Alphabet associations - I

**antongould** · 30-10-11, 14:24

As to L for Latvia - I'll be very surprised if I've got them all

In 2006 the Presteigne Festival appointed mercia's friend Latvian Pceteris Vasks as composer in residence
Andres Nelsons conducted Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival

And I'm stumped by the RW connection although there is a Wagner Hall in Riga and Google says Wagner moisture meters are big in Latvia

**Dave2002** · 30-10-11, 14:36

Look up the Flying Dutchman! You're almost there.

**antongould** · 30-10-11, 14:45

RW fleeing his creditors as per usual sailed from Riga to London and had a hellish crossing - this seemed somehow (we are talking opera) to give him the idea to use the story of the Flying Dutchman for an opera and thus run up more debts??????

**Dave2002** · 30-10-11, 15:08

Originally posted by antongould View Post

RW fleeing his creditors as per usual sailed from Riga to London and had a hellish crossing - this seemed somehow (we are talking opera) to give him the idea to use the story of the Flying Dutchman for an opera and thus run up more debts??????

Quite. Plus he was the director of the Opera house in Riga from 1837 to 1839, but as you say, he tried to escape. His first thoughts were to go to Paris - perhaps by road, maybe by sea? Eventually he took a ship which sailed up via Norway, and his trip wasn't great and took 3 weeks to get to England, where I believe he pitched up in London. The trip was so bad that he thought he had to write an opera based on the story of the Flying Dutchman.

Over to you now for the M.

[PS - you and mercia seem attuned - you're not just one are you?]

**Dave2002** · 30-10-11, 15:15

Originally posted by antongould View Post

Andres Nelsons conducted Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival

Andris opened the 2010 season I believe - http://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/...4677/index.htm. Of course he comes from Latvia, as does Pēteris Vasks http://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/...77/index.htmEE, who was indeed composer in residence at Presteigne, and also featured at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival.

**antongould** · 30-10-11, 16:25

Originally posted by Dave2002 View Post

Quite. Plus he was the director of the Opera house in Riga from 1837 to 1839, but as you say, he tried to escape. His first thoughts were to go to Paris - perhaps by road, maybe by sea? Eventually he took a ship which sailed up via Norway, and his trip wasn't great and took 3 weeks to get to England, where I believe he pitched up in London. The trip was so bad that he thought he had to write an opera based on the story of the Flying Dutchman.

Over to you now for the M.

[PS - you and mercia seem attuned - you're not just one are you?]

yes you will never see mercia and I in the same room - handy when no one can answer your letter!

What M connects titularly

Anthony White
Evelyn Waugh and
Paul Simon

answer but not all of clues probably musical.

**Dave2002** · 30-10-11, 18:18

Maybe McCartney?

**antongould** · 30-10-11, 18:29

Sadly no Dave - but it is a composer if we are allowed to call Uncle Paul a composer!

**Dave2002** · 30-10-11, 18:44

Interesting. You might be interested to know that McCartney +(Paul Simon|Evelyn Waugh|Anthony White) checks out in all cases, though different McCartneys, and only one a Sir. Or not, as the case may be!

**antongould** · 30-10-11, 18:46

very interested please explain?

**Dave2002** · 30-10-11, 19:01

I guess not too interesting, but try this

http://www.bootlegzone.com/album.php?name=WT2001026

Evelyn Waugh and the Modernist Tradition

http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Evelyn_Waugh_and_the_modernist_tradition.html?id=pzazSSTZdxkC

In Evelyn Waugh and the Modernist Tradition, George McCartney argues that unlike traditional satirists, Evelyn Waugh was not primarily concerned with correcting morals and manners. Instead, he laid siege to the cultural and metaphysical assumptions of his time. McCartney demonstrates that the one constant in Waugh's work was his lively engagement with contemporary intellectual fashion. It was especially his response to modernism, the zeitgeist of his formative years, that gave his fiction its distinctive energy. McCartney shows how at every turn Waugh's writing pays parodic tribute to modernist esthetics. Although he deplored many of the movement's philosophical premises, he nevertheless admired its methods, borrowing them freely whenever it suited his purposes. In effect, Waugh developed an alternate modernism. Whether it was his playful reworking of Bauhaus and Futurist theory, or his borrowings from film technique, he was determined to take his place in what he called "the advance-guard" despite his avowedly "antique" tastes. Part aesthete, part traditionalist, he appropriated the strategies of experimental art in order to defeat its metaphysical implications. McCartney provides evidence that this ambivalent regard for modernism reveals not only Waugh's interest in aesthetics and philosophy, but also his personal conflicts. For a man who prized rationality, he was remarkably, even notoriously impulsive. McCartney concludes that Waugh's satire sprang not only from his dismay with contemporary intellectual fashions but also from an inward struggle between his orthodox and wayward selves, a struggle that registered the cultural conflicts of his time with uncanny accuracy. In McCartney's reading, Waugh's personal and intellectual ambivalence enabled him to become a prescient critic of our age. The result was a body of work that remains as vital today as when it was written.George McCartney teaches at St. John's University. He has written on Waugh for The Columbia History of the British Novel and Evelyn Waugh: New Directions. He also writes for a variety of publications including National Review, The American Spectator, and the Weekly Standard. His monthly film column appears in Chronicles Magazine.

bran mccartney – P. Anthony White… online

http://pawbahamas.wordpress.com/tag/bran-mccartney/#!/page/1

Posts about bran mccartney written by pawbahamas

The third one is a bit dodgy, but the first two are I think real connections.

**antongould** · 30-10-11, 21:02

amazing but no as I say a composer whose heyday was about the same time as Sir Paul's.

**Nick Armstrong** · 31-10-11, 00:55

Really struggling with this one ! Keep dropping back and kicking around the Sunday brain cells, but nothing so far...

**antongould** · 31-10-11, 01:39

we are talking specifically Anthony C White and as a further clue think Christmas Opera.

**Dave2002** · 31-10-11, 07:31

Electrical engineer? Carbon microphones. It gets worse!

Alphabet associations - I

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