Alphabet associations - I

[amateur51]

You're a terrible swot, Rubbers... I say....You're a terrible swot, Rubbers

Am51: loved that Handley vid, thanks!

That was a brave wink in Ulster at that time, I reckon Caliban

Glad you liked it

[Nick Armstrong]

How that creature doth abuse mine ears...

I have an O, but I'm just wondering how I can make it more difficult

O! I think I chose the wrong four-letter word after "terrible' in my earlier message...

[rubbernecker]

What O could be a blackbird; was notably sung by a son of Margate and then by an Oxonian; was transformed by Mahlerian magic?

[Angle]

O = Oberon

Oberon Blackbird - a motor cycle made by Honda (that was a naughty clue)
Son of Margate - Alfred Deller (he created the part in Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Oxonian - James Bowman (first played Oberon in the same work in 1967)
Mahler - Oberon's Grove "Ich bin der welt abhanden gekommen" (Ruckert Lileder) sorry Ruckert Lieder, which I first heard when Jessye Norman sailed on to the platform of the Usher Hall to sing to an enrapt, not to say mesmerised audience many Festivals ago.

I shall be back about 10 in the morning to learn whether my grasps are correct. Meanwhile, my dearios, I'm orf to bed.

[mercia]

as an alternative to Angle's motorbike, how about the actress Merle Oberon, merle being a name for the common blackbird?

(I prefer the motorbike)

I must be going mad. I can't find any reference to Oberon's Grove in Ich bin der welt abhanden gekommen

I wonder if Honda were doing a clever bit of theatrical connecting with their brand name?!?

[rubbernecker]

I guess that was an object lesson to me that if you make it too fiendish you will get some equally valid parallel answers!

Angle is, of course, correct with Oberon although only the second clue with Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream was what I had in mind.

The first was, as Mercia cleverly unravelled, the actress Merle Oberon and not the motorcycle, but the latter was an equally valid (and arguably better) answer.

The third was perhaps more obvious than the Ruckert Lieder, Weber's Oberon was revised variously by Gustav Mahler and the novelist Anthony Burgess, so maybe I should have thrown in the latter as the clincher.

But very well done, Angle and and Mercia.

I suppose we must now wait until dusk for Angle's coffin lid to rise before we can expect P

[rubbernecker]

I must be going mad. I can't find any reference to Oberon's Grove in Ich bin der welt abhanden gekommen

Nor can I, now you've pointed it out. I rather took it as read that Angle knows what he's on about! No doubt he will explain...

[Nick Armstrong]

I suppose we must now wait until dusk for Angle's coffin lid to rise before we can expect P

that's made my morning

Yes, Angle - what's the Oberon's Grove thing all about then??

[Angle]

Dawn has broken, at last. And here I am, shamefaced.

I love the Ruckert songs but now, nine hours later. have no idea why or how I linked them with "Oberon's Grove". Thank goodness it was in supplying an answer and not in the setting of a question. My apologies for the confusion from which gave pause for investigation nevertheless.

Actually, I think I shall blame it on a surfeit of London air.

Perhaps, as it is still very early in my day, Mercia will set us his P question. Oh, the blessed P.

[rubbernecker]

Perhaps, as it is still very early in my day, Mercia will set us his P question.

And with a thud, he was gone.

P, Mercia?

[mercia]

ah, I've just returned to my computer and seen that

a P is coming ............

[mercia]

What P links Murder in the Cathedral, 3 Petrach Sonnets and d'Annunzio?

[Tapiola]

What P links Murder in the Cathedral, 3 Petrach Sonnets and d'Annunzio?

Is this to do with pilgrimage?

Murder in the Cathedral (Eliot) relates to Thomas a Becket's assassination there. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales tells of a pilgrimage to Canterbury to pay respects to Becket.

The wonderful Liszt's Annees de Pelerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) Book 2 contains 3 Petrarch Sonnet settings.

d'Annunzio? hmmm...

[mercia]

Is this to do with pilgrimage?

'fraid not, thank goodness you haven't found a third connection, otherwise I would be in trouble!!

I've done a nasty by translating the first two elements from a foreign language

[mercia]

My P is a composer