Top ten Kochel numbers:
K498, for its wonderful finale: "the ultimate expression of feeling in form"
according to Tovey.
K464, A major is always special in Mozart.
K503, for its powerful and complex first movement especially.
K622, clarinet! A major as well.
K581, clarinet, A major as well!
K551, especially the bit in the finale when all four themes are played
simultaneously.
K492, a perfect reconciliation drama.
K201, an earlier A major miracle.
K364, the largest scale symphonic structure he had then written.
K388, Romantic C minor.
Walking in the mountains is a favourite but rarely indulged pastime.
About mountains it is useless to argue.
You have either been up or you haven't;
The view from half-way is nobody's view.
The best flowers are mostly at the top
Under a ledge, nourished by wind.
A sense of smell is of less importance
Than a sense of balance, walking on clouds
Through holes in which you can see the earth
Like a rich man through the eye of a needle.
The mind has its own level to find.
- R.S. Thomas, Tares, 1961.
Top ten Lake District days out:
Scafell Pike from Seathwaite. Go up by Grains Gill and Esk Hause, take in Great End if there is time, back by the corridor route to Styhead Pass and return to Borrowdale.
Bowfell and Crinkle Crags from Langdale. Ascend the Band, around the Climbers Traverse and to the summit via the Great Slab. Then down to Three Tarns and traverse Crinkle Crags, taking one's time, return to Langdale.
The Coledale Round from Braithwaite. First of all, up Grisedale Pike by the North Ridge, then to Hopegill Head. Descend over Sand Hill to Coledale Hause and up onto Eel Crag. Descend over Sail to Sail Pass, then take the old mine road, leaving the path to go up Outerside, then across the moor to Barrow and back down the grassy ridge into Braithwaite.
Hindscarth and Dalehead from Newlands. Up the lovely sharp ridge of Scope End onto the summit of Hindscarth. Traverse around a rocky ridge to Dalehead. Back down to Dalehead Tarn and down Newlands.
Great Gable from Rosthwaite. Walk up the valley to Seathwaite over the fields. A scramble up Sourmilk Gill into the magnificient and little known hanging valley of Gillercombe. Follow a newly restored path (a few hundred yards of which were paid for in memory of my father) out of Gillercombe onto Green Gable, then a short drop and a scramble onto Great Gable, following everyone else. To return, re-trace your steps to Green Gable, but then keep to the ridge, crossing Brandreth and Grey Knotts before descending to Honister Pass. After a brief encounter with envehicled grockles, descend to Seatoller via the old coach road and then back to Rosthwaite by the river.
Wastwater to Black Sail Youth Hostel, via Red Pike and Pillar. Starting from Wasdale Youth Hostel, walk round the lake to Overbeck Bridge. Then start up the ridge of Yewbarrow but traverse around the valley of Overbeck to Dore Head. The real climb up Red Pike starts then. From Red Pike divert over Scoat Fell (very stony) then over Black Crag and onto Pillar. Descend the ridge to Black Sail Pass, then descend to the head of Ennerdale and the most remote Youth Hostel in the Lake District.
Rosthwaite to Glaramara and Esk Pike. Across the fields to Mountain View cottages, then up the North Ridge of Glaramara to its summit. An up and down path with splendid views connects to Allen Crags, then a short drop onto Esk Hause, and up the imposing final 500 feet onto Esk Pike. Back either along Langstrath or via Sprinkling Tarn to Styhead and Seathwaite. Either way is a long trek back to Rosthwaite.
Blencathra via Halls Fell. Back via a perilous descent of Sharp Edge to Scales Tarn. Not good if it is wet and slippery.
The Buttermere fells. Start at Buttermere, around the south shore of the lake and climb to Scarth Gap. Up to High Crag via the loose stones of Gamlin End. An easy ridge walk over High Stile and Red Pike, then a steep descent on a newly restored path to Buttermere. Very slippery under the trees.
Patterdale via Striding Edge to Helvellyn. Return via Swirrel Edge and Catstycam.
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen.
Middlemarch - George Elliot
Dombey and Son - Charles Dickens
Changing places - David Lodge
The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman - Laurence Sterne
Howards End - E.M. Forster
Till we have faces - C.S. Lewis
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
- R.S. Thomas, Laboratories of the spirit, 1975.
I praise you because
you are artist and scientist
in one. When I am somewhat
fearful of your power,
your ability to work miracles
with a set-square, I hear
you murmuring to yourself
in a notation Beethoven
dreamed of but never achieved.
You run off your scales of
rain water and sea water, play
the chords of the morning
and evening light, sculpture
with shadow, join together leaf
by leaf, when spring
comes, the stanzas of
an immense poem. You speak
all languages and none,
answering our most complex
prayers with the simplicity
of a flower, confronting
us, when we would domesticate you
to our uses, with the rioting
viruses under our lens.
- R.S. Thomas, Laboratories of the spirit, 1975.
They brought no edifying
Information back. It was the moon
Goddess they went to inspect,
Her gold hair, her gold thighs.
An absence of beauty
Oppressed them:
The flesh that was like
Pumice, a woman weary
Of hauling at
The slow tides.
Godhead, it
Seems, is best left
To itself; it is a fire
Extinguished, a luminary whose
Spent light reaches us still.
- R.S. Thomas, Young and Old, 1972.
Enough that we are on our way;
never ask of us where.
Some of us run, some loiter:
some of us turn aside
to erect the Calvary
that is our signpost, arms
pointing in opposite directions
to bring us in the end
to the same place, so impossible
is it to escape love. Imperishable
scarecrow, recipient of our casts-off,
shame us until what is a swear-
word only becomes at last
the word that was in the beginning.
- R.S. Thomas, Mass for hard times, 1992.