OVER 2 YOU 245 (23/08/05)

CLASSICAL LYRICS

I direct a mixed choir and we try to get away from the standard repertoire from time to time. Can anyone recommend a website that publishes the lyrics to classical compositions?

Jeff Monro, via email

I can thoroughly recommend The Lied and Art Song Texts Page at: www.recmusic.org/lieder/cindex.html. This amazing web site contains an archive of almost 18,000 song texts, searchable by title, composer, language or first line. It is completely free, though the web site owner does this as a hobby he is happy to accept donations to help him develop the database and I can say from experience that it is a really worthwhile enterprise that deserves to succeed.

Peter Bell, via email

You are sure to find what you want on the Classical.net website, which amongst other things has a huge list of links to scores of Opera, Choral and Vocal Music websites, many of which include lyrics and other useful information. The address for the web site is: www.classical.net/music/links/operalnk.html

Angela Clayton, via email

The place to star your quest has to be Choral.net (www.choralnet.org/), the best and most diverse web site for everyone interested in choral music, at any level. In addition to news groups and forums it also manages a vast reference section that contains a wealth of information and links to other websites, including many with lyrics for a host of composers and repertoires.

Christine Denning, via email

Your correspondent wasn’t entirely clear about which type or genre of classical music he was referring to but faced with a similar problem a short while ago, whilst researching a book on operatic works, I came across the following resource. Go to: http://opera.stanford.edu/index.html#libretti, where you will find a comprehensive library of libretti for a great many well-known works.

H. Finnegan, via email

OLYMPIC MAPS

As I was born (in 1922) in Hackney Wick, the proposed changes due to the 2012 Olympics interest me very much. Does anyone know of any maps showing the proposed alterations to the area, which can be aligned with an existing road layout? 

S.T. Justice, via email

There is a very good map showing the Stratford Olympic site, right next to Hackney Wick tube station at: www.alwaystouchout.com/project/44. Click on the map to shown an enlarged version and when that is displayed, click into it again to zoom the view.

Tom Armstrong, via email

It is still very early days and I haven’t come across any detailed maps as yet but there are some colourful plans of the various proposed sites on the 2012 Olympics web site at: www.london2012.org/en

Michael Mason, via email

I suggest that you have a look at The Plan for the London Olympics, document, which was produced for the bid. This is available as a PDF document and can be downloaded from Mayor Ken’s Government for London web site at: www.london.gov.uk/mayor/strategies/

sds/london_plan_download.jsp. It’s a hefty tome but you can download individual sections. Have a look at Chapter 2, ‘The broad development strategy’ and Chapter 5, ‘The sub regions’, which both contain maps of the areas that are going to be developed.

Tina Wells, via email

There are some detailed aerial photographs of the London Olympic sites at: www.planetaryvisions.com/olympics/olympics.htm. The images have been overlaid with graphics, showing where the proposed venues will be built, assuming that you are familiar with the area you should be able to work out the names of the roads. If you can’t see enough detail try Google Maps, (http://maps.google.com/), locate the UK by zooming out to a world map, click on the UK to centre it then zoom in on London. You can localise the map by entering a postcode then zoom in and click the Hybrid button, which superimposes the road map onto the satellite image.

Geoffrey Hudson, via email