Tonight’s episode brought to you by Alexander Den Heijer and Tolkien

“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”

“Not all who wander are lost.”

It has been a strange week. I have needed reminded several times that there is a world outside my own smog. I am lucky enough to have colleagues who have ‘the touch’. I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘teacher whispering’; however, I think there should be. You know who you are. I thank you.

Some of the wonderful things this week have been unexpected. Some of the wonderful things this week have been wonderful precisely because I was worried they had disappeared from my world and found they had not.

First the flowers – growing beautifully.

Learners in the Advanced Higher class supplied much gold dust. They are presenting. We are looking at poetry through time. My ‘demonstration’ presentation was on Henryson’s The Testament of Cresseid from the 15th century. They are gradually bringing us up to date. This week’s contributions have been outstanding.

Gems have included:

John Dowland’s Flow my Tears 1596, being a bit like a Renaissance take on “Cry me a River”.

Wordsworth’s The World Is Too Much with Us 1802-ish – how do we think Wordsworth would feel now, having thought as he did 200 years ago and watching what we’ve done with the world and society since then? There are also resonances with Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) where infants are taught to hate flowers as there is no profit in them.

During the presentation on Browning’s Oh to be in England, (1845), the presenter used the expression that ‘April will soon melt into May’ and I don’t think I will ever again think of the change of seasons in quite the same way.

Rosetti’s A Daughter of Eve (1875) was described as about a woman abandoned and neglected in body, mind, and spirit. The ‘comfortless cold moon’ (because of what we’ve already explored in mythology) suggests that she has been rejected by Artemis, taking us back to the scorned woman, Cresseid. There was also a side discussion about the fallen woman and what that concept says about society.

There is one presentation outstanding and I can’t wait.

At another degree, Nat 4 candidates have been presenting their AVUs on song lyrics. The Student Teacher remarked on the wonderful warm and welcoming environment in the classroom. I felt so proud. Watching them share their knowledge and insights has been wonderful. They are not the most gifted academically but they know what they know and they believe passionately in their choices. I have smiled so many times. And, I smile now thinking of them. Blooming.

One of the truly terrible things about Covid for me personally is not being able to make music with others. It is not like breathing: I can survive. But, oh the sadness . . . I have quite often felt as if I were ‘some otherwhere’. The German word is Sehnsucht. I love the fact that there is a single word that encapsulates what I would take paragraphs to explain. The Inuit have polysynthesis and lexemes when it comes to words for snow. As was evidenced when I was interviewed for a book once about my writing of music, I find it incredibly difficult to articulate what it feels like, what it brings me and why I do it, must do it.

Anyway, I finished a major piece of work this week and am looking forward to hearing it. Quite how that is going to be achieved in the current climate is yet to be resolved. But, for the moment, I have a Sibelius-generated CD to imagine is real singers and real musicians – and we are all making the music together.