The value of failure

Recent highlighting of the value of failure includes a book by Mario Livio, Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein – Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe, and coincidentally the opening in Edinburgh of the world’s first Library of Mistakes.

In engineering, it’s usually possible to try things out, learn from failure and adapt quite quickly. In developing a successful light bulb, Thomas Edison did hundreds, even thousands, of iterations in developing a filament that would both provide good illumination and last a decent length of time, with a multitude of failures along the path.

Science is rather different, as major new theories sometimes have to wait for years before they can be either validated or discarded.

The new library in Edinburgh records a litany of financial disasters. I wonder if anyone at RBS (or any of the other banks that ran themselves into the rocks) will be paying it a visit?

 

Bach as he wrote it

The wonderful cellist, Katherine Sharman, came to my house in King’s Sutton yesterday to do a private run-through of Bach’s sixth suite for solo cello. Privileged audience of three.

She’s to play it at a concert in Brighton today – and in Edinburgh on 24 March in an all-Bach programme with the London Handel Players.

The reason she wanted the run-through was that she’s recently taken delivery of a five-string cello, made for her by Mark Caudle and based on an original of 1730 by Testore. It’s a smaller instrument, about the size of a modern three-quarter cello, but with a very direct sound.

Although Kath has regularly played Bach’s other five suites (all written for the standard four-stringed instrument), she has held off playing the sixth because she knew that over recent times it’s been played mainly on the wrong instrument.

In fact, when I first encountered the sixth, some forty years ago, it was assumed, to quote a sleeve note, that “the [four-string] cello is the only possible instrument on which the suite can today be performed.”

Thank goodness for the new generation of musicians and instrument-makers, who enable us to hear great music ‒ Bach and the rest ‒ as fresh as paint.

Giving thanks for the life and work of Lord Harewood

On Friday I went to the Thanksgiving Service for the life of Lord Harewood at All Saints Church, Harewood. Several of our greatest singers performed for us, including Sarah Connolly, Mark Padmore and Sir John Tomlinson. Moving tributes were paid to him by the conductor, Sir Mark Elder, and the footballer, Jack Charlton.

What an extraordinary achievement his working career was. Born into a family not noted for its devotion to the arts, he was first cousin to the Queen and a grandson of King George V and Queen Mary. As a young man he fought in the Second World War and was a prisoner-of-war at Colditz in Germany.

After the war he joined the staff of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, going on to direct annual music festivals in Edinburgh, Leeds, Adelaide and Buxton. Later he joined the English National Opera first as managing director and then as chairman.

His time leading the ENO was the triumphant peak of his career, and I was lucky enough to be there for many of the finest productions of that era. He brought together a brilliant and innovative artistic team, with Charles Mackerras and then Mark Elder as musical directors, and a superb company of singers.

Was he the first member of the British royal family to have a full working life, aside, that is, from joining the military or running the family business?

Quoting Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson’s life is as fascinating as his books. Born in Edinburgh in 1850. Died in Samoa in 1894. Author of Treasure Island, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and much besides.

I wrote a book about some portraits of him fifteen years ago. (Above, RLS painted by GP Nerli in Samoa in 1892, Scottish National Portrait Gallery.)

And he’s vividly quotable. Here are a few examples:

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”

“Man is not truly one, but truly two.”

“If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong.”

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

“Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. “

“There are no foreign lands. It is only the traveller who is foreign.”

“An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.”

“Wealth is only useful for two things: a yacht and a string quartette.”

“You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?”

“Every one lives by selling something, whatever be his right to it.”
“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.”

Do you have a particular favourite?