The Atma string quartet, this year’s winner of the prestigious Bagni di Lucca Adolfo Betti prize, is among the most promising young generation of quartet players and made their first public appearance in 2016. The word ‘atma’, incidentally, is Sanskrit for the source of life, the inner soul; an appropriate definition, I feel, for the way these four musicians play.

Four graduates of Polish music academies, Katarzyna Gluza (violin), Paulina Marcisz (violin), Karalina Orsik-Sauter (viola) and Dominika Szczypka (cello), their aim is to popularize chamber music, and, in particular, works by Polish composers. Since 2018, for example, the Quartet has participated in the ‘Le Dimore del Quartetto project’ promoting Polish music in Italy.

The evening to celebrate the Atma’s award was held in the garden of the Palazzo Lena, the gracious sixteenth century home of our local council. This was the programme:

Joseph Haydn’s, the string quartet’s main developer, Op 33 no 5, one of the ‘Russian quartets, so called because dedicated to the Russian Grand Duke, was a favourite of Mozart’s and inspired him to write his own ‘Haydn’ quartets. The piece was most elegantly and expressively played as may be judged from this recording of another performance by the Atma:

Not initially having a programme with me I was somewhat perplexed in identifying the next piece. Sounding definitely modern eastern European with hints of Bartok was it perhaps Polish? Yes it was: Penderecki’s quartet no 3 (Pages of an unwritten diary) commissioned by the Shanghai quartet and premiered in 2008. Penderecki, who died last year, went through more phases than most composers. Starting from the astringent avant-gardism of such pieces as ‘Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima’ he passed into a neo-romantic stage only to re-emerge with his own special brand of post-modernism. I enjoyed the way the Atma were able to weave the softest esotericism of Penderecki’s no. 3 with his almost percussive string violence in this piece. (I just wonder what the composer’s diary pages would have told if they had ever been written!)

You can hear the Atma play this mind-expanding quartet here:

The final item on the programme stated Szymanowski but instead turned out to be Ravel. Probably the Atma felt they had given the audience enough Polish modernism!

The Ravel was played like I’ve never heard it played before: it sounded like a new piece. In particular the pizzicato first section of the second movement was faster than usual but so immaculately performed! These young women showed such sensitivity to one of the most delicate of twentieth century composers. The sound world they re-created was quite ravishing! There should be more quartets made up solely of women if the results are these!

Here is that second movement played by another fine quartet, the Enso:

Every concert has its little snags. Apart from the somewhat quaint way the audience insisted on clapping after every movement of every quartet, the lighting imposed upon the audience was numbingly interrogatory and I, for one, was unable to take any decent photos of the players. No-one seemed to notice that Ravel was not Szymanowski either!

There are plenty more delicious musical lollipops (or gelati if you prefer) awaiting us in this hot summer from Animando music promotions. Here is a complete list of them:

Adolfo’s father was fond of music and often invited Puccini to his home.

A Great Quartet in the Making

Here is something about the quartet which inspired the Adolfo Betti award. The Flonzaley Quartet was organized in Manhattan, New York City in 1902 and was one of the first of a line of great quartets which would include, later in the century, such famous names as the Griller, Busch and Amadeus quartets.

The quartet, which took its name from its sponsor Edward de Coppet’s villa in Switzerland, had the following line-up:

• 1st violin: Adolfo Betti (Bagni di Lucca, 21 March 1875 – Lucca, 2 December 1950).
• 2nd violin: Alfred Pochon (Yverdon, 30 July 1878 – Lutry, 26 February 1959).
• viola: Ugo Ara (Venice, 1876 – Lausanne, 1 December 1936), until 1917; replaced by Louis Bailly (Valenciennes, 13 June 1882 – Cowansville, Québec, 21 November 1974), until 1924; by Félicien d’Archambeau (? – ?), until 1925; by Nicolas Moldavan (Kremenetz, 23 January 1891 – New York, 21 September 1974)
• violoncello: Iwan d’Archambeau (Herve, 1879 – Villefranche-sur-Mer, 29 December 1955).

The quartet, which had strict orders to devote themselves entirely to quartet playing without any outside commitments to orchestras, lasted until 1929. It made a number of recordings which are readily available on YouTube. I remember a conference given some years back, at Bagni di Lucca’s library in which a fascinating account of the Flonzaley’s playing technique was given. They played with extreme precision and empathy and did not indulge unduly in needless vibrati, portamenti and glissandi so common at the time. The quartet’s approach appealed to composers like Stravinsky who wrote his three string quartet pieces and a concertino for them.

Here is the Flonzaley playing Mozart’s Prussian quartet K575 almost one hundred years ago in 1927.

Entering Barga’s old town main gateway at ‘il Fosso’ (the ditch=originally an additional defence around the town’s mediaeval walls) there are, immediately to the right, a couple of places well worth visiting.

The first place satisfies the stomach and is a pizzeria. ‘Che Pizza’ is mainly take-away although it’s possible to eat there (in ‘normal’ times, I should add). The pizzas are inexpensive, also include cecina (chickpea pancakes) and are scrumptious. There’s more information about ‘Che Pizza’ at http://www.barga.it/486615_ristorante_che_pizza.htm

The second place satisfies the eye and the mind’s eye: Giorgia Madiai’s little but perfectly formed studio. Its front part is made up of the exhibition space. Stairs to the right lead up to the studio itself which is a quite amazing space with a low slung ceiling on which one could easily paint (as indeed one also has, Pollock-style, on the floor) Here Giorgia’s talent expresses itself not only in the canvases she is painting but also in the room’s wall decorations which are constantly evolving and forming an ever-changing ambience to her studio.

During my visit Giorgia was painting using oils unlike her more usual acrylic medium. Oils require patience she said because they need time to dry! For Giorgia’s art is a distinctive genus of fantastique spontaneity. Although they are very much her own creations in her images I could see hints of the fabulous worlds traced by Chagall and her lines have the purity of many of Picasso’s works (including that famous peace dove…)

Giorgia is a performance artist: she incorporates her own creative process into the works she paints: doing and presenting is contained in one total imaginative action  She collaborates with musicians such as may be seen in this snippet from an event which took place recently at I Romiti a converted Augustinian monastery situated above Fabbriche di Vallico:

Giorgia’s studio is an inventive cooperative where artists may meet and share its resourceful space. For example, I noticed works by fabric artist Kerry Bell about whom I have written here:

Elusive Elegance

I also realised that I’d seen a thought-provoking exhibition in Giorgia’s studio titled ’Monoscopia’ about which I posted here:

Monoscopica – An Exhibition at Barga’s Via del Pretorio no. 4

I would very much also see Giorgia as a scenographer in the theatre and, especially, in the Commedia dell’Arte. Her immediately attractive style combining endearing pathos with subtle caricature must surely lend itself gorgeously to the dramatic stage.

Finally I can’t do better than to quote what this gallery’s web site at https://www.viadelpretorio4.it/?l=en says about itself:

Via Del Pretorio 4 is not just an address. Via Del Pretorio 4 is not only a physical place, it is also a point of reference, via Del Pretorio 4 is a soul space.

The arts will help enormously to see us through the present world pandemic which isn’t just a health one but a moral one. To expand on what Shelley said about poets: all artists are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. May we have the faith and honesty to admit this and give artists every encouragement they deserve in these somewhat impossible and confusing times.

This pandemic time has, amid its infections, also generated many heroes and heroines. Foremost among them must be the nurses and doctors who have coped and cared for the victims of this modern Black Death. No less heroic are the arts and their practitioners. Already hit by scarcity of funding, they now have to suffer social distancing impositions among both audiences and artistes. Any exhibition, any concert, any cultural event has increased relevance for me in these strange days. When they relate to festivals I have enjoyed in the past, like Opera Barga, they add a particular frisson to my pleasure.

I have covered Opera Barga events in several of my posts, some of which, dealing with opera performances, are:

Opera Barga is also well regarded because of the imaginative recitals it presents. Some of my posts on these are the following:

This year the calendar of events, despite these difficult times, is scrumptiously inventive and offers a wide variety of music ranging from Mozart to Mendelssohn to Morricone and Bach to Beethoven to Brahms. It’s good that Opera Barga has spread its wings to include several events in our province’s  ‘capoluogo’ , Lucca.

Here is the complete list of events.

I attended the open air recital given by the Ensemble ’Le Musiche’ yesterday in the captivating Piazzetta San Felice.  Surrounded by the gentle pastoral atmosphere of the encircling hills and with a breeze tempering these somewhat humid summer days the occasion was indeed a happy (=’Felice’) one.

This was the evening’s programme:

Michael Haydn was having problems (largely because he was too fond of the bottle) in completing a set of six duos for Violin and Viola he was commanded to write for Salzburg’s  rather unpleasant Archbishop Colloredo in 1783 and only managed to finish four of them. Although Mozart had moved to Vienna in 1781, principally to get away from the nasty archbishop and start his dazzling career as a concert pianist (one of the first in the history of music) he readily obliged when requested by Haydn and composed two duos to complete the set. It’s interesting to compare Mozart’s inspiration with Michael Haydn’s own efforts. For example, in Mozart the viola part is less of an ‘accompanying’ nature and much more the equal of the violin in the musical discourse and reveals his increased skill in writing chamber music especially his quartets.

The duo was immaculately performed by Anna Molinari and Lara Albesano with the precise measure of grace and lyricism. The acoustics in this open space were also remarkably good, aided by the low wall that surrounds the square and the façade of the church of San Felice to the left.

C. P. E Bach’s Trio sonata in D major followed. Again it was a very talented performance and I also noted how, unlike so many other trio sonatas, there were significant soloist episodes for each of the two main instruments and even the cello was more than a basso continuo. It was a slight pity that the harpsichord was of the ‘virtual’ (electronic) and not of the real variety since its sound did not carry at all well. Surely a harpsichord is portable enough to have been transported to this lovely hilly spot?

Rossini’s duo was great fun to hear, assuredly fun to play and, doubtless, fun to compose for the gourmet musician. Again, the soloists, Stefano Cucuzella on cello and Pauli Pappinen on double bass, gave an exemplary performance combining humour with virtuosity.

As an encore an exquisite Corelli trio sonata concluded this most bewitching evening. I remain so grateful that good friends invited me to the occasion otherwise I would have missed a great deal.

What other memorable musical events lie on the Barchigiano horizon?

I would be sad to miss the nearest Barga gets to Opera Seria this year: Vivaldi’s serenata ‘La Ninfa e IL Pastore’ given on 9^th August (6 pm) in the San Francesco auditorium at Lucca and at Barga’s Piazzale Del Fosso on 11 August (9 pm). Although we now tend to associate serenate (literally ‘evening music’) with instrumental works such as those written by Mozart and Dvorak the serenata originally included any piece written for a ceremonial occasion such as a wedding or birthday. Thus, vocal music would be comprised in the category as in this performance which cannot possibly be ignored by any fan of that doyen conductor of Vivaldian opera, Frederico Maria Sardelli, who first attracted me to the delights of Opera Barga way back in 2005.

Three cheers (and more) to Opera Barga for carrying on its precious task in these hard times, somewhat reminiscent of the spirit of those wartime National Gallery concerts occurring during a past generation.

Our house is for sale at € 145,000. I recently took some picture of our little house in the Val di Lima.

This is what it looks like from the outside:

The house has three terraces:

This is where my blog is written (under terrace no 2)

The ground floor has a living/dining room:

There is also a small kitchen:

A spiral staircase leads to the first floor and a landing:

On the first floor there are two bedrooms. This is the smaller one:

This is our bedroom:

The bathroom is next door:

The first floor contains also our libraries and two desks:

A ladder leads up to one of two lofts:

On one side of the second terrace there’s a room we use for meditation or just relaxing with a siesta on hot afternoons in summer.

So that’s our little place where we have spent many happy hours over the last fifteen years.

So many old Italian buildings are architectural palimpsests; they are like manuscripts or pieces of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing and are often reused or altered structures which still bear visible traces of their earlier form. In our part of the world, in the Serchio and Lima valleys, old buildings are frequently found to be much older than they seem to be at first. An example of this is the ‘Antico Ospitale San Leonardo’ (Ancient Hospital of San Leonardo) of Calavorno.  Here the word ‘Ospitale’ (hospital) means a shelter for travellers or a hospice rather than a hospital for healing the sick, although they often served this purpose. Indeed, the italian verb ‘ospitare’ means ‘to host or welcome as guests’.

Among the many ‘ospitali’ dedicated to the assistance of and hospitality for pilgrims, the poor and wayfarers crossing the Serchio Valley, the one at San Leonardo is particularly venerable and is referred to in old documents as being under the jurisdiction of the Rolandinghi who were Lombard nobles. Originally located near Calavorno bridge over the Serchio, the hospital was first mentioned in 1260, although it was certainly founded earlier.

During a visit by the Church in 1451 the structure was found to be in complete abandonment. In 1554 it was reported that the hospital had moved to the Ghivizzano plain, entrusting its custody and management to a certain Benedetto Canacci from Ghivizzano. This building still exists today and a plaque remembers the ancient use of public hospitality.

On Saturday 29 May this year there was an inauguration of this ‘Antico Ospitale San Leonardo ’, (located in the ‘Eat Valley’ shop and restaurant at Ghivizzano’s Via Nazionale 198), which has been expertly restored by the Bellandi family.

The old hospital, dating largely from the sixteenth century and situated next to the ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome known as the Via Francigena, is divided into various areas where the Bellandi family now sell typical food products from the Garfagnana and the Serchio Media Valle which can be purchased or eaten on site. For more details have a look at their web site at https://www.anticanorcineria.it/en/eatvalley-2/

This Saturday, 24 July, at 8 pm the Antico Ospitale San Leonardo is hosting a concert dedicated to the music of Ennio Morricone, particularly noted for the scores he wrote for those classic spaghetti westerns like ‘Once upon a Time in the West’ and ‘The Good the Bad and the Ugly’ and many other films of course.

We attended a concert given by Morricone at Lucca’s summer festival in 2019. It must have been one of Ennio’s last live appearances for within a year he was dead aged 91. It was truly a memorable experience to hear this doyen of great movie music conduct his creations.

Bookings for the concert and for open-air dining are essential by phoning 370 347 8099 or 320 897 1964, or emailing feisct@libero.it

It’s often true that one’s strongest remembrance of departed family and friends is through the music they loved to hear. It is, indeed, their musical loves which more clearly define their personality in our mind’s eye. That’s why from time to time I like to listen to BBC Radio 4’s ‘Desert Island Discs’ or, at least, get a listing of what a well-known person has chosen for their favourite titles to take on that mythical desert island.

It’s also correct to say that for much of the last two years most of us have been living on an internalised, virtual desert island. In the restriction of our social intercourse and in the absence of live concerts we have taken to listening to music on the radio, by streaming, by playing it in varying degrees of non-virtuosity on what instruments we are able to massacre or by going through our CD (and for some of us vinyl) collections.

In this last respect I’ve still got some shellac 78 rpm records which belonged to my parents. Like so many courting couples it was music, the food of love, that brought them together. After all, how could one possibly plan a future life with someone whose musical tastes are complete anathema?

Of the records my parents had in common were such classical repertoire warhorses as Beethoven’s Fifth (my father particular enjoyed the finale of Haydn’s symphony no 88, used to fill in side 12) and Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto no 1 with Horovitz (which – after years of disparagement – I, at last, discovered what a miraculous work it is – especially played live by Beatrice Rana.).

Of my mother’s particular tastes I have her shellac discs of Chopin’s Ballades played by Alfred Cortot. As a graduate of Milan conservatoire before giving up a prospective concert career, become involved in social work and eventually end up as a Freudian psychoanalyst my mother had great respect for Cortot; she said that his interpretations more than compensated for the ‘stecche’ (clangers) he made. Vera had a particular love for Chopin and she would play his preludes commenting ‘yes I understand what this one is about but that one I can’t make out at all.’ My mother’s upright piano , which her father had bought at a bargain price during the depression that also hit Italy in the early 1930’s, found its way to our house in London, then to Wales and now who knows where?

What would my mother have chosen as her eight desert island discs? I think I have a pretty fair idea of at least some of them.

• Brahms’s violin concerto, especially its final gipsy rondo movement which always used to send my mum in raptures. Brahms remained her greatest. She would comment ‘his music releases my rebellious nature.’ At one concert we attended at the Royal Festival Hall the great Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau played both of Brahms piano concerti. My mother expressed a preference for the demonically dramatic first one written shortly after the tragedy of his friend Schumann’s death in a lunatic asylum. I tend to agree with her. And, of course, it was Brahms who Karajan conducted on one of his visits to the same hall (one of two of his concerts which I attended comprising Brahms’ first and third ‘rackets’ c.f. ‘Fawlty Towers’).
• J. S. Bach’s (if it was by him at all…) Organ Toccata and Fugue in D minor. My mother regretted that most of Bach’s organ works were not of this intensity at all!
• Bruch’s violin concerto no 1. Well …if anyone is not melted by this penetratingly heartfelt work they must be soul-dead.
• Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’. As a lover of Russian literature and much else to do with Russia my mother found this work very evocative, especially the Great Gate of Kiev, a gorgeous city which my wife and I visited in 2004.
•  Dukas’ ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’. This was one piece which came into the ‘listen with mother’ category. My mum would point out to me salient points in the tale of the hapless apprentice which I have always associated with Mickey Mouse (the film ‘Fantasia’ of course).
• The song ‘Ma l’Amore No’ which was sung by that great actress Alida Valli in the film ’Stasera Niente di Nuovo’ directed by Mario Mattoli and dating from 1942.  My mum would often sing it while doing the housework and told me it came from a popular war-time film. I always find it amazing how such a well-made movie could have been produced (in Rome) at perhaps one of the most critical times for Italy during the Second World War. It clearly held memories for her as a Red Cross volunteer.
• I find it difficult to conclude with any certainty my mother’s list of desert island discs. However, for my last two items I think that something by Mozart, probably his Sonata in A minor, (she had the classic 10 inch vinyl disc of this tear-jerking work played by Dinu Lipatti) would have been selected. (It was a piece by Mozart, his E minor Violin Sonata, that I, as a teenager, performed with my mum accompanying me – or was it the other way round?).
• Lastly, Verdi’s awesome ‘Requiem’, especially his ‘Dies Irae’. My mother was born in Via San Marco, Milan, just a few yards away from the Church of San Marco which witnessed the premiere of this work on 22 May 1874, the first anniversary of the dedicatee Alessandro Manzoni’s death.

Incidentally San Marco’s organ, dating from 1564, was played by Mozart aged 14 in 1770, used in the first performance of Verdi’s Requiem and inaugurated by Ponchielli (he of the ‘Dance of the Hours’) after its late nineteenth century restoration.

This brings me to the opposite ‘desert island’ question. Which music would my mother have avoided bringing to the famous island? Certainly most of opera, especially Ponchielli’s ‘La Gioconda’ which she described to me as the most boring musical event she’d ever suffered when it was performed at Milan’s ‘La Scala’ theatre. Puccini’s ‘Un bel di’ vedremo’ from ‘Madama Butterfly’ and Isolde ‘Liebestod from Wagner’s ‘Tristan und Isolde’ were, however, rather different matters for her and tears began to flow.

Although my mother did not have much time for contemporary music she had a soft spot for Schoenberg when she discovered him later in life. Her friend, the first among concert audiences to appreciate Mahler back in the nineteen fifties, introduced  her to the late romantic Austrian composer and I remember my mum was disappointed when we hadn’t called in on ‘Max’s (Peter Maxwell Davies) cottage when my wife and I got somewhat lost in our misty ramblings on Hoy in that distant year of 1989, a non-meeting I describe at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/03/15/farewell-to-max/

(I should add that she raved about Bernstein and his Mass).

Another allergy was that towards English music (not Scottish, incidentally, my mum loved its folk songs). Elgar, Parry and their ilk were beyond her. However, the discovery of the eighteenth century English school and, in particular, William Boyce generated a growing affection for the music of the island to which she sometimes felt exiled to – her own ‘desert island’ in fact.

Anyway, I am sure my mother will continue to enjoy the full repertoire of celestial harmonies where she finds herself now.

The series organised by Giacomo Brunini, head of the Borgo di Mozzano music school, continued at San Francesco ex-convent church in Borgo a Mozzano last Tuesday with a guitar recital given by Alessandro Deiana.

Before the main recital, however, young guitar students from our area played pieces ranging from Paganini to Villa-Lobos. It is quite extraordinary how a seemingly remote Apennine valley can contribute promising musical talent thanks to teachers like Maestro Antonio Rondina.

After this delightful opening the main soloist for the evening, Alessandro Deiana (born in Quartu Sant’Elena Sardinia in 1979), occupied centre stage.

This was Deiana’s programme:  

The Bach was most convincingly performed despite a need to repeat the prelude again since there was an emotional relapse in the playing. However, this showed the young executants that even the most experienced master of his instrument may on occasion stray from the score. I thought the lovely sarabande was particularly well played.

The Mertz pieces are Deiana’s speciality. Joseph Kaspar Mertz (1806-1856) was an Austro-Hungarian composer who elevated guitar playing from the drawing-room cantabile fashion of the earlier nineteenth century towards the high romantic style  practised in the piano music of Chopin and Liszt. Deiana’s interpretation of Mertz’s ‘Fantasie Hongroise’ was particularly well done.

I had never heard of Mertz and was grateful to be introduced to him through Deiana’s immaculate performance. Pieces from another composer unknown to me followed. Born in 1964 in Maisons-Alfort near Paris, Laurent Boutros was attracted to music from oral traditions, and became interested in folk music Flamenco, and popular Brazilian and Argentinian music. In this case the composer was attracted to Caucasian music in his suite based on music from that area. Again, it was an exciting performance by Deiana.

Two encores concluded covering South American music including a delightful samba.

Some background information about the evening’s artiste:

Alessandro Deiana was encouraged by his father to follow his natural inclination in music. He began studying classical guitar at a very young age under Armando Marrosu. After graduating, he followed the courses of the late Alberto Ponce, one of the greatest guitarists and founder of an important guitar school, perfecting himself at the École Normale de Musique in Paris, where, in 2002, he obtained the ‘Diplòme Supérieur d’Exécution en Guitare’. As a teacher Deiana taught in the conservatoires of Bussy Saint-George and Savigny le Temple in France and also in the Civic School of Music of Olbia (Sardinia). Currently he teaches guitar at Tempio Pausania and holds the role of artistic director of the Civic School of Music there. He has been awarded various national and international prizes(“Emilio Pujol”, Sassari, “Fernando Sor”, Rome, “Maria Luisa Anido”, Cagliari etc.).

Deiana’s concert activity has been considerable both as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles. He has performed in concerts for important organizations and associations in Italy and abroad and often performs as a soloist. He has made recordings for radio and television in Italy and abroad. In June 2020, a CD of Johann Caspar Mertz’s works was released by Da Vinci Publishing in Osaka (Japan). It was this CD that was for sale after the concert.

Don’t miss the next concert which will be held in the attractive village of San Romano further up the Serchio valley. It’s in the parish church on Thursday 29 July 2021, at 9.15 PM, is given by the “Le Consonance” Guitar quartet and consists of music by Boccherini and Bizet

Yesterday the UEFA trophy came home to Rome in the finale of a competition that had been postponed from last year because of the pandemic.  The scene of the bus carrying the winning team and making its snail’s pace way through the lovely Via del Tritone from President Mattarella’s palace at the Quirinale to the Prime Ministers’ residence at the Palazzo Chigi was lined with joyful, wonderfully well-disciplined citizens remembering to wear face masks and attempting some social distancing.  The RAI commentators remarked on these points.

This morning I read the freebie newspaper ‘The Metro’ and find that much of its content comes down heavily on racist abuse, hooligan-style behaviour and appallingly poor security at Wembley Stadium where loads of gate-crashers took advantage of the small number of staff on duty. Again the RAI commentators were shocked that a country that loves to distinguish its disciplined queuing techniques against the chaos prevailing in Italy (although thanks to the Pandemic Italians have more than learned to queue – they impose the requirement on everyone else) should have become so disorganised, especially for such an important event.

So there we are once more – back to memories of the shameful era when UEFA banned English football clubs from competing in Europe for five years following the death of thirty-nine Italian and Belgian football fans at Brussels’ Heysel Stadium in a riot caused by English football hooligans at 1985’s UEFA final. At least at Wembley there were no deaths thanks largely to the new stadium’s design.

The England team on the other hand preserved the dignity of the country they were representing – although the discarding of the medals given to them for participating in the finale was so petty and disrespectful! It goes completely against the assertion of the Olympic Games founder Pierre de Coubertin that “the important thing is not to win, it is to take part”.

I always thought that de Coubertin’s statement together with the phrase ‘good losers’ was especially English. Not anymore it seems.

In theory neither team lost (or said another way, both won) although in practice every match has to have its loser. The final team-playing score, 1 – 1, required a penalty shootout which is certainly not a team effort but, in effect, a different game – rather like playing Russian roulette when a duel remains unresolved.

One of my FB friends wrote “I never thought I would say this, but God bless the Italians. An English victory would have been insufferable”.

Indeed! Can you imagine how that victory would have charged the Doris ammo of lies and contra-lies: Britain’s 2021 ‘V for Victory’ year of triumph over the pandemic with mass vaccine roll-out (in a country with the highest Covid-19 death rate in Europe), triumph over the EU’s Brussels bureaucrats (with ever more bureaucracy now in the UK), triumph in new trade deals (with a service sector shrunk by more than £110,000,000,000 since Brexit dug its fangs into the British economy at the start of this year).

I am not interested in pronouncing cosmic symbolic patterns but the fact that Italy won in ‘enemy country’ with hostile crowds booing them (even during Italy’s National Anthem), with characteristic London rain aiding their used-to-it opponents (when was the last time I remember it rained on an Italian football pitch?), in a country that has own-goaled itself out of Europe and during the tenure of one of the most xenophobic government regimes the UK has known leads so many of us to consider an element of divine intervention in Italy’s victory. (Though I am sure Pope Francis would disagree…)

Difficult times breed extreme views. One just has to look at what happened to the Weimar republic with its plethora of economic problems. In this case the extreme right wing view prevailed and the Nazi jackboot commenced its reign of terror firmly based on the Teutonic master race stamping its ugly image into the faces of freedom-living people. Another reign of terror prevailed in France after the 1789 revolution but this one was based on ‘liberté, egalité et fraternité’, a resolutely left-wing view. More recently the Russian revolution of 1917 was founded upon the victory of the proletariat and the smashing of imperialism but led instead to a totalitarian regime that went as far as telling composers like Shostakovich what style of music to write.

(Ian MacCormick – AKA MacDonald – was my contemporary at Dulwich)

Both extreme right wing and extreme left wing groups have espoused violence, torture and even created famine and disease as part of their process of domination. That is the key word, domination, and writers like George Orwell knew well that there was a disgusting similarity in the tactics, if not the ideology, used by both the extreme left and the extreme right.   

Today difficult times have come to a climax with an overabundance of evils among which the most prominent are global pandemic, global warming and….globalization.  These issues divide us like nothing before. Gone are the days when in the UK a voter’s straightforward choice for a particular party was respected and, together with subjects like religion and sex, not even considered worth prying into or arguing about.

In much of the world now Christian believers are equally appreciated whether they be Protestants or Roman Catholics as they once were not. Marriages are respected between persons not only of the opposite but of the same sex and vegetarians are welcome into restaurants and homes. My own friends include believers and non-believers, gays and non-gays, vegetarians and non-vegetarians. So many things that used to divide people are now luckily accepted. (I draw a line regarding fox-hunting, however.)

What continues to strongly divide our social life like never before are Brexit and Covid-19. Indeed, we either split off from those with contrary views on these matters or we agree to disagree and not talk about the subject we differ on. Yet both Covid-19 and Brexit are cataclysmic issues and opinions on them are often, unfortunately, closely allied to aspects of extreme views including conspiracy theories.

I am regularly sent the most eccentric views on Covid-19 suggesting that it is a purpose-built pandemic instituted by dark vaccination forces aimed at decimating the world population and rendering them sterile. What these dark forces are and what is the evidence or aim for decimation is never satisfactorily clarified. A typical message sent to me in this key is the following “United States senate today announced: ‘corona is a lie’! The media is covering up the truth”. Etc. etc.

Similarly Brexiticianists continue to tell me how wonderful it is to be freed of Brussels bureaucracy and being able as an independent nation, which has somehow regained its ‘lost sovrentee’, to make its own choice about policies despite the facts that there is now a hell of a lot more bureaucracy in the UK since the start of this year (and also that the UK could still make its own decisions prior to that date). A typical message coming from this side is the following: “Surely you remember how varied the world is and what a blessing that was…Europe is better off without being controlled by something called Brussels and those boring self-seeking overpaid bureaucrats (French word) whose lack of imagination depletes us all. D. Hope you are ok. X”

When the conspiracy extremists on both left and right sides present ex-president Trump as the scorned Messiah who sacredly upholds core moral values and who, unlike other US presidents, has never gone to war with anyone (except his nation, perhaps?)  then I uncongestedly smell a rat. Aren’t extreme right and extreme left wing views closer to each other than they might seem at first? Is the political world to be no longer viewed as a spectrum but, rather, as a horseshoe, according to some theorists, where the opposite sides curve inwards and become ever closer to each other the more dangerously their views evolve?

(Carlotta can easily smell a rat)

The similarity between extreme left and extreme right wing views is in the wish to impose an overriding dogma on all humanity for they are both against any centrist, neo-liberal and capitalist status quo. It’s a bit like the Spanish conquistadores invading the Inca and saying to the inhabitants “either you become Christians or we kill you.” Going further back in time if one didn’t perform sacrifices in honour of the Roman emperor then one was thrown to the lions (as another form of sacrifice…)

In the recent demonstrations in London, for example, a totally weird yoking together of far right groups espousing anti-immigration, English nationalism and Muslim ejection found bed-fellows with extreme left wing groups like extinction rebellion and HS2 rail protestors. Whether flat-earthers were also involved I do not know.

For me the real difference in political viewpoints today lies between ‘liberal democracy’ and ‘populist extremism’ – not so much between right wing and left wing. After all, Mussolini was a socialist before he became a fascist and Hitler and Stalin were allies against the UK, both invading Poland prior to Operation Barbarossa in 1941.  What is really dangerous is when a form of extremism infiltrates a liberal democratic government or political party. Thus, the Labour party has been accused of anti-Semitism despite that view being associated with fascist ideology and the Tories have been accused of conspiracy theory with their opinions on ‘herd immunity’ in the context of the pandemic.

(Stalin meets Ribbentrop in 1939)

Actually both extreme right and left wing views merge and produce virus-like variants all the time. The Chinese Communist party marries capitalist doctrines to its one-party rule and is flagrantly anti-Muslim in its treatment of its Uighur minority. Italy is always in the midst of a coalition party confusion with pacts and agreements made between opposing right and left wing faction in varying degrees of alarming views.  The situation in the UK is equally a distressing since the current government has been infiltrated by extreme right-wing views with increasingly patriotic flag-waving (for example, more public buildings are now encouraged to fly the Union Jack)  and fomenting anti-foreigner prejudice  (hence, for instance, the shortage of lorry drivers, NHS staff and fruit pickers from the EU).

On Sunday we shall have the (UEFA) Union of European Football Associations championship final between one EU member and one ex-EU member. (Among other non-EU UEFA members are Israel, Kazakhstan and North Macedonia). I want to treat this occasion as one where we can thoroughly enjoy a football match of the highest quality and where the best side will clearly deserve to win. Yet here again we can see the ghastly spectres of those two words ‘Covid’ and ‘Brexit’ entering the arena. If England wins let not Doris claim part of the victory as part of her resolve to ‘get Brexit done’. (I somehow feel the other side will win!) And, regarding Covid, let’s not indulge in vain speculations about ‘herd immunity’. The only herd immunity I recognize is that prevalent among ignorant or conned humans who follow an extreme ideology whether it be on the right curve of the horseshoe or on the left.

Let’s hope that this horseshoe may at least bring a little bit of luck.

(Our garden horseshoe)