Reflections on being away

 

As I do mention I go away from time to time for a meet up and have only just arrived back a little lacking in spoons on Tuesday afternoon from South Shropshire.

It may well of been showery when this picture was taken, but that wasn't the internal meteorological forecast because actually it was sunny inside for doing what I feel is the more important thing when you're away like exploring and visiting places and things.

 Not only did I behave myself, I found reserves of fitness as impacted as I am by my disabilities to do the things that until recently I'd of thought twice about like actually walking there and back to the castle in the background, enjoying the Whitcliffe Common Nature reserve along the way surrounded by trees.

It certainly wasn't easy for me with hilly terrain with some mud from the overnight rain difficult to walk through but I actually did it.

I like the things you can do indoors such as quizzes, colouring, arts and crafts and even the odd spot of cookery that connect to littles life in various sometimes not so direct ways but perhaps for me something more like a Brownies camp  in feel and activities is what is more needed?

Remaking the past

There can be little denying that the quality of classical cds not least from analogue tape masters has improved from those early days when I first started buying them and so I have been replacing a few over the years not least when it is the case the recording may not be available on Super Audio cd.

Take this for instance, a classic performance originally issued in 1987 on cd which was reissued briefly in the late 1990's in 2 cd series newly remastered but currently unavailable which I wanted to replace.

That's where that box set that's just came out comes in because it takes in this recording with the Beethoven violin concerto from that 1990's issue and adds some solo Bach and various composer recital disc also issued on a 2 cd set all using those better remastered versions.

The discs are in card inners which for once are wide so little chance of scuffing and comes with booklet.

It is a pity the original front album art was not used on each disc but for the modest price asked this is ideal for not only replacing that 1987 cd but adding more recordings by this highly talents violinist to my collection.

When is it you become "of age"?

 The style of dress was and is a thing but is relative to the standards of the day but the one constant in that was the older, the more 'mature' you were the more sophisticated they tend to be until the point where conventional society sees you as a young adult at which point you would be old enough to work for a wage aka be employed.

Until 1969, in law Adulthood was not said to be fully reached until the age of 21 which corresponds with when you would finish a university degree course and before you both vote and stand for political office.

In 1969 the age of becoming an adult was lowered to 18 years which was reflected in the voting age but it wasn't within recent years that the age to stand for a local authority or as a Member of Parliament was dropped in line with that.

You could leave for work at 14+ until 1972, raised to 15 after then and more recently can only leave before 18 if you have education, training or employment arranged but that would be as a young worker - a older child and paid less.

Thus when we look back at past standards for dress you can easily see why until the late 1960's boys stayed in shorts and girls in pinafore dresses in school because they were seen as very much that and not young adults and they had no need to conform to the same dress and behavioural standards of their parent because society didn't see him as an adult.

Today some boys and girls are pushed into thinking they are older than their years assuming roles that developmentally many are not fully capable of understanding because the brain doesn't stop growing until his early twenties.

In some ways I feel that old standard of adult at twenty one was right although an argument could be made for being able to vote at eighteen as you'd have at least an awareness of the issues and given elections are every four years, the outcome of that would effect you as someone who would become "of age" three years later.

Winter in the Wood

While it was a little cold this week I took a bit of time out to look at what else is around me.

Fortunately here, even in the built up envelope you do have woodland pockets and about a week ago woodland management trimmed some dead wood off to let a bit of light in for new growth.
These trees have been here for over twenty-five years that I can recall.

Even though part of last week was relatively cool, the general temperature trend has been above the seasonal norm so these berries are out all ready.

Surprisingly so are these blossoms in an adjacent hedgerow approaching the built up core that I spotted yesterday while out dodging the ice.
Getting out of the discourse is so much healthier.

Stravinsky on super audio cd

Seeing we are into the new year, we resume the ongoing series around classical music on super audio cd staying very much with one letter-S.
Igor Stravinsky was a Russian composer that really pushed the boundaries of what had been accepted in European classical music, never more so than in his ballet scores of which Le Sacre du Printemps that actually caused a riot in Paris on its début.
The Firebird (L 'Oiseau de fue) was written for the 1910 Paris ballet season and is based around the Russian folk tales of the Firebird and the blessings and curses it brings to its owner.
It was first performed at Opéra de Paris June 25 1910  where it was an instance with public and critics a like.

 For orchestral concerts, a reduced version, the Firebird Suite was devised in 1919 and recordings of both abound.
For a long time the 1959 Mercury recording issued on cd in 1992 and briefly on super audio cd in the early 2000's have been the 'to go' version for recording quality and interpration.
More recently Sweden's BIS label issued this modern stereo and multi-channel  version which comes extremely close to matching that making for a modern replacement in Super Audio (as well as regular cd) with the improvements high resolution digital recording can bring.
It is coupled with orchestrations by Stravinsky of works originally by Chopin,Sibelius and Tchaikovsky.
While during the nineteen-sixties increasingly stereo recordings and matching equipment superseded monaural high fidelity, in the recording studios and research centres people were looking toward  not just sounds from left and right but also how to transmit the ambience of a concert hall into a living room for greater realism.
This lead to "Quadraphonic sound" with two speakers left and right behind you as well as the by now standard front left and right to send that additional sonic signature (and in popular music, effects too).
As was the requirements of that era the results were recorded for lp record and tape and an artist and composer who featured was  Pierre Boulez with the New York Philharmonic conducting the works of Stravinsky.

 From those sessions the British company Dutton Vocalian have re-issued in stereo and quadraphonic two lps in that series Petrushka with David Jacobs on piano originally issued in 1972 and the Pulcinella suite from 1978 on a single Super Audio cd that plays for just under 80 minutes.
These interpretations have stood the test of time and in this disc that also plays on regular cd too, Michael Dutton's mastering from the original analogue tapes affords the best sound these recordings have ever had .
I personally found both of these discs hugely enjoyable for the playing as well as sound.

Changestwobowie redux

On Wednesday I went out armed with a remaining HMV store voucher and some cash from Christmas at least in part because of that store groups current crisis is in 'administration' with the intention of getting the odd thing I'd not got around to.

In June of 2016 I wrote about the vinyl re-issue of the iconic ChangesOneBowie compilation lp - a kind of greatest hits - originally issued in 1976 but on April 13th last year the follow up issued some five years later was also reissued but I hadn't gotten around to getting a copy.

Originally issued in November of 1981 on RCA records, it followed the format of the first volume with a seamless selection of  songs split for lp across two sides with a fairly plain blue rear with a large capitalized tracklisting.

I remember seeing this at a record store I frequented around late 1981/2 looking almost lost around the other major releases of the era and a part of this stems from David having no input into the track selection which has it odd points as it features 1984 from the Diamond Dogs album but not his more recent hit, 1979's Boys Keep Swinging and as this compilation goes back to 1971 for its selection it failed to sum up what mattered in that year so much effected by the "Berlin trilogy" albums (Low,Heroes and The Lodger) and Scary Monsters.

 That was an influence on not buying it until the cd era - have the super rare RCA cd from 1984 - and I wasn't alone as the sales figures were much lower for this than it the first installment.

This is in spite of having the disco remake that is John I'm Only Dancing (Again) that was never on a studio album.

The record was re-issued in both standard black vinyl 180 grams and blue, which like with the re-issued ChangesOneBowie with it being pot luck as to which version you got as there's no indication on the lp jacket
.
Mine is the rarer blue vinyl one shown above where you'll see  they have stylized "Bowie" to pass at first sight for the 1980's RCA records logo on the left and the reminder of the typesetting mimics the RCA label of that era.

 The record itself is housed in a smooth-sided card sleeve that is a close replica of the original that removes any reference to RCA Records and his narration on the record of Peter and the Wolf that RCA issued and was advertised originally.

Looking at it in 2018/9, the pair of albums to sum up as well as one might expect his main era and for some of us the soundtracks of our lives nay childhoods even and so sound better than the original editions did.

Whereas on cd the 1993 deleted The Singles Collection sums his career up better to 1987, I think for a vinyl based part nostalgic look these two albums do work well.

Previous entry:

Mid Jan Round up

/div>It's been something of a mixed week with being a bit busy with the build up to February tidying up the desktop of the old Windows laptop and things.

Apart from about six days of low temperature it has been a fairly mild winter here to the point that I noticed while out some of spring flowers had started to burst out of the school gardens I pass most days here and in fact going toward a patch of woodland, you can actually see the pussy willows and catkin out which was something always loved as a kid.

There has been some strong stormy days out mixed in this so apart from running my adult little gurl Tumblr account and visiting the odd site, I have been doing some colouring.

 No that's not a miracle, I do actually have fingers not that they work so well, trying hold that page down as I took a picture of it with an old camera lens mount in its box holding done a sheet of spare paper.

Yes, they are small fingers too so I have to wear girls gloves as groan up ones are too big!!!

The lambs were out this weekend as I walked past their field and their was quite a bit of activity on the bird front.

I did also redo some minidiscs one using an early edition of a title that sounded better and had another bunch of six brand new blank ones arrive here to keep me busy.

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