Alphabet associations - I

[Don Petter]

Permission to drip acknowledged! I shall drip further as the need dictates.

[Don Petter]

I am about to got out for an hour or two. In the words of Through the Keyhole, let us see what we have found:

The best approach to the required person might be to identify a modern namesake who was fictitious, only known audibly, and not of the highest intelligence.

[Who leeves inn a howwse like theese?]

[Tapiola]

Eccles?

Eccles in The Goon Show was a bit dim, and heard rather than seen;
Eccles is abbreviation for Book of Ecclesiastes, which apparently influenced Shakespeare's "Hamlet";
Err...
That's it.

[Tapiola]

Wikipedia has just informed me that Messiaen's opera on Francis of Assisi opens with words from Ecclesiastes: "I am afraid on the road, when the windows grow larger and more obscure, and when the leaves of the poinsettia no longer turn red." "I am afraid on the road, when, about to die, the tiare flower is no longer perfumed. Behold! The invisible, the invisible is seen…"

But is Messiaen contemporary enough?

So, I guess my guess is (John) Eccles, Master of the King's Music, who according to Wiki "...wrote a large amount of incidental music including music for William Congreve's Love for Love, John Dryden's The Spanish Friar and William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Jointly with Henry Purcell he wrote incidental music for Thomas d'Urfey's Don Quixote."

[Norfolk Born]

Eccles in The Goon Show was a bit dim, and heard rather than seen.

Neddy Seagoon: Eccles, things are serious - the odds against us are ten to one.
Eccles: Ten to one - time for lunch!

[Nick Armstrong]

Neddy Seagoon: Eccles, things are serious - the odds against us are ten to one.
Eccles: Ten to one - time for lunch!

Thought I might have a chance with this one. Sounds as if you may have got it with Eccles.

I've been enjoying the thread about Tom Service's Guardian blog piece about an audience member ruining the end of Mahler 3.

[Don Petter]

Wikipedia has just informed me that Messiaen's opera on Francis of Assisi opens with words from Ecclesiastes: "I am afraid on the road, when the windows grow larger and more obscure, and when the leaves of the poinsettia no longer turn red." "I am afraid on the road, when, about to die, the tiare flower is no longer perfumed. Behold! The invisible, the invisible is seen…"

But is Messiaen contemporary enough?

So, I guess my guess is (John) Eccles, Master of the King's Music, who according to Wiki "...wrote a large amount of incidental music including music for William Congreve's Love for Love, John Dryden's The Spanish Friar and William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Jointly with Henry Purcell he wrote incidental music for Thomas d'Urfey's Don Quixote."

Tapiola,

You win! Sorry I wasn't around to applaud you across the line, and you've fallen into one of my little traps, but we won't penalise you for that, as you got all the answers, I think.

Here is the stored solution:

What E was not at all dumb and, incidentally, helped some of our greatest playwrights and a contemporary composer?

Composer John Eccles (1668-1735), who should not be confused with the well-known Goon, wrote incidental music for plays by Congreve, Shakespeare and Dryden as well as collaborating with their contemporary, Henry Purcell, for another stage work.

You will see that 'contemporary' referred to the playwrights, and not the present time. Meant to throw you all off scent, I'm afraid.

Your turn with the baton, now labelled 'F'.

[Tapiola]

Nice clue, Don, and devious...

This F may be straigtforward.

What alliterative F links Kenneth Williams and works by Falla and Liszt?

[vinteuil]

.

What alliterative F links Kenneth Williams and works by Falla and Liszt?

Not that lost ode to a gazeous lemon drink - Fanta Bullosa?

[Don Petter]

Fuego Fatuo

Unfinished, often like Fanta in my experience.

(Mine was the Opera, 1919)

[Don Petter]

Without looking anything up, could we be after one of Kenneth Williams' outrageous names in the Carry On films?

[subcontrabass]

Fuego Fatuo (Cancion del) from El amor brujo - Song of the Will-o-the-wisp - 1981 cartoon series with voices provided by KW

Can't find the Liszt though

I know googling is frowned upon but it's the only way I can keep up with you chaps

Googling throws up this: "Transcendental Etude No. 5 in B-flat "Feux Follets" (Will o' the Wisp) is the fifth etude of the set of twelve Transcendental Etudes by Franz Liszt."

[Don Petter]

Kenneth Williams narrated for a children's cartoon on TV in 1980 which was called Willo the Wisp.

[Tapiola]

Sorry guys, been away. Yes the answer on my card is Feux Follets for divers reasons explained above.

Who now though for G? hercule, with 2 out of 3?

[subcontrabass]

er, well I didn't get Feux Follets - SubC is welcome to it as far as I'm concerned

No, this one is yours. You got the bulk of it. I just filled in the odd gap.