LIVELY BOOKS: SPECIAL OFFER, DEC. 23 -JAN. 13

It is Christmas Eve. There will be wonderful events tonight and great celebrations tomorrow. And then…???

You could relax with a beautiful book, a highly praised book with beautiful pictures. OH, yes, it’s a great time to read. The Lively Foundation is proud to offer magnificent books around the calendar, but, right now in this special time between big holiday happenings, Lively offers two of its books on special prices. Buy two and (1) one of them is half price and (2) Lively will pay the postage. They can be two of the same book or one of each. Buy one and take %25 off the price.

The Story of Our Butterflies: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View

The Dancer’s Garden

Two: Natural history and garden memoirs by Leslie Friedman:

The Dancer’s Garden, “I love it. It is a perfect book, in conception and execution….a marvelous writer…” Diana Ketcham, House & Garden, Editor; Books Editor, The Oakland Tribune (ret)

“There is so much delight and poetry and wisdom to be found in the garden and in your book!” Sharon Abe, CA Academy of Sciences (ret)

The Story of Our Butterflies: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View, “This is a wonderful book. I look forward to sharing it with the rest of our staff here.” Joe Melisi, Center for Biological Diversity, (national conservation organization)

“Leslie Friedman is an historian, a dancer and choreographer, and now a perceptive writer about nature…in a second splendid work she takes wing into the world of butterflies…One is grateful for this delightful book, so well written and illustrated.” Professor Peter Stansky, Author, Historian, Stanford University

HOW TO BUY THE BOOKS?   DO IT SOON!

For example: One copy of The Dancer’s Garden (without postage) costs $42.00

One copy of The Story of Our Butterflies (without postage) costs $26

BUY ONE OF EACH or BUY TWO, EITHER TWO OF THE SAME BOOK or ONE OF EACH

If you live in California, please add tax $4.11 for Dancer’s Garden and $2.20 for Our Butterflies

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Anton Nel & Peter Wyrick: This is What Classics are About

December 4, 2022: Gunn Theater at The Legion of Honor, San Francisco – Pianist Anton Nel and Cellist Peter Wyrick performed works by Beethoven, Debussy, and Shostakovich. They proved that sometimes a whole orchestra would be too much. Playing selections written for their two instruments demonstrated that this music can reach 21st century hearts and minds from their origins in past centuries. That’s what “a classic” does. Handel and Hayden, Scott Joplin and George Gershwin, their creations can go on and on.

Ludwig von Beethoven

Beethoven’s Sonata No. 3 in A Major for Piano and Cello, Op. 69 is important in musical history because it is the first known piano-cello sonata in which the instruments are truly equal partners. Written in 1807- 1808, it is the third of a set of five sonatas for this pairing. Beethoven was never shy about making bold changes in the accepted way of things. This sonata was first performed in 1809. It has qualities of “bravura” as well as gentle, pleasant musical expression. Its Adagio is “Cantabile,” a singing Adagio, not a sad adagio. This sonata is said to be the most popular of the five. It fascinates the listener and also is pleasing and lovely. It reflects Beethoven’s mastery of musical imagination and his endless innovation. He wrote it at a time when he had to end his career as a pianist due to his growing deafness. This “middle period,” despite the loss of hearing, produced many creations including great symphonies: #5 and #6.

Anton Nel, pianist

Mr. Nel was the winner of the 1987 Naumburg International Piano Competition. He tours the world as a recitalist and performs with the great orchestras of the US -Cleveland, Chicago, Dallas, and Seattle Symphonies- as well as international venues like the Wigmore Hall, England; Concertgebouw, Netherlands; and in Japan, China, Korea. He holds an endowed chair at the University of Texas, Austin. He was born in South Africa and made his debut at age 12.

Peter Wyrick, ‘cellist

Mr. Wyrick has been the Associate Principal Cello of the San Francisco Symphony since 1999. Before joining SFS, he was principal cello of the Mostly Mozart Orchestra and associate principal cello of the New York Opera. He has performed chamber music with Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yefim Bronfman among other leading musicians. He began his musical studies at Juilliard at age 8 and made his solo debut at age 12.

Mr. Nel performed the Preludes from Book 2 by Claude Debussy. These pieces are for solo piano. Each prelude has a distinct characteristic. General Lavine…eccentric; La terasse des audiences du claire du lune; and Feux d’artifice. Debussy was suffering from cancer as he wrote these, and yet his clear vision and unique musical expression is so true one feels that it is possible to see the music as well as hear it. The selections are amusing, satiric, surprising. Feux d’artifice means “fire works.” It can also mean bright wit, and in these pieces the fine wit shines.

Claude Debussy

 

Chopin

Mr. Nel has tremendous energy as well as his talents. He followed Debussy with Chopin, Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major, Op. 47. Chopin was a pianist of astounding ability all of which he put into his piano works. Chopin would have been delighted by Mr. Nel’s presentation. I have heard that this Ballade grew from a fairy tale poem by Adam Mickiewicz. A water nymph loves a man, but she worries that he is not faithful. She decides to disguise herself, tempt her lover, and learn if he loves only her. In the poem, the nymph drowns the man, but Chopin did not like that ending; he lets both live and be happy together. it must be the only Romantic era fairy tale with such a happy ending. The piece seems to have two endings, one very long, and the next one is brief and brisk. This Ballade has everything this writer loves about Chopin. The music dances, waltzes, shines with deep colors of glowing gems; it is grounded in reality but takes the listener to another reality.

Dmitri Shostakovich

Mr Wyrick rejoined Mr. Nel for Shostakovich’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor, Op.40. Their performance was a triumph for them and for Shostakovich. He composed the Sonata, in 1934. This was a dangerous time for him. Stalin had criticized him as “bourgeois.” The murderous dictator had walked out on Shostakovich’s opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. it was the opportunity to denounce Shostakovich and his music. Much of his work was withdrawn from publication or performance. The government banned the opera from production in the USSR until 1961. This Sonata in four movements is powerful in its expression of cynicism and despair. Shostakovich musically mocks the establishment standards. The cello opens the event, for it is an event. The Scherzo offers the cello harsh sawing sounds. Hope and passion appear, then bottomless silence. The composer gives us a haunted, mysterious sound and also – for a very short time – folk tunes. The Sonata ends abruptly. Where are we? What happened? Shostakovich lived with the constant uncertainty and threats around him and after him.

This was a great performance by two of the most outstanding artists of their instruments.

 

 

 

Brahms, MTT, Emanuel Ax: The Great Reunion

Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, San Francisco – The enthusiastic music lovers who filled Davies Symphony Hall were on the edges of their seats before the concert began. They were there for the splendid, colorful, soul searing, soul lifting Brahms music. They came to hail their recently retired Music Director, now Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas, hero of San Francisco and the world of music. They cheered pianist Emanuel Ax as they might for a rock star, one who is loved by a very wide range of ages. This was a great reunion of artists who have performed together for many years. The coordination and unity of Maestro, Pianist, and Composer was breathtaking. They seemed to breathe in unison. Yes, that included Brahms, the reason the others were there. When remembering the concert, I visualize its end: MTT and Emanuel Ax standing side by side with their arms linked. The SF Symphony performed at the height of their great musicality. The Brahms program could not be beat, and  the image of the two men on stage lasts.

Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director Laureate, SF Symphony, conductor laureate of the London Symphony, co-founder and artistic director laureate of the New World Symphony.

The program opened with Serenade No. 1 in D major, Opus 11. This glorious, inventive piece is rarely performed. Johannes Brahms led his creation through several versions. He changed the instruments from an ensemble to a symphonic work, completed in 1858, and debuted its final version,1860. It could well have been a symphony, it has that grandeur, but it is a little more as Brahms includes two Minuets and two Scherzos. Its first movement starts with an easy going sound and develops by wandering happily through images and feelings. Toward the end, it begins to float like substantial but delicate summer clouds. The movement that follows begins with dark, threatening sounds as though proving that our lives are not lived only on sunny hillsides like the places where Brahms liked to visit and compose. And yet, he does not linger in the dark. He moves on to an Adagio that offers so much of Brahms’ heart that it invites profound sadness and then beams pure light as music. He follows with two Minuets. Surprisingly, the Minuets lead to another dark passage, but Brahms will not abandon us there. He takes off his hat and jacket and shows himself, the Brahms who can express love of life in its full, complex, troubling, loving nature. From then on in the next Scherzo and the final Rondo, the music puts on more muscle; it is the muscle of a thrilling dancer, flexible and strong. Brahms gives us a Rondo with the full-hearted power of joy.

Johannes Brahms, (May, 7, 1833, Hamburg – April 3, 1897 Vienna)

Emanuel Ax, Piano

Brahms finished his Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Opus 15 in 1858, the same year the Serenade in D major was begun. He began working on a sonata for two pianos, but he was not satisfied with his progress. He wrote to his friend, musician Joseph Joachim, “Actually, not even two pianos are enough for me.” His thoughts worked toward bigger expressions but held him back from writing his first symphony. That restraint lasted for 22 years and resulted in the immense, passionate, and astounding experience of his Symphony No. 1. Through years and much work, the Piano Concerto evolved. It opens with energy and grandeur. The piano does not join in for several minutes. Seeing Emanuel Ax sitting still at the piano added to the suspense begun at the very first sounds. Then, there is a gorgeous piano solo in which every listener luxuriates. “Go ahead,” the eternal music suggests, “feel the sun like a balm on your skin. Wrap yourself in a silken gown of sound.” It is a mysterious experience. Brahms bathes us in reality through his sound inventions. He is aware at all times of the complexity and wonder of life; he knows that we are all alive and gives us music that reminds us of the live moments all around us. In this fascinating, totally original concerto, Brahms switches from minor to major and sometimes combines them The result is a musical experience in all dimensions. His Adagio is in D major and has a solemn, quiet message. This great masterpiece of a Concerto brings us all together to open our eyes and hearts. Brahms embraces the world.

The huge ovation for the entire SF Symphony was encouraged by their generous leader, Michael Tillson Thomas. He gestured to every section, every soloist, and every player to take their bows. He and Emanuel Ax traded bows to the audience and to each other. And then, Mr. Ax gave us a gift from Schubert as an encore. He played the song, Seranade: “Softly my songs/cry to you through the night/come down to me my love/into the silent grove.” it was a concert to treasure.

It was a concert to treasure.

 

 

CONGRATULATIONS! International Dance Festival@ Silicon Valley; a GREAT SUCCESS!

Lively Foundation Artistic Director Leslie Friedman

Hooray for the Eleventh Season of the International Dance Festival@Silicon Valley! 18 varied classes from Nov. 7-13 led by acclaimed artists who are also Master teachers of their art. Weekday classes:  Pilates mat (Audreyanne Covarrubias), Tap(Megan Ivey Rohrbacher), Line Dances(Etta Walton), and Leslie Friedman’s internationally applauded repertory(Leslie Friedman) gave participants an up close and personal connection with the artist-teachers. On the weekend, The Full Days of Dance© featured classes in Pilates mat(Audreyanne), Jazz & Samba(Annie Wilson), Ballet(Leslie), Line Dances(Etta), and Tap(Audreyanne) on Saturday. On Sunday, Megan Ivey Rohrbacher led classes in Mime and Physical Comedy.

from L to R: Megan Ivey Rohrbacher, Etta Walton

from L to R: Audreyanne Delgado Covarrubias, Annie Wilson

Leslie Friedman taught dances from her repertory and ballet

Reactions from the participants keep coming: “It was GREAT!”  “Thank you for organizing this wonderful event!”  “I wish it would never end.” Five artists and 18 classes. How does that work? Audreyanne taught 5  Pilates mat classes, Nov. 7-11, another Pilates mat class, morning of 11/12, AND Tap class on 11/12. Megan taught 2 tap classes, 11/10 & 11/11 AND Mime & Physical Comedy, 11/13. Etta taught 2 Line Dances, 11/7 & 11/9 AND Line Dances on 11/12. Annie taught jazz & Samba all in one class, 11/12; Leslie taught Repertory, 11/12, AND Ballet, 11/12.  An opportunity to polish a technique or start learning one. An opportunity to work with acclaimed artists. An opportunity to enjoy moving, breathing, dancing: It was a wonderful experience, and it will be again.

“Opening Night” for San Francisco Symphony!

The San Francisco Symphony may have returned to Davies Symphony Hall many months ago, but for this music lover April 28 was the night that confirmed my wistful belief: It all sounds better live.  The program offered excitement that I did not realize I had craved for more than two years.  Klaus Makela made his SFS debut conducting Peru Negro (written 2012) by Jimmy Lopez Bellido; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1935) by Alban Berg; and Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Opus 93 (1953) by Dmitri Shostakovich.

Maestro Makela, a Norwegian, has received many honors in a short time. At age 25, he is Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Oslo Philharmonic and Music Director and Artistic Advisor of the Orchestre de Paris. This program demonstrated that he is adept at understanding and leading music from widely different eras and composers. Similarly, the SFS demonstrated along with Maestro Makela that they can make brilliant music that glows and lives no matter the style or era.

Klaus Mäkelä conducts the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall on April 28, 2022

The program opened with composer Jimmy Lopez Bellido onstage to introduce his music. He explained that while in the US, living in Berkeley, he took time in Lima, his home town. He delved into the sounds of street vendors making songs announcing what they offer. In a question- answer form, the songs grow into stories told by the orchestra. He noted that the African and traditional Peruvian modes were more parallel than intertwined, but he sought to bring them together, and he achieved that goal. He also explored his fascination with rhythms with African origins. The piece was simultaneously delightful and challenging. The closing percussion was thrilling.

Composer Jimmy López Bellido takes a bow following the performance of his “Perú Negro” by the San Francisco Symphony

Berg’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was dedicated to 18 year old Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler Werfel and architect Walter Gropius. Berg had known Manon since since was very young. She died from polio, a heartbreaking event for Berg as well as for Manon’s parents and friends. The Concerto is major work, about 22 minutes long. Its four movements of expanding emotions reflect characteristics of Manon from the opening Andante through Allegretto, Allegro and the final Adagio. The violin soloist, Ms Vilde Frang, also a Norwegian, played with expressive power and passion. The end is more tragic for having heard the Allegretto and Allegro before it. Ms Frang was embraced by the deeply moved audience.

Violinist Vilde Frang performs Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony

Shostakovich’s music is always great, and this is the right time to hear him, especially Symphony No. 10. When the content of this program was chosen, it is unlikely that anyone thought that Stalin or his political off-spring could be on so many minds. Russia’s war on Ukraine and the echoes of Stalinesque behaviors in suppression of a whole country can be seen on every channel. Stalin and his helpers followed, criticized, and punished Shostakovich through his life. The death of Stalin, in 1953, could have meant the liberation of his composing creativity if Shostakovitch had not been so worn down and terrified for his family. However, in No. 10 the composer paints an audible picture of experiences in such a dictatorship.

Dmitri Shostakovich

The long first movement is full of fear and uncertainty. It is like an entire population stumbling and crashing into stone walls. The second movement is said to be a portrait of Stalin. It is fast and angry. One would not want this music to chase after oneself. The final movement is something completely different even after the astonishingly “different” beginnings. It has quiet moments that say “let’s meditate about this” and daring, playful times that seem to promise escape. The SFS woodwinds added heart piercing and glorious solos to this expressive movement. Just when a listener might think the direction could take us down to the depths, there is a coded message from Shostakovich. He found a way to spell his initials in musical notes. He does it right here knowing his survival is a triumph.

Photos of Klaus Makela, Jimmy Lopez Bellido, and Vilde Frang by Stefan Cohen, courtesy of SF Symphony

 

EDWARD UPWARD, by Peter Stansky

In honor of Peter Stansky’s 90th birthday, Lively is posting reviews of his books. Professor Stansky, an historian of modern Britain, has been Chair of the Stanford history department and served in many leadership positions. These reviews are by Leslie Friedman and appeared in the publications of The Institute for Historical Study.

Edward Upward: Art and Life. Peter D. L
Stansky (Enitharmon Press, London, 2016)
Long-time member of The Institute for Historical Study member Peter Stansky, Frances and Charles Field Professor of History, Emeritus, Stanford University, has written a classic biography of Edward Upward, a man of mystery. A leading light of the English literary world in the 1930s, he is widely unknown, even though he lived to be slightly older than 105 (1903-2009), was author of twelve books, and still has, posthumously, seven books in print. Stansky’s is the first biography of this important figure. Stansky succeeds at highlighting the details of
Upward’s life while also focusing on the refrain that repeats throughout his life and has universal impact: which must one put first—art or life?
The book’s title demonstrates Stansky’s conclusion that Upward achieved in both.
Edward Upward was born in Essex. His father was a doctor. His father’s family had made
money through the first wholesale grocery import business in England. Welcome to
English, hair-splitting class definitions. To have money is good, but trade is middle class. A
doctor is a professional, but, at the opening of the 20th century, medicine did not have the
cachet it would later achieve. Edward Upward was in the middle (or upper) middle class with
enough advantages to have the childhood of a young gentleman.
He attended a prep school, a reputable public school, Repton, and Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge. He hated these schools. He had good times at sports, saw his early poetry
published in school journals, and won the Chancellor’s Medal for English Verse at
Cambridge. However, schools were for him replicas of Hell. Still, he became a
schoolmaster. He felt the need to support himself; being a schoolmaster gave him security.

EDWARD UPWARD

Upward saw beating and bullying in schools as a parallel to England’s class system which he
despised. His sense of injustice led him to Marxism-Leninism and, later, membership in
the Communist Party. Whatever his socio-political analysis of school life, he gained an education and friendship that deepened his creative gifts and refined his literary perceptions. Christopher Isherwood, novelist and short story writer, arrived at Reptona year after Upward. Isherwood describes him in his memoir, Lions and Shadows: “Everything about him appealed to me. He was a natural anarchist, a born romantic revolutionary.” (Stansky, 55) Stansky conveys the friendship between Upward and Isherwood in its many levels of understanding and the help they gave each other throughout their lives. Isherwood revered Upward. They were each
other’s first readers of new writing. Isherwood introduced poet W.H. Auden and Upward, in
1927. Auden was three years younger than Isherwood whom he knew from prep school. Though Auden later abandoned the left, Upward’s politics influenced him. Auden
adopted aspects of Upward’s fantasies into early  poems. In fact, when Auden gave Upward his
book, Poems, in 1930, the poet wrote in it that he wondered how much he had “filched” from
Upward by way of Isherwood. (Stansky, 131)  These literary relationships, as described by
Stansky, put Upward at the center of 1930s English writers, the “Auden Circle.”
Together at Corpus Christi, Upward and Isherwood wrote stories of a fantasy world they
invented. It had a map, characters fulfilling basic village roles, but the stories’ events were
surreal. In the stories of Mortmere, Isherwood and Upward became Starn and Hynd,
professional pornographers. The Mortmere fantasies are obsessed with sex, violence, and
potty jokes. They were the works of brilliant men in their teenage to young adult years.
Upward wrote that Isherwood wrote “about shit-eating and I about necrophilia.” (Stansky, 93)
Upward destroyed his own writing but kept Isherwood’s.

Christopher isherwood

Stansky notes that Upward cites Wilfred Owen, Katherine Mansfield, and Emily Brontë as the
greatest influences on him when an under-graduate. Emily Brontë and her sister Anne,
when ages sixteen and fourteen, created the fantasy island world of Gondal which was then
matched by Charlotte and Branwell with their fantasy island, Angria. These worlds were
preoccupied with war, spies, and romance. One wonders if “Hynd and Starn” knew about
Gondal and Angria and decided to make their own complete world which was on the Atlantic
coast of England rather than in the Pacific like Gondal and Angria. Stansky succeeds in
describing Mortmere’s significance in the English literary tradition of imaginary worlds.
Upward became a master at Alleyn’s School, Dulwich, South London, in 1932 and stayed
until he retired in 1961. The year 1932 was also the year he joined the Communist Party and met his future wife, Hilda Percival, a teacher. Having met Hilda when she gave a talk at a
Party meeting, he recognized she had a different status than previous women he had known. He felt she connected him to the Workers, though Stansky shows she better fit the lower middle
class. Hilda and Edward Upward had a happy family life, including two children. Together
they continued to work for their local Party: going to meetings, selling publications,
spreading the word. His love for Hilda grew throughout their lives. “I am very lucky to have
Hilda,” he wrote to Isherwood. “Marrying her was one of the few really sensible things I’ve done in my life.” (Stansky, 241)

In 1932 Upward also went to the USSR with a group primarily of teachers. The trip helped to put Upward on a watch list for MI5 and the Special Branch of the Police. He had gotten their attention when he contributed to a Daily Worker fund in 1931. Hilda made a trip to Russia in 1933. There were files on both of them. Upward’s life seems quiet, devoted to family, teaching, and faith in Communism while his inner life could be in turmoil. His inner debate did not stop even after he and Hilda left the Party, in 1948. Could he focus on writing and shortchange political action? Would he be just another bourgeois individualist? He led a peaceful life but believed that violent revolution was necessary to change English society. He wrote The Spiral Ascent, his trilogy, in plain, straightforward prose. He abandoned his surrealist style so that workers would have no trouble understanding exactly what he wrote. In 1958, when Upward had a breakdown and might have given up writing, Isherwood wrote to Hilda, sad that his friend might abandon this part of himself. “I feel this not only because I love him but because I’m only a writer myself because of him. At the beginning he taught me everything and I’ve always felt his talent is far greater than mine, even if he hasn’t used it as much.” (Stansky, 287-288)

Edward Upward older.
Stansky presents good and bad reviews of Upward’s writing and shows how it was
received in the literary world. He doesn’t take sides but does create sympathy for his subject.
Upward was dedicated to writing but had to fight himself to do it.
In addition to being a bourgeois amongst Communists, Upward was a heterosexual among
homosexuals. His best friend, Isherwood, and others of the Auden Circle had active homosexual love lives and partnerships. None of this appears to have ruffled Upward. When
young, he wrote about his need for sexual encounters and described, in less than politically
correct language, to Isherwood how it was working out with the women he saw. He and
Isherwood exchanged this kind of information without hesitation.
Upward believed he needed to be politically active to be able to write. Yet, after the Hogarth
Press published his novel Journey to the Border, in 1938, until he broke with the Party 10 years
later, he could not write. This biography offers insights that will especially excite readers
interested in the 1930s, the literature of the time, the particular character of the English
Communist Party. Upward was a man of mystery in the contradictions within his seemingly calm life. However, it is hardly necessary that a communist should be wild eyed and badly
dressed. Some of these contradictions are stereotypes in the mind of the beholder. His
anxiety over the choice between art and life may have been resolved through writing how he
found, as in the name of the last book of his trilogy, there was “No Home But the Struggle.
Having written that book, he brought the two into one.
– Leslie Friedman

Thanks to Maria Sakovich, editor, and The Institute for Historical Study for permission to republish this review.

Twenty Years On, by Peter DL Stansky – book review

Twenty Years On, by Peter Stansky (Pinehill Humanities Press), 2020

Peter D.L.Stansky, Professor Emeritus, Modern British History, Stanford University

This is a delightful book. Stansky’s felicitous style allows him to write profound observations which never hit the reader like a blow on the head. Instead, one feels historical memory and imagination light up as connections such as those between architecture in California and the Arts and Crafts movement in 19th century England become clear. The book is a collection of essays and lectures Stansky has presented over the past twenty years. His field is modern British history focusing on the intersection of political, social, cultural, and artistic history and where each defined area influences and modifies the others.

The essays’ subjects were the interests of his books: the Arts and Crafts Movement, especially William Morris; George Orwell; Bloomsbury; writers and artists of the 1930s, especially concepts of boundaries and frontiers; World War II, especially Churchill and the London Blitz; what it means to be English. There is a contemporary subject: history over television. How does history fare when the need for drama is nearly so important as accuracy?

The book is entertaining, informative, and learned. This reader’s favorite is the Preface in which Stansky tells how he decided to be an historian and why of England (I will not divulge details best enjoyed directly). Reading these essays does not replace reading the books, but it reveals the germs of ideas that propel the books. Provocative ideas in one subject suggest relationships with ideas in other chapters of life as well as of history.

Stansky wrote two books on Orwell with the late writer and editor, William Abrahams: The Unknown Orwell (1972) and Orwell: The Transformation (1979). Turn to Orwell’s writing to correct notions of “alternative facts” and “fake news.” One thinks the blight corroding truth is easily recognized; then falls into an enthusiasm created by Big Brother. Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, about his time in the Spanish Civil War, is proof. Which side has the good guys? Hard to tell.

Stansky shows that Orwell himself saw political confusion and aggression amongst socialist and communist parties. Spain led Orwell to the political direction of his life. He became committed to Democratic Socialism, he wrote, “as I understand it,” and opposed totalitarianism.

Stansky and Abrahams give fidelity to Orwell’s texts the greatest importance. They reject the “St. George” approach to Orwell. Others define him by his virtues, but that does not address his powerful writing or its purpose. Saints, suffer though they might, are easily dismissed when not understood.

Bloomsbury writers and visual artists seem light hearted after Orwell, despite premature deaths in the Spanish Civil War and Virginia Woolf’s suicide lying ahead. Stansky presents the vision behind these artists’ works: the world is not what it seems. He points out that major thinkers in the same time period, Einstein, Freud, and, in an earlier time, Marx, demonstrated that through physics, psychology, social-economic theory. They changed the way one could perceive the world. Virginia Woolf’s stream of consciousness writing reveals lives not by appearance but in progress.

According to Stansky, history must tell the story of what happened and also explain the story’s “significance.” He does that in studies of the London Blitz and Churchill, that stout, determined Englishman who saved the world. Was it a time of mythic heroism or of “panic and fear?” These contradictory views show Stansky a truth about the English. During the Blitz, they were encouraged to stay calm. Keeping on was the victory. There was bad behavior and terror, but they won by waiting. Then, Hitler took his planes and went East.

review by Leslie Friedman

This review first appeared in the Institute for Historical Studies, Winter, 2021. Thank you to Maria Sakovich, editor, for permission to publish it in the livelyblog.

FESTIVAL ARTISTS PERFORM! January 30, 2 p.m.

The International Dance Festival@Silicon Valley typically includes a Festival Concert. The artists who teach perform. There was nothing typical about 2020 or 2021! However, IDF@SV carried on producing two successful seasons of classes & workshops online. Fantastic! Now, the dancers, students, and those trying out dance for the first time will have a chance to see what the artist/teachers do. The performances will be over Zoom. The artists will perform in separate places as their homes are separated by thousands of miles. Farthest East: Audreyanne Delgado Covarrubias in Durham, North Carolina. Farthest West: Megan Ivey Rohrbacher in Hawaii! Even the two artists in California are as far apart as they could be and still be in the Bay Area: Annie Wilson in Novato (Marin County) and Etta Walton in San Jose.

No matter where they are, they are terrific! Join us for an amazing, fun hour on Sunday, Jan. 30, at 2 p.m. We are limited by space – no one is in a theater – but the talent is UNLIMITED!!! The performance is FREE. Of course, we will appreciate a donation of any amount to support the program. To do that, mail a check to The Lively Foundation at The Lively Foundation, 550 Mountain View Ave., Mountain View, CA 94041-1941 OR go to the landing page of this blog, scroll down until you see the PayPal button (PayPal keeps 2.2% plus 30 cents for every donation.)

Here is the Zoom invitation. The show starts at 2 p.m. You can enter earlier, but there is no need to be there much before 2 p.m. Thanks!

Leslie Friedman is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Leslie Friedman’s Zoom Meeting
Time: Jan 30, 2022 01:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

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pictures from top: Audreyanne Delgado Covarrubias, Etta Walton, Megan Ivey Rohrbacher

 

LEONARD WOOLF: Bloomsbury Socialist

Leonard Woolf: Bloomsbury Socialist

By Fred Leventhal and Peter Stansky

Oxford University Press, 2019

Leonard Woolf was the secular saint who helped his famous wife, Virginia, through mental crises. Historians Leventhal and Stansky show he was much more. Leonard Woolf was also a leader, scholar, activist, successful author of fiction and deeply researched papers on international government and economy, creative co-founder and business director of the Hogarth Press, anti-imperialist statesman, Foreign Service diplomat, spokesperson for mutual security agreements of the League of Nations, devoted gardener, dog lover.

This is a breakthrough book. It restores Woolf to a place of his own and demonstrates why his contemporaries revered him as a moral intellectual, a paragon.

The first part, The Personal Journey, covers Woolf’s family, education, marriage, friendships all in historical context. It gives an intimate look at his years in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in the Foreign Service. This section examines the influence Woolf’s friends had on his intellectual and spiritual development. Virginia, through their love and shared work, is a major presence. In Ceylon, he had authority over a large district. He collected revenue, dispensed justice, interacted personally with individuals. While he worked twelve hour days, expanding agriculture and building schools, he received letters from his friend Lytton Strachey urging him to propose to Virginia, maybe by telegraph. This part of the book is distinguished by psychological insights, sympathy with the subject, and examination of social and intellectual classes.

The second part, The Political Journey, analyzes Woolf’s studies of economics, trade, and labor in nations and colonies around the world. He wrote for the Fabian Society and the Labour party. Woolf was aligned with the Fabian Society, the British Socialist organization that sought reforms leading to democratic socialism. However, Woolf favored individual rights over state authority and nationalism. In early days in Ceylon, he believed that Britain helped colonials solve problems. Later, he favored self government. He adopted that attitude toward other British colonies, though not all simultaneously. His many, gigantic research projects include the books Empire and Commerce in Africa, written for the Labour Research Department (1920), International Co-operative Trade, the Fabian Society, 1922; both published by George Allen & Unwin. Foreign Policy: The Labour Party’s Dilemma, Fabian Research Series/Victor Gollancz (1947)

The presentation of the studies’ details and purposes is admirably clear and shows how the work shaped Woolf and how his intellect shaped the work.

Labour’s dilemma was how to react to human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. Woolf’s opposition to the Soviets’ cruelty was steadfast as it would be to China’s. His lifelong belief that an international system was the only hope to avoid another cataclysmic war led him to advocate for the League of Nations. His findings supported collective security agreements. He was among the first British writers to recognize the truth about the Nazi regime.

For the United Nations, he urged collective security against militarized nationalism. His work is timely now: international cooperation is threatened by attacks on the European Union, the US refusal to support the World Health Organization, and scorn from Brazil and the US for steps against climate change.

At St. Paul’s, his public school, though an outstanding scholar and athlete he was taunted for being Jewish. At Cambridge he was part of the most elite, intellectual cliques yet defined by friends as a Jew. Judaism and Hellenism combined to form his philosophy. He credited the Hebrews with establishing the value of individual lives through the non-negotiable Ten Commandments and the Greeks with secularizing government by being skeptical about religion while keeping spiritual values. His integrity was as powerful as his intelligence. This book brings us Leonard Woolf, and we need him.

The Authors:  Professsor Fred Leventhal taught British history for 35 years at Boston University. He also taught at Harvard, Boston College, and the University of Kent (UK). He was co-editor of the journal Twentieth Century British History and is former president of the North American Conference on British Studies. Professor Peter Stansky taught at Harvard and then at Stanford University and is the Frances and Charles Field Professor Emeritus of British History. He also served as president of the North American Conference on British Studies.

review by Leslie Friedman, published Fall, 2020

Lively Books for Holiday Joy: Special Offers

It is Halloween Weekend, and The Lively Foundation offers a very special treat: the first ever sale on two beautiful, readable, and even re-readable books! Both The Dancer’s Garden and The Story of Our Butterflies: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View have won enthusiastic reviews and glowing responses from readers, lovers of good writing, fine photography, nature.

Buy either book and receive a 10% discount off the normal, retail price. Buy two or more books -same books or a mixture of the books – and Lively will cover the shipping costs. This is a deal.

The Story of Our Butterflies: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View, by Leslie Friedman, with full color photos by Jonathan Clark and Leslie Friedman sale price: $26.95

The Dancer’s Garden, by Leslie Friedman, with full color photos by Leslie Friedman and Jonathan Clark, sale price: $37.80

A Few Reviews:

The Story of Our Butterflies: “Leslie Friedman is an historian, dancer and choreographer, and now a perceptive writer about nature. …in a second splendid work she takes flight into the world of butterflies. … One is grateful for this delightful book, so well written and illustrated.” Peter Stansky, Author, Historian, Professor Stanford University

The Story of Our Butterflies: “This is a wonderful book and I look forward to sharing it with the rest of the staff here.” Joe Melisi, Center for Biological Diversity, National Conservation Organization based in Tucson, AZ

The Dancer’s Garden: ” I love it. It is a perfect book, in conception and execution….a marvelous writer, as I expected, and I am particularly fond of short essays. The scale and layout are just right.” Diana Ketcham, HOUSE & GARDEN, EDITOR (ret), Books Editor, THE OAKLAND TRIBUNE

The Dancer’s Garden: “a wonderful quirky, perky, series of ruminations on gardens, flowers, plants, trees, cats, people, indeed life. It has magnificent photographs…it is an exhilarating read!” Peter Stansky, Author, Historian, Professor Stanford University

You may purchase by check or credit card.

By check: please make your check to The Lively Foundation and mail it to The Lively Foundation, 550 Mountain View Avenue, Mountain View, CA, 94041-1941.

To purchase by credit card: please go to http://www.livelyfoundation.org/wordpress   Scroll down the landing page to find the PayPal logo and click on that.

Most important is that you buy the books. “There is so much delight and poetry and wisdom to be found in the garden and in your book!” S. Abe, California Academy of Sciences (ret)