An overture that fell flat
QUESTION Did Bach ever meet his fellow German composer Handel?
though the two men were born just a month apart and less than 100 miles away from each other, these two german-born giants of baroque never met.
the monumental study of Bach by the eminent german musicologist Philipp Spitta, first published in 1873-1880, states that no facts have come to light to prove handel took any interest in Bach or his works. however, Bach tried to make the acquaintance of handel more than once.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) made two attempts to see his more famous contemporary and man of the world, georg Friedrich handel (1685-1759).
the first attempt, in the autumn of 1719, took him to halle, handel’s native city. handel had travelled to England earlier that year to find singers for his newly founded operatic academy in London, and had returned home to spend time with his family.
Bach sought him out, but was disappointed to find that handel had left that very day to return to England.
Spitta agrees with the great handel biographer Friedrich Chrysander that as he had been in germany since March 1719 and surely knew about Bach’s interest in his music, he might have arranged a meeting, but nothing happened.
In June 1729, Bach, prevented by illness from travelling by himself, asked his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, a law student at the local university, to travel to nearby halle with an invitation to handel, who was then on a short stay on the way back from Italy to see his elderly mother for the last time.
For unknown reasons, handel, who was probably prepared and ready to travel on immediately after Wilhelm Friedemann’s arrival, regretted his inability to accept the invitation — a snub that has been held against handel by devoted followers of Bach to this day. E. Felix Schoendorfer, Stoke Poges, Bucks.
QUESTION In 1954, tea rationing ended after 12 years. What about coffee?
WHILE meat, butter and sugar were rationed from early 1940, other foodstuffs, including tea, were added later, and entitlement varied at different times during the war.
Bread, potatoes, vegetables, fruit and fish were never rationed, although choice and availability were limited.
Despite record coffee production in Brazil and other Latin American countries, the coffee supply was dramatically diminished during the war mainly because of the german blockade. u-boats were patrolling the shipping lanes and sinking merchant ships. there was no coffee supply, so it wasn’t rationed.
the germans suffered most from a lack of coffee, as it was a more popular drink there than it was here at the time.
one solution was to drink coffee Saxonstyle, mocked as Blumchenkaffee (flower coffee), so named because it was so pale that you could see the porcelain decorations at the bottom of the cup.
the word ersatz (‘substitute’) entered the vernacular at this time as germans resorted to Ersatzkaffee, coffee made from grains, chicory or even acorns.
Mrs G. Mayer, Dunchurch, Warwicks.
QUESTION How were certain Russians able to buy vast wealth-making industries that turned them into billionaires?
RUSSIA’S oligarchs made their billions during the rampant privatisation that took place under Boris Yeltsin’s presidency (1991-1999). Many of these men had honed their entrepreneurial skills during the Eighties in the years of Mikhail gorbachev’s perestroika, or political reform, smuggling western goods such as computers and jeans into the country and selling them on the black market for a hefty profit.
under Yeltsin the plan was to transform the formerly state-owned enterprises into profit-making businesses. the oligarchs were created in two waves. In 1991, many benefited from the process of voucher privatisation, when state enterprises such as oil companies and mines were sold and vouchers issued to the population in lieu of shares. one voucher was worth 10,000 roubles, but by the end of 1993 they had become practically worthless due to inflation.
Many people were forced to sell their vouchers cheaply for food, and these were greedily vacuumed up by entrepreneurs who gained massive stakes in former state industries.
In 1994, the Russian economy was close to collapse and embarked on the second wave of privatisation, a loans for shares plan.
the government borrowed money from private financial groups and secured repayment of the loans with collaterals of substantial packages of stock shares in state-owned enterprises.
the government agreed that if the loans were not repaid by the end of 1996, the lenders had the right to acquire full ownership of assets. the sale of these assets was corrupted by two factors. the market value of collaterals, provided by the government, exceeded the amount of loans by up to 25 times.
Second, the sell-off was corrupt. Lenders were chosen in auctions, which were staged so that only government cronies and entrepreneurs could participate. the government did default, leaving vast wealth in the hands of a few businessmen and bankers. Marcus Foyle, Edinburgh.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow, G2 6DB; fax them to 0141 331 4739 or email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.