I've got a lot to learn before earning my CD plates!

UPDATE (10:32, 13/03/2006) A slight correction. A truly wonderful post on Gay Pride (and, by extension, gay pride) over at Andy's blog has brought about some very lively debate in which everyone has managed to remain civil. Until, that is, someone brought up the topic of same-sex adoption, putting forward their view that "if there is a homosexual couple that is equally functional in terms of stability to a heterosexual couple, the latter couple should be given priority." It was sorely tempting to let off steam in a string of expletives but I've demanded the person in question elaborates on this before I let loose. I hate to think what it's done to my blood pressure though ...

Ah, memories ...

A new series of Counterpoint, BBC Radio 4's annual general knowledge music quiz, has just started. I've just listened to the first heat over the net (you can do so via the link) and it's brought back heaps of memories from the time I took part. So here, in the spirit of nostalgia, is what I wrote about the occasion in my diary - the date: 11th February 2003.

[Bit of general context to start off with: each heat sees three contestants compete for a place in the semi-final. There are three rounds: no. 1 sees everyone asked questions in turn with 2 points for a correct answer, 1 if you pick it up after the original contestant gets it wrong; no. 2 is a specialist round on subjects you're given no advance warning about; no. 3 is on the buzzers, 1 point for a correct answer, minus 1 for a wrong one. The programme is recorded in Manchester, so my parents and I met at the station (they'd come from London, I was living in Glasgow at the time), dropped off our overnight bags at the hotel and headed to the Royal Northern College of Music, the venue for the recording. We'd just arrived there when this extract begins.]

Paul Hardy [one of the producers] (in a vile purple shirt which seemed to be part of some uniform; at any rate there was a woman in a suit of the same colour) recognised me - presumably by voice and age, as I was conspicuously younger than any of the other contestants - and ushered me to one side, together with the other contestants in question, before leading the nine of us into the studio theatre for the preliminaries.

They were largely a matter of introducing the adjudication panel - Ned Sherrin [the show's host] himself, his producers (Pauls both), the scorer (a rather dishy man called Stephen) and "clever Mr Köchel" [a sort of adjudicator in case of disputes] who's taken the place of the late "young Grove" - reminding us of the rules and generally putting us at our ease. Two things could have served to make me really nervous, namely some of the others speaking of their playing on other game shows (one of the two women, who coincidentally shard their birthdays today, had been very secretive about her choice of show for today, leaving her family with the impression she was to go on Blind Date! [the British version of The dating game] and my noticing that one of the name boards for the contestants in the first heat had my name on it, but the atmosphere was pretty relaxed.

The audience were let in, Mother and Father managing to get themselves directly in my line of vision (the former told me afterwards she'd made an effort not to look at me, and luckily Father didn't look anywhere in particular as he tried to answer the questions or quietly conferred with Mother), and we got going with a dry run, rehearsing thethirdd round (on the buzzers) to get us used to the style of the thing. Then it all started - "three contestants from the North of England and Scotland" (guess who was the sole Scot?), all required to introduce ourselves with no prior warning. At the end of the recording we re-did the introductions, whereupon I described myself more correctly - though less interestingly - as working in retail and living in Glasgow.

The first round went reasonably, with me ending up second despite getting a number of my own questions wrong - I'm sure my technique of covering the buzzer with my right hand so the others couldn't see if I was planning to pick up a point as necessary, worked well. The woman supposedly on Blind Date did disappointingly, leaving my main bit of competition with a Mr M., who knew his non-classical questions better than Mrs C. and I. Then we heard the choices for the second round: in no particular order, the music of Richard Rodgers, swinging London, French opera and operetta, and classical music and sport. The look Father gave Mother said it all!

Mr M. went, unsurprisingly, for swinging London. My turn was next, but I asked Ned to read out the choices again: "you can't have swinging London," he started ,whereupon I retorted "good!" (got a laugh and a "you're too young to remember" from Ned, the only acknowledgment of my age there was [though the whole exchange was edited out of the broadcast]). Richard Rodgers I was going to be hopeless at, so it was between sport and French opera. I decided bluffing about the three tenors was going to be insufficient so went for French opera, as at least I could pronounce the names correctly (unlike my hesitation over Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk district in one of the other rounds) and promptly jotted down all the names of French opera composers I could think of, even as far as Rossini and Donizetti, some of whose works had, I recalled, been written in French.

There was nothing on the baroque composers despite my having noted Rameau, Charpentier and Lully, but they fitted in a question about Debussy which I got wrong (couldn't think of a French conductor who might have conducted Pelléas et Mélisande at Covent Garden, though as Father pointed out afterwards, I ought to have guessed the (correct) answer as being Boulez), one to which the answer was Prosper Mérimée (Carmen, by which one of the other contestants was most impressed, even when I told him why I knew that one) and another on the subject of Rossini's final opera, which got its first performance in Paris - William Tell - much to my smug pleasure. However, I missed Berlioz' Benvenuto Cellini (think I said The Trojans, the only opera of his I could think of as having anything to do with the ancient world) and at one point, unintentionally but auspiciously got Ned to reveal that a chorus I was listening to with a view to naming it and the ofrom fron which it came wasn't Berlioz, which meant I could say (Gounod's) Faust with some degree of confidence even if I didn't recognise it as the soldiers' chorus.

Mrs C. had caught up with me in her round on sports, which I was very glad not to have picked (though I'd've got Honegger's Rugby and Britten's diary on playing cricket at his school in Suffolk), but my score of 15 (I think) was no match for Mr M., who steamed on ahead, quite possibly with a clean slate, into the final round. If I was to get through to the semi-final, he was the one I'd have to beat.

It didn't help that my mind went blank on a question about glissandi on the piano [my father teased me about it ever afterwards], but I put up a fair fight all the same, getting Pictures at an ... fluffed but perfectly right (I'd risked waiting for confirmation that the orchestrators mentioned had worked on music by Mussorgsky, after falling foul of an incorrect answer when interrupting a question on Manon in the warm-up - not Puccini but Massenet) but even so there was no way I could catch up. Mr M. was declared the winner (Mrs C. had been left trailing by this stage) and that was that.

The aftermath was very peculiar: my father was left fuming about the increase in non-classical questions compared to previous years (to an extent that went a long way beyond merely showing family solidarity) and went on about it for quite some time afterwards. After the broadcast, I got a very peculiar email from one of my uncles (also a musician) stopping just short of blaming Mrs C. for my losing - apparently, if she'd known more about the non-classical side of things, that would have evened out the points a bit and enabled me to come out in the lead. We have a very strange sense of loyalty in my family!

What both my father and uncle failed to realise was that I had wanted to take part for the fun of it. It didn't matter whether I got through to the next round as long as I enjoyed the experience. I did - and may well enter the competition again sometime. Give it time ...

Mental origin of species

(a sort of extended postscript)

I was about to comment on my own background and the issues arising from it in my original post, but it's all a bit complicated so warrants a post of its own.

Looking back at the specifics of where my family comes from, I'm a bit of muddle. Genetically, the vast majority of it is English, with a smattering of Scottish - from one of my great-grandfathers - and an even less significant bit of Irish. So far, so (relatively) simple.

Trouble is, there's a good deal more to one's cultural heritage than that. The place in which you were brought up, those in which you've lived for significant periods and the one you choose for your eventual home (if any) will all have a bearing on your cultural identity. Now in some cases these differentiations will be pretty negligible, and in a way I envy such people for having an easy time of it, particularly with regards to choosing a place to live. Essentially, unless you're happy with the life of a nomad, you want to end up in a place that's attuned to your needs, among people with a similar approach to life, and that's not always evident.

Much as I dread the question "where are you from?", I've pretty well let myself in for it here so may as well bite the bullet. I was born in the French Alps to British parents keen to have my brother and me grow up bilingual, which clearly meant spending some time in each country. For the first ten years of my life, the English bit consisted of little more than occasional visits to either set of grandparents, but in due course both of us were sent to school in England, not far from my father's parents. Thus, for the next eight years, I was constantly going between the two countries.

Then I decided to pursue my linguistic studies (French and German, though I ended up dropping the former to concentrate on the latter) in Scotland, which besides proving quite an eye-opener for the little Englander I had been up until then (a whole other post so I'll leave it for now) added another element to my cultural make-up as I remained a student there for seven years - and that's not counting the year I spent in Austria along the way. (Such a short period, proportionately speaking, may not appear to be of much significance, but anyone who's heard me rabbitting on about Vienna will understand.) At the end of my studies I took up a seemingly lucrative position at a hotel in Switzerland; I wasn't particularly happy, though it did serve to confirm my feelings about where I wanted to settle: back in Scotland. I'd first come here in 1993 and even as I left for Switzerland felt so attuned to the Scottish way of life that I could not see myself ending up living elsewhere.

If pushed, therefore, I would identify myself as a Scot by adoption and otherwise a European. What I've written so far may suggest the European bit doesn't stretch beyond France, Britain and Austria, but my childhood was spent in that part of France which is very close to the Italian and Swiss borders, to say nothing of my mother's fluent Spanish taking us frequently on the other side of the Pyrenees.

Which leads me conveniently on to my last point: these influences are more often than not peculiar to individuals. Languages spoken by members of one's immediate family may contribute something to one's childhood, but otherwise only someone keen to explore every facet of a close one's background will be affected by it. For instance, there's a distinct colonial flavour to my father's family - his father was a tea-grower in what was then Ceylon, his mother (who was born in Australia) had been evacuated to South Africa at the time of his birth, and he himself had a fascination for all things Chinese - but none of this has really come to bear on me.

Yet. It took me a while to figure things out where I was concerned, which isn't to say I'll ignore what has gone before. After all, it's sure to prove culturally enriching, so why stop at one continent?

The pressure's off, sort of

I've got a job with the Festival box office, starting on Tuesday. Unfortunately it's only for six weeks (to the end of April), but it does mean I can afford to relax a little. For all that, I'm still vaguely disappointed as I had hoped for the six month contract ...

On the plus side, the end of my contract will coincide nicely with my mother and brother coming over in the first week of May. Hoping I have another job to go to by then, I can tell my next employer I won't be able to start until the 8th.

Bush's cinema

According to the IMDB, High noon "has been screened more times at the White House than any other" film. It's a great shame the bits of trivia listed under each title aren't dated, because something tells me this pacifist masterpiece doesn't get much of a look-in under the current regime.

It's probably about as popular as The crucible or Good night, and good luck.

Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord (South African version)

It's getting on for a week late, but I've just come across the service sheet from the World Day of Prayer service at which I accompanied the hymns. Among the choir, some of us find it very difficult to keep a straight face during some of the psalms, the words of which can sometimes be difficult to take entirely seriously, but this took the biscuit. (Thankfully there was no-one else from the choir there, otherwise I would have creased up with laughter.)

All you big things, praise the Lord: Drakensberg and Table Mountain, Indian and Atlantic Oceans, yellow-wood, oak and baobab trees, praise the Lord and bless His name.
All you tiny things, praise the Lord: busy red ants and lurking ticks, wriggling tadpoles and pestering mosquitoes, praise the Lord and bless His name.
All you sharp things, praise the Lord: cactus thorns and prickly pears, aloe leaves and high-heeled shoes, praise the Lord and bless His name.
All you soft things, praise the Lord: golden ripe mangoes, sponges and moss, babies' skin, cuddly toys and porridge, praise the Lord and bless His name.
All you sweet things, praise the Lord: apples, peaches and blueberry jam, young people's dreams and old people's good wishes, praise the Lord and bless His name.
All you swift things, praise the Lord: lightning and swallows flit through the sky, traffic on highways and speeding ambulances, praise the Lord and bless His name.
All you slow things, praise the Lord: huge big elephants and bony old cows, tortoises, snails and patients on crutches, praise the Lord and bless His name.
All you loud things, praise the Lord: thunder, midnight drums and taxis, hail and rain on aluminium roofs, praise the Lord and bless His name.
All you quiet things, praise the Lord: a gentle breeze in the midday heat, sleeping babies and fish in the sea, women who care and suffer and weep, praise the Lord and bless His name.
All you spiritual things, praise the Lord: uplifting music and singing psalms, Bible studies and gospel praise, preaching the Word and receiving God's gifts, praise the Lord and bless His name.
All you created things, praise the Lord: our planet Earth and its orbiting moon, our galaxy with its systems of suns, all the universe, both known and unknown, praise the Lord and bless His name.

Now a good deal of that is worthy stuff, if unexpected at times, but "huge big elephants and bony old cows"? Try saying that one, in the middle of a service, with a straight face ...

Oh, boo hoo ...

So Heath Ledger didn't get Best Actor and Brokeback mountain wasn't Best Film. Big deal.

What matters here is that everyone involved in the making of the film know they were doing something good; validation in the form of awards should be secondary to that knowledge. I won't argue that recognition from the industry as a whole is a bad thing, but I'm still amazed at the perceived significance of the Oscar. By the time that particular ceremony comes around, there's been so many other awards heaped upon the best of the year's films that I find it difficult to care - it's no longer the apotheosis, more like a final attempt to squeeze some more money out of the punters.

Add to that the amount of networking and general marketing that is supposed to go on (Miramax has previously come in for a lot of criticism for its aggressive manner in this regard) and it devalues the whole occasion anyway. If the voters aren't so much swayed by the content of the films as that of a gift hamper, say, then the only people deserving of an award are the promoters.

Job search update

First up, I got a rejection letter from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the second time they've declined to interview me.

Today I popped into the church converted into the Festival box office to check they'd received my application. The man behind the desk recognised my name immediately and spoke to his manager, who prompty came to make arrangements to interview me next Tuesday morning. The reaction I got meant I left feeling pretty positive.

A whole load of other arts vacancies of potential interest have come up, which I'll look into in more detail come the morning.

A cornucopia of St Anthonys

The subject of saints' days has come up in a post of Richard's. Recalling that there are more than just one St Anthony, I decided to look into the matter further and have found that I actually have 34 to choose from!

I'm not going to go into details here, save to say that an inordinate number of them were Japanese martyrs, put to death in the late 16th/early 17th century in a variety of ways (burning alive seems to have been a favourite), invariably in Nagasaki. A few more Asians crop up (Vietnam and Korea both figure), but otherwise it's mostly Italian clerics with a smattering of Englishmen, interestingly enough (martyrs of the Tudor period), and founders of various minor orders.

There are two particularly memorable St Anthonys: the Franciscan monk from Padua known to have preached to the fishes when the heretics would not listen to him and St Anthony the Abbot, the Egyptian who followed Matthew 19:21 to the letter - go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me. Known for his reverence towards God rather than any writings or wisdom, he nonetheless founded two monasteries on the Nile but increasingly shunned society as he grew older. The last years of his long life (he died in 356, aged 105) were spent in the desert, essentially living the life of a hermit.

On a lighter note, my grandmother would have been thrilled to know he is the patron saint of swineherds (pigs were a favourite animal of hers), even if the association - he intervened in the treatment of skin conditions, for which pork fat was commonly used - is now recognised as somewhat spurious.