ONE OF THE BENEFITS OF MY EARLY RETIREMENTS (my several-day stayovers on business trips) was seeking out cultural enrichment. A recent musical encounter on SiriusXM “Symphony Hall” rekindled memories of a couple, which in turn jogged others into partial recall. Tidbits follow.
Mozart in London. It was a Mozart trio, I forget which one, in a presentation at a London museum, the Victoria and Albert? the British Museum? A portion of one room with period furniture and art was also set for a small audience. Apart from sitting on a card-chair, I might have been at an 18th-century salon.
By the way I recall visiting the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone, about which there’s a contrasting story: I have a friend who once got himself in all kinds of trouble by giving the Rosetta Stone a hug. I believe the stone’s display has been changed to discourage such affection.
The Rosetta Stone, the British Museum.
Yoyogi Park, Tokyo. Contrasting with Mozart (now there’s an understatement) are the weekend goings-on at Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park with a portion set aside for youthful rock bands.
Image by gaijinnosekai (Foreigner’s World).
The more ambitious performers rent semi-trailers with fold-down sides with stage effects. The modest get by with hand-made signage. I’ll never forget the three cute young ladies in OshKosh B’Gosh overalls with the hand-painted sign “Loose Bowels.”
Kirchegemeine, Gstaad. Rather more elegant was the setting in Gstaad, described here at SimanaitisSays in “Swiss Adventures.”
My source was a Baedeker’s Switzerland, 1911, into which I had a “carefully folded one-page program labeled ‘Trio,’ with my handwritten entry, ‘Kirchegemeine, Gstaad, April 11, 1985.’ ”
The scenery thereabouts is memorable. So was the music.
Gstaad in 2011. Image by GstaadTourismus via Wikipedia.
Gregorian Chant in Inuyama. Another musical event, albeit a brief intense one, came at Little World, an indoor-outdoor cultural museum in Inuyama, about an hour’s drive north of Nagoya, Japan.
Little World’s five exhibit halls are devoted to Evolution, Technology, Language, Society, and Values. Outdoor exhibits are actual structures purchased in-situ and reassembled at Little World. This and the following image from Little World souvenir booklet.
My profound musical experience came in Little World’s Values Hall: “By design, I’m sure, equal coverage was given to each practice, the world’s five major religions earning no extra exhibit space…. An audio system played ever so quietly, Gregorian chants familiar to me, others less so but somehow still satisfying. As I rose step by step, I knew that, despite all our differences of evolution, technology, language and society, we are all one humanity.”
Little World’s Values Hall.
Monsieur Canteloube in his Native Region. I suspect it was a Michelin trip involving the Circuit du Mas du Clos in Saint-Avit-de-Tardes that found me early-retiring in central France for a couple of days.
Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret, 1879–1957, French composer and musicologist.
I hadn’t heard of Joseph Canteloube or of his Chants d’Auvergne, a collection of folksongs from south-central France. Fortunately, though, the hotel concierge knew of a little presentation at a local church, a soprano accompanied by guitar.
I have since heard orchestrated versions of Canteloupe’s Chants d’Auvergne. But none so moving as that evening.
The Royal Marines Band, Emancipation Park, St. Thomas. With this one, it’s wasn’t me doing the trippin’; rather it was the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal visiting while we lived on St. Thomas.
Indeed, there have been five ships of this name serving the Crown, the one of my tale being the fourth. The Royal Museums Greenwich recounts, “The first HMS Ark Royal was built at Deptford on the River Thames in 1587, to the order of Sir Walter Raleigh. Originally named Ark Ralegh, she was bought by Queen Elizabeth’s navy for £5000 and renamed Ark Royal. She became the flagship of the English fleet during the Spanish Armada campaign of 1588.”
“The next Ark Royal,” the museum continues, “was a merchant ship converted on the building stocks to be a seaplane carrier for the First World War. The third Ark Royal was a 22,000 ton aircraft carrier launched in 1937. After taking part in many wartime operations, including the hunt for the Bismarck, she was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat in November 1941.”
The Ark Royal (R09) of my tale was a “celebrity ship,” says the museum. “In 1955 a new HMS Ark Royal entered service. Still remembered by the public for her starring role in the 1970s BBC series Sailor, she eventually went to the breaker’s yard in 1980.”
“Today’s HMS Ark Royal, the museum concludes, “is a member of the ‘Invincible’ class of support carriers, together with the Falklands veteran HMS Invincible and HMS Illustrious. Last of the class to be built, HMS Ark Royal‘s keel was laid at Swan Hunter’s yard in 1978. She was launched in June 1981 and entered service in 1985.”
HMS Ark Royal (R09), the fourth ship of this name.
But back to “my” Ark Royal visiting St. Thomas for two days in 1972: Her Royal Marines Band performed a concert in Emancipation Park. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house during the national anthems, both of them. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024
