becoming Frieda

Every picture tells a story, season 2, picture 33:

We saw Frieda as a young child here, before that piano came into her life. Now to carry on the story, here are some pictures from her adolescence. She attended the Städtisches Lyzeum Minden 1914-1917 (ie until age 14), and then the conservatoire in nearby Bückeburg (founded just in time in 1913 as Fürstliche Musik Hochschule, in the last blaze of glory of one of the many micro-states that ceased to exist in 1918).

First another cutout from what may have been a school photo:

and another even smaller cutout, literally thumbnail size. With several attempts at scanning, this was the best I could get out of it:

Then Frieda with a younger friend who I think might be her cousin Sophie Brunschier (Sophie was five years younger than Frieda, so I guess this fits):

... and here is the young lady she became:

Sadly we have no adolescence pics with the piano which she had from age 10 or so.

Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Navigation tools:

Season 2 so far:

1. could be a cousin
2. two weddings in Silesia
3. off to Canada
4. off to Australia
5. a very romantic poet
6. fireman August
7. 50 hundredweight of coffee
8. mysterious Minden people
9. horses for Hedwig
10. guessing the great-grandmothers
11. cousin Charlotte
12. three sisters
13. travelling saleswoman
14. family portrait
15. dancing chemist
16. games time
17. desperately searching Wilhelm
18. the third Hedwig
19. patchwork portraits
20. missing brothers
21. the oberlehrer's family
22. a double wedding
23. mystery solved
24. young Frieda
25. old aunts and young children
26. a semi-mysterious aunt
27. a gathering at Gellrichs
28. farm work at Bad Landeck
29. meet the Weitze family
30. a post-war wedding
31. the joy of chemistry
32. the joy of botany
33. becoming Frieda

I started a twitter thread for season 2 here. However, as the bird site seems to be turning into an evil empire, I have now switched to logging the entries in a similar thread on Mastodon.

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. It only loads 30 tweets at first, so you have to click "show more" a couple of times to get all 40 entries. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

I'm also adding all photos from this series to my family history album on flickr.

strange new worlds

Some thoughts on

Planetary systems: a very short introduction

Raymond T. Pierrehumbert

Oxford University Press 2021

The astrobiology book I co-authored with Kevin Plaxco grew out of its “brief introduction” subtitle with the third edition, but for all who want a much smaller book, there are several options in the very short introductions from OUP. I never got round to reading the one on astrobiology, but the one on planetary systems (which came out just two months after our third edition) is authored by my musical friend Ray so we did a book swap and I actually read it.

Ray’s background is in atmospheric physics (he was a PI on one of the IPCC reports on climate change, but then switched to the less depressing task of studying atmospheres of other planets). So he has a different angle on things compared to us mere biochemists and although there is a lot of overlap with our book, there were a few insightful remarks that made me perk up as we hadn’t thought of that.

For instance, the title is interesting, as it reflects how much the field has changed in only 25 years. Before the confirmed discovery of exoplanets, there would have been no sense in writing about planetary systems, as we only knew about one, our own. Now we know many, and in astonishing detail. And some of them are messing up our beautiful theories about how planetary systems originate, which were based on just one example.

With all the brevity required by the format, there is always a bit of space for a witty aside or cultural cross-reference. For instance, I enjoyed the remarks on the habitability of the planetoids imagined by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in Le petit prince.

Now that the James Watt Space Telescope is in operation and first results are being published, our knowledge of planetary systems and their atmospheres in particular will again expand dramatically, so you may want to read this little introduction now, before a much bigger one is needed.

Blackwells

darker times ahead

Every once in a while I write a feature on the ongoing decline and fall of western democracy as it manifests itself in trumpism and various other shades of modern fascism. While this is very depressing to contemplate, it is also very necessary to make clear where we stand and where we may be heading, and it saves me time in turning many hours of doomscrolling into valuable research. The latest instalment was even based on a suggestion from the editorial team, so it's not just me worrying about these things.

The resulting feature is out now:

Beware a new endarkenment

Current Biology Volume 33, Issue 8, 24. April 2023, Pages R283-R286

FREE access to full text and PDF download

See also my Mastodon thread where I highlighted all CB features of 2023.

I'm not on Instagram myself, but I believe if you follow CurrentBiology there, you'll find my features highlighted there as well.

Michelangelo’s David, on show at Florence, Italy, has become an issue in the culture wars in Florida’s schools. (Photo: Korido/Wikicommons (CC BY-SA 4.0).)

the joy of botany

Every picture tells a story, season 2, picture 32:

staying with those students at Bonn University: While Hanna appeared to enjoy her chemistry, Ruth Düsselmann was more drawn to botany, so here she is picking up some plants:

And another one on a different occasion:

Both photos taken by our young chemist Richard Groß 1929 or thereafter.

Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series (or questions of their own), please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Navigation tools:

Season 2 so far:

1. could be a cousin
2. two weddings in Silesia
3. off to Canada
4. off to Australia
5. a very romantic poet
6. fireman August
7. 50 hundredweight of coffee
8. mysterious Minden people
9. horses for Hedwig
10. guessing the great-grandmothers
11. cousin Charlotte
12. three sisters
13. travelling saleswoman
14. family portrait
15. dancing chemist
16. games time
17. desperately searching Wilhelm
18. the third Hedwig
19. patchwork portraits
20. missing brothers
21. the oberlehrer's family
22. a double wedding
23. mystery solved
24. young Frieda
25. old aunts and young children
26. a semi-mysterious aunt
27. a gathering at Gellrichs
28. farm work at Bad Landeck
29. meet the Weitze family
30. a post-war wedding
31. the joy of chemistry
32. the joy of botany

I started a twitter thread for season 2 here. However, as the bird site seems to be turning into an evil empire, I have now switched to logging the entries in a similar thread on Mastodon.

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. It only loads 30 tweets at first, so you have to click "show more" a couple of times to get all 40 entries. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

I'm also adding all photos from this series to my family history album on flickr.

protein origami and other metaphors

The April issue of C & I contains my feature on alpha fold, the AI that can predict all protein structures, and the irony of this happening at the time in history when we realise that structure isn't everything.

Protein origami

Chemistry & Industry Volume 87, Issue 4, April 2023, Pages 22-25

access via:

Wiley Online Library (paywalled PDF)

SCI (premium content, ie members only)

If you would like to reflect on the merits of the title "protein origami", my short essay review of the book Metaphors in the life sciences might help you with that:

Metaphorically speaking

Chemistry & Industry Volume 87, Issue 4, April 2023, Page 35

access via:

Wiley Online Library (paywalled PDF of the whole review section)

SCI (premium content, ie members only)

Although I've seen this kind of title above way too many articles on protein folding, I'm loving the mildly origami-inspired title font of the feature.

the joy of chemistry

Every picture tells a story, season 2, picture 31:

We met Hanna, the university friend of science students Ruth and Richard in the first series. Back then I said I wasn't sure what subject she was studying, but here she is clearly enjoying some rather elaborate chemical experiment:

and then getting on with the work:

Photos taken by Richard Groß at the University of Bonn, between 1929 and 1933.

I do love these photos but I am troubled by the fact that people didn't seem to be using any eye protection at the time (eg Richard here).

Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Navigation tools:

Season 2 so far:

1. could be a cousin
2. two weddings in Silesia
3. off to Canada
4. off to Australia
5. a very romantic poet
6. fireman August
7. 50 hundredweight of coffee
8. mysterious Minden people
9. horses for Hedwig
10. guessing the great-grandmothers
11. cousin Charlotte
12. three sisters
13. travelling saleswoman
14. family portrait
15. dancing chemist
16. games time
17. desperately searching Wilhelm
18. the third Hedwig
19. patchwork portraits
20. missing brothers
21. the oberlehrer's family
22. a double wedding
23. mystery solved
24. young Frieda
25. old aunts and young children
26. a semi-mysterious aunt
27. a gathering at Gellrichs
28. farm work at Bad Landeck
29. meet the Weitze family
30. a post-war wedding
31. the joy of chemistry

I started a twitter thread for season 2 here. However, as the bird site seems to be turning into an evil empire, I have now switched to logging the entries in a similar thread on Mastodon.

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. It only loads 30 tweets at first, so you have to click "show more" a couple of times to get all 40 entries. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

I'm also adding all photos from this series to my family history album on flickr.

wandering wine

As the climate gets hotter, wine cultivars will have to move polewards to remain in favourable conditions (as I discussed previously in C&I). A recent massive genome study unravels the past moves of grapevines since their domestication so that's been a good excuse to write about wine and climate again, and also throw in a bit of family history (of which the longer version is here).

The resulting feature is out now:

Wine on the move

Current Biology Volume 33, Issue 7, 10. April 2023, Pages R239-R241

FREE access to full text and PDF download

See also my Mastodon thread where I highlighted all CB features of 2023.

I'm not on Instagram myself, but I believe if you follow CurrentBiology there, you'll find my features highlighted there as well.

Climate change has shifted the growth regions of traditional grapevine varieties, to the extent that merlot grapes can now be grown in Canada, as shown here in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. (Photo: laughingmango/Getty images.)

female composers wanted

After hearing an excellent concert with chamber pieces of Rebecca Clarke on Women's day, I realised we probably don't have any female composers in the otherwise excellent music library of Cowley Orchestra with around 400 pieces (there is a small risk I may have overlooked one hiding behind an initial or an ambiguous name). This embarrassing situation is easily explained by the fact that most sets date from the 1950s or earlier, but I think we should do something about it. So the search for orchestral music from female composers starts here. Ideally not too difficult and available as PDF to print for free or in affordable editions.

I'll list whatever I find here, in case other ensembles want to play these as well:

Chaminade, Cecile (1857-1944)

Suite Challirhoe Op 37 IMSLP YouTube

Farrenc, Louise (1804-1875)

Overture No.1 in E minor YouTube

Overture No. 2 in Eb major YouTube

Mayer, Emilie (1812-1883)

Symphony No.1 in C minor IMSLP YouTube

Symphony No.2 in E minor IMSLP YouTube

Symphony No.3 in C major IMSLP YouTube

Ouverture No. 2 in D major IMSLP YouTube UPDATE 27.4.2023: we've now played this one and added it to the music library. We do need some brass players to make the most of it though.

I've also started a YouTube playlist with works of these composers (also including eg chamber music and concertos).

Rebecca Clarke. I do love her chamber music, but I'm afraid she hasn't left us any symphonies or orchestral suites. (There is an orchestration of her famous viola sonata, but that of course would require a soloist.) She is also one of the four composers starring in the joint biography "Quartet" by Leah Broad, who gave an introduction to the concert I mentioned above. Will read and review the book at some point.

a post-war wedding

Every picture tells a story, season 2, picture 30.

I already mentioned that Grete Kalippke, niece to the Kosmowsky brothers including Ernst Leopold the steel worker, Friedrich with the fiddle, and Albert the forester, emigrated to Canada just after World War II. Last time I focused on the migration context and didn't show the whole family, so here comes the wedding photo (1948) with her parents Anna Kosmowsky and Gustav Kalippke (on the left) and what I presume must be his family (Diewert) on the right:

We're still clueless re. the two migration questions I raised in the previous entry about Grete, namely when the Kalippke family moved out of East Prussia (they ended up in Mülheim not far from Hamborn where Anna's brother Ernst Leopold settled in the 1920s), and whether Grete's husband Heinrich Diewert was already Canadian before 1948 (as there are records of pre-war Diewert families in Canada).

And here they are ten years later in Canada, with their first child:

Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Navigation tools:

Season 2 so far:

1. could be a cousin
2. two weddings in Silesia
3. off to Canada
4. off to Australia
5. a very romantic poet
6. fireman August
7. 50 hundredweight of coffee
8. mysterious Minden people
9. horses for Hedwig
10. guessing the great-grandmothers
11. cousin Charlotte
12. three sisters
13. travelling saleswoman
14. family portrait
15. dancing chemist
16. games time
17. desperately searching Wilhelm
18. the third Hedwig
19. patchwork portraits
20. missing brothers
21. the oberlehrer's family
22. a double wedding
23. mystery solved
24. young Frieda
25. old aunts and young children
26. a semi-mysterious aunt
27. a gathering at Gellrichs
28. farm work at Bad Landeck
29. meet the Weitze family
30. a post-war wedding

I started a twitter thread for season 2 here. However, as the bird site seems to be turning into an evil empire, I have now switched to logging the entries in a similar thread on Mastodon.

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. It only loads 30 tweets at first, so you have to click "show more" a couple of times to get all 40 entries. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

I'm also adding all photos from this series to my family history album on flickr.

eine kleine Nachtmusik

As I'm discovering that playing the violin is a lot easier than I thought (at least for cellists), I am now moving on from Suzuki to repertoire pieces that I have in my head because I studied them on the flute. First choice, obviously, is Mozart's famous serenade "eine kleine Nachtmusik," k525, which also was the first big thing I studied on the flute, seven years ago. Bits of it I even played on the guitar back in the 20th century!

Initially, I was a bit fearful as it requires higher positions. Then, having ventured up into third position for the first time (first finger playing A on the E string, easy to find as you can check against the A string next door), it hit me: I don't really have to come down - I could play anything across all four strings without open strings and without shifting positions.

This contrasts with the cello where all remote keys and higher positions are hard work because you have to shift all the time, which is due to the fact that the hand doesn't stretch far enough on each string to reach the note that's missing where the open string would be in first position. So, typically, in the scales without open strings, you have to go up to higher positions and drop down a position every time you cross from one string to the next. On the violin, I just realised, I can play two octaves across all four strings without moving my hand, in literally any key. I don't even have to know if I have seven flats or 13 sharps, I only have to find the base note. I'm not even sure if that is official technique, but it makes everything so much easier.

Bottom line: I guess cello is easier for the beginner in first position because every finger has a precise place where it lives, but once it comes to higher positions and remote keys the violin is miles easier. (Considering this, I find it surprising that folk fiddlers systematically refuse to use the higher positions.)

So, anyhow, I've reached the bottom of the first page of the ancient edition (below) I borrowed from the older brother of a school friend and never gave back, so I'm now fairly confident that this works. Watch out for other violin pieces in my flute repertoire, including Einstein's favourite Mozart sonata, k304, and Dvorak's sonatina, op 100.

Re. violin videos, I haven't recorded myself recently, but here is the young musician trying out the instrument with Handlarens Vals.

Christa the violin reunited with Frieda the piano. Both lived in the same flat (the violin residing on top of the piano) while Frieda the pianist was alive, as you can see on old photos eg here.

Meanwhile, on the cello, I've spotted a surprising synergy from violin-playing. I just realised that the thumb position (where the thumb rests on the middle of the string) is essentially a viola. The thumb is the open string, and you can use the first three fingers exactly like you would in first position on violin or viola. So if you add to that an E string by moving the thumb to the position at 2/3 of the string length (I use the harmonics in both thumb positions because I can't be bothered to press hard when I don't have to), you have a violin. Which means I can practice the thumb position(s) by playing all the folk tunes I've just learned on the fiddle. When the thumb is on 2/3 = E, the third finger reaches the 3/4 = A, so I can cover two octaves on one string, which is also fun and probably covers all the notes I'll ever need.

Also, playing both instruments every day now, I realise both activities scratch completely different itches. On a new instrument, with a steep learning curve, I am enjoying the rapid and often surprising progress, whereas the established instrument is more of a meditative habit, with only slow progress (although the thing with the thumb position feels like a new instrument).

PS - note that my musical education only really got going when I had children and learned with them. See my account of my musical miseducation. So I am a late beginner on all of the instruments that I play regularly today (with the exception of the soprano recorder which I don't play very often).