Timber

The opening paragraph of The Power of Trees by Peter Wohlleben sums the book up rather wel

And the subtitle adds quite a sad reproach: 

How Ancient Forests Can Save Us if We Let Them

<speculation subject="reproachfulness quotient?">
I wonder how carefully Wohlleben's translator Jane Billinghurst (a long-time collaborator) reflected this reproach: does it really mean How Ancient forest can save us if only we'd let them? The last paragraph of Wohlleben's introductory note suggests this sort of doubt:

</speculation>

The author was one of the guests on this week's Start the Week. The other guests are introduced by the BBC Sounds blurb thus:

Jill Butler is an ancient tree specialist and a trustee of the Tree Register of the British Isle which records the nation’s ‘champion trees’ – the tallest and biggest trees of their species. But she’s also keen on getting the public involved in helping to find and care for some of the country’s oldest trees with the citizen science project, Ancient Tree Inventory, run by the Woodland Trust. 

 The healing powers of ancient trees is celebrated in stories throughout history, including the great Icelandic sagas. In The Norse Myths That Shape the Way We Think Carolyne Larrington, Professor of medieval European Literature explores the renewal that comes from the roots of Yggdrasill, the World Tree.

While listening I thought back to three podcasts. The first was this (about the "nuclear milestone" reached on 5 December 2022...

<parenthesis>

(though the work was done at the US National Ignition Facility, so perhaps we can date this milestone to the Feast of St Nicholas – providing a possible explanation for the energy source used by Santa's sleigh; (well, I did say 'perhaps'))

</parenthesis>

...) by getting more energy out of a fusion reaction than they'd put in (a tiny amount, but its a start.

What they do is in effect use lasers to contain a tiny star (the American speaker says 'the size of a BB', but the English woman says 'the size of a peppercorn' – draw from that whatever cultural conclusioins you like).

When they waxed lyrical...

<cliché-watch>

What else can one wax (apart from cars, obv.)?

</cliché-watch>

... about "a practically limitless supply of fusion energy", I thought 'Hang on a minute. Haven't we already got that – the Sun?

Aha, comes the objection; but only in the daytime, and when it's sunny enough. Well I've thought of that: those other two podcasts:

• A huge solar farm in the Sahara: The Inquiry
• An even bigger one in space, assembled by robots: The Climate Question

But the highest tech solution, apart from depending on as-yet uninvented kit, would involve the burning of huge amounts of rocket fuel. And anyway it all seems a lot of bother, when the the Sun and the trees are doing the job anyway.

Time for my walk.

b

For whom?

Classic FM helpfully explains:

Beethoven’s Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor is rarely referred to in such grandiose terms; instead, all who know and love it refer to it simply by its nickname, ‘Für Elise’ (German for ‘for Elise’).

Phew – silly me: there I was thinking it meant furry leaves.

The issue of this (alleged) 'dedication' ...

<parenthesis> 
(I'm not so sure: maybe it's just an indication of the pupil who might benefit from it; for more on this, read on)
</parenthesis>

...arose recently when, as recounted in  an article in Current Biology published on 22 March), Begg et al.

<parenthesis> 
(alii is a bit of an understatement; multissimi, more like; a dozen or more contributors of various kinds are credited)
</parenthesis>

...examined more-or-less well-attributed locks of Beethoven's hair. The original article is pretty dense (and long) so this rather arch précis ...

<parenthesis>
(I say 'rather arch' because it uses the not unclunky device of keeping Beethoven's identity secret for the first few paragraphs; at first he is just 'the patient')
</parenthesis>

...more readable. 

There have been several interpretations of the person referred to by the words "Für Elise", notably three:

1. Thérèse Malfatti
   Classic fm's page on the subject holds that
   

   It is widely acknowledged that Therese, perhaps the true dedicatee of ‘Für Elise’, was Therese Malfatti, a woman to whom Beethoven proposed in 1810 – the same year he composed ‘Für Elise’. She was also the owner of the manuscript.

   Previously (I suspect a rather hasty edit, as Malfatti hasn't been introduced yet) the page has this:
   

   Poor Therese must have been slightly miffed when, thanks to a rather slapdash copywriter called Ludwig Nohl, the dedication on the published version of the work was changed to someone quite different.

   Not just 'rather slapdash', I'd say; totally incompetent (tripping on laudanum, perhaps). I don't buy this. Again, the author seems to be hung up on the term 'dedication': see option 3. 

2. Elisabeth Röckel. That page goes on:
   

   However, other researchers have suggested Elise could have been a German soprano named Elisabeth Röckel. Röckel played Florestan in Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, and many sources show that Elisabeth often met with Beethoven, who fell in love with the young woman and wanted to marry her.

   Has anyone called 'Elisabeth' ever answered to 'Elise'? Has Ms Röckel? I don't know, but I'd  be surprised.

3. A pupil of Malfatti, called Elise.
   
   Classic fm again:
   

There is also a third candidate: another German soprano and friend of Beethoven called Elise Barensfeld. In 2012, musicologist Rita Steblin claimed Beethoven dedicated ‘Für Elise’ to Barensfeld.

Steblin thinks Therese Malfatti could have been Barensfeld’s piano teacher when she was 13, which is why Beethoven dedicated Elise the easy Bagatelle, “to do his beloved Therese a favour”.

There is that 'dedicated' again. Why does it have to be dedicated to anyone? Mightn't it just have been designed for her to play as that week's homework?

Anyway, 'dedication' apart, what  about poor Ludwig? Begg et al. concluded that he had Hepatitis B (among other conditions) – explaining his deafness. And they did this by DNA analysis of his hair (of which there are several examples, more than half of which are reliably authenticated...

<parenthesis>
(though one, reverentially displayed in its own 'reliquary', turns out [hilariously] to have come from, in Medscape's words, a woman likely of North African, Middle Eastern, or Jewish ancestry)

 

</parenthesis>

But some of the others are reliable:

And Begg et al. give a fascinating analysis.

<nagging-doubt>
One question arises though: I can't claim to be an expert on DNA profiling, but I have watched several episodes of CSI. And even I know that when someone finds a hair that should lead to the cracking of the whole case, the lab always says (improbably promptly) 'There was no root. we can't get anything from it.'

From what appears in that photo there are no roots; you can almost see the scissor marks (all right, not really, but the locks were obviously detached with some care. 

No doubt the science has progressed; smaller and smaller samples are gaining evidential credibility. But the Medscape article refers repeatedly to follicles:

But it wasn't just Beethoven's DNA in these hair follicles. Analysis of a follicle from later in his life revealed the unmistakable presence of hepatitis B virus. Endemic in Europe at the time, this was a common cause of liver failure and is likely to have contributed to, if not directly caused, Beethoven's demise.

</nagging-doubt> 

Ho hum. Enough; but have a read.

b