Alphabet associations - I

[Nick Armstrong]

'Napoleon' is etymologically cognate with 'Nibelung'

"Have you been at the diesel again, Baldrick?"

[vinteuil]

"Have you been at the diesel again, Baldrick?"

M'learnèd Friend might like to re-read - Edward Haymes: "Wagner and the Altgermanisten - Die Wibelungen and Franz Joseph Mone"

[Anna]

Somehow, I landed up on the trail of the Hapsburgs* and then, Monarch butterflies, and then, came to a juddering halt... and got distracted by the wine thread

*doubly demanding = double headed Eagle. I am not totally daft, it's logical.

[Flay]

Well Mahler's 2nd is said to have a "funereal opening" so I checked this one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/546m

Rattle's Mahler 2. The sound clip contains the warning: "Clips taken from original discs may contain strong language." I wonder what Rattle was saying?

[Nick Armstrong]

M'learnèd Friend might like to re-read - Edward Haymes: "Wagner and the Altgermanisten - Die Wibelungen and Franz Joseph Mone"

I have to report that I have just checked the BBC Weather page: I find that Hell has not yet frozen over, hence I am unable to add that work back on to my reading list...

[Nick Armstrong]

Time for a clue, perhaps, Don? Once you've had Beech garage the Hispano-Suiza, changed out of your travelling tweeds and gargled with a couple of restorative cocktails?

[Don Petter]

Phew! What a lot of esoteric claptr-, sorry, information I seem to have sparked off.

You all forget what a simple soul I am (in spite of Caliban's flattering image).


Everything is musical - the first two inherently and the third by a well-known association.


Maybe that will help for a starting clue? (I am now fully monitoring your transmissions, subject to my eventual bedtime, which will be announced in due course.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Nielsen
Saga Trom
Saul & David
At the Bier of a Young Artist

[Don Petter]

Sounds very good, fhg, and it might even be a completely satisfactory parallel answer, but it's not what I've got.

[Flay]

Are we talking north of Watford here?

[Don Petter]

Are we talking north of Watford here?

Yes, quite a way (and diagonal).

[Flay]

Well that takes us to Iceland, or to Norway, Sweden and Finland. The Kalevala? What else is there?

[Norfolk Born]

Yes, quite a way (and diagonal).

Aha! North Shields....

[Don Petter]

Aha! North Shields....

Nothing wrong with North Shields - Interesting area which I've explored a couple of times, Tynemouth Priory etc.

But not wanted on this voyage. (Flay has one correct word which is very germane to part one.)


Unlike you night birds, I need my beauty sleep, so am heading in that direction shortly. If you need another clue, I'll leave this sealed envelope - No, that won't really work electronically, will it?

All right then: Three composers born in three successive centuries are involved.

[Don Petter]

In view of my alphabetic duties, I was up at the crack of nine today, but all is quiet. Perhaps a silent cry for help?

Well, you should all know me by now as a stalwart, middle-of-the-road, down-to-earth, nicky-tams sort of man. So none of your Barry Manilows or poncy film scores.


Time for a Gross Loydman 'Through the Keyhole' type summing up of what we are looking for:

A musical poem, perhaps a voyage, by a composer in the far (diagonal) North (see Flay's post for checklist).

A musical regal person, demanding (in two senses) by another composer.

The start of something to do with the dead, associated musically with a third composer. (Actually, more than the start, a recurring theme.)


The three composers span three centuries by birth, not necessarily in the above order.

The required N appears in the title of items one and two, and twice in the content of three.

Hew leeves in a house like this?