Longing

Hamzah & Sharifah popped around last night on their way to a rather high-powered wedding involving one of those Umno guys whose names get in the news, sometimes for the wrong reasons. A banker is someone who gives you an umbrella when there’s sunshine and takes it back when it rains., says Hamzah, sagely, the voice of, sad, experience. Noi wants to encourage him to watch Downsize Me, one of those health programmes on Discovery Heath & Home which is available here on Astro.

They arrived just after I’d completed the second play through of the day of VW’s fifth. He was about seventy when he wrote this and I suppose it was generally thought then this might be the final symphony. Superficially you get a taste of the kind of serenity you hope that age and accomplishment might bring. But there’s something else in the music that shakes the stillness with an urge to voyage on and discover new territories. I hear a kind of yearning all the way through disturbing the glimpses of peace. The static, meditative quality you sometimes get in Messiaen is wholly absent. I think that’s because there’s always a tune carrying you through, and the tunes have to end, or turn themselves into new material. The triumphal moments are for ever in danger of dying away, to be replaced by further striving. It’s no wonder there were four symphonies to follow.

Earlier still, I completed five laps of the taman – looking to restore something of the fitness of my youth. Striving, longing; foolish but fun.

And it looks as if England may actually qualify for Euro 2008! Never give up!