Pleasures and Palaces: Parlour Music comes to Old Gunning Courthouse

Old Gunning Courthouse, first opened 1879, now a community facility. Photo by Michael de Percy.

The Gunning Focus Group hosted a mid-winter afternoon of parlour music for an enthusiastic audience of about 40 people today in the Old Gunning Courthouse.

The acoustics of the old courtroom are quite good, and the Yamaha upright piano is in good condition and well-tuned. This was confirmed by the dexterous Crookwell maestro, Katrina Rivera, who is no stranger to Gunning. Ms Rivera delighted with Debussy's Clair de Lune, my personal favourite, among other classics from Mozart and Handel.

Ms Rivera also explained the instruments some of the pieces were originally written for, including the forte piano and the square piano. It really is true that you learn something every day!

Katrina Rivera and Susan West performing Swan Lake.
Photo by Michael de Percy

Today's highlights included several original arrangements by Ms Rivera and flautist (and self-styled "parlour" pianist) Susan West, with vocals performed by the talented soprano, Georgia Pike. 

While Dr West's renditions of Swan Lake and Princess Leia's Theme, accompanied by piano, were standouts, Dr West also accompanied Ms Pike's wonderful vocal work.

Soprano Georgia Pike
leading the audience in song.
Photo by Michael de Percy.

Gunning local and Gunning Focus Group host, Mike Coley, said there were three "firsts" at today's event. 

This was the first time that the heater didn't work (but we were saved by our talented vocalist, so despite the cold weather, the courtroom was quite comfortable), it was the first time a piano duet (by Ms Rivera and Dr West) had been performed for the group, and it was also the first time that audience participation was part of the entertainment.

Concert Details

Ms Pike led the audience in a number of songs (the lyrics conveniently provided by our vocalist), including Home Sweet Home (Payne & Bishop); Loch Lomond (Traditional); and If You Were the Only Girl in the World (Grey & Ayer). The participation was welcomed by the enthusiastic audience, many of whom were obviously well-versed in the lyrics!

The Gunning Focus Group have more in store for us this July with a piano and cello concert. 

Davis Pereira, cello, and Ed Neeman, piano, will present a concert of works by Rachmaninov and Prokofiev in the Courtroom, Old Gunning Courthouse, at 2.30pm on Sunday, 30 July. Tickets $30, concessions and Focus Group members $25. Presented by Gunning Focus Group.

Enquiries and bookings (02) 4845 1566, 0417 663 045 or michael.coley@bigpond.com. Please note the later start time due to Gunning markets.

Why not make a day of it and visit the Gunning Lions Club Markets beforehand? 

Teach Yourself Stoicism and the Art of Happiness

Guillaume Guillon-Lethière's "The Death of Cato of Utica" (1795). Source: Wikimedia.

Teach Yourself Stoicism and the Art of Happiness by Donald J. Robertson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was recommended by Ryan Holiday at the Daily Stoic. At first, I was dismayed that it read just like a first-year textbook, with little activities in boxes throughout each chapter. But this is hardly fair. As my reading of the book progressed, and the activities became a little more complex (or at least, reflective, and some of these I will no doubt take up), I was learning. In terms of an overview of Stoicism and Stoic literature, this book provides an easy introduction, though it does tend to over-rely on Pierre Hadot. Yet there are many references and ideas that are useful, and in this the book is sound. The author also mentions an ebook that includes an additional chapter on "death", and this annoyed me no end - I hate ebooks - it should have been in the hard copy!  And in the present work, the textbook tone cheapens what could have been a more substantial work. That said, I will be returning to this book time and again to mine some of the gems hidden amongst the rough.

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Book Notes: "The Revolution Betrayed" by Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky in Petrograd, winter 1918\1919. Scan by "Der Speigel" (2008), via Wikimedia.

The Revolution Betrayed by Leon Trotsky

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I lecture I will often, in the heat of the moment, say things based on my understanding of the topic, and oftentimes it is hard to pin-point where this knowledge came from - a case of: how do I know what I know? The experience usually sends me back to the books to reconfirm my knowledge. Whenever I read the classic political science texts from J.S. Mill, Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, Burke, et al., I feel as though I am reading what I know. This is clearly a result of my education, but after having read these works, a series of gaps in my knowledge is simultaneously filled, and then, like a muscle at the gym, ripped asunder. To be sure, this is how we learn and improve, but the experience to this day leaves me feeling desperate for more time on this earth to learn the things I do not know - a list that grows daily. And Trotsky's work read like a familiar text. I may have read parts of it before, but in my class readers during my political science degree. But to rediscover these words and thoughts and ideas and ideals is mind-blowing. Trotsky was clearly a genius. This cannot be denied. But he was a politician in the same vein as Dr John Hewson: Fightback! was brilliant, and it has been for the most part implemented, but Dr Hewson was not a popular politician, Fightback! was a (in a "presentist" sense) a policy failure, yet Dr Hewson was right all along. I am probably drawing a long bow by putting Dr Hewson in the same category as Trotsky, but the same high intellectual-low political capability divide is evident. Parts of this work remind me of an old Soviet joke:

Comrade 1: What is the difference between capitalism and communism?

Comrade 2: In capitalism, man exploits man. In communism, it is the other way around.

Trotsky points out all the theoretical problems with Stalinism, and brings in a useful comparison with the French Revolution, a common thread throughout the work, with the Thermidorian reaction to Robespierre explaining what was happening in Russia in the mid-1930s. Trotsky has no issue with deviations from the communist plot. He is well-aware that Russia was not meant to be where the great international revolution would begin. But now that it had, then some things had to be taken into account. Trotsky's issue was that these deviations from the plot, albeit necessary, were being hidden in bureaucratic nonsense, enabling the exploitation of man by man pretending to be a system that was meant to be overthrowing this very system. Trotsky's arguments are so solid that Stalin had to "liquidate" his ideas. The habit of purging, of course, was the antithesis of the Marxian ideal, and showed Stalin's "socialism within one country" as little more than a nouveau-bourgeois power-grab. Ultimately, Trotsky's predictions proved correct, and the rest is history. Trotsky's attack on the international "friends of socialism", in particular the Webbs (Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb), demonstrates his commitment to theoretical communism. I suspect that Lenin had the political nous that Trotsky lacked. Little wonder the back cover blurb states, accurately, that this work is "one of Marxism's most important texts". That communist theory has been so routinely dismissed because of Stalinism and the Russian experience is premature. In the long course of history, especially as technological developments mean there is less for more of us to do, if life continues as it does now, forevermore, then the extinction of the species will demonstrate natural justice in a way that our theorising never could.

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