Monday, December 17, 2007

A child of our time

- Konzertkritik von little D. -

Um in der Vorweihnachtszeit auch mal zur Ruhe zu kommen, haben wir schon Anfang Oktober Karten für ein Konzert im Barbican gekauft. Wir mögen den herausragenden, charmanten chinesischen Pianisten Lang Lang sehr und versuchen, wann immer es geht, eines seiner Konzerte zu besuchen (was uns immerhin etwa zweimal pro Jahr einen tollen Abend beschert; einer der Vorteile, wenn man in London lebt).


Gestern also spielte das London Symphony Orchestra unter der Leitung von Sir Colin Davis zwei Stücke von Michael Tippett (1905 - 1998). Wir sind nicht so sehr begeistert von moderner klassischer Musik, beim Kartenkauf ist uns gar nicht aufgefallen, dass es sich bei Tippett um einen Komponisten des 20. Jahrhunderts handelt. Unser Glück, sonst hätten wir das Konzert vielleicht nicht besucht.
Zuerst wurde ein Piano Concerto gespielt mit Lang Lang am Flügel. Das war bemerkenswert schön, aber nicht atemberaubend schön.


Nach der Pause stand "A Child of Our Time" auf dem Programm. Hier könnt Ihr eine kleine Kostprobe hören: (Es ist nur ein kleiner Ausschnitt, der eine Ahnung vermittelt. Unglaublich, was man bei You tube alles findet... ALLES!)



Tippett hat "A Child of Our Time" zwischen 1939-41 komponiert. Es ist ein Orchesterstück mit Chor und 4 Solosängern, die folgende (authentische) Geschichte erzählen: 1938 wurde in Paris ein deutscher Diplomat von einem polnischen Juden aus Verzweiflung und Wut über die Judenverfolgung und die Verfolgung seiner Familien durch die Nazis erschossen. Dieses Ereignis (u.a.) führte zur Reichspogromnacht am 9. November, die als organisierter Pogrom den Übergang von der administratitiven und legislativen Diskriminierung zur offenen Verfolgung der jüdischen Bevölkerung und dem Holocaust markiert. Tippett, selbst Pazifist (wofür er 1943 inhaftiert wurde), war so entsetzt, dass er "A Child of Our Time" komponierte. Dieses Stück war sein erstes großes öffentliches Statement als Künstler.

"The world turns on its dark side.
It is winter."

Damit beginnt der Chor. (
Der London Symphony Chorus war toll, auch die Solisten waren großartig. Ich hatte mehrfach Gänsehaut.)

"Now in each nation there were some cast out by authority and
tormented, made to suffer for the general wrong.
Pogroms in the east, lynching in the west;
Europe brooding on a war of starvation,
And a great cry went up from the people."

Das Stück ist gewaltig, einfühlsam, bewegend. Am Ende etwas zu hoffnungsvoll, schaut man sich den Lauf der Geschichte an.
Der Abend war anders, als wir es erwartet hatten.

Friday, December 14, 2007

A bit of home abroad

Last weekend we spent a day in Birmingham. This was not a long-time-ago-planned-trip (as is our trip to Cornwall one day in the indefinite future...). Anyway, it is always nice to see a bit of England.

Birmingham, in the West Midlands, is the second largest city in England with approximately 2.3 Million people. It has a lot of nice, modern architecture and more canals than Venice. In the City center you would not think that Birmingham was once a model in the Industrial Revolution. Unfortunately, there are no guided walks in winter (so we cannot tell about hidden treasures) and it rained the whole Saturday anyway.

We went to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Very nice and warm, especially nice was the Victorian building itself.

But: the highlight of the day was Birmingham's Frankfurt Christmas market! With more than 90 stalls it is the largest authentic German market outside of Germany and Austria. Truly authentic!! The market has everything a Christmas market needs: Glühwein (mulled wine), Feuerzangenbowle (fire punch), German grilled sausages, Garlic bread, chocolate coated fruit, a lot of wooden crafts, mittens, candles, Glühweinbonbons, herbs, all the things no one needs, ... actually all the stuff you have at the Frankfurt Christmas market as well. Little D. was soo delighted!! It even smelled like the Frankfurt one!!!!

Because of the rain, we didn't take pictures, but here is one of the Frankfurt market:

Isn't this the right place to visit to get into the Christmas mood? Ideally with a bunch of friends...

We are ready for Christmas now. ;-)


Sunday, December 02, 2007

Other people's research

Some might have the impression that our research is kinda odd. NO. Look at this:

Every year in October, at Harvard University the ig nobel prizes are bestowed upon some of the `top' academic achievers - willing or unwilling. This year we completely forgot about this ceremony until some days ago. But then, as every year: rolled on the floor laughing. We have to share this.

The ig nobel prizes reward all that is bizarre, weird and improbable in real-life scientific research. It is not as profitable as the nobel prizes, but what is a lot of money against a good laugh?

Here are some of this year's winners:

The medicine ig nobel prize goes to Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, USA, for their penetrating medical report "Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects" (in: British Medical Journal, December 23, 2006, vol. 333, pp. 1285-7.)
Witcombe and Meyer asked 110 sword swallowers from 16 countries for information on the technique and complication of sword swallowing. 46 sword swallowers gave the requested information. Their conclusion: Sword swallowers run a higher risk of injury when they are distracted or adding embellishment to their performance; but injured performers have a better prognosis than patients who suffer iatrogenic perforation.
Who would have guessed?

The physics ig nobel prize was awarded to L. Mahadevan of Harvard University, USA, and Enrique Cerda Villablanca of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, for studying how sheets become wrinkled. ("Wrinkling of an Elastic Sheet Under Tension," E. Cerda, K. Ravi-Chandar, L. Mahadevan, in: Nature, vol. 419, October 10, 2002, pp. 579-80; " Geometry and Physics of Wrinkling," E. Cerda and L. Mahadevan, in: Physical Review Letters, fol. 90, no. 7, February 21, 2003, pp. 074302/1-4; "Elements of Draping," E. Cerda, L. Mahadevan and J. Passini, in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 101, no. 7, 2004, pp. 1806-10.)
That does not sound so weird at all - to us.

The chemistry ig nobel prize goes to Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, - and this is really a new step - for developing a way to extract vanillin -- vanilla fragrance and flavoring -- from cow dung.
By the way: Toscanini's Ice Cream, the finest ice cream shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, created a new ice cream flavor in honor of Mayu Yamamoto, and introduced it at the Ig Nobel ceremony. The flavor is called "Yum-a-Moto Vanilla Twist."

There is also an ig nobel prize for linguistics. Awarded are Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Nùria Sebastiàn-Gàlles, of Universitat de Barcelona, for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards. ("Effects of Backward Speech and Speaker Variability in Language Discrimination by Rats," Juan M. Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 31, no. 1, January 2005, pp 95-100.)

And one more:
The ig nobel prize of aviation goes to Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek of Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina. They discovered that Viagra aids jetlag recovery in hamsters. ("Sildenafil Accerlerates Reentrainment of Circadian Rhythms After Advancing Light Schedules," Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek, in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, no. 23, June 5 2007, pp. 9834-9.) Good to know.

At last our favourite:
The peace ig nobel prize. This would really make a difference: The Air Force Wright Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio, USA, was awarded for instigating research & development on a chemical weapon -- the so-called "gay bomb" -- that will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other. ("Harassing, Annoying, and Bad Guy Identifying Chemicals", Wright Laboratory, WL/FIVR, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, June 1, 1994.)