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JoeXP

56-60, M

United Kingdom

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Handsome, witty, debonair - just a few of the epithets nobody ever applied to me

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Discussion of The Beatitudes

You are always taught the beatitudes from the sermon on the mount as children. You envisage Jesus standing there on what… a little mound or a rock or something so that everyone can see him telling the crowd what they have to do to see the kingdom... See More »

Forgotten Languages

Two songs in lost languages of the UK and Ireland. They are sung by people who have some remaining knowledge of the languages. Before I provide translations see if you can identify the languages and what they are singing about. 1. 2.

Wild Mountain Thyme

I always liked the song Wild Mountain Thyme. Like many folk songs it has a long and complex history. Its modern form is a mid-20th-century adaptation by Belfast musician Francis McPeake of an earlier Scottish song, The Braes of Balquidder, by the... See More »

A discussion of the wedding at Cana

I always thought the Wedding at Cana a very odd miracle. The story of Jesus’ first miracle appears only in the Gospel of John and is apparently unknown to Mark, who was very keen on miracles. It recounts Jesus attending a wedding in Cana of... See More »

Discussion of the Pericope Adulterae

Of the many events associated with the story of Jesus that of the woman taken in adultery, also known as the Pericope Adulterae, stands out as a quintessential example of his teaching. The Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery, citing the... See More »

Bernstein’s most personal musical - Trouble in Tahiti

Leonard Bernstein needs no introduction as a composer. Everyone knows West Side Story and Candide. Trouble in Tahiti is less well known. It is a one-act opera/musical/piece of musical theatre, in seven scenes for which he wrote both the music and... See More »

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My Other Great Aunt

There were three sisters, all named after daughters of Queen Victoria, living in the big house. Beatrice was the eldest, born I guess around 1900 she would have been expected to get married in the 1920s, but blessed with an unprepossessing... See More »

Apocryphal Gospels

There are of course lots of non-canonical gospels. Some suppressed because they were regarded s heretical and some ignored because they were obviously unreliable. I rather like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas supposedly written by Thomas the... See More »

Wimbledon History

As Wimbledon gets underway I thought it would be interesting to remember the winner of the longest lady’s tennis final ever. Muriel Robb (1878-1907) was the only child of William David Robb and Ellen Mary Robb. She attended Cheltenham Ladies’... See More »

My Other Grandmother

I always thought of my family as boring. A boring middle class family in boring Middle England. Where were all those Celtic ancestors, fighting Slavs, romantic Frenchmen that everybody else seemed to be descended from. As far as I could see every... See More »

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I remember my paternal grandmother. She died many years ago now at a great advanced age. A wrinkled, domineering old crone manipulating the family with talk of her share of the family fortune. The family had gone from pitmen to owners of the most... See More »

Trying to play the violin

I learned it at school but was chucked out the violin class after the first year for being totally useless. It looks so easy when you see people in the orchestra playing. But it’s really hard. Well, I found it hard anyway. So I’ve taken it up... See More »

Forgotten Musicals - Vivian Ellis and Bless the Bride

Vivian Ellis (1903–1996) was a prominent English composer, lyricist, and musician best known for his work in British musical comedy and light music during the 1920s–1950s. Born Vivian John Herman Ellis on 29 October 1903 in Hampstead, London, into... See More »

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Paul Abraham's Roxy and her Wonder Team

Paul Abraham is one of my favourite composers of European musicals. I have written about him before, but with the World Cup coming up this summer I thought a look at one of my favourites - Roxy und ihr Wunderteam (Roxy and her Wonder Team). Who... See More »

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Land of the Mountain and the Flood - Hamish MacCunn

And of course something to illustrate Scotland. Not Mendelssohn this time but the much neglected Hamish MacCunn. This is me in the north west highlands many a long year since.

The Banks of Green Willow - George Butterworth

I do love this piece so evovative of the English countryside.

Forgotten Musicals - George and Ira Gershwin and Of Thee I Sing

We all know about George Gershwin (born Jacob Gershwine in Brooklyn, New York, on September 26, 1898) who was the second son in the family. He began formal music lessons around age 12–13, left school at 15 to work as a “song plugger” (demonstrating... See More »

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Forgotten Musicals - Alfred Cellier and Dorothy

Two works are considered to be the first examples of modern musicals as we know them today. Alfred Cellier’s Dorothy and Edward Jakobowski’s Erminie. I personally prefer Dorothy so I have chosen it for today’s forgotten musical. Dorothy is a music... See More »

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St George’s Day

April 23rd! St George’s day. Patron saint of England. Shakespeare’s birthday! Crowds thronging the streets wearing the red and white of St George drinking warm beer, special programmes on the radio, Shakespeare Night dinners! Not. Not a bloody... See More »

Forgotten Musicals - Leslie Stuart and Florodora

Leslie Stuart (1863–1928) was a British composer best known for his hugely successful contributions to late Victorian and Edwardian musical theatre. Born Thomas Barrett in Southport, he began his career as a church organist and conductor before... See More »

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Home Thoughts from Abroad

O, TO be in England Now that April 's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In... See More »

Forgotten Musicals - Wodehouse, Bolton and Kern - Oh Boy!

Jerome Kern (1885–1945) was a pivotal American composer who along with librettist Guy Bolton and lyricist P G Wodehouse helped transform musical theatre from the sort of Pirates and Princesses musicals we saw in Naughty Marietta into more... See More »

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Forgotten Musicals - Victor Herbert and Naughty Marietta

I try again to bring to life some of the great musicals of the past seldom seen on stage today. Victor Herbert (1859 – 1924) was an Irish-born American composer, best remembered as the father of American musical theatre. Born in Dublin, Ireland ,... See More »

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Forgotten Musicals - Sigmund Romberg and The New Moon

Sigmund Romberg (1887 – 1951) was a Hungarian-born American composer renowned for his romantic operettas and musicals that bridged European traditions with Broadway’s golden age. Born in Nagykanizsa, Hungary to a Jewish family, Romberg showed early... See More »

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Forgotten Musicals - Lionel Monckton and Our Miss Gibbs

Continuing my exploration of forgotten musicals today we take a look at Edwardian England. Back in the days before the Great War the place for musicals in London was the Gaiety Theatre. Crowds flocked to the light witty musicals of the likes of... See More »

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