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'Napoleon' is etymologically cognate with 'Nibelung'
"Have you been at the diesel again, Baldrick?"
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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.
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?
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...
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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?
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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.)
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.
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.
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