Lohengrin and The St George's Day Raid 1918

A week full of activity after Palermo to get the system working again. Super luncheon party chez Magda, irreverent member of my Thursday evening group, followed by the arrival of three of the much-loved Cologne Mafia on Wednesday with the immediate purpose of taking me to the Brussels Opera to see Wagner’s Lohengrin, my first Wagner opera. The occasion was splendid in the lovely

Enjoying the interval at tbe Brussels Opera House

19th century Opera House with a theatre full of people apparently all drinking champagne [and beer!] in the interval. I loved the way the stage was managed, chiefly by a huge rotating rotunda which was multi-purpose in incorporating a large choir when needed; gave space for other characters and scenes to be introduced, thus adding depth and movement to several interludes; and finally provided a half-hidden landscape for secret or overheard conversations. A brilliant device. The music was, well, Wagner; imperious, tempestuous, gracious, soul-searing; not easy, not straightforward; often, not comfortable but wildly varied and vividly emotional. The whole concept came together harmoniously with superb musicianship
[large and excellent orchestra; wonderful singers]and for me, after my apprehension about attending a Wagnerian opera, it was a spectacular success. A night to be remembered.

NOT the bougainvillea but the resident rhododendron
in full floral mode.

Between outings and naps for refreshment purposes, I repaired to the terrace, shameful under the sun in its winter neglect. But solo efforts, greatly enhanced by sterling work from the Boyz, soon enhanced the initial shabby appearance of my little estate. It is still not finished but a work well in progress with the addition today, Wednesday, of a tall Bougainvillea in bright pink. A little South of France ambitious perhaps but hopeful!

Colossal defensive U-boat bunker, Brugge harbour

Roger and June who pass through Bruges every year or so, entertained me to a fab lunch at de Belegde Boterham on Tuesday when we took the opportunity to ‘catch up!’ while enjoying creative and delicious food.

I took their advice later to go round the exhibition, The Battle for the North Sea, in the Provinciaal Hof in the Markt, which had started, unsung, on St George’s Day, April 23. The Provinciaal Hof is the 19^th century Gothic Revival building in the Markt and was from where the Admiral of the Marinekorps Flandern, Ludwig von Schroder, co-ordinated and organised the German defence of the Belgian Coast during the First World War. The Provinciaal Hof was, in effect, the HQ of the Imperial German Navy in occupied Flanders. Brugge was occupied on 14 October 1914 and the Admiralty in Berlin realised at once that the harbours of Zeebrugge, Ostende and especially Brugge, were potentially ideal U-boat bases. Located twelve kilometres inland, Brugge harbour offered protection to the small yet formidable submarine units which used the canals leading to Ostende and Zeebrugge to reach the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Eventually, a colossal concrete bunker holding 8 U-boats was constructed in Brugge harbour.

The U-boats achieved increasingly spectacular results during 1914/15; indeed by May 1 1918,

Some of the 16 British soldiers captured during the Zeebrugge 

Raid. Here, awaiting certain death, they thought,  but when the

Germans arrived to capture them, they only took photographs 

before imprisoning them!

German U-boats had sunk 2,50100 tonnes of Allied shipping, totalling 2554 vessels. It was in response to this overwhelming destruction, all other defensive attempts to protect British ships having failed, that a plan was formed to disable the sea lock in Zeebrugge through which all German shipping had to pass. Simultaneous attacks on Zeebrugge and Ostende harbours would scuttle British ships filled with concrete to block the entrance to both harbours. The exhibition tells the U-boat history in Flanders, and of the highly risky and ambitious St George’s Day Raid on April 23rd 1918 which ended in only partial success for the Allies, enabling both sides to claim victory.

Torpedo hoisted aboard in Brugge harbour.

There are splendid contemporary photographs, charts and memorabilia in the exhibition, both of the history of U-boats and of the Raid itself, and, in Room 1, most poignantly, there are photographs and details of the eleven British men awarded Victoria Crosses that day, one hundred years ago. The number awarded from one battle on one day was historically unprecedented and this is the first time in 100 years that the eleven VC medals have been gathered together. Rather sadly, for the 'other ranks' there was actually a ballot of names for the V.C. awards, there being up to 100 men who were considered to have acted sufficiently bravely to merit one. There is a letter to one man whose name did not feature in the eleven, informing him that he was being considered.

Last photo of UB-29, missing 13 Dec 1916.

Discovered Aug 2017 off Ostende, the best-preserved U-boat relic.

22 men remained on board; now respected as a war grave.

All this history ... and ice cream too.

Roman amphitheatre, Segesta

Just re-acclimatising myself to Beloved Brugge post my Palermo interlude. And what an interlude! The images are swirling around my mind but the ones which still most impress are of the stunning archaeological remains and the wondrous mosaics. Of course there is more to Palermo than these but the numerous UNESCO heritage sites are quite extraordinary and probably, unique.

The Little Hunt; mosaic from Piazza Armerina

The mid-12th century Duomo in Monreale is perhaps the overwhelming and most awe-inspiring sight I saw. Ten centuries after its creation [and built in ten years only in the mid 1170s] it retains its golden sheen and its fluid, pictorial narratives to dazzle modern tourists as much as it inspired awe and exultation in the minds and spirits of early mediaeval man.

Chamber of the Ten Maidens aka

Room of the Bikini Girls.

But, tying for first place is also the stunning Roman villa complex at Piazza Armerina. Constructed along four terraces on four levels, in three phases, in the early 4^th century A.D. for a highly-placed official or aristocrat, quite probably the Governor of Sicily, the monumental staircase, enormous halls and passages, gymnasium, complex bathing areas and private apartments, speak of luxury and wealth. There are the remains of 62 rooms but the most thrilling and well-preserved sights are of the copious number of mosaic pavements. The villa was inhabited for around 150 years and was finally abandoned after a huge mudslide in 1170 and despite the visible remains of taller structures, the area was farmed and the treasures below, chiefly forgotten until the discovery of some mosaics in the nineteenth century although the first professional excavation was not until 1929.

 There were more UNESCO World Heritage sites from the amazing Valle dei Tempi near Agrigento

Greek Temple, Segesta

to the tiny simple church of San Cataldo in Palermo with its Norman Arab architectural echoes, and then the majesty of the Capella Palatina. All variously impressive in beauty and narrative, and also in pointing to the layered history of Sicily with its thousands of years of conquest by different civilisations.
Ancient Greek temples, Roman theatres, Arabic street plans, Byzantine/Norman churches; all reminders of past occupations which contributed to the multi-cultural jigsaw that is Sicily.

Teatro Massimo, third biggest Opera House in Europe.

But there was also the delight of a guided tour of the Teatro Massimo and a performance of the Wizard of Oz for approximately1000 small children bubbling over with excitement. And the Teatro Argento, one of the puppet theatres with its magical marionettes and bloodthirsty dramas. Plus the great street food and the outdoor incredibly noisy, full-on markets. All not to be missed!

Mosaic, Monreale

Obviously there are informative guide books to be read and the danger to be avoided of forcing people to view one’s holiday snaps but I just had to write a little about Palermo;




chaotic, frenetic, dirty and litter-strewn, poor but fiercely independent, exuberantly and deliberately anti-any-and-all regulations, hugely vibrant and open and welcoming. Sicily is even more Italian than Italy I would say though, in truth, the Sicilians differ greatly, historically and culturally, from the Italians. In fact, Sicily feels unique and Palermo, its capital city, captures the essence of the island in all its quixotic glory and in spite of its many burdens.

Changing the scenery at the Teatro Argento dei Pupi. 

Haute Lecture: Colard Mansion

Reputedly, a drawing of Colard Mansion, right lower corner

Shorn of the over-long Dutch classes and the over-arduous exertion required to meet those demands, feelings of freedom broke out yesterday, Friday 30 March, and at long last I had the time to go to the Groeninge Museum to see the much-advertised exhibition on a famous resident of Brugge, the scribe, translator, eventual printer Colard Mansion, resident here from 1457-1484. Nothing is known of his birthplace or early life nor of his life after 1484 when he completely disappeared from the known world! The priests of Sint Donaas allegedly remarked, 'Colard Mansion is gevlucht!' [Colard Mansion is fled!] at his sudden disappearance in 1484, and without paying the rent due on his atelier in Sint Donaas. The first printed reference to his presence here was in 1457 but it is likely that he lived here before that date.

A page from Colard Mansion's

Ovide Metamorphose

I found the exhibition thrilling, with an impressive range of Mansion exhibits gathered from across Europe and the U.S. The innovative audio guide really enhanced the knowledge available to the lay person but the many stars of the show, huge illustrated Mansion books and manuscripts, were dazzling. The experts who put together the material, headed by Ludo Vandamme from Bruges Library, assembled a variety of manuscripts, illuminated incunabulae and rare prints and books to tell the most important part of the Mansion narrative. [Incunabula, a new word to me, refers to early printed material before 1500.] Perhaps the most stunning of the Mansion exhibits are the Boccaccio and the Ovide Metamorphose, both richly extraordinary in the majesty of the concept, size and realisation.

William Caxton

Brugge in the mid fifteenth century was an international economic and cultural hub. Indeed, late mediaeval Bruges was the market par excellence for fashionable and high-quality products and with the active patronage of Philip the Good, followed inevitably by the aristocratic elite, there were unprecedented opportunities for scribes, miniaturists, printers and bookbinders in Bruges. Mansion began as a scholarly scribe, a skilled copyist, but one document shows that by 1457, the first mention of his name suggests that he already held a certain position in the administrative networks of the city. This experience plus his history of producing richly- illuminated manuscripts, were perfectly timed to coincide with the appearance of book printing, stemming from the revolutionary and iconic Gutenberg Bible in 1455 printed in Mainz by Johannes Gutenberg.

A page from Mansion's Boccaccio.

In actuality, a huge and

sumptuous volume.

Mansion produced illuminated manuscripts only for the luxury market but the advent of printing enabled him to begin to move into luxury book production in the 1470s. He collaborated with William Caxton and produced a Book of Hours in 1475/6, for the English market, long a magnet for Bruges' manuscripts. Soon after this, Caxton returned to England and what had begun as a quest for Mansion into the mechanical production of manuscripts, moved into a fully-fledged luxury book production business. Mansion developed into an assured and courageous entrepreneur, deftly developing his printing and publishing business while remaining an admired scribe, comfortable with Latin, firmly established in a French-speaking world with its strong connection to the wealthy Burgundian court and drawing almost exclusively on a French language body of material for his books.

Caxton served as Governor to the English Nation of Merchant

Adventurers for many years and almost certainly

lived and worked in this building.

Mansion's place of work was in the Burg, in the

precincts of Sint Donaas.

This blog is an enthusiastic introduction only; seriously-interested readers should go to the museum and buy the splendid book, Colard Mansion. Incunabula, Prints and Manuscripts in Medieval Bruges. It contains many scholarly but accessible essays on various aspects of Mansion's life and work.

The Wurtlitzer Connection

Pre-Triennale foundations in the canal along the Potterierei.

 Sunday morning, March 25^th, I delivered something to a friend’s house then wandered along the Potterierei and was quite taken by a large, heavy-looking structure in the water, almost certainly a foundation for an art installation in the Triennale due to open in mid-May. The first Triennale in 2015 was most diverting and interesting. It involved around 18 structures – artistic creations often with narratives added, by various artists and, I think, architects, at points around the city. I loved the unexpected and thought-provoking attention it aroused among residents and tourists. I await Triennale 2, named The Liquid City, impatiently.

Towards the end of the canal, before the Dampoort, I stopped for a coffee at Het Molenhuis, already open at 10.00 a.m. though quite far from the centre and thirsty tourists. My padded jacket enabled me to sit outside and read but when I went inside to pay, a great delight was on show. A genuine Wurtlitzer had been installed and it instantly took me back to the very occasional visit to the cinema when I was young and the more regular visits of early womanhood. Glamour; music; excitement!

' T Molenhuis

Rudolph Wurtlitzer

1829-1914

The owner corrected my immediate assumption; it was not an early original but a reproduction, he said. Couldn’t wait to go googlen, as they write here! Wurtlitzer has been synonymous with up-to-the-minute juke-boxes since the early Thirties and if I had thought of them at all, I would have assumed they were now defunct.

Oh the joys of finding out stuff online! The Wurtlitzer family began making musical instruments in the seventeenth century in Saxony but the ‘father’of the original American company was Rudolph, born in 1829. He emigrated to America, against his father's wishes, at the age of 24 and in 1856 founded the Rudolph Wurtlitzer Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, initially to import his family’s instruments though eventually Rudolph moved into manufacturing himself. His factory produced the first Wurtlitzer piano in 1880 followed by the first coin-operated electric piano, the Tonophone, in 1896 which became an overnight sensation and won a gold medal at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, in 1901. So by the age of forty, Rudolph was demonstrating a flair for innovation and commercial creativity!

Close-up of a Mighty Wurtlitzer

Historical coincidence often provides a wonderful niche when innovation miraculously discovers a developing and amenable context and thus it was for Rudolph. The Wurtlitzer Company’s inventive flair and use of advanced technology happened synonymously with the advent of silent films and the Mighty Wurtlitzers created an instant impact. These fostered Wurtlitzer-driven sound tracks to the movies and led eventually to the first patented jukebox machines in 1933. They could produce bird tweets, thunder rolls, steam engine roars and car horn hoots! Europe's largest and still playable Mighty Wurtlitzer with over 1000 pipes and 299 stops, is today housed in Berlin's Musical Instrument Museum.

Farny Wurtlitzer, Rudolph’s successor, had the vision to add highly-skilled professionals to his entourage to design and market what became the Wurtlitzer Debutante. By the late 1930s, the Company was producing around 45,000 juke-boxes a year!

In the late 1930s and throughout the 40s the Wurtlitzer chief designer was the gifted Paul Fuller and he took the inventiveness and charm of the product to a higher level yet. From 1941 Wurtlitzer factories had to switch to war-related production and the use of metal and plastics was severely curtailed. The firm, aka Paul Fuller, responded by designing and producing several revolutionary prototypes using mainly wood and glass. In 1946 the Wurtlitzer 1015 was introduced and became an immediate hit with its sophisticated styling, revolving colour columns and modern, record-changing mechanism. Post war, American G.I.s took the jukeboxes with them to an astonished West Germany and between 1955 and1960 jukebox numbers totalled around 50,000 in that country.

Wurtlitzer 1015

1946

My interest was sparked that Sunday morning when I wandered along the canal and into Het Molenhuis and saw the resident 1015. I think it might be the 1015 One More Time, described as: ‘a nostalgic reproduction of the original Model 1015 that has been up-dated with state-of-the-art digital technology’ Perfectly in keeping with the values and vision of the original Wurlitzer Company.

Honestly, there is a surprise around every corner here in Brugge and in one small, canal-side estaminet, there is a whole narrative in one reborn, glowing objet d'art.

Reckelbus again.

A heart-breakingly beautiful little

Madonna and Child on Carmerstraat.

Le Pavillon sur L'Eau

Quite a busy week with a friend on a first-time visit to Brugge. This gave me the excuse to revisit Luc Vanlaere and his marvellously melodious harp recital, free, and the first concert of the season for him. We also had to see the Memlings and St Janshospitaal plus the Pharmacy, plus the Madonna and Child of Leonardo da Vinci. It is super to witness the delight of a first-time visitor to this mediaeval little city with its canals and Flemish gables and its unending human pageant. Another friend over last weekend took us to the auction house of Bonte and its preview of an astonishing amount of Oriental art and other antiques. I was particularly keen to see the several Louis Reckelbus paintings in the sale none of which I can now afford given the undue tax bill hovering. I was especially keen on Number 520 in the sale and the knowledgeable attendant, chatting of many painterly things, told me that it would fetch a good price given the high interest exhibited. Damn, I thought uncharitably but on the way home on my own on Monday, I popped in to see Lieven in his astonishing shop stuffed to the gills with antiques, books, putti, religious statues and more. As ever, I was impressed with his boundless knowledge; his ingenuity in locating such a variety of echoes from the past; his apparent relaxed attitude to the scholarly chaos within his emporium and his unerring ability to spot the likely weak spot of a potential purchaser, protesting poverty no less as she buys a huge historic Bruggean poster from the Sixties. Yes, dear reader ‘twas I.

Brugge, Wednesday March 21st.

In the meantime this last Wednesday, en route to coffee with ‘the girls’ I was surprised by a huge crowd being harangued by someone with a powerful microphone, in the Markt, with many of the surrounding streets blocked or impeded by watchful police on foot and powerful-looking, helmeted police straddling parked motor bikes in readiness, as it were; rows of the latter in fact as if an invasion were imminent. It was the run-up to what I think is a new cycle event, from Brugge to De Panne, perhaps to replace the Tour van Vlaanderen which Bruges lost to Antwerp two years ago amid much soul-searching. Subsequent enquiries discovered that the event was the Driedaagse Brugge-de Panne, Elite Men’s Europe Tour on Wednesday and the Elite Women’s World Tour on Thursday, March 22. Phew! The City does try hard to cater for a wide variety of tastes and activities.

STILL steaming over the fact that the end of Dutch  level 4 examination was summarily cancelled the evening before the event because the teacher was ill. It might have taken place two days later, if she had recovered but I couldn't go because of visitors so she said that someone would phone me with an alternative arrangement. As nothing had happened, I rang the college as soon as my guest had left and was told I would be contacted. As no one has, I have the frustrating feeling that I have missed the boat; what does it matter to the authorities that one elderly person hasn't taken the exam and, furthermore, a person who was not intending to continue to Level Five? I shall try again tomorrow, ten days after the event-that-never happened. I am beginning to realise that I feel quite resentful if my plans are changed without my involvement; it is the lack of control that is hard to stomach even if the change is minor. The elderly do grow evermore powerless so that day-to-day control over their personal lives assumes an even greater significance.


However, today to have my hair cut and the gifted kapper/owner having broken his arm, an assistant who usually blow dries my hair, was to do the cut-and-style. He has been having 'problems' with his present partner so we had a long and intense discussion and feelings of powerlessness were dismissed as he asked my advice ['you are so old' in this case meaning, 'wise'!]  Eastern Europeans have a gratifying deference to the aged which quite restored my spirits! AND he did a great job on my hair. Definitely ask for him next time!

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A Concert and A Guided Tour

After the Siberian temperatures, an almost balmy Sunday [March 11 and the UK Mothers’ Day to boot] arrived in time to add lustre to a Lovely Day Out. To Gent on the 9.33 slow train, it being a Sunday, where I was met by the owner of my flat and his wife at Gent St Pieter’s. Off we went to a fund-raising Concert for the Soroptimists, in the lovely Miry Concertzaal in Gent Conservatorium There, I learned that the core mission of the Soroptimists is to help women and children all over the world. I knew several people in the movement when I lived in Kent but assumed it was something like a female Rotary for professional women and had never dug deeper. A leaflet describes itself as 'Le Soroptimist International, une voix pour les femmes' and I like that. In Belgium alone it has 1660 members so, internationally, it is a force to be reckoned with.

The concert was marvellous, offering a programme of Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Dvorak, Smeets and Gershwin interpreted in lively and imaginative piano playing. One really didn’t want the music to stop! The pianists were a mother and daughter duo; Eliane Rodrigues from Argentina and her daughter who is half Belgium, Nina Smeets, brilliant pianists both. Eliane is much the more famous and she is also a composer, beginning composition as a precocious three year old, and giving her first public recital at five. She won a special prize at 18 in the Van Cliburn concourse and started teaching in Antwerp Conservatorium at age 20. But there have been shadows in her life, not apparent in her feisty and uninhibited public persona. Her daughter, Nina, was for a long time in a coma when she was three, and doctors had given up hope of her rescue but, no doubt as a last resort, the non-stop playing of her mother’s rendition of Mozart’s No. 12 concerto, eventually brought her round. Nina is now a most accomplished pianist and composer too.

A narrow channel added to give the sound of water near the 

main entrance.

Astonishingly, the 450 strong audience was treated to refreshments and ample opportunities to socialise, for the next hour after the concert. My hosts eventually drove us to their new home, still not entirely finished but stunning in its style. It is both a conversion and a rescue of a mediaeval Priory on the larger site of an Abbey complex, built originally in the tenth century, all near Oudenaard. The house itself had been empty and abandoned for perhaps twenty years and a huge amount of architectural planning, renovation, new-build additions and inner re-furbishment over the past four years, have resulted in a very desirable and highly individual home. I felt so lucky to be able to visit and view the innumerable small details that conserve authentic details while making a style statement. The modern additions like the spacious large glazed terrace at the back, merge seamlessly in because of the use of appropriate materials and the individual style of the contents, consistent throughout. This rescued Priory is an object lesson in conservation plus.

As I have read through the above, I have to admit that it does seem to have caught the breathless wonderment and admiration that characterises many a style interview about a famous person's private space. All I can say in self-defence is that the old Priory DOES hit the spot!!

One week after writing the above I discover that it was never published! I have had friends staying and gave scant thought to Other Things but here it is, at last. And after that balmy Sunday described above, came a little more snow and days of Siberian temperatures. However, nothing to match the icy white-out in many parts of the U.K.

A Gentleman in Moscow

Moscow, 1922.

I have just read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, recommended by my elder daughter. It has proved to be an absorbing, elegantly-written and sophisticated narrative which I have loved. It is a beautifully-observed novel, written with an eighteenth century delicacy of phrase and nuance despite being set in Bolshevik Moscow in 1922.

It tells the story of a Russian aristocrat, deemed to be a totally unrepentant representative of his class by a Bolshevik tribunal and therefore sentenced to house arrest and demoted to the status of Former Person. He has lived for years in the best suite in the Hotel Metropol in Theatre Square, containing 'a grand salon with eight foot windows overlooking the lindens of Theatre Square' but he is summarily moved to the mountaineering heights of the dusty, unloved attics and given a tiny former storeroom
without space, views or beauty, reminiscent of a monastic cell, for his house arrest. Allowed to take only a few items to the Great Upstairs, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov chooses to take all his books and a few iconic possessions, and somehow sails on for the next thirty years, indomitable, erudite, witty, admired, working as Head Waiter, extending his experiences to family and to a web of emotionally-important friendships and memories. Throughout, the Count remains calmly accepting of his fate; apparently wholly compliant with the will of his Soviet masters while quietly, subversively, pursuing his own agenda and enjoying, in many ways, a most enviable way of life.

The Count's world: the Hotel Metropol in

Theatre Square, Moscow.

Of course I recommend this superb book but I am including it in my blog simply to give me the excuse to quote Montaigne, or put more precisely, to enable me to lift a quote in the Amor Towles book from Montaigne. In a list of two important pieces of parental advice, the Count quotes Montaigne's maxim:

“that the surest sign of wisdom is constant cheerfulness”.

And his story demonstrates the exemplary power of such positive good humour in the face of a total loss of liberty and possessions, and reminds us of its virtues.

This Montaigne quote appealed to me because, almost entirely and certainly effortlessly, I enjoy the benefits of a sunny disposition. I would be flattered to hear that described as wisdom; it is a wisdom, if so, of a totally accidental kind acquired by the unwitting random harvest of birth rather than the more sober and disciplined acquisition of knowledge and the gradual development of enlightenment. Constant cheerfulness seems to be more down to chance; good luck; beneficent fortune and perhaps the determination not to let the bastards grind one down. And none the worse for that!

Currently, the physical demands of travelling twice a week to and from the Nederlands classes plus the unseemly length of each lesson resulting in a real weariness which impacts on my week, reducing the daily pleasures in many small ways, have challenged my normal bonhomie! It is still there, chiefly buoyant though, to mix the metaphors, maintained through gritted teeth! My constant cheerfulness seems therefore sensitive to undue external weight and therefore lacking in Montaigne’s sureness and wisdom. And I am trying to remember which of my friends once remarked that constant cheerfulness was a drag for others; something to be borne rather than admired.

Well-heeled ladies playing

Mah Jong, probably around the time that 

Count Rostov became a Former Person.

But there ARE many reasons to be cheerful.

Part One: See right. A reminder of the joys of weekly Mah Jong sessions with other mature females of similar ability [low] and spirits [high]