|
 |
|
|
|
|
July 17, 2002
Subject: England Trip - letter #08
Wednesday evening, July 17, 2002
Good eveing friends,
Tomorrow's strike by the Underground employees looks eminent.
For that reason this morning I decided to try the bus system to Wesley's Chapel
as a dry run for tomorrow. After two hours and several changes, I went to the
Underground to finish up my trip with better familiarity. From St. Paul's
Cahtedral to the chapel was only a few minutes.
My time at the Charles Wesley organ was quite challenging. I
worked on Psalm 122 and Psalm 51. It seemed to me that Austin Lovelace has
already done the definitive setting of Psalm 122 and that Zingerelli can't be
outdone on Psalm 51. I worked on several portions of Psalm 51 with much less
success than what I did yesterday. Being an hour late did not help me either.
Following my time at the Chapel, I went across the street to
Bunhill Fields (the cemetary) and sat in the shade of a very large and old tree
and enjoyed my sack lunch, which I had brought with me. It was a great sandwich
of chicken salad, bacon, cranberries, cucumber and tomoato on white bread. This
has become my custom daily. After lunch, I found Tom, the lead caretaker of the
cemetary. I asked him about all the criticism of Tony Blair, the Prime Minister.
Blair is being accused even by those within his own Labour Party of being
"Presidential" as opposed to being Prime Minister. The news media here has
repeatedly quoted political leaders saying that he is President Bush's puppet.
The closest analogy that I can come up with is that the Prime Minister (PM) is
similar to the Sepaker of the House of Representatives, in our Federal
Governmnet. The PM is an MP (Member of Parliment) and as all MPs, they are
elected by their local region. The controlling party then selects the party
leader, hence the PRIME Minister. That particual selection process is by the
House of Commons, not voted in by the popular vote. It seems that he is supposed
to "work with the MPs, not bring his onw agenda and expect them to endorse it."
From there I decided to go view the original Messiah
manuscript, which has historically been at the British Museum. I have seen it
severaltimes before and thought I might learn something by studying it. Upon
arriving at the Museum, I discovered that the room was empty. The guard told me
that they no longer had the music manuscript collection. It had been transferred
to the British Library.
Since I was right across the street from the University of
London, I decided to see if I could locate a friend who is studying there for a
few weeks. Although, I talked to several nice persons behind administrative
counters, I had no success. I then was off for a significant hike up to the
British Library.
I was very pleased to find many of the music manuscripts on
display. As museums do, the lighting level was very low and that made
observation of details quite difficult for me. I did study several original hand
scores by Handel, J. S. Bach, Mozart, Haydn and a few others. The one I studied
the most was Messiah - the Hallelujah. The score they have is the primary one
that Handel used for composing. It was a bound volume of musical manuscript
paper. The composed score was then copied by his copyist for the production of
instrumental parts for the musicians.
I am glad to say that they did not have the ability to erase
inked notes that were incorrect. There were a few strike-throughs. It was a joy
to follow the orchestral parts across the page and hear the music in my mind.
Bach's handwriting of his score was very beautiful and clearly a work of art in
itself, not withstanding the music for which it stood. I did notice one oddity
with Handel's Messiah score. The stems on all the notes (in all clefs) wer
always on the right. There were no such shenanagans by any of the other
compsosers, even by his predecessor, JS Bach. He was either lazy, or a bit
obtuse, because the high notes on the score with the stems on the right looked
like a page full of "q's". It would be readable and the flags were otherwise
normal - just an observation of peculiarity.
Although I was tired and it was 5pm, I decided to make one
more pit-stop on the way to the internet cafe. I decided to follow-up on my
local gossip and research about finding Charles Wesley's grave. I met with
failure on that excursion last week. Today I found complete success. It was
right were the histroy steward told me it was - in the St. Marylebone OLD Church
Garden. Charles died 29 March 1788 and is burried there. They have made a nice
small park with benches and markers for some of the graves there. It is small
and peaceful. The St. Marylebone Parish Church building was constructed in 1400,
rebuilt in 1741 and was badly bombed durining WWII. It was very unstable and
there were no funds for restoration. Hence it was demolished in 1949. This
beautiful garden/cemetary was built at the precise location of the foundations
of the building.
I then fought the Underground crowds and arrived here around
7pm to send you my experiencs for the day. My feet are tired and it is time for
my blood sugar check, meds and dinner. By the way, the past week I have enjoyed
excellent control over my blood sugar. The craziness was goone within a day or
two of the time shift with my arrival.
Best regards,
Larry
If you would like to check out the little hotel where I am
staying - the Vicarage Hotel, go to
http://londonvicaragehotel.com/
You can also check out the Salisbury Cathedral at
http://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/, if you desire.
Return to
London Trip Page
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2008 Worship and Church Music
• Denver, CO |
|
|
|
|
|