MY FUNNY VALENTINE

Step up, all ye lovelorn swains, St Valentine’s Day looms on 14 February. Plenty of time remains to buy that saucy card, to compose those passionate verses in heroic couplets, to order that extravagant bouquet with red roses dominating, to book a discreet table at that absurdly expensive restaurant and to choose an intimate yet tasteful present for your breath-taking inamorata.  Well, that was how I used to do it, when the boiling blood coursed through my young veins, but I am now hopelessly out of date. Surely even the modern girl expects some special pampering on Valentine’s Day – at least a box of chocolates and a more than usually strenuous bout in the bedroom, at the very minimum.

There is of course huge scope for embarrassment on this fateful day. It is not easy to carry off whispering sweet nothings without looking a bit of a chump. And those pet names – “sugar doodle”, “little lamb chop”, “sweetie pie” – are best kept under opaque wraps or you invite ridicule upon your blameless and well-meaning head. Plenty of people think it a laugh to add to your discomfort, often through practical jokes in dubious taste. I recall receiving a malicious parcel one Valentine’s morning containing spectacular crotchless red frillies and a highly compromising message – my protestations of innocence were disregarded and my dear long-suffering wife was not at all amused!

Would such a scene be repeated these days? I imagine the tattooed and pierced young woman of 2012, hair cropped and muscles rippling, forcing her abject lover to try on the red frillies himself at whip-point – or is this just another puerile erotic fantasy! We are such complicated beings that we end up contorting and upsetting the simplest events, even a straight-forward Valentine’s Day treat.

The origins of the festival are obscure. There are some 14 martyred Christians called Valentine (Valens being a common Roman name) of whom 3 are front–runners to being the saint. All that is claimed is that a martyred Valentine was buried on the Via Flaminia on 14 February in about 269 during the persecutions of the Emperor Aurelian. The date is maybe legendary too as it coincides with the Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia, observed between 13 and 15 February. So little is authentic about St Valentine that he was demoted from the Calendar of Saints by Pope Paul VI in 1969 and became a mere “local” saint. The saint had no connection whatsoever with loving couples and, among other things, was the humble patron saint of bee-keepers.

Anyhow his festival seems to have been observed to some degree and was reinvented in the medieval glorification of Courtly Love. The first known mention is in Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his mate.

("For this was on Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.")

The festival flourished and was celebrated by Spenser, Shakespeare and Donne as one for loving couples and by the late 18^th century the penning of sentimental verses and the sending of hand-made Valentine cards had become fashionable. Relentless commercialisation followed by greetings card publishers, florists and now De Beers reckon it is an appropriate occasion to make gifts of diamonds – well they would, wouldn’t they? The Love celebrated was no longer Courtly.

The name itself became associated with Love, not least through the spectacularly successful career of Rudolph Valentino, the silent screen heart-throb whose wild stares and dark good looks enslaved a generation of flappers. When he died suddenly of pleurisy in 1926 aged 31, huge crowds of US female fans gathered in scenes of mass hysteria.

Britain’s heart-throbs were more sedate. Dickie Valentine warbled pleasantly to music-hall, big band and radio fans in the 1950s but we never produced a convincing Latin Lover. Valentine’s Day is often graced with the Sinatra version of the Rodgers and Hart 1937 classic “My Funny Valentine”

Your looks are laughable,

Unphotographical,

Yet you’re my Favourite Work of Art

So, prepare for 14 February, check your bank balance, practise breathing through your nose, tuck in your tummy, and (as they now always say) whatever your sexual orientation, enjoy a passionately memorable Valentine’s Day!

SMD

31.01.2012

Text copyright Sidney Donald 2012

MORE ROCOCO GEMS IN SOUTH GERMANY

Over a year ago, I wrote a piece on The Glories of Rococo in South Germany, particularly describing the three wonderful pilgrimage churches at Ottobeuren, Die Wies and Vierzehnheiligen. I now revisit this beautiful area to share with you my delight in four secular Rococo buildings, the Residenz at Wurzburg, the Amalienburg at Nymphenburg, the Cuvillies Theatre in Munich and Linderhof Palace near Ettal Abbey in Bavaria.

In Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, there is a chapter on the Rococo called The Pursuit of Happiness. I cannot better his words; “Serious-minded people used to call [Rococo] shallow and corrupt, chiefly because it was intended to give pleasure; well, the founders of the American Constitution, who were far from frivolous, thought fit to mention the pursuit of happiness as a proper aim for mankind, and if ever this aim has been given visible form it is in Rococo architecture – the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of love.”

Staircase at the Residenz, Wurzburg

First stop is the Residenz at Wurzburg, the seat of the Prince-Bishop within the Holy Roman Empire. The imposing baroque palace was built between 1720 and 1743 and the spectacular interior was designed primarily by the eminent architect Balthasar Neumann and decorated by the finest fresco painter in Europe, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. The Hofkirche is extremely impressive, but pride of place goes to Neumann’s majestic staircases and to the Imperial Hall (Kaisersaal), all displaying the beauty and delicacy of the Rococo spirit. It is not a democratic style, it is one developed by a discriminating elite for its own enjoyment.

The Kaisersaal at the Residenz, Wurzburg

Further South, a few miles outside Munich lies Nymphenburg Palace, where the Wittelsbach Bavarian dynasty held court. It is a lovely building but to my eyes the finest part is the separate hunting-lodge, the Rococo masterpiece known as the Amalienburg. It was built in the 1730s to the designs of Francois de Cuvillies, originally the court dwarf, whose youthful architectural genius was generously encouraged by the Elector. The Hall of Mirrors is as elaborate a Rococo room as any lover of the style would wish, swirling deliciously in silver and gilt. It inspired millionaire MP and diarist Chips Channon in 1935 to decorate his dining room at 5 Belgrave Square, London, now sadly lost, in this supremely ornate fashion.

The Hall of Mirrors at the Amalienburg

Taking the short hop into central Munich brings you to our third site, the splendid Cuvillies Theatre, built for the court in 1753 and now in a rebuilt wing of the former Munich Residenz. A theatre and opera house is a wholly appropriate place for the playful and life-enhancing Rococo style and this lovely place of entertainment would enhance the enjoyment of any opera-goer. The theatre hosted the premiere of Mozart’s Idomeneo in 1781 and one could not imagine a better venue.

                                                    The Cuvillies Theatre, Munich

Our final visit is to Linderhof Palace near Ettal in Bavaria. Linderhof was built between 1863 and 1886 by Ludwig II of Bavaria. The dates betray that it is not strictly “the real thing” as it post-dates the Rococo era by about a century. But it is still a wonderful Rococo building in the same way that Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral is a wonderful Gothic building even if it were commissioned as late as 1910.

Small by some palace standards, Linderhof has exquisite proportions, lovely fountain-dotted gardens and a verdant park. Ludwig II was a believer in absolute monarchy and not only was Linderhof associated by Ludwig with Louis XV, and is a miniature Versailles, but Sun King symbols abound. Inevitably Linderhof has a Hall of Mirrors, but there are other very fine rooms and the whole place is a monument to the airy delights of Rococo

 Linderhof Palace

Nearby is baroque Ettal Abbey, whose Rococo internal decoration perhaps confirms that Rococo, in a curious antithesis, is most effective in its religious form and that fine as the above secular buildings are, Rococo inspires most when it at its most ecstatic and transcendent in the Pursuit of Happiness.

 Ettal Abbey

SMD

28.01.12

Text copyright Sidney Donald 2012

HARD CHEESE

It would probably come as no great surprise were I to tell you that Greeks are the largest per capita consumers in the world of Eurozone rescue funds, political bribes or inducements in brown envelopes, but instead I pass on the astonishing intelligence that the Greeks eat more cheese per head than any other nation. At an annual rate of 31.1 kg per year, they easily eclipse the French (26.1) or the Germans (22.6), while the USA (14.8) and Britain (10.9) are sad also-rans. This is a rare Greek triumph, bringing on a loud and pungent victory belch from the much-put-upon Hellenes.

The perennially high relative cost of meat in Greece, and yet the traditional keeping and herding of sheep and goats, lies behind the Greek enthusiasm for health-giving cheese. About 75% of Greek consumption is of the ubiquitous Feta, the hard, white and often salty cheese, usually made with sheepmilk, which comes in pressed big blocks, kept in brine and then sliced. Feta is delicious on its own with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of oregano or crumbled into a fresh country salad. It makes a splendid appetiser as you sip your ouzo, but it is also widely used in Greek cooking, in tasty cheese and spinach pies, in fried Saganaki cheese dishes and in pizzas of all kinds. There are other fine Greek cheeses – simple and delicate Anthotiros and Manouri (my personal favourites), hearty Kasseri, many varieties of excellent Graviera and the rather sharp-tasting Kefalotiri. The range is enticing.

However in the Pantheon of cheese producers, pride of place must go to the French. De Gaulle’s oft-misquoted bon mot “How can one govern a country producing 246 varieties of cheese?” sets the scene. Wonderful quality of cow, ewe and goat milk, traditional skills passed down from peasant or monk, regional pride in their distinctive produce, all combine to make France the undisputed Grand Fromage. One just has to mention a few - Brie, Camembert, Chevre, Roquefort, Boursin, Livarot, Pont l’Eveque or Munster to appreciate that one is among the unrivalled aristocrats of cheese. A plate of Camembert and an accompanying ballon of Burgundy epitomise French civilisation, (forget about Voltaire and Descartes), even if the whiff of Munster can make your hair curl within 20 yards.

French cheese board

The Italians are no slouches at cheese-making either. The world loves Gorgonzola, Bel Paese and, maybe most of all, water-buffalo-sourced Mozzarella and cooking lasagne or pizza would be impossible without Parmesan and Ricotta. The Germans characteristically produce cheese on an industrial scale but some of their cheeses are superb - Blue Brie, Tilsit, Allgau Emmantaler and Limburger (Oh God, what a pong!) and are much treasured. Medals are also due to Swiss Gruyere and to their aromatic fondues and Dutch rounds of Gouda and Edam. The cheese markets of Northern Europe are one of the glories of the continent.

I have not yet mentioned Britain. Its production and consumption put it at best at mid-table but I humbly contend that British cheeses are wonderful. Britain’s strong suit is blue cheese – creamy and delicious Stilton, napkin-wrapped and spoon-dug, or Buxton Blue. Then there is renowned Cheddar of varying strengths, Gloucester, Red Leicester or crumbly Cheshire. The Welsh contribute fine Caerphilly and their famous Rarebit and the Scots chip in with Orkney or oatmeal-covered Caboc. London is cosmopolitan and British cheeses are there among those of the rest of the world in the sense-dizzying Food Hall at Harrods or at the venerable and pungent Paxton and Whitfield emporium in Jermyn Street in the opulent West End.

The US is the largest manufacturer of cheese in the world, though mainly for domestic consumption. Apparently some fine cheeses are produced, but certainly in the UK we mainly see banal Philadelphia Cheese Spread and the rubbery-looking and cardboard-tasting processed slices by Kraft – neither objects to detain the gourmet. Australia and New Zealand, with their extensive dairy industries also produce decent cheeses, much of it exported, usually based on versions of Cheddar.

Cheese eating is not a global habit. In China, Japan and East Asia generally, cheese is not much eaten. The same is true of sub-Saharan Africa. In part this is due to the imperfectly understood condition known as lactose intolerance. Many people globally seem to have a genetic difficulty digesting milk itself and also milk products like cheese. A further complication arises from the fact that rennet used in cheese-making normally derives from calf’s stomach and observant Jews and Muslims will not eat anything neither kosher nor halal. While there is vegetarian rennet, cheese eating is not widespread in the Middle East. Some cheese is used in the Indian sub-continent, including Nepal’s yak (yuk!) cheese Chhurpi and Bhutan’s national dish, Ema Datsi, is made from yak or mare’s milk cheese and red peppers, which sounds rather a gastronomic challenge.

With due respect to the elegant French and lively Greeks, I take my leave with a nourishing English feast of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, followed by a refreshing syllabub and brought to a lingering climax with biscuits and mature Stilton cheese, lubricated by a generous glass or two of fine Port. Our sad old world will look much better after substantial and cheesy sustenance of this glorious kind.

SMD

25.01.2012

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2012.           

BRITAIN IN EUROPE ; A SQUARE PEG IN A ROUND HOLE

I write this with some regret, but it is increasingly clear that the UK does not fit in at all to the European Union and it needs radically to modify its membership terms and establish a new and different relationship. As Peter Hitchens recently wrote, “No other EU nation (apart from Ireland, a sad and separate story), is remotely like us, politically, economically, legally or culturally”. For a generation, we have ignored or denied this inconvenient reality. We can bob and weave no longer, for our own good and for that of the EU.

My regret derives from the enthusiasm for Europe I once felt in the 1960s and 1970s, when I blandly believed the assurances from the bien pensant political elite that the economic prospects of the UK would improve if it traded more with prosperous and dynamic Europe and was less dependent on its traditional trade with the Commonwealth. The way forward was not easy. Britain was needled by former Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s 1962 observation that; “Britain has lost an Empire, but has not yet found a role”. Britain had not even attended the Messina conference which led up to the 1956 Treaty of Rome and the establishment of the Common Market, inspired by 3 devout Catholics, whose first language was German – French Robert Schuman from Luxembourg and Lorraine, Italian De Gasperi from the Tyrol and German Adenauer from Cologne. When non-German speaking and Protestant Harold MacMillan made a sustained effort to join the Common Market, de Gaulle vetoed UK entry in 1963 and repeated his veto in 1967, much to our chagrin.

It was not until de Gaulle left the scene that Heath was able to negotiate a deal in 1973, probably a substantially worse one than would have been available in 1963. Joining the Common Market was sold to the electorate as the UK merely becoming part of a customs union, liberalising European trade and cooperating on standards. The UK had already devalued, gone metric and the sterling area was withering, but in the 1970s, despite the boost of North Sea oil, the UK economy was languishing feebly (remember the 3-day week and Healey rattling his begging bowl at the IMF?) and the Common Market was the only game in town. The UK politicians concealed or glossed over two phrases in key documents which might have given them pause. The UK, as a candidate nation, had endorsed a 1972 declaration that member states: “resolve…to move irrevocably towards Economic and Monetary Union”, not to mention the commitment to “ever closer union” set out in the preamble to the original 1956 Treaty of Rome. The UK government pooh-poohed these phrases as typically airy Continental rhetoric, but for Euro-enthusiasts they were seriously meant and would return to haunt us. We were lured (deliberately?) into entry by a false prospectus.

To some extent the UK’s pattern of trade did change and we became an important importer of European goods and exporter to Europe of UK goods. But a large downside in the early years was the Common Agricultural Policy, the CAP, protecting French and German farmers and excluding produce from the old Commonwealth and from the less developed world. The UK waged a wearying war against the CAP, eventually achieving some success but huge amounts of the EEC’s treasure was spent subsidising rich European farmers and still is. Imperfections in the common market mechanisms, notably bureaucratic obstacles to competition in the services sector (of critical importance to the UK) persisted, and after many years there was a dilatory drive to perfect the Single European Market. At around the same time in 1989, moves were made to impose common labour and employment laws, known as the Social Chapter, and these arrangements were adopted by most of the EU nations, although the UK opted out. Margaret Thatcher protested volubly in her landmark Bruges speech and warned the less developed members that they were falling into a trap, increasing their costs and losing any competitive advantage they may have vis-à-vis Germany. These words were to prove prophetic.

The long line of Euro-enthusiasts running from Jean Monnet, through Spaak and including Commission Presidents like Hallstein, Ortoli, the cultured but overfed figure of Roy Jenkins, Delors and Barroso worked to centralise and integrate the EU, claiming the authority of the two phrases above. Democratic accountability was minimal as the European Parliament had limited powers and even less authority.  At first UK opposition to European entanglements was confined to the “Loony Left” typified by Foot and Benn and by jingoistic backwoods Tories. By the 1980s more principled and sane opposition came from Labour’s Peter Shore and Tory Norman Tebbit, later to be fortified by Norman Lamont and John Redwood. Their voices remained a minority but after the later Thatcher years, the Tories moved towards a mild Euro-scepticism and Howe, Heseltine, Lawson and Clarke lost influence.

Economic integration has been the greatest stumbling-block. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty set the stage, developing the idea of European Monetary Union (EMU). Britain had joined the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) establishing a fixed rate with the deutschmark, but tumbled out again later in 1992 on “Black Wednesday”, a political disaster for the Major regime, but blessed relief for the economy. Opinion was moving against more integration and the UK declined to join the Eurozone on its inception in 1999. Since 2008 the Eurozone has been in crisis after a period of prosperity, but despite Blair’s enthusiasm, Brown happily prevented the UK joining it later and there is now no appetite whatever for such a move.

The Euro crisis has provided a catalyst. We have observed from our semi-detached vantage point the dominance of Germany, the weakness of France, the feebleness of Spain and Italy, the desperation of Portugal and Ireland, the corruption and collapse of Greece, made worse by the ineptitude of Brussels. We wish the EU nations well but we want to rule ourselves and have no desire or need for the budgetary and fiscal union now proposed. Let them go down that road towards an eventual United States of Europe, if they so wish. We must not get sucked deeper into the unwieldy EU quagmire and must soon negotiate an Associate status, hopefully retaining many of the trade advantages of full membership.

Associate membership of the EU would suit us well enough. Prophets of doom say we are highly dependent on exports to Europe, but remember it is a two-way street. The UK is a key market for Germany, Benelux, Ireland and Italy and they will want to protect their own trade. The US remains our largest trade partner. Closer integration with the US, Ireland and the old Commonwealth would be more attractive, given our common language, legal systems and culture but sadly few in the US express any interest, though our defence links remain strong. We can develop our relationships with the famous BRICs and prosper mightily as an independent offshore island on the model of Japan.

Europe was a noble experiment for Britain, which looked fine on the drawing-board but did not work out in practice. We do not eat, live, do business or think like continental Europeans. We live in an open society, not a statist one and it has served us well. The mark of a competent politician is to change his mind when the facts proclaim the necessity. The hour for change has struck; let’s get on with it.

SMD

22.01.2012

Copyright Sidney Donald 2012

THE SERENITY OF ATHEISM

My “Damascus moment” came in October 1961 on a sleeper train from Edinburgh to London travelling with a school-friend to my first year up at Oxford. I left Waverley Station an often troubled guilt-ridden believer but after much tossing and turning and contemplation in my narrow bunk, I arrived at Kings Cross a much relieved free-thinker and have never suffered the terrors of religion since. It was the dawning of a happy new life.

I came to the sweeping conclusion that religions in general and Christianity in particular were false for a variety of reasons and, while not all the influences came to bear that night in 1961, all my subsequent study since has reinforced my fundamental atheism. I came to see that religions were a human artefact, and following James Frazer in The Golden Bough, progressed from primitive magic to religion and then surrendered to the age of science. Human communities have developed an enormous number of gods, cults and religions. Many had their own creation myths, their own messengers, their own redeemers, and their own human sacrifices.  For any one religion to claim to be absolutely true seemed to me nonsensical.

Man’s position in the world also seemed less important than we once thought. Darwin teaches us that man evolved over thousands of years and our ancestor sounds unpromising: “A hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits.” This creature hardly seems designed to carry the cares of the world on his shoulders and although his brain may have grown larger in archaeological time, it is still a fallible instrument when we consider the neuroses and complexes to which it is prone, if we believe Freud, or the conditioned reflexes it can adopt, if we believe Pavlov. Man is a highly capable cognitive mammal, but an animal basically, not a divine creation.

My rejection of the truth of religions in general was naturally united to a rejection of the Christian religion in particular. Brought up as a Protestant, I was very familiar with the sonorous cadences of the Book of Common Prayer and of the Authorised Version, much of which moved me then and moves me still. However I approach the subject as a historian. The Gospels, John and the Synoptics based on Mark, give a very confused and contradictory account of the life of Christ, and Paul, writing much earlier, speaks of Christ as such a remote and ethereal figure that the actual historical existence of Christ is put into question. Evidence of his ministry, trial and crucifixion is very thin and the nativity, miracles, resurrection and ascension narratives are obviously myths. The ethical teaching ascribed to Christ is unoriginal, derived from Judaism or borrowed from other cults and the morality taught by Christ is eschatological (anticipating imminently the Second Coming) and had to be modified when the Second Coming inconveniently failed to materialise.

What is historically accepted is that the Christian cult, one of many in the Roman East, became established in Jerusalem until its sack and Paul proselytised in the Mediterranean. A long period of obscurity, ecclesiastical growth and persecution followed but eventually the Christian cult penetrated the imperial palace and, by good fortune from its point of view, succeeded in winning over the far from devout Emperor Constantine to its cause in the early 4^th century. Christianity took strong root on becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire and eventually none other was tolerated. The priceless philosophical and artistic legacy of the Ancients was suppressed and Christianity dominated the West until the 18^th century.

To put it mildly, Christianity’s human rights record is not good. Endless theological wrangling created splits in the Church and the concept of “heresy” developed. Supposedly to save their souls, heretics were tortured and murdered often with bestial cruelty. The violent capture of Jerusalem from the Muslims, the Albigensian Crusade, the Latin sack of Constantinople, the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, “St” Ignatius Loyola and the Inquisition, “St” Thomas More’s heretic burning, Bloody Mary, the 30 Years War in Germany, all fit a pattern of merciless persecutions and crimes. Happily Christianity started to lose its grip with the Renaissance, was weakened by the Reformation and intellectually overthrown by the Enlightenment. Even in decline its influence was baleful – support for slavery, total opposition to the modern world as set out in The Syllabus of Errors and at least an historic anti-Semitic influence on the route to the Holocaust. The charge sheet is shamefully long.

The positive side of Christianity must be acknowledged. It has inspired great artists, great composers and great architects. It tried to meet its intellectual challenges by sponsoring schools, universities and places of learning. The Christian ethic, when observed, brought comfort and fulfilment to many. In its decline, it has championed a toleration and inclusiveness it did not itself practice in its pomp. But sitting in an agreeable English parish church, singing hymns or intoning well-loved prayers is not enough. I am happy to leave the Church to look after its buildings heritage, happy to see civilised old fogeys of the ilk of archbishops Ramsey, Runcie and Rowland Williams participate colourfully in national rituals while studying some esoteric points of theology. But their role must be form, not substance; we must never again return to them the keys to the rack or the gibbet as they will operate them with chilling efficiency like today’s ayatollahs.

How does this leave the unbeliever, where is his credo, his grand world-view? I do not think he needs one. We live a modest life and unto a modest dust shall we return. I have no expectations for or fears for my immortal soul as I do not believe I have one. We can echo Robert Burns “Whatever mitigates the woes or increases the happiness of others, this is my criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity.” I do not seek to change other people, but I support the likes of Richard Dawkins, ever watchful against fear and superstition. We have the good fortune to live in a beautiful world and we can leave our mark, singing with Shelley:

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;

To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;

To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;

To love and bear; to hope till Hope creates

From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;

Neither to change nor falter, nor repent;

This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;

This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.

SMD

13.01.2012

Copyright Sidney Donald 2012.

THE 2012 OVERTURE

As the New Year dawns, we all experience the ardent hope of renewal, that feeling that we can embark upon new ventures and climb fresh heights. Much of this hope turns to dust and ashes within a few days as the deadly ties of routine strangle us, but enough survives to warm our blood and to keep alive our ambitious endeavours. We feel we are setting out on a new beginning, heavy with joyous anticipation.

It is part of the human tragedy that these beginnings often fail to reach fruition. On the current political stage, the Arab Spring is a prime example. So much energy and idealism has been poured into this movement in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya; so much brave blood has been shed in Syria and Yemen. The outcome of these very different revolutions remains uncertain; will the old dictatorial forces reassert themselves, will an ugly Islamic fundamentalism fill the gap or will some tentative steps be taken towards a more open and democratic society? We know these nations are on the brink of something but are not sure whether it is a progressive leap forward or a dark abyss. We remember too the exciting hopes of the Prague Spring of 1968, snuffed out mercilessly by the Soviet Bloc’s tanks. Yet we can take much heart from the example of India and Nehru’s great 1947 speech “We made a Tryst with Destiny” delivered a few hours before Independence. He knew it was an historic new chapter for his country and despite the subsequent horrors of sectarian murder at Partition, India has become an admirably free and secular nation.

Renewal in the old Soviet Union, brought on by Gorbachev’s brave policies of Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (openness) eventually led to the mainly peaceful dissolution of the Soviet empire and the ending of the huge anxiety in the West caused by Soviet ambition. Better days for Russia had dawned. Mind you, one man’s dawn is another’s nightmare; here in Greece the group known as Golden Dawn is overtly neo-Nazi and its cowardly toughs occasionally rampage through Athens beating up the unpopular and friendless immigrant community.

The early feeling of joyous anticipation has its parallel in the musical overture and prelude. The overture excites and stimulates us to expect great things of the main work. Sadly the overture is often the best part, just as the hors d’oeuvre is often better than the entrée. Suppe’s operas Poet and Peasant or Light Cavalry have disappeared into the dustiest of archives along with Reznicek’s Donna Diana while most of Rossini’s operas are similarly forgotten. In due course the overture became a self-standing composition and there are no operas to raise their curtains after the joys of the 1812, Academic Festival or Tragic overtures. However, many overtures add lustre to fine operas – Figaro’s muscular overture precedes a heavenly work ending in a glorious reconciliation climax while Wagner’s ravishing preludes to Lohengrin complement one of his finest mythic compositions. The beginning ushers in a great artistic achievement.

For some, young promise and potential are their central achievement. Over a long life, JD Salinger never matched The Catcher in the Rye. Even Wordsworth, the wonderfully lyric young poet of The Prelude, relapsed into middle-aged mediocrity. Jean Sibelius, gloriously prolific up to his 40s, weighed down by honours and pensions from the Finnish state, fell silent completely in 1926 until he died in 1957. In Adonais, Shelley mourns those poets who died young, Keats, Lucan, Sidney and Chatterton – we would have added Shelley himself – “extinct in their refulgent prime” in his memorable phrase. Yet all of the above produced fine work; it is unfair to categorise their lives as promise unfulfilled. At worst we might describe their work as “inchoate” (started but not wholly finished), a word I first encountered in Thomas Wolfe’s rousing 1929 novel Look Homeward, Angel – Wolfe himself dying at an early 38.

Despite all the obstacles, humanity can change and come to triumphant conclusions. The Renaissance broke the shackles of medieval mental restriction: the Enlightenment started to expel superstition and fanaticism from the psyche of educated mankind and substitute rational thought. In politics, the Risorgimento (Re-awakening) created a modern new Italy and we hope the Good Friday Agreements will finally end the long agony of Ireland’s tortured conflicts and bring happiness and security to the whole island.

So let us embark on new ventures, dream new dreams and resolve to be better people. New Year is the moment of renewal. As Macbeth declaims -“Screw our courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail!”

SMD

2.1.12

Copyright Sidney Donald 2012