Sunday, 27 February 2011
Saturday, 26 February 2011
Thursday, 24 February 2011
past in the present
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Sunday, 20 February 2011
rosslyn
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
a discovery of witches
Monday, 14 February 2011
Sunday, 13 February 2011
fishing boats at greetsiel, august 1967
It was this particular exposure which warned me of the degradation of the 35mm wide angle lens on my Leica. When I saw the slide it was clear the colours were not an accurate representation of those I had seen on the day. The lens was growing old. Inside the barrel internal reflections competed with the light and colours coming in from outside. It was time to take stock. Time to consider trading in the 'pre-used' equipment accumulating in the gadget bag and to look towards the brand new M1 model that was about to take over from the very compact Leicas so prominent in photography for more than three decades.
How come I was taking pictures of fishing boats at Greetsiel?
This was August 1967. The company of Deutsche Grammophon had engaged me to attend at Westerheusen where there was a delightful one-manual organ dating from early in the 1600s. There I played a selection of the keyboard works of Mr Dr John Bull which John Steele and I had transcribed from the manuscript sources in the British Museum and elsewhere.
I am so glad I had decided in advance to work from the printed copy and not to play from memory. So long as I did that, the sound in my ears appeared to correspond to the musical notation. It was only when, during an interval, Theresa played the first Melodie from Schumann's Albumn for the Young, I perceived the instrument to be a semitone higher than mid-20th century standard pitch.
And Greetsiel? Yes. This was on the homeward journey. I drove my mother's Rover 2000 along the Autobahnen and then via Maastricht to the ferry which carried us back across the Channel.
francis cameron, oxford, 13 february 2011
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Friday, 11 February 2011
trumpets for wimborne
These are organ pipes. Technically they are known as trompettes en chamade - which means they are displayed horizontally – and the en chamade bit also brings in the French for ‘to sound a parley’. The pipes are part of the organ in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, an instrument originating from the firm of J W W Walker in 1866 and substantially recast by them in 1965.
If the dating of my photo is correct, I was there in the January of 1967 (surely that can’t be right!) to play for the wedding of Diana Norman who had been a pupil of mine at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
The pupils whose weddings I’ve played for all tended to ask for a full programme of music. In Diana’s case (I hope I remember it well) this included Bach’s great Toccata and Fugue in D minor, played while the wedding party was in the vestry signing the registers. When they came out for the final procession, the building was filled with the glories of the Widor Toccata. It’s a glorious glorious sound, especially when the organ has the resources to do it justice. And justice, that day, was well and truly done. Every resource on that organ was brought into play.
Afterwards I was rather touched. One of the churchwardens came up to me and thanked me for using their trumpets. These had been a very expensive addition to the specification in 1965. Apparently they had then been played at the Opening Recital – and been silent ever since. I’m glad I could oblige. Such flamboyant pleasures are not to be cast aside lightly.
francis cameron, oxford, 11 february 2011
Thursday, 10 February 2011
hereford cathedral lady chapel
I identify this photograph as taken in 1957 probably soon after I had been persuaded to take up the position of organist and choirmaster at St Mark’s Church in the Marylebone Road, just around the corner from where we lived in Harcourt Street. I was also part-time Deputy Director of Music for the Parks Department of the London County Council, a post I had occupied since 1954. My ‘daytime job’, dating from 1956, was as the inaugural Music Master at the Central Foundation Boys’ Grammar School in Cowper Street, City of London. I guess we were able to get away for a few days because there was a gap between the end of the season for the LCC and the beginning of the autumn term at Cowper Street.
We were in Hereford because the records showed that the Mr Dr John Bull I was interested in had been a choirboy in the cathedral there. The reference books also showed that this particular John Bull was a son of Wellow in Somerset. They were wrong! Dear old chatterbox Anthony à Wood had confused ‘my’ Dr Bull was a similarly named young man who’d been at Brasenose. I’d looked up the wills from Wellow and they didn’t fit the picture of an eminent London-based musician. And the day before we set out I’d tracked down the descendants of the Brasenose John Bull to Parkers bookshop on the corner opposite Blackwells in Broad Street. Off we went. Just the same.
The elderly cathedral librarian had been very courteous, very helpful. He showed me the old record books and would send me a quarter-plate photograph of the entry about John Bull’s appointment as organist there. Then I went on a tour of the building to absorb the atmosphere.
To this photographer in 1957, the Lady Chapel at Hereford posed two problems. The stained glass in the windows needed to be rendered by using an exposure meter to decide on the right aperture. The detail of the altar called for the use of a flashbulb. I consulted my charts and here is the result. Not perfect but enough to carry memories with it when it comes up now and again in the slide show in the corner of my screen.
The horizon is a bit lop-sided. I propose to put that right when I’m more competent with Gimp!
francis cameron, oxford, 10 february 2011
hereford cathedral lady chapel
hereford cathedral lady chapel
I identify this photograph as taken in 1957 probably soon after I had been persuaded to take up the position of organist and choirmaster at St Mark’s Church in the Marylebone Road, just around the corner from where we lived in Harcourt Street. I was also part-time Deputy Director of Music for the Parks Department of the London County Council, a post I had occupied since 1954. My ‘daytime job’, dating from 1956, was as the inaugural Music Master at the Central Foundation Boys’ Grammar School in Cowper Street, City of London. I guess we were able to get away for a few days because there was a gap between the end of the season for the LCC and the beginning of the autumn term at Cowper Street.
We were in Hereford because the records showed that the Mr Dr John Bull I was interested in had been a choirboy in the cathedral there. The reference books also showed that this particular John Bull was a son of Wellow in Somerset. They were wrong! Dear old chatterbox Anthony à Wood had confused ‘my’ Dr Bull was a similarly named young man who’d been at Brasenose. I’d looked up the wills from Wellow and they didn’t fit the picture of an eminent London-based musician. And the day before we set out I’d tracked down the descendants of the Brasenose John Bull to Parkers bookshop on the corner opposite Blackwells in Broad Street. Off we went. Just the same.
The elderly cathedral librarian had been very courteous, very helpful. He showed me the old record books and would send me a quarter-plate photograph of the entry about John Bull’s appointment as organist there. Then I went on a tour of the building to absorb the atmosphere.
To this photographer in 1957, the Lady Chapel at Hereford posed two problems. The stained glass in the windows needed to be rendered by using an exposure meter to decide on the right aperture. The detail of the altar called for the use of a flashbulb. I consulted my charts and here is the result. Not perfect but enough to carry memories with it when it comes up now and again in the slide show in the corner of my screen.
The horizon is a bit lop-sided. I propose to put that right when I’m more competent with Gimp!
francis cameron, oxford, 10 february 2011
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
life
espiegle (fr)
After a recent very pleasant lunch, a French visitor to Oxford apparently described me as espiègle.
According to my 1993 Collins Robert, this translates as mischievous or roguish.
Is this an example of what they now call transparency ? – or is it simply acute immediate perceptiveness?
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
live journal
Monday, 7 February 2011
the magical year of the golden rabbit
A brief guide to Chinese Astrology tells me this is the Golden Year of the Rabbit and that, for me, means that each celebration of the Full Moon is optimum for the making of Magic.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
too long in the past
By the late autumn of last year, when the university term had just begun, I had enough information and explanation to satisfy myself that my outline was justified. Diocletian persecuted the Christians because they did not fully support the fabric of his Empire. Constantine, after a very successful military coup, became joint signatory to the Edict of Milan which allowed freedom of expression to all religions, including Christianity in its varied forms. This really was religious toleration. But, by the end of the century, when Theodosius was the Emperor and Ambrose was the Bishop of Milan, toleration was proscribed, outlawed, in fact. Only one religion was officially permitted and that was the Orthodox (Trinitarian) form of Christianity. For reasons which I cannot yet explain, the Emperor, who should have been all-powerful, had given way to the bishop of his capital city Milan (Mediolanum).
As the term went by and my studies continued I found myself more and more immersed, immired almost, in the last decades of that 4th century. Only now, months later, has it become apparent to me that by sinking so deeply into the past I had begun to take on some of the attributes of that past. I had come to being part of the official belief that there is only one version of the truth. All else being false. It’s not a good state to be in.
At the turn of the year, as the sun began to begin its apparent swing in our northerly direction, a little of the darkness surrounding me began to disburse, to thin out. Black gave way to a slightly greyer shade. And as the days went by that grey grew lighter and lighter. With Imbolc – which my Catholic friends continue to celebrate as the Feast of the Purification of the Blesswed Virgin Mary, also known as Candlemass – the first green intimations of spring began on the edges of my perception.
It was a hard job to shake off the illusion perpetrated in our educational systems : that there is only one right answer to any question, only one version of the truth. Life becomes so much more joyful when that particular burden is dropped at the wayside. And so mote it be.
francis cameron, oxford, 6 february 2011
