Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
« Happy Easter | Main | An instinct for poise »
A step back in time
The Cobbe Collection of pianos at Hatchlands, Surrey
So did you step out and enjoy this weekend? Did you do anything particular for Easter?
Well, apart from having a birthday on Saturday, I experienced a step back in time.... a step back into the late 18th and 19th century, the time of Jane Austen, Chopin, Thomas Carlyle amongst others.
What is it about life that sets a pattern of events that are somehow connected and in hindsight seem to have been almost premeditated, yet at any singular moment one would not pretend to know or intend such sequence of events? Looking forward there is no plan, but on looking back...what sequence of such events could possibly occur without a plan? That is the the wonder of synchronicity and the Law of attraction.
We watched a DVD of Jane Austen's Persuasion on Friday evening and how we both enjoyed it! On Sunday we decided to go out for a drive....somewhere west, around the country and decided to drop in to Basildon Park, a National Trust property between Reading and Oxford, just along the Thames. It turns out this grand house and estate was used as the main location......for the film version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Caught up in the theme of the period, we watched Northanger Abbey that evening.
On Sunday we went to Hatchlands, another stately home of the National Trust to see the wonderful Cobbe Collection of historical pianos, most of which are famed for having been played by composers such as Liszt, Chopin, Mahler, Elgar, JC Bach, amongst others. One piano has just recently been confirmed as being the actual Pleyel piano that Chopin had transported from Paris to his London flat. It had long been speculated that he may have played it, but in March a historian confirmed Chopin's ownership beyond any doubt. Another piano on display is one he gave a performance to Queen Victoria and also for three other performances. There is a third piano owned by Jane Stirling, a pupil of Chopin. There are over 40 pianos at Hatchlands, all with an amazing provenance. Don't you agree that there is such an extraordinary experience within the awareness that you are standing in the same space as such celebrated persons, be they composers, or Presidents, or writers? On Sunday we stood beside pianos used by composers for their famous compositions and performances. I spoke on a podcast of a similar experience when we visited Chawton House in Wiltshire a number of months ago, the later home of Jane Austen.
On Easter Monday we stayed in London to avoid the returning traffic of weekenders, and visited the home of one of England's greatest historical writers, Thomas Carlyle. The 18th century terrace house sits quietly in Cheyne Row, Chelsea. This would have been countryside at the time of Carlysle but is now one of the most fashionable and very expensive areas close by the Thames. And what do we discover in this perfectly preserved house that retains all the 19th century features of living in a Victorian age? Sitting beside the marble fireplace is a piano......played by Chopin himself on visiting the celebrated writer. There is no escape!
Next weekend we will make a trip to Dorset and Somerset to visit a cousin and also a good photographer friend who has an exhibition of his work in Bridport. We will be staying two nights in nearby Lyme Regis......where Jane Austen stayed on two occasions! There is just no 'getting away from it'. I really must read her books! I started reading Pride and Prejudice the other week, but circumstances prevented me from progressing very far. But I am now keen to complete what I started. :-)
