Post by Angelamyte on Mar 9, 2003 20:37:53 GMT -5
I dunno if anyone found this already..but this is from the headmaster's news:
In the Lent Term, apart from the academic demands, and all those trial A Level and GCSE exams, we had a Chamber Music festival; an evening of excerpts from operas; a School concert, with remarkable performances from Nick Hagon (as soloist in Tchaikowsky's 1st Piano Concerto), the orchestra, and the choir under the direction of John Baird; we admired Peter Holmes's production of an uncut but vibrant Hamlet with Christian Coulson playing a Hamlet to remember.
that was in May of 1996
and this: An invitation went out from three people, whose years at Westminster spanned the period from 1932 to 1972, inviting all former members of College to an inaugural dinner on 20th September 1996. The evening started with a gathering in Ashburnham House at which three present members of College entertained the company. Simon Piesse played an oboe sonata by Albinoni, Christian Coulson recited the Shield of Achilles by W H Auden.
that was in November of 1996
this is the poem that he recited:
The Shield of Achilles
She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,
But there on the shining metal
His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.
A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.
Out of the air a voice without a face
Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.
She looked over his shoulder
For ritual pieties,
White flower-garlanded heifers,
Libation and sacrifice,
But there on the shining metal
Where the altar should have been,
She saw by his flickering forge-light
Quite another scene.
Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.
The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.
She looked over his shoulder
For athletes at their games,
Men and women in a dance
Moving their sweet limbs
Quick, quick, to music,
But there on the shining shield
His hands had set no dancing-floor
But a weed-choked field.
A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.
The thin-lipped armorer,
Hephaestos, hobbled away,
Thetis of the shining breasts
Cried out in dismay
At what the god had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.
i can just imagine him reciting this poem, his voice clear and strong, his face changing with the expression of his voice..TEXT
In the Lent Term, apart from the academic demands, and all those trial A Level and GCSE exams, we had a Chamber Music festival; an evening of excerpts from operas; a School concert, with remarkable performances from Nick Hagon (as soloist in Tchaikowsky's 1st Piano Concerto), the orchestra, and the choir under the direction of John Baird; we admired Peter Holmes's production of an uncut but vibrant Hamlet with Christian Coulson playing a Hamlet to remember.
that was in May of 1996
and this: An invitation went out from three people, whose years at Westminster spanned the period from 1932 to 1972, inviting all former members of College to an inaugural dinner on 20th September 1996. The evening started with a gathering in Ashburnham House at which three present members of College entertained the company. Simon Piesse played an oboe sonata by Albinoni, Christian Coulson recited the Shield of Achilles by W H Auden.
that was in November of 1996
this is the poem that he recited:
The Shield of Achilles
She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,
But there on the shining metal
His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.
A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.
Out of the air a voice without a face
Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.
She looked over his shoulder
For ritual pieties,
White flower-garlanded heifers,
Libation and sacrifice,
But there on the shining metal
Where the altar should have been,
She saw by his flickering forge-light
Quite another scene.
Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.
The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.
She looked over his shoulder
For athletes at their games,
Men and women in a dance
Moving their sweet limbs
Quick, quick, to music,
But there on the shining shield
His hands had set no dancing-floor
But a weed-choked field.
A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.
The thin-lipped armorer,
Hephaestos, hobbled away,
Thetis of the shining breasts
Cried out in dismay
At what the god had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.
i can just imagine him reciting this poem, his voice clear and strong, his face changing with the expression of his voice..TEXT
Christian, do you like our future?
haha okay. anyway. but still! how cute! hehehe.
Oh wow, he is just amazing 
i like that poem 
me likey! ;D