Monday, 28 July 2008

Extreme cello playing



Bizarre, but rather romantic. Here are the Extreme Cellists playing on Higger Tor in the Peak District. They've also climbed and played on Ben Nevis, Snowdon and Scafell Pike, to raise money for two causes: Aspire, a charity which helps rehabilitate people with spinal cord injuries, and Mountain Rescue.

You can read their blog here and visit their website for more info.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this, J; I do enjoy a bit of extreme musicianship.

In 1979, I took my daughter - then at the lower end of the teenage scale (in years, not behaviour, thankfully) to Paros in the Cyclades. Paros has its own satellite island, Anti Paros, which we visited one day. Its main claim to fame is a stalactite cave set into a hill called Agios Ioannis, accessible only by donkey or on foot. Or it was then.

Some 300 years earlier, in 1673, Louis XIV's ambassador, the Marquis de Nointel, had organised a Christmas extravaganza in the cave. This included music, provided by a full orchestra, so the musicians had no choice but to trek up the hill with their instruments (or loaded the heavier instruments on to the backs of the donkeys). Among the honoured guests was Othon, the Bavarian king of Greece, who left his signature on the walls of the cave.

Anyone looking for the seeds of unrest that led to the French Revolution might care to examine this particular musical footprint in history . . .