Daily Prompt: Ripped from the Headlines

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Click over to whatever website you visit most frequently to get news. Find the third headline on the page. Make sure that headline is in your post.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us a CURRENT EVENT.

St. Urs Cathedral, Solothurn (19)

I decided to spice up this report and have included some of my own comments in italic print.

Der Solothurner Domchor blickt auf ein erfolgreiches Jahr zurück – tranlsation is The Solothurn Cathedral Choir reflects on a successful Year.

We have a cathedral in Solothurn, the town being the seat of the Bishop of Basel who presides over Solothurn. Probably he found it a nicer place to have his house as in Basel which is a border town and having a lot of traffic. I am not in the catholic club, but the Kanton (State) of Solothurn is, very much so. Mr. Swiss is Swiss Reform Church.

So according to the rules of the daily challenge I visited the Solothurner Zeitung (our local newspaper) and chose the third headline and this was the result. I did not even realise that our local cathedral had a choir, although I knew that it had a boy’s choir, my youngest offspring singing with them until his voice broke. At least he discovered a few good Bach songs and toured a few places with the choir. He even saw Pope John Paul in Rome travelling around on his Papamobile as we call it.

The report begins: “Our cathedral choir had a successful year, big deal. So I decided to read further (please note I am doing a rough translation from the original German text).

The effort to bind different generations, regions and musical styles to a complete work was completed – did they turn a Bach Oratorio into a “Jesus Christ Superstar” similar event? I do not remember this happening. A further highlight was saying goodbye to town priest X and the inauguration of the new Priest administrator Y. I hope that mobbing was not practiced to accomplish this. Who knows, perhaps they were glad to see the back of him, his sermons being boring and sending the onlookers to sleep.

The music programme for 2014 is manifold. Last Easter we succeeded in presenting the B Minor Mass by Franz Schubert and the Halleluja from G.F.Händel and at Whitsun the festival service for the confirmations was surrounded by contemporary anglo saxon songs. Probably singing Greensleeves in German – Grüne Aermal – no I do not think so.

A higher weight was laid on the choral songs. The roots of these songs go back to the seventh century and find today more significance and increasing appreciation.

With a singalong (my own translation, but with the same meaning I think) project the cathedral choir gives the opportunity to singers to get nearer to this impressive spiritual music (not really my sort of thing). To finalise the cathedral choir year we managed to sing the “Missa Pastoralis” at Christmas from Casimir Meister (one of our local composers it seems that wrote a few hit songs during the 19^th-20^th century. They were quite popular in the church hit parade of the time). This word had a very special connection to the cathedral choir as Casimir Meister was himself in the 1920’s band master (honest, that was the translation I found) and he composed this Mass in 1927 for the 50^th birthday of the cathedral choir.

The cathedral choir will be presenting more concerts and performances this year.

The statutes showed no surprises. Everyone stays where they are. We have a new treasurer (did the last one disappear with the money?).

The canon has now been appointed an honorary member.

So that’s it. As you can see we are surrounded by exciting and news breaking moments in our local town.

Daily Prompt: Ripped from the Headlines

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24 thoughts on “Daily Prompt: Ripped from the Headlines”

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Marilyn Armstrong

13/01/2014 at 18:31

How can you handle all that excitement? My heart is not strong enough. I’d never survive in your town. We have no headlines because we have no newspapers. Problem solved.

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- angloswiss
  
  13/01/2014 at 18:48
  
  We have about 26 Kantons in Switzerland and each one has its own newspaper, plus a few from the main towns. I think our news on the TV is one of the best. There is usually about ten minutes Swiss news and the rest world news – we just don’t have enough to fill up 30 minutes ourselves. At the moment the big story in our local newspaper is about the farmer who has his farm on an island in the local river Aar and a ferry to go to and fro to the mainland. The local government has found his ferry not up to safety standards and now he is marooned, not allowed to use the ferry and has to replace it. There is even a Facebook page for his support. Pro Inselibuur but is all in Swiss German dialect.
  
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  - Marilyn Armstrong
    
    13/01/2014 at 20:22
    
    There is much to recommend a lack of excitement. I could use some peace — nationally, locally and personally.
    
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rankyca

13/01/2014 at 19:55

The statutes showed no surprises. Everyone stays where they are. ??
I am so glad to hear this , I have a mental picture of a large group of stone or plaster saints marching on the alter . keep your camera handy I want pictures

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- angloswiss
  
  13/01/2014 at 20:01
  
  Probably. Actually this picture is a bit out of date. About two years ago there was an attack on the altar. Some idiot deciding to start a fire. They had to close the cathedral for about a year until the repair work was done and now the altar looks a bit different. I will have to make a photo tour again for a new photo.
  
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sarahwbartlett

13/01/2014 at 19:58

First, I loved the peek into the town’s workings; not to mention the running commentary on your part! But most of all I loved how you ran with the prompt. You certainly had no way of knowing what it would be about. I’d say you made delicious lemonade from a pretty flat offering. Well done!

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- angloswiss
  
  13/01/2014 at 20:06
  
  Thanks. Our newspaper is full of reports of various organisations. I didn’t mention any names, although I did recognise a few. You just get to know everyone living near such a small town. It is all part of the local colour.
  
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Martha Kennedy

13/01/2014 at 20:07

http://marthakennedy.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/another-fish-story-daily-prompt/

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christinapertz1

13/01/2014 at 21:00

I have a question, it is unrelated to the topic. I used to have the option of adding Related Articles to each blog post. That option is now gone. How do you add pingbacks within your blog post? You are the second blogger I have seen this with! I would love to share other WP posts from other blogger’s, but I don’t know how. I only have the free WP version.

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- angloswiss
  
  13/01/2014 at 21:09
  
  I just copy the links on the daily post page and add them to my post
  
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- Marilyn Armstrong
  
  13/01/2014 at 21:49
  
  I do exactly the same thing. Then I change the numbering to bullets.
  
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Anton Wills-Eve

08/04/2015 at 16:33

A really super reply by you to a difficult prompt.As a catholic I happened to have been to Mass in that Church and more incredibly can complete your much preferable translation of Band Master. Actually in German church choirs it means simply Choir Master, and the English word ‘band’ was regularly used for choral assemblies of all types in Scotland and Switzerland, seriously, up to the mid nineteenth century. Presumably in Basel they still use the title for the office. Fascinating.But doesn’t it make his surname hilarious in context!! 🙂 ciao. Anton

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- angloswiss
  
  08/04/2015 at 17:32
  
  I wrote this about a year ago, but the cathedral is still here. My youngest will be getting married in June (registry office) and in July Roman Catholic in Germany, in the Moselle area. That will be interesting. His future wife is from a Roman Catholic family.
  
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Anton Wills-Eve

08/04/2015 at 17:07

Just been on the Solothurn website – http://www.so.ch/startseite/ – and there is a really beautiful photo of the new interior of the cathedral. Well worth a peek. A.

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- angloswiss
  
  08/04/2015 at 17:33
  
  Yes, they had to renovate the inside of the cathedral because some mad guy decided to light a fire. They were lucky the whole thing did not burn down, it was mainly the altar that was ruined. I remember one scandal of a past bishop who became a father. He had to leave of course.
  
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Anton Wills-Eve

08/04/2015 at 20:07

yes, we’ve had one or two of those we’ve had to get rid of over here! But re mixed marriages as long as both parties are happy with the situation it really does work well. My anglican wife and I have been going to both churches together all our 41 years married.

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- angloswiss
  
  08/04/2015 at 20:19
  
  After 46 years of marriage to Swiss reform church, I have no problems. But neither my husband nor I are churchgoers, yes I am an atheist. My son will have no problems either. He has already seen the priest in Germany to discuss the wedding. Seems a done thing in the catholic church. He said he is an interesting guy. Was married before he became a catholic priest and was an atomphysiker. Not a mixture you often find in the catholic church. Photos will probably follow one day here after the wedding in July.
  
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