I HOPE YOU KNOW THE SCORE (2)

This is a painting, by Adolph Menzel, showing Frederick the Great playing a flute concerto in Sanssouci, C. P. E. Bach at the harpsichord, Quantz leaning on the wall to the right -  (1852, five years after the meeting with Bach) I post it in addition to yesterday's blog.

 

Middle: Frederick the Great; far right: Johann Joachim Quantz, the king's flute teacher; to his left with a violin and wearing dark clothing: Franz Benda; leftmost in the foreground: Gustav Adolf von Gotter; behind him: Jakob Friedrich von Bielfeld; behind him, looking at the ceiling: Pierre Louis Maupertuis; in the background, sitting on a pink sofa: Wilhelmine of Bayreuth; on her right: Amalie of Prussia with a maid of honor; behind them, Carl Heinrich Graun; the elderly lady behind the music stand: Sophie Caroline; behind her: Egmont of Chasot; at the harpsichord: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

 

I HOPE YOU KNOW THE SCORE

There is a new play by Oliver Cotton about to open at the Theatre Royal Bath. It is called ‘The Score’. It is the story of how Johann Sebastian Bach came to compose ‘A Musical Offering’. It is based on an encounter on the 7^th May 1747 between Bach and Frederick II (The Great), at Potsdam, in the King’s palace at Sans Souci. The King had given Bach a single musical theme and challenged him to improvise a three voice fugue. He did, and later developed the theme into a six voice fugue, and sent the score to Frederic as an offering.

 

You can listen to the piece on YouTube with Barthold Kuijken on traverse flute, Sigiswald Kuijken on violin, Wieland Kuijken on viola da gamba and Robert Kohnen on harpsichord, playing at the Old Town Hall, Leipzig.

I have attached the video herewith but for technical reason you may have to go to YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzT_elDRLJM 

Just as Bach’s composition develops into multiple voices, so Mr Cotton's theatrical offering is multi-layered. Johann’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was a valued member of Frederick’s’ royal orchestra. The King was in fact an accomplished musician and played the flute. Carl was one of the foremost clavier players in Europe, and his own compositions, which dated from 1731, included a number of sonatas and concert pieces for harpsichord and clavichord. Also in attendance at the court were Carl Heinrich Graun, Kapellmeister to Frederick and Franz Benda violinist and composer.

 

Frederick was 28 years old when he succeeded to the Prussian throne in 1740 and had grown up with a particularly abusive father, Frederick William I. An entry in Wikipedia states:

 

During his early youth, Frederick lived with his mother and sister Wilhelmine, although they regularly visited their father's hunting lodge at Königs Wusterhausen. Frederick and his older sister formed a close relationship, which lasted until her death in 1758. Frederick and his sisters were brought up by a Huguenot governess and tutor and learned French and German simultaneously. Undeterred by his father's desire that his education be entirely religious and pragmatic, the young Frederick developed a preference for music, literature, and French culture. Frederick Wilhelm thought these interests were effeminate, as they clashed with his militarism, resulting in his frequent beating and humiliation of Frederick. Nevertheless, Frederick, with the help of his tutor in Latin, Jacques Duhan, procured for himself a 3,000 volume secret library of poetry, Greek and Roman classics, and philosophy to supplement his official lessons.

 

From 1740 on however, Frederick developed his own autocratic style of leadership and militaristic endeavours. He was a devoted reader of Machiavelli’s The Prince. During the second Silesian War, which ended with the Treaty of Dresden on the 25^th December 1745, the city of Leipzig had been occupied by Frederick’s troops. That did not endear the citizens of Leipzig, of which Johann Sebastian was one, to Frederick the Great. 

Thus the meeting in 1747 just under two years later was not exactly without issues, on top of which Johann was having his own quality time with his son Carl. Frederick was 35, Johann was 62 and Carl was 33. Johann was only three years older than Frederick’s father would have been had he lived, and he had only been dead some seven years.  You can therefore begin to appreciate the complexities of the encounter and the ramifications which flowed from it. To produce a play from these circumstances is as challenging as Bach’s answer to King Frederick’s musically themed throwing of the gauntlet.

 

Writing about historical events is never an easy matter. Researching people’s backgrounds and relationships provides the writer with some insight, and being able to see and read actual letters and diaries of the people one is writing about, will give perspective.  Testimony of certain of their encounters with others is of great value; however, there are encounters of which there is no actual record of any kind. Therefore, once one has gathered as much information as one can, the writer can give voice to the situation. It is the informed imagination that provides this voice. Whilst it is not crucial for the reader or viewer to have the same degree of background knowledge, it is sometimes helpful to have a little bit of information.  The work itself however, will stand on its own. It is up to the reader/viewer to interpret the text.

 

Indeed all the writer can hope for, once s/he has let it go, is that there are readers or viewers who understand the text and are able to interpret the various layers explored by the work. Once it is on its own, like all living things, it hopes to be understood. Much of the clarity of a theatrical work, of course, depends on the performance of the characters and how they mesh, clash and interweave across whatever platform that encapsulates the piece itself. It is in itself like a musical offering with all the sounds and speech creating a harmony or discord. It will be sonata or symphony so long as it is co-operative and well-orchestrated.

 

The proposed production of the play will open at the Theatre Royal Bath from the 12^th October 2023 to the 28^th October 2023. It will be under the direction of Trevor Nunn and will have as interpreters, Brian Cox, Nicole Ansari-Cox, Matthew Burns, Doña Croll, Peter de Jersey, Stephen Hagan, Benedict Slater, Eric Sirakian and Christopher Staines. The Composer and Sound Designer is Sophie Cotton, Designer Robert Jones, and Lighting Designer Johanna Town. With such a team, I have no doubt that Mr Cotton’s theatrical offering of The Score will be well worth attending.

 

WHY ARE WE STILL WAITING ?

I have been listening to a Radio Four book of the week “Adam Smith: What he thought and why it matters” by Jesse Norman MP. He values Adam Smith a great deal, and is a firm believer in Smith’s philosophy, particularly as it pertains to economics. 

 

Mr. Norman has served as a Minister of State, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Paymaster General, Financial Secretary and Committee Chairman under Teresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. He is currently Minister of State for Decarbonization and Technology. Mr Norman was educated at Eton College and Merton College, Oxford, graduating with a Second in Classics. Norman pursued further studies at University College London, where he was appointed an Honorary Research Fellow in philosophy, taking an MPhil (Master of Philosophy) in 1999 and a PhD in 2003. His doctoral thesis was titled "Visual reasoning in Euclid’s geometry: an epistemology of diagrams". His book Adam Smith: What He Thought, and Why It Matters (2018), won the Parliamentary non-fiction book award in 2018., and was described as "superb" in the Financial Times.

He is married to Dame Catherine Elizabeth Bingham DBE HonFRS HonFREng. She is a managing partner at a venture capital firm, SV Health Investors. She has a first-class degree in Biochemistry (MA) from Christ Church, Oxford, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. In May 2020 Bingham was appointed Chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, without a recruitment process. Dame Kate's work on the UK's vaccination rollout programme has been praised by scientists and international media, particularly for securing 350 million doses of six vaccines and setting up infrastructure for clinical trials, manufacturing and distribution. Bingham has expressed views on how the UK covid vaccination programme could have been better run and on how UK potential in life sciences could be improved. In January 2017 Bingham received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the BioIndustry Association UK. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for "services to the procurement, manufacture and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines", Bingham was also admitted to the Freedom of the City of London in that year. She was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2023 and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering later the same year.

 

There is no doubt a great deal of academic and personal accomplishment by Mr & Mrs Norman; however, the distinction between a first-class degree and a second is clearly noted. There can also be no doubt as to who the big earner is in the family and that venture capital and capitalism in general has provided a great deal to the Norman family; hence Jesse Norman’s attraction to Adam Smith’s “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” published in March of 1776, during the Scottish Enlightenment and the Scottish Agricultural Revolution.

 

There was also a colonial revolution going on in America which had begun in 1765, erupted into conflict in 1775, continuing till 1783. Four months after the publication of the Wealth of Nations, the Declaration of Independence (principally written by Thomas Jefferson) was adopted and published in July of 1776. Seven years earlier in 1759 Smith had published The Theory of Moral Sentiments which I have no doubt would have been read by and had some influence on Thomas Jefferson and some others involved in the American revolt.

 

It was a time of conflict throughout the world, much as it is now.  The last battle on Scottish or British soil was the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Smith would have been 23 years old. He published his Theory of Moral Sentiments at the age of 36, thirteen years after this bloodiest of conflicts and it must have still been very much a factor in his experience and thought as it must have taken some time to write. One has to admire his optimism and assumption that his imagined ‘concerned person’ was a reality that could be achieved. 

 

There is no doubt that were all individuals to behave in the manner of Smith’s concerned person, with full faculties of imagination and sympathy, the world would be a better place. Indeed if every capitalist, merchant or politician behaved in this exemplary manner, then the process of levelling up and spreading of the wealth throughout the world would have been achieved long ago.

 

I do not pretend to have read Smith’s works in any great depth, but essentially his view is that we all operate out of self-interest, but a self-interest tempered by sympathy.  Smith was highly concerned about the problems of poverty. He writes:

...poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children [...] It is not uncommon [...] in the Highlands of Scotland for a mother who has borne twenty children not to have two alive [...] In some places one half the children born die before they are four years of age; in many places before they are seven; and in almost all places before they are nine or ten. This great mortality, however, will everywhere be found chiefly among the children of the common people, who cannot afford to tend them with the same care as those of better station.

 

He should have said poverty is extremely unfavourable to everyone in all circumstances.  Between the exercise of self-interest and the exigencies of sympathy for others, there is a Grand Canyon for most people and in particular the very wealthy. The concept that mutual self-interest will result in some sort of wealth distribution is clearly unwarranted. Smith was clearly aware of this as he was extremely critical of what is now called ‘special interest’ (bankers, corporations, oligopolies, guilds etc.). He writes:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

 

I do not understand how, a conservative party, with as firm a belief in laissez-faire capitalism as an eventual cure for all ills, can possibly believe that higher taxation of the rich stifles enterprise. They claim that by allowing them to thrive and increase their profits, they will in effect pay more taxes in the long run. They also claim that by allowing generous tax exemptions for spending profits on expansion to increase profits, they will again be paying more into the treasury. Yet somehow, that does not happen, and governments are reduced to imposing so-called windfall taxes. It doesn’t happen because corporations and ‘special interests’ do everything they can to disguise their profits and avoid paying taxes altogether, until they are found out and exposed for having “unexpected” or even “unearned’ profits.  

 

The conservative party sees this extreme example of self-interest in operation daily, and they still cling to the notion that lower taxation helps big enterprise, which in turn will help the general public. If that is the case why is the National Health Service struggling for funds to replace outdated equipment, outdated buildings, pay all its staff better wages, and recruit more people to reduce the waiting time for treatment?

 

Smith’s publications occurred during times of crisis. His theories have been lauded but clearly impossible to put into practice. Some 160 years later during another time of crisis a certain William Beveridge was part of an inter-departmental committee created by a conservative leaning coalition government to produce a survey of Britain’s social insurance and allied services. The report was published in November of 1942, officially entitled Social Insurance and Allied Services (Cmd. 6404),

The Report offered three guiding principles to its recommendations:

1. Proposals for the future should not be limited by "sectional interests". A "revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching".
2. Social insurance is only one part of a "comprehensive policy of social progress". The five giants on the road to reconstruction were Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.
3. Policies of social security "must be achieved by co-operation between the State and the individual", with the state securing the service and contributions. The state "should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family".

Beveridge was opposed to "means-tested" benefits. His proposal was for a flat rate universal contribution in exchange for a flat rate universal benefit. Means-testing was intended to play a tiny part because it created high marginal tax rates for the poor (the "poverty trap"). 

There were later attempt to implement some of the recommendations by the Labour Party who came to power in the 1945 general election, most notably the Family Allowances Act 1945, National Insurance (Industrial Injuries Acts 1946 and 1948, National Insurance Acts 1946 and 1949, National Health Services Act 1946, Pensions (Increase) Act 1947, Landlord and Tenant (Rent Control) Act 1949.

The notion of creating a democratic welfare state whilst keeping up with a market-led, capitalist economy is very much part of what most countries in the western hemisphere are about. Various governments along the line have leaned more towards welfare whilst others have bent the other way in letting the “market decide” and for individuals to fend for themselves. Today’s world unfortunately makes it extremely difficult for populations to fend entirely for themselves. The state has to intervene. Smith’s concerned person is no longer an individual, it is the state. Beveridge’s report should be more carefully examined and perhaps a new investigation should bring it up to date. What is necessary is not so much minimum wage legislation, but minimum income legislation. I see entrepreneurs and corporations lauded for their supposed creation of wealth and employment but I see no entrepreneurs or venture capitalists lauded for their elimination of poverty, which, for some reason, is seen as a by-product rather than the main goal.

It is not just about economic growth, it is about ensuring that every human being has the possibility of benefiting from very basic human rights and partaking in the world around them, free to learn, free to work, free from want and disease. That has been the goal for the last 10,000 years. Numerous individuals have come up with strategies and plans to that end, and, still, it would appear, not one of them has succeeded. Why is that?

GOING WITH THE FLOW

Fluid. Is it a liquid, is it something flowing or is it a matter of being adaptable? It is a word that is more appropriate to the thinking or our current political representatives than consistency or immutability. It is the antithesis of being steadfast to the party line.

 

Our current Secretary of State for Defence Grant Shapps is the epitome of the fluid politician. He has been Minister of State for Housing and Local Government (2yrs 3 months), Minister without portfolio  whilst Chairman of the Conservative party (2yrs 8 months), Minister of State for International Development (just over 6 months) Secretary of State for Transport (3yrs 2 months), Home Secretary (6 days), Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (4 months), Secretary of State for Energy security and Net Zero (7 months) and now secretary of State for Defence (24 days).  

 

He has moved about in the last 13 years like no one else. In the last year he had had four jobs as Secretary of State. He has served under Cameron, Johnson, Truss and Sunak. On many occasions he has been trotted out to defend absurd positions of the Conservative Party and he has managed to obfuscate his way through interview after interview with consummate ease to support whatever the current government wishes to justify. His fluidity and adaptability is without peer in the conservative party, which is why he is invariably put forward as the spokesperson, following clumsy and ridiculous pronouncements by the party leaders. He has come out time and again to put on a brave face, without any concomitant embarrassment one would normally associate with defending the indefensible.

 

During his latest interview he has boldly stated that one must be changeable in controlling public expenditure and keep in constant review any public undertaking instituted by the government. Fluidity is essential regardless of commitment to policy. He may not have stated that specifically, but that is in effect what he implied. There is much to be said for that view. Indeed one has seen it in operation within the leadership of the Labour Party as well as the Liberal Democrats.

 

It is never good policy to be so totally rigid as to not see the alternative available when obstacles crop up, as they invariably do with strict adherence to a position. The battering-ram politician is never capable of fluidity and the possibilities of alternative propositions. It is a matter of going with the flow. The likes of Suella Braverman, Priti Patel, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries and others on the right of the party will never adjust.  They are constantly pushing and punching and assigning blame on others for the failure of their blows. The tragedy is that they sometimes succeed; however, with such density comes erosion, and the ravages of time will reduce them to rubble. One would hope that the next general election will do the necessary.

 

As to Grant Shapps he has always managed to flow with the go. He has 5 ‘O’ levels from Watford Grammar School for Boys and a Higher National Diploma from Manchester Polytechnic having completed a business and finance course. He started his working life as a photocopier sales rep, and from the age of 22, in 1990, he had a not too successful career in various business ventures. A short entry from Wikipedia state the following:

Shapps's use of the names Michael Green, Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox attracted media attention in 2012. He denied having used a pseudonym after entering parliament and, in 2014, threatened legal action against a constituent who had stated on Facebook that he had. In February 2015, he told LBC Radio: "I don't have a second job and have never had a second job while being an MP. End of story."

In March 2015, Shapps said he had made an error in his interview with LBC and was "mistaken over the dates" of his outside employment. He said he had "over-firmly denied" having a second job. David Cameron defended Shapps, saying he had made a mistake and it was time to "move on". In March 2015, Dean Archer, the constituent previously threatened with legal action by Shapps, threatened Shapps with legal action.

Please note the phrase “over-firmly denied”. Also note David Cameron’s use of “time to move on”, a phrase used by just about every conservative prime minister since the 2010 election, to cover embarrassing situations. As to over-firmly statements, they are the stock in trade of the politician used to adaptability and the non-denial denial. Sadly, Grant Shapps is not alone in this type of exchange, nor is his party the only party responsible for such rhetoric. It goes with the flow, and whether alone or not, Mr Shapps is extremely practiced in the art of fluidity.

Our current prime minister has spoken frequently of integrity, responsibility, and adherence to codes of conduct. He has clearly fallen short of that initial promise, but do not forget that everything is changeable, and adapting to circumstances, real or imagined, is the name of the game. If the Labour Party and the Liberal Democratic Party seek to dislodge the current government and remove as many of their representatives as possible, they are going to have to adapt their strategies to get around the first-past-the-post obstacles in any number of constituencies. They will also have to provide real meaning for the electorate to gain their vote and show a genuine interest in actual public service as opposed to mere political positions.

A FEW CONCERNS AND OBSERVATIONS

To whom it may concern,

I’m not sure who is the whom I am addressing. I do not know whether or not they may actually be concerned with, or indeed interested in, the matters which I presume them to be concerned with.

Concern is a rather fluid word. Someone who is involved in a concern may be quite happy about the tasks and responsibilities associated with that enterprise. It may be an individual who is involved in the care of others or simply the attribute of a concerned person as envisaged by Adam Smith.   It may also relate to a person/s anxiety, apprehension and unease about their personal situation or the general state of the world around them. 

I could also be grossly mistaken and the whom is someone who is totally unconcerned with any of the above. In which case my opening remark is completely inappropriate. On the other hand it is difficult to imagine any individual who has no concerns or is not involved with anything or anyone. The simple matter of being alive is a concern, and the brain is never completely inactive, unless it has ceased to function entirely. In the absence of death we all have concerns of one kind or another.  So I presume to presume.

I was having breakfast and listening to More or Less on Radios 4.  The claim by Housing Minister Rachel Maclean that the government had built a record number of social rent homes was manifestly wrong, if not an outright lie. By carefully choosing her own definition of ‘social rent’ and massaging certain statistics, she could almost be correct. It was however an extremely misleading claim, if not a complete prevarication. In effect it was a lie, The presenter, Tim Harford demonstrated, with clinical examination and evidence from the Governments own statistical analysis of housing, just how misleading the minister was. He did the same for Liz Truss’s latest claims that her mini budget was correct, with clear analysis showing just how disastrous it was, and how flawed her thinking.

These are matter of concern, particularly when current conservative ministers continue to mislead and prop up disastrous government policy, retreating from critical environmental decisions, all the while claiming it to be in the economic interest of the public.  Having created the current cost of living crisis, they now claim to resolve it by stating that they are holding off implementing net zero commitments, and telling the public that by doing so they are saving the public from additional expenses on cars and boilers.   What kind of insanity is that?

Despite repeated claims that their actions are to support and benefit their poor constituents, it is painfully apparent that every turn by the current Prime Minister and his associates is a scrambled attempt at cajoling the electorate into re-electing a conservative majority. Their only program is to turn the polls around. They do not care what they do to preserve power. This is of concern. Government, it would seem is no longer about public service.

Additional note since yesterday: I have just listened to the Prime Minister being interviewed on the today program by Nick Robinson – The word disingenuous is all that can be applied to Rishi Sunak’s effort to claim he is thinking only of the economic pressures being put on the populace, that he is a new broom bringing about a change in political leadership and that he is initiating a new way forward for the British people. He defies anyone to put forward a better plan whilst claiming Britain has been leading the way forward in carbon emission reduction, and will still meet its net zero commitments. Having been party to creating the cost of living crisis, for which he accepts no responsibility, his current proposals are a connivance to persuade the electorate to turn back to the Conservatives. What is extraordinary is that there are still members within his party who defend his garbage and claim they actually believe in it. So what we get is a lack of frankness, candour, or sincerity. They are being falsely and hypocritically ingenuous; hence disingenuous, which must be of concern.

Mr Sunak had said in his speech, inter alia:

“The proposal for government to interfere in how many passengers you can have in your car. I’ve scrapped it,” he said.

“The proposal that we should force you to have seven different bins in your home. I’ve scrapped it.

“The proposal to make you change your diet – and harm British farmers - by taxing meat. Or to create new taxes to discourage flying or going on holiday. I’ve scrapped those too.”

Herewith sample exchange from interview:

Nick Robinson: “Hold on a second prime minister, you stand up with the authority or prime minister in Downing Street and you say you’re scrapping a series of proposals, and when I ask you about them yourself, you say ‘oh, somebody considered (them) and it was in the appendix of the document’.“There’s nothing to be scrapped, which is why your former environment (minister) says you’re pretending to halt frightening proposals that simply do not exist.”

Mr Sunak said: “I reject that entirely. These are all things that have been raised by very credible people.”

I would ask, raised by which people, where and when?  A complete nonsense. Pretending to deal with things that do not exist. What fantasy prime minister is this? This is straight out of the Trump book of political leadership. Repeat the fantasy. “These are things that have been raised by a lot of credible people, so many you wouldn’t believe, more than ever before”

Indeed, this is even more hideously demonstrated by what is going on in Russia, Hungary, Belarus and most assuredly in the United States and the outpouring of venom by Donald Trump and his supporters’ railings against the entire democratic process and rule of law. The avalanche of threats to judges, officers of the courts, law officers and potential witnesses since he has been indicted is of considerable concern. So much so that the prosecutor has petitioned the court to hold Mr Trump accountable and make him cease his harmful rhetoric.  His MAGA base has been referred to as a dangerous cesspool. He is more than prepared to stoke violence in this pool. The shit hitting the fan has never been more relevant.

On a different note, regardless of political concerns, there are other matters of import to the populace. The Rugby World Cup is in full swing. Twenty nations are represented in 5 different pools. France, Ireland, South Africa, Wales and England are all 2 for 2 at present. This is of concern to a great number of rugby fans across the globe.  The NFL season in the United States has begun. Attempts to spread the popularity of the game will involves 5 games being played in Europe. Two in Frankfurt, Germany and three in London. The Jacksonville Jaguars will be involved in two of the games in London, one of which will be at Wembley Stadium and the other at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which will also host the Tennessee Titans against the Baltimore Ravens in week 6.

We all have a variety of concerns, to wit family, friends, jobs, daily activities, cooking, shopping, subsidence, home maintenance, teeth, remembering to take the pills, what to drink, staying reasonably healthy, and the list goes on. This is that last day of my four score years and I move on to the next decade wondering if I’ll make it to 2032, by which time Mr Sunak’s deferments on scrapping petrol and diesel cars and gas boilers may have come into effect. It would be nice to find out. Tee hee.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED

There is a YouTube video from 2016 (prior to the 2016 presidential and general election in the United States) in which, the writer, Tony Schwartz describes his views on Donald Trump to the Oxford Union. He predicts exactly what Trump would do in the event of losing an election and many other characteristics of Donald Trump. It is worth another look and should spurn every possible American voter to make every effort to vote against Donald Trump should he be nominated as a presidential candidate. Nothing has changed about Trump exept he has become even more dangerous.