Solving time: 18:42 (1 wrong)
I made a slowish start, but then picked up speed a little and had all but four answers filled in by around 10 minutes – and one of those (FEMME) was quickly guessed once I went back to it later. However, MYASKOVSKY, MOAB and AGEE gave me a hard time. I wasn’t helped by wondering if Khachaturian had been taught by TCHAIKOVSKY and the setter had decided to spell him CHAIKOVSKY (a plausible transliteration of Чайковский?), but I should have realised that he (Khachaturian) was born far too late!
Unfortunately one of my answers turned out to be wrong when I came to check it in the OED. I’d derived CHURCHMANITY from “churchman” (in the same way that “humanity” is derived from “human”), but if I’d thought a little harder I might have realised that CHURCHIANITY (derived from “church” in the same way that “christianity” is derived from “Christ”) was a much more likely answer.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | MYASKOVSKY – Nikolai Myaskovsky wrote the symphonic poem Alastor (1913) based on Shelley’s poem Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude (published in 1816) |
| 6 | GIFT – The Gift (1963) is the English translation of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Дар (1938) |
| 9 | ALEXANDRIA – Clea (1960) is the final novel of Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet; Cleo(patra), Queen of Egypt, lived and died in Alexandria |
| 10 | APSE – hidden in “A PSEudomartyr’s memoirs” |
| 12 | CHURCHIANITY – a citation from the OED (according to the online version, Bernard Barton actually uses the alternative spelling CHURCHANITY, but I’m not sure that that’s a good enough excuse for my error) |
| 15 | A PASTORAL – a pastor + a L; the symphony here is presumably Vaughan Williams’s 3rd (A Pastoral Symphony) rather than Beethoven’s 6th (Pastoral, which, since it’s better known, would have to be regarded as The Pastoral Symphony)) |
| 17 | CLARA – R. D. Blackmore wrote Clara Vaughan; presumably one of the poets is Henry Vaughan (1621-95), but I’m not sure who the other(s) might be |
| 18 | INNER – The Inner Room (1998) is a collection of poems by James Merrill |
| 19 | DRYASDUST – Sir Walter Scott addresses the prefaces to some of his novels (e.g. Ivanhoe) to his friend Doctor Dryasdust, who also makes a brief appearance as a friend of Jonathan Oldbuck, the protagonist of Scott’s novel The Antiquary (1816) |
| 20 | PILLAR OF FIRE – a ballet (1942) choreographed by Anthony Tudor; Exodus 13:21-22 describes how God led the children of Israel in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night |
| 24 | EARL – Lear* |
| 25 | PROMETHEUS – a Classical Greek word (Προμηθεύς) meaning “forethought”; Aeschylus wrote Prometheus Bound, and Shelley wrote Prometheus Unbound (1820) |
| 26 | TOYS – The Toys of Peace is a short story by Saki (you can read it here or (with others from the collection of that name, published in 1919) here) |
| 27 | AMPERSANDS – hidden in “these cAMPERS AND Sportsmen” |
| Down | |
| 1 | MOAB – hidden in “a defence of the alaMO A Brave man” (so a lot of dead wood); the King James version of Jeremiah 48:29 reads “We have heard the pride of Moab, (he is exceeding proud) his loftiness, and his arrogancy …” (eventually the clunkiness of the wording put me on to the answer; I knew about the geographical location (“Moab shall be my washpot …”) but had forgotten about the biblical character) |
| 2 | AGEE – a gee; the novelist is James Agee (1909-55), but he was many other things besides – for instance, members of the Musical Mafia will know him from Samuel Barber’s lovely Knoxville: Summer of 1915 which sets his words (I was held up by the absence of an explicit indication of the initial A – the clue would arguably have been better as “Novelist evokes an expression of surprise”) |
| 3 | KHACHATURIAN – (Ruth Kahn a CIA)*; Aram Khachaturian (1903-78) (you can find the well-known Sabre Dance from his music for the ballet Gayane here on YouTube) |
| 4 | VIDAR – da (Russian for “yes”) in vir (Latin for “man”); an anglicised version of the Norse god Víðarr (Víðarr wasn’t exactly a leader among the gods, even though according to the wikipedia article his name may mean “wide ruler”, so it’s possible that the clue refers to some other Vidar, which is apparently a fairly common Norwegian given name) |
| 5 | KNIGHTLEY – “knightly”; Janeites will be of course be familiar with Mr Knightley from Jane Austen’s Emma (1815) |
| 7 | IMPRIMATUR – originally a licence from the Roman Catholic Church for a book to be published |
| 8 | THE DYNASTS – (test Haydn’s)*; The Dynasts is a verse drama in three parts (published in 1904, 1906 and 1908) by Thomas Hardy (when I first read the clue, I thought the answer was going to be Haydn’s oratorio THE SEASONS, but luckily it didn’t take too long for light to dawn) |
| 11 | MARCUS BRUTUS – marc + US + brut + us; the Roman politician (84-42 BC), well known to playgoers from his appearance in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar |
| 13 | PALIMPSEST – pa + limps + set* |
| 14 | FAUNTLEROY – (Four neatly)*; in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s novel Little Lord Fauntleroy (1885-6), Cedric Errol from Brooklyn inherits the title on the death of his late father’s elder brothers (I’ve never read the book, but I remember years ago seeing the film based on it starring Mary Pickford in the title rôle) |
| 16 | RADIOGRAM – another citation from the OED |
| 21 | FEMME – Salvador Dalí wrote and illustrated “La Femme visible” (1930) |
| 22 | KEAN – “keen”; the actor is Edmund Kean (1789-1833) |
| 23 | ISIS – the Thames at Oxford is known as the Isis (perhaps derived from the final two syllables of Tamesis, the Latin name for the Thames, or, then again, perhaps not); and the Egyptian Goddess Isis is somehow bound up with Freemasonry (members of the Musical Mafia will know that Sarastro in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, with its Freemasonic references, is a high priest of Isis and Osiris) |
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