What are you reading now?

[Peter]

Whilst I deplore violence Enrique and think the Revolution got out of hand, one need to remember the indignities the poor faced every day. Have you any idea of the hell they were living?

I'm not sure things improved for the poor much after the revolution. It was the same with the Russian revolution.

[AeolianHarp]

Whilst I deplore violence Enrique and think the Revolution got out of hand, one need to remember the indignities the poor faced every day. Have you any idea of the hell they were living?

[Enrique]

Marie Antoinette
By Antonia Fraser.


Marie Antoinette was one of Gluck's music pupils.

I would never have the guts to read a biography of Marie Antoinette. I would be too deeply moved by the indignities committed against her person (a that of her husband, who was a good man) by those scoundrels that played to be God. The invasion of the Tuileries by the mob, the removal from her son and the days at the Conciergerie must have been Hell in Earth for her. And then the last humiliation, the way to the guillotine, before the populace, stripped of all her finery. Who can see the sketch made by David, the Revolution painter, without shedding tears? I understand she never lost hope she would eventually be freed.

[Peter]

Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov.

[Megan]

Marie Antoinette
By Antonia Fraser.






Marie Antoinette was one of Gluck's music pupils.

[Sorrano]

That is an interesting thought, Enrique. I do not think that we are very far removed from the ancients, as far as personality and emotion goes. Thank you for sharing that.

[Enrique]

It is difficult to say something new about everyday things. These words from Plato testify to it, I think.

Our music was once divided into its proper forms... It was not permitted to exchange the melodic styles of these established forms and others. Knowledge and informed judgment penalized disobedience. There were no whistles, unmusical mob-noises, or clapping for applause. The rule was to listen silently and learn; boys, teachers, and the crowd were kept in order by threat of the stick. . . .

But later, an unmusical anarchy was led by poets who had natural talent, but were ignorant of the laws of music...Through foolishness they deceived themselves into thinking that there was no right or wrong way in music, that it was to be judged good or bad by the pleasure it gave. By their works and their theories they infected the masses with the presumption to think themselves adequate judges. So our theatres, once silent, grew vocal, and aristocracy of music gave way to a pernicious theatrocracy... the criterion was not music, but a reputation for promiscuous cleverness and a spirit of law-breaking.

Yes, the quote should be put into the proper context, understand what music meant to the Greeks, et cetera. But it's impossible not to smile seeing how many times this same tune has been sung in all ages. Which does not mean these lines do not encompass a lesson that should be learned by many.

[Peter]

Ploughing my way through "War and Peace" at the moment. Every detail is there, Tolstoy misses nothing, and yet this came become exasperating at times.

Yes marvellous as it is, I found myself irritated by the frequent interruption of the main story for a history lesson - I made it through though!

[Bakerlite]

Ploughing my way through "War and Peace" at the moment. Every detail is there, Tolstoy misses nothing, and yet this came become exasperating at times.

[Chris]

The idea behind it is quite simple, though. Incidentally, a function of the real variable x, like exp(-x^2) can only be integrated by approximation. There is no function whose derivative is exp(-x^2).

And yet it's such a useful integral that we made one up! 1/2(sqrt(pi))(erf(x))...plus a constant, of course.

[Enrique]

what am reading right now?

Something about "integration through approximation"

I say I'm reading it-but I don't understand it..

some of us are just regular gluttons for punishment, eh?


xoxox
L(isa)

The idea behind it is quite simple, though. Incidentally, a function of the real variable x, like exp(-x^2) can only be integrated by approximation. There is no (elementary) function whose derivative is exp(-x^2).

[EternaLisa]

what am reading right now?

Something about "integration through approximation"

I say I'm reading it-but I don't understand it..

some of us are just regular gluttons for punishment, eh?


xoxox
L(isa)

[Peter]

Memories and letters of Gustav Mahler by his somewhat unreliable wife Alma - nonetheless a fascinating insight and incredible to think that she lived on until 1964.

[Megan]

Plots & Parallel Powers

Thought I would mention an interesting novel I read recently, Plots & Parallel Powers, about the Gunpowder Plot, by Robert Neville.
It is a tense filled blend of fact and fiction.
I certainly got a sense of an historical place and time.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plots-Parall.../dp/B00CS3BMQ8

Recommended!

[Enrique]

Well your average politician's historical knowledge is lamentable so there isn't much hope, especially as they don't teach context properly - an example is of a (bright) pupil of mine studying the suffragettes at GCSE level who thought this happened in the Elizabethan era, but mind you she had no idea when that was either! Indeed we're doomed to repeat past mistakes.

So your pupil does not know why it is that she can or will be able to vote. Also I don't how she does not associate the Elizabethan era with Shakespeare. She would have two time references. Fortunately, I have always observed the great composers of the past, including early XX century, seemed to be well read men. I do not know in the case of Bach.