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Showing posts with the label Alan Rawsthorne

The Songs & The Plays - Kean on Shakespeare

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The Songs & The Plays Listen on Youtube Love’s Labours Lost (1593-94) A revised and polished version of this play was presented for Queen Elizabeth I and her court at Christmas 1598. However the elevated language and subject matter of the drama suggests it was always intended for a sophisticated and highly literate audience. There are two parallel plots – one ‘high’ comedy and one ‘low’ comedy. In the high comedy the King of Navarre and his friends make a pact to ‘fast and study’ and to have no contact with women for three years. No sooner have they agreed than the Princess of Aquitaine and her ladies in waiting arrive to discuss ‘state matters’. Inevitably the King falls in love with the Princess and his friends with the French ladies in waiting. The Gentlemen find loophole in their vows and woo and win women with a dance. The Ladies become aware of their broken vows and treat the noblemen with scorn. In the low comedy the page Moth and the clown Costard ridicule the exaggerated m...
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Alan Rawsthorne - Biography of a Lancashire Composer

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  Alan Rawsthorne Most celebrated as a Hollywood film composer, this urbane, sophisticated man about town was born in Haslingden, Lancashire on the 2nd of May 1905. When the family moved to Sykeside House on edge of town in 1908, their home at Deardengate House was sold to the corporation and was later demolished. Alan was born into an affluent and close-knit family and was the second child of Hubert and Janet Rawsthorne. Hubert qualified as a doctor and practised medicine briefly during World War One. He subsequently gave up his practice to supervise the family lands and properties. The Rawsthornes of Rossendale were middle class, rural landowners with substantial farms, properties, and land and business interests in the sheep and wool trade. Over the years, in order to provide an income for the family, they had gradually sold off large parts of their estates. An idyllic childhood was provided by a financially, emotionally secure and very affectionate household. His mother Janet w...
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