Here is something for the many well-read and erudite people on this Forum:
1) any Member can contribute a short piece of text, or a photo-graph, related to a composer or performer of the Radio-3 type. The quoted text could for example come from a book or from somewhere on the Inter-net or from a concert programme.
2) any other Member may then attempt to identify the person or persons referred to in the quotation (i.e. say "about whom it is", or identify the author of the quotation (i.e. say "by whom it was written"), or the people who appear in the photo-graph (i.e. say "whom it is a photo-graph of").
If after a suitable interval no one knows the answer, the original poster should of course come back and tell us.
If the idea becomes air-borne we might if requested think about a scoring system, even, but for now let us just see if there is any interest. Here then are two examples to begin with:
I) WHO wrote the following, and WHOM is it about? (The first sentence is one of the longest I have ever seen!):
"If it is possible for the reader to imagine a man with an encyclopaedic mind which never forgot anything he heard, or read, or saw in the course of his lifetime and could recall instantaneously and play in the most incandescent way any work from Bach, Wagner to Bartók; if the reader could imagine that mind allied to the most generous and selfless of hearts in a human being with a nobility and beauty of build, of presence, romantic in the lineaments of his face, and always propelled by a creative genius whether in speaking, teaching, conducting, playing the violin, the piano, and, very particularly, in composing, the image would still not be complete; a man full of humour (and a most amusing caricaturist) as well as deep philosophy, conversant with the languages and literatures of Europe and England, a man imbued with the highest forms of chivalry and fundamental earth-loving patriotism - this would be the teacher I had since I was eleven, continuously for two years, then again for five years and then intermittently over the years that were left to us together. No book can do justice to a man of this breadth and nobility.
"Although I am older now than he was when he died, and although I have not seen this great man in over thirty years, he remains for me the most extraordinary human being, the greatest musician and the most formative influence I have ever experienced."
1) any Member can contribute a short piece of text, or a photo-graph, related to a composer or performer of the Radio-3 type. The quoted text could for example come from a book or from somewhere on the Inter-net or from a concert programme.
2) any other Member may then attempt to identify the person or persons referred to in the quotation (i.e. say "about whom it is", or identify the author of the quotation (i.e. say "by whom it was written"), or the people who appear in the photo-graph (i.e. say "whom it is a photo-graph of").
If after a suitable interval no one knows the answer, the original poster should of course come back and tell us.
If the idea becomes air-borne we might if requested think about a scoring system, even, but for now let us just see if there is any interest. Here then are two examples to begin with:
I) WHO wrote the following, and WHOM is it about? (The first sentence is one of the longest I have ever seen!):
"If it is possible for the reader to imagine a man with an encyclopaedic mind which never forgot anything he heard, or read, or saw in the course of his lifetime and could recall instantaneously and play in the most incandescent way any work from Bach, Wagner to Bartók; if the reader could imagine that mind allied to the most generous and selfless of hearts in a human being with a nobility and beauty of build, of presence, romantic in the lineaments of his face, and always propelled by a creative genius whether in speaking, teaching, conducting, playing the violin, the piano, and, very particularly, in composing, the image would still not be complete; a man full of humour (and a most amusing caricaturist) as well as deep philosophy, conversant with the languages and literatures of Europe and England, a man imbued with the highest forms of chivalry and fundamental earth-loving patriotism - this would be the teacher I had since I was eleven, continuously for two years, then again for five years and then intermittently over the years that were left to us together. No book can do justice to a man of this breadth and nobility.
"Although I am older now than he was when he died, and although I have not seen this great man in over thirty years, he remains for me the most extraordinary human being, the greatest musician and the most formative influence I have ever experienced."
Comment