CLUB NEWS
CENTRAL METHODIST LADIES’ FELLOWSHIP
AN afternoon trip to Samlesbury Hall made a change from the usual Tuesday evening meeting for the Central Methodist ladies group.
The medieval hall has seen many lives and families come and go over the centuries.
Janie, the amusing guide, told the ladies of the history of the hall, from beheadings to bewitchings, with fascinating and gruesome tales told with plenty of humour.
After the talk, there was a cream tea and a short time to have a look round before they returned home.
The next evening meeting was thoroughly enjoyed by all the ladies when Barry Jackson, a vexillologist from Rochdale, brought along some of his collection of flags.
He has been interested in the colours and designs of flags since he was four years old, and over the years he has amassed a collection of over 600 flags kept in his own ‘flag room’ at home.
The first flag he showed depicted smaller flags from different countries, many of them were easily recognisable.
Then he showed individual flags starting with Great Britain, known as the Union Jack with the crosses of St George, St Andrew, and St Patrick, the USA flag with the 50 stars representing the number of states, and the 13 stripes representing the British Colonies that declared independence from Great Britain years ago.
The flag of Dominica was interesting with a dark green background depicting the lush vegetation, the red disc in the centre with 10 stars around, and a parrot in the middle of the disc.
The red for social justice, the stars for 10 saints, and the parrot as the most popular bird in that country.
The flag of South Korea is white with a red and blue circular centre which symbolizes balance, and in each corner of the flag are four different black bars which represent the four classical elements, earth, water, air and fire.
The flag of South Africa is the only one with six different colours.
Barry finished with a smaller flag, ‘The Christian Flag’.
This is white with a red cross on a dark blue square in the upper left hand corner.
White for purity, blue for faith, and red to remind us of the blood shed by Christ represented by the cross.
This flag was designed in 1897.
Barry and his wife Ruth gave all the ladies a card depicting this flag which brought a fitting end to a very interesting presentation.
Irene Wilkinson thanked Barry for giving the ladies such an entertaining and informative evening.
RAMSBOTTOM RECORDED MUSIC SOCIETY
PROGRAMME secretary John Atkin’s presentation was titled Megaliths, but this had no geological significance, rather it was used to describe music that is monumental, mighty in scale, either for its length or for the ensemble required to play it.
John surprised us with the composer of his opening piece, who turned out to be Sir Paul McCartney.
We heard part of the second movement of McCartney’s second large-scale classical work.
The symphonic poem ‘Standing Stone’ is a four-movement work for large orchestra and a large choir.
In contrast, we next heard the stirring sound of the massed pipes and drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards playing ‘Reels’.
After extracts from Berlioz’s grand five act opera ‘The Trojans’, written in the late 1850s and which is just under four hours in length, and Schoenberg’s ‘Gurrelieder’, a cantata of almost unprecedented dimensions completed in 1911, John offered us music from the English composer Havergal Brian.
Born in 1876 his gigantic two-hour symphony No.1 ‘The Gothic’ has earned an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as ‘the largest symphony’, not only for its length but also for the ensemble required to perform it.
We heard the slow second movement.
We were taken to the interval with that megalith of a musical instrument, the organ.
On this occasion the Flentrop organ in the Busch Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, on which Edward Power Biggs played Bach’s ‘Prelude and Fugue’ in C major, BWV 545.
We commenced the second half with a brief extract from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.
It is not a long piece but the orchestral structure required for its performance is huge.
The third of its three main parts ‘The court of Love’ was played.
John saved his largest megalith until the end, concluding with the ending of Gotterdammerung from Richard Wagner’s monumental Ring cycle, in which we heard Siegfried Jerusalem, Anne Evans, Philip King and the orchestra and choir of the Bayreuth Festival Hall all conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
The next meeting of the society will be held on Thursday, June 1.
For further details please contact Richard W Hall on 01706 823490 or by email at richard.w@hall45. eclipse.co.uk