by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford 1852-1924

On Thin Ice

Charles Villiers Stanford found it necessary to play dumb on a visit to snowy Leipzig.

1875

Queen Victoria 1837-1901

Introduction

Composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford has been reminiscing about his time in Germany, and the devotees of ‘Mensur’, academic fencing. They were nothing if not courageous, taking a baffling pride in the scars; but they hung like a sword of Damocles over the heads of the merely careless, as Stanford discovered for himself on a visit to Leipzig in 1875.

by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford 1852-1924

THIS type of student is on the look out for the very slightest excuse for a challenge. He resembles the noted duellist in Dublin at the beginning of the eighteenth century, who inspired such awe that a young officer seeing him enter the room at a party went up to him and said, “Sir, I apologize for anything I have said, am saying, or may at any future time say!”

I was standing one day talking to a friend on the bridge over the ornamental water in the Johannes Park.* There had been heavy snow and frost and the ice was crowded with skaters. As I talked, my hand knocked off the parapet about as much snow as would cover a five-shilling piece,* which fell unnoticed by me on the cap of one of these fire-eaters. I saw this man make for the bank and tear off his skates, and was still more surprised when he made a straight line for me and demanded my card.

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That is, the Johannapark in Leipzig. It was created by banker Wilhelm Theodor Seyfferth (1807-1881) and named after his daughter Johanna. In 1955 the park was joined with Albertpark, Scheibenholzpark and Palmengarten to form Clara-Zetkin-Park, in honour of a Marxist political activist from the Weimar Republic that preceded Nazi Germany (at the time of the name change, Leipzig was within the Soviet-backed German Democratic Republic), but happily the name of Johannapark was restored in 2011.

That is, a Crown, worth five shillings. At this time it was a coin of almost pure silver, roughly 1½ inches (38mm) in diameter.

Précis

On a freezing winter’s day in Leipzig, composer Charles Villiers Stanford accidentally brushed a little snow onto the hat of a skater beneath the bridge where he was standing. A moment later, the skater was up on the bridge demanding Stanford’s card, and clearly ready to challenge him to a duel.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

What did Stanford do to provoke a student one winter’s day in Leipzig?

Suggestion

He knocked some snow onto his hat.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

A student was wearing a hat. Stanford knocked snow onto it. He challenged him to a duel.

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