The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
As the storm raged around him, raindrops fell like music on the pianist’s heart.
In 1838, Chopin and Georges Sand (a lady whose real name was Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin) stayed at a Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa, Mallorca. While seated at the piano during a storm, Sand tells us, Chopin experienced a disturbing dream.
Three fishermen let their tongues run away with them, and were left counting the cost.
On August 15th each year, the Orthodox Church commemorates the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God, that is, the death of the Virgin Mary. One of the oldest churches in the world, the Panagia Ekatontapyliani on Paros, was involved in a remarkable series of events on this day in 1931.
Handel’s anthem sets to glorious music words sung at English coronations for over a thousand years.
George Frederic Handel’s anthem ‘Zadok the Priest’, shamelessly plagiariased for UEFA’s ‘Champions League Anthem’, has been part of every coronation in England since 1727, and the words were chosen by a saint over a thousand years ago.
Handel’s German boss fired the composer for spending all his time in London. When they met again, it was... rather awkward.
George Frideric Handel was employed to write music for the court of George, Elector of Hanover in Germany. He preferred, however, to live in London and write music for Queen Anne.
The first thing George Frideric Handel’s oratorio ‘Messiah’ did was to set a hundred and forty-two prisoners free.
George Frideric Handel’s Oratorio ‘Messiah’ tells the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, entirely through quotations from the Bible. Its premiere was given in Dublin during the Lenten fast, and from the very beginning it touched hearts and changed lives.