Besides that, my first and only acquaintance with Mahler was when I bought his Symphony No 1 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Solti on cassette tape in the 1970′s.  It’s a 1964 recording.  I’d never bought a Mahler recording since, on either cassette tape, LP or CD.

But my enjoyment of the work must have stuck in my mind, because this year, after buying the Olive O4HD and then discovering Presto Classical as a great new source of buying classical CDs, I went Mahler mad, and soon bought two collections of his complete works, and have since bought several individual symphonies for the particular performance.

To be honest, in my short acquaintance this year with the complete works of Mahler, the 8th Symphony has seemed confusing to me, as it seemed to comprise two totally disparate movements.  The awesome 1st movement and the non-event 2nd movement.  I’m only now beginning to realise that there are musical links between the two movements.  When you listen to the whole work, the quieter second movement gradually develops and proceeds towards the stunning finale.  If one is able to concentrate on listening in suitable surroundings. the symphony can become an emotional experience.

The following is a short overview of the symphony, for the purposes of this post.  I’ve taken the material from Wikipedia, but have edited it and rewritten parts of it to suit this post.  Thanks to Wikipedia for the information.   Check the full article here.

The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire. Because it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the “Symphony of a Thousand“, although the work is often performed with fewer than a thousand, and Mahler himself did not sanction the name.

The work was composed in the summer of 1906.  Mahler conducted its first performance in Munich on 12 September 1910.

The structure of the work is unconventional; instead of the normal framework of several movements, the piece is in two parts.

Part I is based on the Latin text of a 9th-century Christian hymn for Pentecost, Veni creator spiritus (“Come, Creator Spirit”), and Part II is a setting of the secular text from the closing passages from Goethe’s 19th-century dramatic poem Faust.  The two parts are unified by a common idea, that of redemption through the power of love, a unity conveyed through shared musical themes.

This leads me  into presenting a series of YouTube videos of the Mahler 8th, recorded by the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain with Sir Simon Rattle conducting.

This is a very interesting series of videos.  As best as I can make out, it’s a recording of a live performance at the Albert Hall, and is not available elsewhere, either as a CD or as a DVD.  If you look carefully at the Hall you will signs for the BBC Proms.  These videos could be from the 2002 Proms, at which Simon Rattle conducted Mahler’s ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.

The videos are cut into segments under 10 minutes as required by YouTube at the time the videos were posted.  Unfortunately, this results in abrupt endings to some videos before you pick up the continuing action in the next video.  The videos have Japanese subtitles, which is not helpful to English speakers, and it looks a little odd.  At first I thought it must be a recording of a concert in Japan, but then I began to notice the unmistakable interior of the Albert Hall.   I’m grateful to The Chrome Dragon that the videos are there at all, and in such good video and audio quality.

So here goes.  By the way, feel free to dive all over the place in the videos to become familiar with what to expect.  And perhaps even watch the last video (Second Movement part 6) first, to hear what the whole work leads up to at its tumultuous finale.

If you can’t appreciate the beauty of this symphony, I’m sorry to say that I suspect you have no soul.

And note that it is a Youth Orchestra.  The players are all so young – and talented.  The singers and choir are mature performers.

INTERMISSION

This morning the royal party left Canberra and flew to Melbourne.  After a one day visit (4-5 hours), the party then flew to Perth where Her Majesty will officially open the bi-annual Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) which starts on Friday.   For a short summary of the Queen’s visit to Melbourne today, I can do no better than look ahead and quote from the Court Circular in The Times of Thursday. 27 October 2011, about the Royal Visit to Melbourne today.

Government House, Perth, Western Australia

26th October, 2011   The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh today visited Melbourne and were received by the Governor of Victoria (the Hon. Alex Chernov) and the Premier of Victoria (the Hon. Ted Baillieu MLA).

Her Majesty and His Royal Highness this morning visited the Royal Children’s Hospital, 50 Flemington Road, Parkville, and were received by the Chairman (Mr. Tony Beddison) and Professor Christine Kilpatrick (Chief Executive Officer).

The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh toured the facilities including Emergency Department, Cardiac In-patient Ward, Intra-operative Magnetic Resonance Imaging suite and the meerkat enclosure.

Her Majesty unveiled a plaque to open the Royal Children’s Hospital.

The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh this afternoon visited the Ian Potter Centre: National Gallery of Victoria Australia, Federation Square, and were received by the Chairman of National Gallery of Victoria Council of Trustees (Mr. Allan Myers) and Lady Potter.

Her Majesty and His Royal Highness toured the indigenous art galleries and met artists and students.

The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh afterwards walked through Federation Square and boarded a tram and proceeded towards Government House.

Her Majesty and His Royal Highness later attended a Reception given by the Governor of Victoria at Government House.

The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh were subsequently entertained to Luncheon by the Governor at Government House.

Her Majesty and His Royal Highness later arrived at Perth International Airport and were received by the Governor of Western Australia (Mr. Malcolm McCusker) and the Premier of Western Australia (the Hon. Colin Barnett MLA).

I’ve been a devoted subject of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II since I began reading about the plans for her coronation since she ascended to the throne in February 1952.  Back then, I was 15 years old, and I used to subscribe to The Illustrated London News and this weekly magazine published beautiful special issues about the Coronation.  It was exciting for me, as a young teenager in a small country town in South Australia, to read about all this grandeur and history, and see the beautiful gravure photographs.  And so it was that I felt compelled to make an effort to see the Queen and Prince Philip, and catch a  train to the city (Flinders Street Station) to arrive opposite Federation Square before the royal party did.  I took the train because I knew there would be road closures and parking problems.  I had made up my mind that even if I didn’t get a glimpse of the Queen, I’d be glad that I’d made the effort, and that I’d enjoy soaking up and being part of the exciting atmosphere.

Once I got to Flinders Street Station, I was amazed by the huge crowds and the police presence and barriers.  I could see that it would be hopeless to cross St Kilda Road at the only two crossing points nearby and try to get a good position in Federation Square.  Later in the day when I watched my TiVo recordings of the visit, I discovered that people had taken up positions in Federation Square as early as 5.30am.  And they were young people in their early 20s.

Because of the crowds I could see across the road in Federation square, I decided to stay under the verandah of the Flinders Street Station.  Here’s my view of Federation Square across St Kilda Road.

As you can see, it’s a very wide boulevard, and much of the view of the other side of the road is blocked by the long tram shelter with its advertising boards.  Take note of the position of the policewoman face the Station crowds.  Just nest to her cap, on the left as we see it, there is a little bit of bright red.  That’s the red carpet.  You can see it better in the following photo I took with the camera at 10x zoom.

At one stage of waiting for the Queen to arrive, the Royal Tram moved into position further north of my viewpoint, but then it made a short trip down to opposite me.  Perhaps it was just testing – or perhaps it was changing tracks.  I was intrigued to see that to my right, a tram recovery vehicle was standing by.  I took a photo of the tram when it was opposite me.

The thing that most impressed me during my wait to see the Queen was the huge and patient crowd that waited to catch even a brief glimpse of Her Majesty.  To be honest I’d come to fear, from reading articles in the Australian media, that the Queen could no longer draw a crowd.   Well, she did that in spades.  And I was delighted to see that most of the people around me were not only young (in their 20s), but many were of Asian and Middle Eastern origin.  Here is a further view of the crowds to my left.

Here’s a video from The Telegraph online, a London newspaper.

The following is a video taken by someone in Federation Square. I was on the other side of St Kilda Road under the verandah of Flinders Street Railway Station, so I didn’t see the Queen this closeup.

Here’s another video taken by someone on the same side of St Kilda Road as I was, but further up, at the corner of Flinders Street. The pan shows the Railway Station frontage, the Cathedral opposite, and the huge crowds trying to catch a glimpse of the Queen. But even if you didn’t see her, it was was worth being there just for the excitement and the atmosphere, which you can’t pick up so well on commercial TV.

This post is a work in progress. I have yet to add the video that I took today. My coverage from the distance is not remotely as good as the videos above, so it will take me a little while, perhaps a week or two, to edit the video to try to make it worth watching.

Please check this post now and again (maybe once a week) to see my video when I’ve added it.

I’ve seen this audio set at Borders for the past two months but have resisted buying it.  I finally decided that it would be helpful.  I half expected that the CD set I’ve seen at Borders for two months, would’ve been sold since my last visit.  But instead, the set was almost everywhere I looked.  Borders had a Dummies promotion going on.

What surprised me was that Italian for Dummies (a normal size Dummies book) was in stock for the first time this year.  I pounced on it.  It comes with one audio CD.

I’ve only been studying the book for three days, and only in small doses, but I’m very impressed with it’s totally different way of explaining pronunciation.

This has led me to a better and more confident way of pronouncing Italian words.

To follow up on my last post, a typical problem I’ve had is how to pronounce the word “giorno.”

The Complete Idiot’s book says that all vowels in Italian are pronounced, but are slid together in the case of dipthongs (two vowels slid together to form one sound. So technically, giorno is pronounced jee-ohr-noh.  But the jee-ohr part should slide together quickly to form johr.  Hence,  johr-noh with a rolled r.

The Dummies book explains this in a totally different way.  It states that an e or i after a g indicates the g should be pronounced the same as j in jam, instead of  the usual g as in get.  Where the Dummies book differs is that it says that to obtain the “j” sound before a,o or u you have to insert an i.  But it then goes on to say, and this is the big difference, that the i serves only to indicate the proper sound of the g, and you do not pronounce it.  Hence giorno is pronounceed johr-noh (and not jee-ohr-noh).

So in words with “ge” or “gi” the g is pronounced with the “j” sound.  To get the “g” sound (as in get) when the g is before an e or i, you insert an h.  And of course h is not pronounced in Italian.  And so we have “spaghetti.”

It’s interesting, but this totally different way of explaining the pronunciation has made it a lot clearer for me.  Instead of trying to remember lots of rules, I’ve now got a different way of looking at it and understanding it.

However, I’m still having trouble with the pronunciation of o.  The Dummies book says it’s o as in piano (which they write as oh as a guide) and leaves it at that.  An example – espresso.   But I know from listening to Italian there are two ways of pronouncing the vowel, often in the same word.  An example – giorno!

You might by now be thinking that I’ve been learning Italian for almost three months and still haven’t got past buon giorno.  That’s quite true.  But it’s just an example of the some of the confusion in my mind from the different books and sources I’ve been using.  I’d like to get it sorted out in my mind.  At this stage I’m interested to learn whether the books are either wrong in places, or different people have different ways of hearing sounds,or whether the books are dumbing it down for beginners, or even just to make it easier for the authors.

The reality is that I can say buon giorno (as no doubt can you) well enough to be understood by any Italian.  But I’ve noticed the differences between books and travel guides, and I’ve perhaps become more interested in the linguistics side of it than in actually learning Italian itself.

As an example, how would you set out how to pronounce the word “question.”

In fact, ask yourself how you pronounce it.  kwes-tee-on?  kwest-chee-on?  kwest-chon?  kwest-shun? or some other way.

I’ve looked it up in the OED and it says kwestjun.  Well sort of. The u is shown in the OED as an upside and back to front e.  That symbol sounds like a in another.

Once I had my iPhone dictionaries, I then began to realise that I needed a more structured approach to learning Italian, and I brought out The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Italian (1st Edition) which I bought from Amazon in 1998. This book almost got tossed out during my big purge and cleanup two years ago, but there was something about it that told me to keep it.

From there I moved to some iPhone apps with spoken Italian words and phrases, a book on Italian grammar, and a book on English grammar for students of Italian, and eventually the Concise Oxford Paravia about which I wrote in an earlier post. If you want to read that post, which is more about prices of books at Borders, search for Paravia in the Search box in the navigation bar above.

Ralph was right on the ball when he suggested that I watch the Italian news on SBS TV, to see what I can learn. This is one of the suggestions in the Complete Idiot’s book. But at this stage, I can’t distinguish any of the words when Italian is spoken at conversational speed. It’s just a string of sounds.

Last night I watched part of an Italian movie on SBS, with subtitles, and once again it sounded foreign to me (that was a joke). The only Italian word I could distinguish was signora. However, I already know enough about the Italian language to recognise that the SBS subtitles were not literal translations of the Italian words spoken.  I suspect the sense of the sentences are translated and paraphrased as they might be said by English speaking characters.  That’s not much help to me and only confirms that I don’t ever expect to be be able to converse in Italian.  But that’s not my aim anyway.  All I’m doing is seeing how much Italian I can pick up over the course of 2010.

Some readers might question that I’m using the 1998 version of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Italian on Your Own as the basis of my study course. They could be right. I am  not, after all, un perfetto idiota  o un completo imbecille. I’m more of a lavori in corso (work in progress).

This evening I changed the Word Press theme I’m using from a magazine style layout to a classic blog style where each blog is seen in full on the blog home page and follow one another in chronological order. As always, you can search for something in the Search feature in the navigation bar at the top of every page, or click on Categories or the tag cloud in the sidebar. To make a comment on any post, click on the title of the post (it changes colour to indicate a link) and you will go to the post’s own page where there is a comment section at the bottom which allows you to make comments and shows other comments made – and you can reply to those comments as well as my post.

Last Monday I went to Borders at Chadstone shopping centre to see what English-Italian learning books they had in stock. They had three copies of the Concise Oxford Paravia Italian Dictionary – but all had different covers and different prices. One had a cover saying it was Second Edition and it had a red sticker stating it was NEW and had colour. It was $93.50. One had no edition information, and the price was $92.95. Another stated it was Third Edition and was $71.95. I might have the prices mixed on the last two books. The Third Edition had less words (175,000) than the Second Edition marked as NEW (180,000 words). All in all I was confused, and I didn’t expect the staff at Borders could explain the difference between the editions, even if I could find any staff.

So in the next two days I did some research on the Internet and even sent an email to Oxford University Press in South Melbourne. It turned out that the Third Edition was a 2003 edition of the dictionary with a CD that used the 3rd edition of Symbian S60 to power the CD-ROM (I suspect), and the Second Edition marked NEW was released only two months ago.

I also discovered that Borders advertised the new Second Edition on their website at $71.95 (not $93.50 as marked on the book at Chadstone). So I printed out the web page and took it to Borders on Wednesday, got the book and took it to a sales counter where I showed the price on the book and the price on their website. I couldn’t believe the response I got.

“We don’t price match.”

“I’m not asking you to price match. It’s the price on your own website.”

“We don’t price match. Not even with our own website.”

Today my faith in human nature was restored when a very pleasant young man knocked on my front door, identified himself, and began explaining the savings advantages of changing from AGL – the default electricity and gas retailer for my area – to Australian Power & Gas. Karlo was soon joined by George (his boss) and Josh (a trainee), and George over for a while to further explain the savings. He also stated that it was a 3-year contract to sign up with Australian Power & Gas, but if during that period another party made a lower priced offer, they would “match and beat” it.

I’ve made a previous post about serendipity, and the two stories above seemed to point to me appreciating an offer today for a contract that would price match (and beat) any other offer during the course of the contract.

I’ve got a cooling off period of 10 days from next Monday to check it all out, including the advice (from Judge Judy, I think) that “If it seems too good to be true, then it probably isn’t true.”

I’d appreciate any comments or thoughts or experiences.

So what does the picture at the head of this post have to do with the content of the post? Absolutely nothing. But it’s from an era that I remember fondly, when I used to ride my bike into town every Saturday morning to visit the Mount Gambier Institute Library and browse the wonderful overseas magazines on the reading tables. It was post war, and in Mount Gambier we didn’t see any of these amazing goods advertised in the Saturday Evening Post, LIFE, National Geographic and  Popular Mechanics from the USA; and The Illustrated London News and Country Life from the UK.  I have great feelings of nostalgia for those days, and seeing the adverts again that I used to drool over arouses those old feelings again.

Today, for Christmas Day, I went to Matthew and Joy’s place for lunch with their family and friends. At the lunch Matthew gave me the present he’d intended to give me for my birthday last month, but for one reason or another (mainly distance) he wasn’t able to hand it to me until today.  So here he is with the gift.

As you can see in the above photo, it’s the Chainsaw Operator’s Manual, which he obtained from Forestworks (which performs a range of industry wide functions acting as the channel between industry, Government and the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) system).  Here is Forestworks description of the manual:

The Chainsaw Operator’s Manual is an essential safety tool for chainsaw operators. It is the ultimate guide to basic chainsaw operating techniques covering safety, maintenance and cross-cutting, but not tree felling. Detailed diagrams illustrate horizontal, vertical and boring cuts, as well as trimming and cross-cutting techniques.

Safety considerations are discussed, including workplace safety, occupational hazards, kick-back and identifying dangerous trees. An explanation of the ‘tension’ and ‘compression’ forces in timber is also provided to help you understand where to begin cutting to avoid jamming the saw.

The book covers chainsaw maintenance in detail, explains all aspects of the equipment and helps you select the right chainsaw and personal protection equipment for your needs. Trouble-shooting charts are included to help you solve operating problems.

This manual has been updated to take into account the most recent changes in nationally accredited competency standards. It is a must-have for anyone operating a chainsaw.

I’ve had a look at the book and it seems to be excellent, and with very detailed and useful information, including sections on chain tensioning, sharpening and cutting techniques, plus personal protection equipment and clothing.

At this stage I haven’t read the booklet from cover to cover, but it seems to very comprehensive in all respects except one.  It talk in several places about chain oil, which is perhaps clue enough, but it doesn’t appear to mention that chain oil is a specific oil sold for chainsaws.  It’s very viscous (thick).  When I bought my B&D cordless electric, I thought that Singer sewing machine oil or equivalent would be all that was needed.  But I didn’t have any at home, so it was only when I asked the store for oil for the chainsaw that I found there was a special oil.

I thoroughly enjoyed Christmas day with very interesting, cheerful and friendly company; wonderfully cooked food (I’d like a guest author to write up on the food) in abundance; and French champagne (there is no other), fine red and white wines, spirits, stout, Irish whiskey and cocktails mixed by an expert.

For me, where Mathhew and Joy live is equivalent to an  interstate trip away, so I was very fortunate that Matthew’s parents (Spencer and Jane) drove me there and back in, very appropriately, a large 4WD suitable for outback driving.

There were better photographers at the lunch than me, so I only took a few shots.  I’d put up a gallery of some of their photos if they wished.

Before lunch started, Darren (spelling to be confirmed, meanwhile, I’ll settle for Derwood as Endora in Bewitched might call her son-in-law Darren), took photos from the roof overlooking the lunch table on the patio. I’ll call this photo of him The Man on the Roof.

NOTE:  Since publishing this post, the man on the roof has written a comment advising that the correct spelling of his name is Daron.  Thanks Daron.

After lunch you can see Daron relaxing with his son Ethan, and watching on are Andrew and his sister, whose name I wouldn’t even attempt to misspell.  More help needed here, please.  In fact, I didn’t even know how to spell misspell, as I thought mispell must be right.  Not so, I looked up the OED on my computer, and it was quite clear on that.  I’ll segue from that into my Boxing Day post.