THE walls of Rose Cholmondeley’s Kensington apartment are decorated with curious musical memorabilia. Portraits of a young man gaze down upon a grand piano, observing the musician’s practice. There can be no doubt about the topic of conversation: Frédéric Chopin is a lifelong passion of pianist Lady Rose, president and co-chair of the Chopin Society.
It was almost an inevitable love affair. Lady Rose is a descendant of Charlotte de Rothschild, a favorite pupil of Chopin’s and the dedicatee of the Fourth Ballade and the Waltz in C-sharp Minor. The young Lady Rose didn’t play much of the repertoire herself until she began lessons in Paris with Louis Kentner, a former president of the Chopin Society. She joined in 1983.
Most of Britain’s composer societies were conceived pre-internet when finding like-minded individuals required more than a chatroom or hashtag. Then, as now, they offered a chance to discover more about a particular oeuvre of music, but they often had a more altruistic objective, too.
When Elgar died in 1934, his music quickly fell from favor. ‘It was felt that Elgar’s sound represented the Imperial past—something that has since been debunked,’ explains Andrew Neill, a former chairman of the Elgar Society, set up in 1951 by conductor Adrian Boult to reinstate Elgar’s music.
Denne historien er fra February 12, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 12, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
