Reporter 9/7/03: Congregation of the Regent House on 23 June 2003

A Congregation of the Regent House was held this day at 11.15 a.m. The Chancellor was present. Processions formed in the Schools Arcade at 11.10 a.m., passed round the Senate-House Yard, and entered the Senate-House by the South Door and the East Door.
Music was performed at the Congregation by the Choir of King's College and by the King's Trumpeters.
The following titular degrees were conferred:

Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Nobel Laureate, Blanchard Professor of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, and James Von Ehr Distinguished Chair in Science & Technology and Professor of Chemistry and Physics in the University of Texas at Dallas

formerly Staff Scientist in the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, sometime Director of the Sanger Centre

The Orator delivered the following speeches when presenting to The Chancellor the recipients of Honorary Degrees:

Aedificio nostro Chemiae dedito adiacet paene absconditum alterum uni crystallographices studio dedicatum: quod uisitetis omnes uelim. aedificatum recognouit cancellarius noster; aedificandum curauit haec femina. quo condito in earum numero merito est habenda quae quondam nonnulla nostra collegia condiderunt. aedificium est arduum, superficie planum excepto lapidum siliceorum tympano; interius est altum, amplum, illustre.

consilium aedificandi inquiramus. dixerat sapiens ille qui collegi Regalis Solon uocabatur formas crystallinas, quibus sunt aut in quam uerti possunt elementa permulta, publici iuris semper maiore numero semperque diuersius fieri quam ut omnes ab omnibus noscerentur; haec femina, cum ad rem crystallographicam inuestigandam reuocata rediisset, peculio exiguo impetrato adiuuante uno et altero quinque tantum annis totam rem ad id temporis repertam tum primum machinae computatricis auxilio per series numeratas compositam libris edidit et computantium in usum omnium permisit.

mox sedecim libris edebatur crystallographicus iste thesaurus, atque ea quae collecta erant ad inuestigationes non modo chemicas adhibebantur sed etiam ad medicinam et agriculturam ubique gentium augendam. huic deinde promptius uisum est ut totum cogendi ordinandi interpretandi opus sua pecunia suo loco niteretur; paruo si quid inuestigarent uiri docti penderent, multo maiore si qui commercii causa peterent. tantam copiam scientiae tantumque chemicae biologicaeque inuestigationis adiumentum,

unde exire queant, quaeratur dummodo recte,

plurima quae nunc sunt obscura in luminis oras,

uoluit ursit peperit haec femina, quam sciatis ipsam aliquid olim ad duplicem illam helicem inuestigandam contulisse.

praesento uobis feminam Excellentissimo Ordini Imperi Britannici adscriptam, Doctorem in Scientiis, Regiae Societatis Sodalem, Crystallographices Thesauri Cantabrigiensis olim Custodem, Collegi Newnhamensis Alumnam, Collegi Luciae Cavendish olim Sociam,

OLGA KENNARD

Close behind our Chemistry building, and almost hidden by it, stands another building, the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. Do not fail to visit it! It was opened, in 1993, by our Chancellor; it was created by Dr Kennard. She deserves to rank for its creation with those distinguished women who founded so many of our Colleges. It is a tall building, bare outside except for a panel of cut flints; inside there is height, space, and light.

And the origins of the building? Professor J. D. Bernal, the sage of King's as he was called, had observed that crystalline structures (and there are many things either having crystalline structure or capable of being given it) were being found and published in such numbers and in so many different places that scholars could not keep track of them. Dr Kennard had just come back to Cambridge to work on crystallography. She obtained a small grant and a helper or two, and in a mere five years she had compiled all the crystal data then recorded into computerized numerical files for the first time. These data were published directly in book form and then released for computer use across the world.

In no time this treasury of information ran to sixteen volumes, and the knowledge collected was proving its worth not only in chemistry but also in research around the world on medicine and agriculture. At that point Dr Kennard decided that the whole business of gathering, recording, and studying crystals could be better done if it had its own funding and its own place; scholars busy in research would pay a small fee for access, and commercial firms rather more. This great store of knowledge, this great resource for research, which holds within it the answers to many big questions in chemistry and biology if we can find the right way to ask them, is thus the creation of her judgement and her determination. A brief word on her own scholarship: she has made a significant contribution to study of the double helix.

OLGA KENNARD, O.B.E., Sc.D., F.R.S.,

of Newnham and Lucy Cavendish Colleges, formerly Director of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre

Si uiam pergatis a Romanis stratam, quas omnis in rectum scitis munitas, est ubi relicto priore itinere paulo flexam inueniatis (id quod non procul hinc uidete, ad uicum Terrae Litus appellatum), nec tamen quare sit flexa percipiatis: iam enim antiquior est causa deuerticuli quam ut memoria retineatur.

uiae deuersae elusaeque difficultatis figuram ab hoc ipso uiro accepi, quo nemo est legum nostrarum antiquissimarum peritior. nam ut iter munitum ne quid eunti sit impedimento saepe renouatur, sic litigantibus si uetere sententia non statum erit noua quaerenda uia. sed ut nos si praeterita uestigamus ea quae nunc ad nos pertinent ex animo aegre deponimus, ita tamen hic uir qua est ui mentis ea cura diligentiaque tempora illa penetrauit ut quid tum ualeret rediuerit intellecto. testimonia plerumque sunt causae, in quibus iudicium inueniatis cum nominibus ordinibusque partium de usu terrae factum; sed deesse saepissime litis causam. e tam paucis et obscuris elicit hic uir quid tum uellent nollent Radulphus Willelmus Thomas, qui proximi uidentur Seiis illis et Titiis in opere Triboniani citatis esse; et quo stilo res elicit! Atticum dicerem, neque usquam redundare, sed sermone puro, presso, subtili explicare rationem.

in omni hac collaudatione adfuisse fingatis licet umbram eius qui primus illas leges inuestigatas edidit: quem declarauit orator abhinc CXII annos iuris Anglici antiqui interpretem felicem. hunc uirum, sapientia pari omnino aliter interpretatum, eisdem celebremus uerbis, adnuente nimirum magistro illo.

praesento uobis Reginae Consiliarium, Magistrum in Artibus, Academiae Britannicae Sodalem, Legum Professorem Emeritum, Collegi Sancti Iohannis Euangelistae Socium,

STROUD FRANCIS CHARLES MILSOM

If you walk a Roman road, and as you know, they were all built straight, sometimes the line is abandoned, and you find a change of course (just such a change may be seen at Landbeach, north of Cambridge); and yet you cannot see why the alteration was made: the cause of the diversion has passed beyond the memory of man.

This image of a route redirected, of a problem circumvented, I take from Professor Milsom himself, a man without peer in understanding of our most ancient laws. Roads may be re-aligned when difficulties develop; so too litigants must look for a new line if judges' opinions block the old way. In exploring the past, however, you and I may have some trouble in abandoning contemporary preconceptions; this man has such a power of imagination and explores with such care that he can penetrate the past and report back with thorough understanding of what mattered then. The evidence consists mostly of some cases in which you find a judgment, together with names and status of those concerned, upon a question of landholding, but there is seldom a word about the initial dispute. And yet, despite the slightness and obscurity of the evidence, out of it this man draws all the current hopes and fears of Messrs Ralph, William, and Thomas, characters remarkably similar to Messrs Seius and Titius who people the pages of Justinian's Digest. And with what elegance he draws it out! Professor Milsom's English is classical: nowhere a word too many, and all of it plain, compact, precise, and lucid.

Throughout this encomium you may rightly have felt the ghostly presence of F. W. Maitland, the man who first explored these laws and set out his understanding of them. 112 years ago the Orator described him as one who had made most happy interpretation of our ancient English law. Professor Milsom matches him in learning; he differs wholly in interpretation: yet if we celebrate him with the same phrase, I think Professor Maitland would say, Placet.

STROUD FRANCIS CHARLES MILSOM, Q.C., M.A., F.B.A.,

Quid de hoc uiro putemus qui cum praemium Nobelianum acciperet cordace quadam patria dicitur usus esse? sed ritibus nostris obnoxius hic stat uir clarissimus rerum gestarum suarum non nuntius sed tantum auditor.

plastica nos fortasse tamquam materiam ea stabilitate qua lignum esse existimemus, saepe pro muro inter duas materias alioqui inter se repugnantis interposita; non tamen omnia adeo densa sunt, sed uelut murus ille Somnialis admodum commeatum colloquiumque permittunt; quae cum uim electricam quae dicitur, metallica quadam ascita potentia, commeare patiuntur, spem omnino perrumpit ea res.

nimis in his rebus interdum ad ea quae forte acciderunt tribuere solemus; sed memorandus est inuestigator quidam iuuenis qui, polyacetylenam parare permisso, additis casu materiae cuiusdam non una sed mille partibus non puluerem illum nigrum quem optauit creauit sed cutis tenuissimae genus argenti splendore fulgentis. polyacetylenam hunc uirum sciatis iam tot experimentis inuestigare quot partibus huius uel illius rei additis commeatus frequentiores facilioresque permitteret ut ad prodigium quid ualeret intellegendum paratissimus esset. mox recte dixerat fieri posse ut per illa elementa nouum genus polymeriarum electrica potentia praeditum augeretur; quas medicamento chemico accurate adhibito latissime posse uariari.

praesento uobis Doctorem in Philosophia, Regiae Societatis Sodalem, Praemio Nobeliano ornatum, Chemiae in Vniuersitate Pennsylvaniae in nomine Blanchard Professorem, in Vniuersitate de Texas Dallade sita et Scientiarum Technologicesque in nomine Iacobi von Ehr Praesidem Clarissimum et Chemiae Physicesque Professorem, Collegi Dominae Franciscae Sidney-Sussex honoris causa Socium,

ALAN GRAHAM MACDIARMID

Nobel Prizewinners are invited to make a speech at that ceremony. Professor MacDiarmid is said to have danced the haka in addition. Our ceremony is different: our honorands are not heralds but hearers of their deeds.

There is a type of substance, created out of the oil that comes from pressure on long dead trees, which we call plastic. Some plastics have within them molecular chains of great length; we use Greek, such is the indigence of the native tongue, and call them polymers.

We may well think of plastics as having something in common with wood: they can be used for insulation of two materials which might otherwise react against each other. But not all plastics have this property of insulation: some are as permeable as the wall in A Midsummer Night's Dream. And when those plastics take on the characteristics of some metals and let electricity pass through them, conductivity of quite astonishing power can occur.

Serendipity is sometimes an overrated factor; but there was once a research student who received permission to make polyacetylene. Instead of adding the usual quantity of catalyst he added a thousand times too much; instead of getting the expected black powder inside the vessel, he got a sort of glistening, silvery film all over it. Now Professor MacDiarmid had been working for some time on polyacetylene, being interested in doping it with various halogens to increase its conductivity: he was very well equipped to understand the importance of this freak. Soon he could say, 'These polyacetylene halides may be the forerunners of a new class of organic polymers with electrical properties which may be systematically and controllably varied over a wide range by chemical doping.' His prediction was sound.

ALAN GRAHAM MACDIARMID, Ph.D., F.R.S.,

Nobel Laureate, Blanchard Professor of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, and in the University of Texas at Dallas James von Ehr Distinguished Chair in Science & Technology and Professor of Chemistry and Physics, Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College

Est aliquid unius cellulae, natura inter fungos habitum, quod fermentum appellatur; ipsius ut uita breuis est, ita uim tradit aliis: nam eo farina imbuta in panem uertitur, eo mustum occupatum in uinum. multa sunt fermenta sed nunc unum uelim uobis cognitum quod schizosaccharomyces nuncupatur, quo natio Afra quaedam in pultem utitur. id uim famamque huic uiro dedit, qui naturam eius diu multifariamque perscrutatus subtiliter indagauit, quantaque proximitate sit cum humana gente coniunctum cum uix tandem demonstrasset praemio illo quo nullum maioris in his rebus aestimatur ornatus est.

inuestigationis eius quod ponamus initium? iuuenis annum in elaboratorio egit ad zythum Hiberniae more conficiendum instituto; sed mox cellularum totam qua se diuidant rationem quibusque gubernaculis ut ita dicam diuidendi res regatur penetrare cupiebat: qua in re cognoscenda multo est usui ut mutationes praeter consuetudinem factae perquirantur (quarum primam inuentam, quibus hic est facetiis, primiposthonem appellare uoluit). his semper maiore numero inuentis, eis artibus usus quas e re genitali inuestiganda perceperat (eique rei maxime studet) ea tandem elementa patefecit quae cellulis fissionis ordinem et seriem imperant.

quo in labore dum nititur reputabat hoc secum, numquid regiminis illius accidere posset in cellulis animalium mamillis ut nos sumus praeditorum. ut tale quicquam simile nobis esse uideatur! sed recte reputauerat: atque inde multa sunt orta quae ad cancros humanos medicandos ualent, nec facile quamuis in administranda re iam sit occupatus ab hoc studio secernetur.

praesento uobis Equitem Auratum, Regiae Societatis Sodalem, Praemio Nobeliano ornatum, Aerarii ad Cancros Medendos Instituti Principem,

PAUL MAXIME NURSE

Yeast belongs with the fungi, and is composed of a single cell. Its own life is short but it passes its power on to other things: flour with admixture of yeast turns into bread, and grape juice turns into wine. There are many yeasts; the one that concerns us here is called Schizosaccharomyces, a fission yeast, and the Kikuyu people use it to make pombe. Sir Paul Nurse's rise to eminence has been powered by this yeast: he has explored its nature in different places for a long time with great scholarship, and when eventually he revealed the closeness of its links with humankind, he was rewarded with that supreme accolade in this field, a Nobel prize.

It all began when he was a young man, when he spent a year in the Guinness Brewery laboratories. There his appetite was whetted for full-scale study of cell division and of the mechanisms controlling it. In such a study it is very useful to have some mutant strains to examine (the first he found he wittily wanted to christen wee1, from its limited size). Mutant strains began to turn up in quantity. Using skills he had developed in the study of genetics (and genetics is his prime passion), he steadily exposed more clearly the genes at work in sequencing and pacing cell fission.

Another question occupied his thinking all this while, however: were there mammalian homologues of those yeast cell-cycle genes? It was an odd thought, but it proved to be right. From it has come much of value in treating human cancers; and though he spends more and more time in administration, he will not be easily separated from the continuing ferment of research.

Sir PAUL MAXIME NURSE, F.R.S.,

In principio erat uermis. hoc de uerme, cui nomen est caenorhabditis elegans, non nunc primum in hac curia dico. paruulus est, uix tam longus quam lata est pars dempta unguiculi. hermaphrodita pars plurima eorum, sed nonnulli sunt mares, unde uariari potest genus. mouentur, procreant, comitantibus aliis ita se gerunt ut pari motu nare uideantur. cellulae sunt adulto (atque adoleuit triduo) DCCCCLIX; homini autem sunt termiliens centena milia. iam profecto uideritis quanto se commodius uermis ad totam suam inuestigandam naturam quam homo praebeat.

non tamen uermem honorandum praesento sed hunc uirum, qui dum fere XXX annos ei studet cellularum omnium origine patefacta aliquas ipsis oculis animaduertit eo fato esse ut ortae mox morerentur: unde fit tabula fatalis ut dicunt. deinde paucis adiuuantibus totam uermis seriem indicare pergit: quod animal primum omnium seriem suam cognitam totam habet. sed opere nondum confecto, cum iam multo magis instaret hominis series ut ea quoque nosceretur, plurimos aedificio ad rem quasi consecrato praefectus fouebat, regebat, hortabatur. de quibus dixit inueniendum esse quid quis melius quam ipse posset; id tum tradendum munus.

ita paulatim - nam scientiam cum liberam esse uellet eis semper fortiter resistebat qui in sordidam mercedem auellere gestiebant - tabulam seriemque cellularum humanarum ad tertiam partem exposuit. haec series cognita immane quanto erit usui ad causas morborum et debilitatum quibus affligimur intellegendas.

tantum elementa queunt permutato ordine solo.¹

litteras nostras habemus: legamus nostra uerba.

praesento uobis Equitem Auratum, Doctorem in Philosophia, Regiae Societatis Sodalem, Praemio Nobeliano ornatum, in Elaboratorio Biologiae Molecularis pro Concilio Rei Medicae instituto quondam Inuestigatorem, Elaboratorii in nomine Sanger creati olim Curatorem, Collegi Pembrochiani honoris causa Socium,

JOHN EDWARD SULSTON

In the beginning was the worm. I have spoken of this worm in this place before: it is called Caenorhabditis elegans, and it is tiny, scarcely as long as the breadth of a nail-clipping. Most of the worms are hermaphrodite, but a very few males are produced, which allows for genetic variation. They move and they procreate, and in company they do a sort of synchronised swimming. The adult (they are adult in three days) has 959 cells; a human being has three billion. That shows you how much more convenient the worm is for total analysis than a human being would be.

It is not the worm, however, that I am presenting for an honorary degree, but Sir John Sulston, its most notable explorer. In nearly thirty years of study he determined the lineage of all its cells, discovering on the way that some are programmed to die; this acute observation of his naked eye enabled a fate map to be made. Then, with a few helpers, he set out to map the worm's genome and to determine its whole sequence; it was the first complex organism to have its genome determined. Before that was done, however, mapping of the human genome became an ever more urgent task, and, in the Sanger Centre built for the purpose, he became manager, guide, and enthuser of hundreds. Of colleagues he said, 'You find out what they can do better than yourself, and hand that over.'

And so, little by little - for Sir John believes in the free circulation of knowledge, and he resisted with great determination certain attempts to scoop the information for commercial gain - he laid out a full third of the whole human genome. When it is understood, we shall know where the diseases and defects that afflict our species begin. 'Only change the sequence, and see what the letters can do!' said the poet Lucretius. We have our alphabet: now for the language.

Sir JOHN EDWARD SULSTON, Ph.D., F.R.S.,

Nobel Laureate, formerly Staff Scientist in the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology, sometime Director of the Sanger Centre, Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College

Vidit hic uir cum puer erat in pinacotheca Britannica capitis imaginem Gulielmi illius prophetae poetae pictoris gypso dum uiuit formatam. multum puerilia possunt: nam in eo capite sentire tum se dicit aliquem corpore et mente praeditum inesse qui per cutem superficiemque se quasi truderet; mox uelle se totum corpus humanum eo modo tractare quo uiderentur uultum pictores antiqui, quorum Rhenanum illum imagines sui notissimas quis nescit in speculo intuentem depingere? sed non sic statuarii, qui corpora aliena intueri solent, seu Phidias Polyclitusque memorantur seu Michaelis ille Tuscus et Antonius Venetus.

nomen tamen hic uir habet quod suo cum statuas creat utitur corpore, idque mirum in modum: nam totus nudatus subtiliore quam Coa ueste inuoluitur, quam deinde gypso tegit madido, adiuuante uxore; tum tectus eo se statu tenet quem optauit donec concrescente gypso ipse teneatur. tandem integumentum non sine periculo serra membratim exsecatur; sed adhuc multiplicando se superest. quid tamen sic agit? ut se glorietur? minime: nam excepto quod marem esse non praeteriri potest, nequaquam se spectanti offert - immo, membra illa exsecata, cum rursus in unum coacta laminis plumbi glutino feruminatis uestiuit, uix iam uidentur cuiusquam esse quem agnoscas - sed nescioquem eum creat a quo tu dum spectas spectari ipse uidearis.

hac ratione ars statuaria, admodum ut uidebatur uetustate dilapsa et exhausta, reuiuiscit. monumentum autem si requiris, quid usquam notius quam quod mirantur cotidie dum praetereunt centena milia hominum, septentrionalis uocatus ille angelus?

praesento uobis uirum Statuarium, Excellentissimo Ordini Imperi Britannici adscriptum, Magistrum in Artibus, Collegi Sanctae et Indiuiduae Trinitatis Alumnum et honoris causa Socium, Collegi Iesu honoris causa Socium,

ANTONY MARK DAVID GORMLEY

In the National Portrait Gallery there is a plaster mask of William Blake made while he was alive. Antony Gormley saw it when he was a boy. Childhood experiences can be powerful. 'What affected me,' he says, 'was feeling the presence of someone through the skin, of a pressure behind the skin which was both physical and psychological.' He wanted to treat the whole human body, he says, as perhaps portrait painters in the past treated the face. We may recall the famous self-portraits that Rembrandt made by using a mirror; but it is the bodies of others that sculptors study, as Phidias and Polyclitus are said to have done, or Michelangelo and Canova.

Antony Gormley is famous, however, for using his own body when he makes statues, and a remarkable business it is: he strips naked and wraps himself in clingfilm; this he covers with wet plaster, with his wife's assistance; then he holds the posture he wants until the plaster sets and holds him. Finally the plaster is cut off him in pieces with a saw. It is a risky process, but so far he survives his own multiplication. This is no act of self-glorification, however; he is not, except inasmuch as he is unavoidably male, putting himself on show at all. When those pieces of plaster are cut off him and re-assembled into one, he covers them with sheets of lead, soldering the lead together, and the figure looks very little like anyone you would recognize; but for all its anonymity, even as you gaze at it, it seems to be looking at you.

Statue-making had appeared to be an art of the past, exhausted and silent; this man has made it live again. If you want a particular icon to remember, best known of his works in any Domain is the one that a hundred thousand people see every day, and call the Angel of the North.

ANTONY MARK DAVID GORMLEY, O.B.E., M.A.,

Rei theatralis studio tam penitus est hic uir imbutus ut etiam adulescens ad ludos uatis nostri spectandos centum milia passuum binis usus rotis soleret uehi. o tempora, o mores! quid suos liberos admoneat, qui eodem amore sunt praediti? verba quidem quae huic quondam studere hic appetenti dixit dominus ille Thomas sunt digna memoratu: Veronensem procum, ait, egisse nuntiaris. Ita. Age! Quid? Age! surge! territus hic surgit et uersus quosdam emittit. Bene; gratias; uale. o tempora, o mores!

in hoc uiro collaudando uereor ne, fabulis quas optime protulit longo ordine notatis, si quam quis maxime admiratus est praetermiserim oriatur inuidia cum certamine: Optime, dicet quispiam, Bella Rosaria. Mea quidem sententia, alter, Somnium. Sed Aeschyline tres illas? sic alius. neque errauerit eorum quisquam. sed et plures sunt numero quam ut sic agam, et momenti paene maioris hoc est, quod primum cohorti regali Gulielmianae deinde theatro gentili condendo praefectus, tantum post siparium quantum in exostra occupatus, totam rem difficultatibus saepius impeditam adeo bene gerendam administrandamque curauit ut uitae ciuilis nostrae bina lumina uiderentur; interea quod in hortis urbanis non egit at rure quanta omnium uoluptate opera musica proferebat!

ut uero florebant illo tempore scriptores histriones interpretes! uix tandem hic, munere publico seposito, ultro cum cohorte sua ad arcana Dionysi etiam altius exploranda discessit. Non mihi placent, ait olim, labores mei: contentus, cur usque laborarem? adeo summam artis scaenicae absolutionem perfectionemque sectatur.

praesento uobis Equitem Auratum, Excellentissimi Ordinis Imperi Britannici Commendatorem, Magistrum in Artibus, Collegi Sanctae Catharinae honoris causa Socium, histrionum ducem,

PETER REGINALD FREDERICK HALL

Peter Hall is so passionately in love with the theatre that as a youth he would cycle across to Stratford, over a hundred miles, simply to see the plays of Shakespeare. Those were the days! What words of warning would he give his own children, who are also committed to the theatre? Words that are worth rehearsal here occurred when he was being interviewed to read English by the famous Tom Henn: 'They say you've done Petruchio.' 'Yes.' 'Do it.' 'What?' 'Do it! Stand up!' Trembling he rose and recited a speech. 'Good. Thank you. Goodbye.' Those, too, were the days!

In commending this man to you I am reluctant to give a long list of his famous productions in case I leave out somebody's favourite and become a cause of contention. 'Wars of the Roses,' someone will say. 'I preferred the Dream,' says another. 'But what about the Oresteia?' asks a third. And they will all have a claim to be right. Fortunately, he has too many successes to list. In any case, almost more important than his productions may be first his direction of the Royal Shakespeare Company and then his creation of the National Theatre, where he spent as much time offstage as on it, and though vexed by various problems conducted both enterprises so brilliantly that they shone in the life of the nation like beacons; and at the same time, if the Garden was not his place for opera, the Sussex countryside was: what a joy the productions at Glyndebourne were!

And what a time it was for the stage in every way, for actors and playwrights as well as for producers! Finally he laid aside public office and set off with his own company on yet deeper explorations of the mysteries of theatre. 'I'm discontented with my work,' he once said; 'otherwise, I wouldn't go on working.' That is the measure of the perfection still sought by this prince of producers.

Sir PETER REGINALD FREDERICK HALL, C.B.E., M.A.,

Musicorum schola dicitur esse eorum qui cantus componere exigua sonorum uarietate breuique serie malint. exempli loco ponamus Ludouicum illum Vindobonensem: quis enim nescit eius symphoniam quintam quam dicunt a paeane illo posteriore ordiri quem M. Tullius¹ a breuibus deinceps tribus extrema producta atque longa oriri scripsit? quid hoc breuius, quid simplicius?

sed isti scholae Ludouicum nemo ut opinor adiunxit. de scholis igitur minime disceptetur, eoque magis quod hic uir musicae simul simplicis capax simul elaboratae et meditatae factus iam Proteus uidetur aliquis esse: qui iuuenis omni doctrina quae tradi solet optime instructus - primus autem opus a se compositum iudicibus obtulit - subito se in aliam partem patriae contulit, ibique alios modos amplexus mox non solum opera sua proferebat sed etiam eis consulebat qui rem musicam illic curabant. quo ex tempore nec desinit opera facere nec desunt auditores.

nam paene perfectus est musicus, qui musicos priores (patrione more incertum) quid quisque sonet auscultat, instrumenta symphoniae quomodo concinant intellegit, uersus denique cantibus aptissime accommodat: audiatis precor id quod Praeses apud Seras appellatur, opus magnum et ob argumentum non minus quam ob sonos admirandum. nam mulier praesidis Serum inter epulantis ingressa saltare incipit; quacum is tum se coniungit, atque una saltationem priscam exercent cui nomen est uulpes tolutaris; sed is aetate prouectus inconcinniter, ut audietis, se gerit: nam omnibus cantus suus cuique pro ingenio fictus est. uarium, salsum, ingeniosum habetis uirum, Musis amicum.²

praesento uobis eum qui cantus symphoniasque componit

JOHN COOLIDGE ADAMS

There is a variety of composer called minimalist: they like to make their music from short sequences of notes of limited variation. Let me give you an example: Ludwig van Beethoven. Everyone knows the start of his fifth symphony with its famous three shorts and a long, out of which so much is made. Now that is a fine example of minimalism! And yet no one, I think, calls Beethoven a minimalist, and we will therefore not debate the point, especially since John Adams is at least a post-minimalist by now, a Protean figure, his range well marked by a piece he calls, in acknowledgement of Schiller, Naive and Sentimental Music. At Harvard he followed a traditional course, summa cum laude, but was also the first student to submit for examination a composition of his own; then suddenly he took off for California, and started to work in different styles. Soon he was not only presenting pieces of his own but also had an advisory role with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Since that time he has never ceased to compose and has never failed for audience.

He is an all-round musician: he is intimately acquainted with composers of the past (but did his father know Charles Ives?), he understands the particular contribution of every instrument in the orchestra, and he is a fine chooser and setter of words. You should listen especially to his opera Nixon in China, a work no less remarkable for its plot than for its music. There is a moment when Chairman Mao's wife gatecrashes a banquet and starts to dance a solo. Mao joins her on the floor and together they perform a foxtrot from their past (though Mao's performance is no model of youthful elegance). All the characters in the work have their own distinctive music. John Adams is a writer of great talent, diversity, and wit, one whom the Muses love.

JOHN COOLIDGE ADAMS,