The undisputed, outstanding, knock-you-over highlight of the week was our MPO concert. First up was Haydn's "Drum Roll" Symphony, which was rather lovely. But it couldn't help but be overshadowed by what came after the interval: a stupendous rendition of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.

This work is based on a 13th-century collection of poems, written in Latin and Middle High German (that bane of my undergraduate years), and found at the abbey of Benediktbeuren in Bavaria in 1803.

To say that Orff's music is exhilarating is something of an understatement, especially as we had about 250 people to perform it for us (the full MPO, with extra percussionists drafted in; three choirs; a gorgeous little group of small boy sopranos; and three quite extraordinary soloists).

The texts were penned by "goliards" (defrocked monks and minstrels, who were classified as "vagantes": "vagrant students, vagabond monks and minor clerics"). Their lyrics are earthy, life-affirming, and pleasure-loving. There are plenty of odes to drink and love. And there's plenty of rough humour, like the "roast swan song": "Once I lived on lakes, once I looked beautiful, when I was a swan. Misery me! Now black and roasting fiercely!")

To me there is something amazing about the whole story. These goliards were highly talented people, but their societal status was probably a little uncertain. ("I am carried along like a ship without a steersman, and in the paths of the air like a light, hovering bird; chains cannot hold me, keys cannot imprison me, I look for people like me and join the wretches... I travel the broad path as is the way of youth...") They depended on their skill as entertainers to earn an uncertain living. Seven hundred years later, their songs were set to music using instruments they could probably never have imagined. Almost a hundred years later still, half way round the world, their work is played in a highly multicultural context -- and enthusiastically appreciated. Are they slapping each other's backs, in some artists' heaven, laughing incredulously?



Perhaps the most famous of the texts and settings is O Fortuna, addressed to a pagan goddess with whom Christians of the day seemed to have a bit of an unhealthy fascination.

It definitely has a resonance at the moment:

O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing,
ever waning...

Recently, it feels as though Fortune has taken a good, hard look at us, spat out a "nah", and cranked the wheel down a bit...

But I refuse to go any further down the chant's tragic route ("since Fate strikes down the strong man, everyone weep with me!").

In the words of the saying popularized by the wonderful young man in the Marigold Hotel, but reportedly coined by Brazilian author Fernando Sabino:

"Everything will be all right in the end. And if it's not all right, it's not the end."

Or, more nasally: "No fim, tudo da certo. Se no deu, ainda no chegou ao fim."

Things are not all right at the moment. But it's not the end.

Meanwhile...

Fortuna has had it in for Redd as well, and this week he experienced a tumble, an encounter with the washing machine, and a repair.



Monday saw us at the Tax Office, starting the long papertrail that will eventually lead to our legal departure.



Tuesday was a public holiday, and we revisited Lake Gardens. Which has to lift the spirits, even if Fortuna has sent you off on a downer.











Similarly replete with colour and exuberance is the current exhibition by Ismail Embong and his daughter Emma Maembong at Wisma Kebudayaan: Splendours of Malaysia -- Paintings of Ethnic Cultures of the Land.

I guess you can't avoid a discussion of stereotyping. Inherent in the exhibition is the idea that this is how people from "this group" look, and here are "their" houses and cultural paraphernalia. But the text also shows very clearly how little correspondence ethnicity has with borders. Such-and-such a group stretches over into Sulu, or over into Kalimantan, or up into Thailand. Such-and-such a cultural object originated from Java. Etc.

It also prompts the question of what such a work would look like for us... How would we be dressed? Our ethnic allegiance doesn't easily equate to a "traditional costume", and we hardly ever wear the kind of special clothes that might be the cultural equivalent. What kind of dwelling would we pose in front of? A block of flats, I guess... And what kind of accoutrements would accompany us? A computer, a cellphone, and a rucksack?





Afterwards we popped into Al-Andalus restaurant for a very nice lunch: a refreshing salad, and a plate of couscous topped with caramelly onions, meltingly tender lamb, fat juicy raisins, and chickpeas.





This weekend we also started to check out some of the Art in the City projects. I must admit I find the website impenetrable, and have no idea how to find most of the pieces. But the orang utan is nice...