Listen to the new soundtrack “VINCET AMOR PATRIAE LAUDUMQUE IMMENSA CUPIDO” (Liszt) performed by Asya Lazar ARDOVA. It will appear at the ardSOUND after the final reconstruction of the player, but now you may press this link and listen to it on my Soundcloud page.

  https://soundcloud.com/user-690812859/amor-patriae-laudumque-immensa-cupido-liszt 

So many topics are getting more and more acute, but mine is not among them. I’d like to scamper over Walter Scott’s novels and speaking exactly – the episodes, which are absolutely useless for former and future cinema scenarios or opera librettos, cause they don’t express either action, or customs and national character. But these scenes are mostly intrinsic of great novelist giving true taste of good reading and setting mind free of everyday dramas, that people enjoy inventing for each other. Try getting in touch with these scenes and you’ll forget your enemies and friends, desperations and aspirations, hatred and love connected with the world around you and inside yourself. You’ll follow mysterious adventures of just  interesting people and your most eagerful wish will be just to be with them and reality for you will be filled with joyful dynamics of wistful minds independent of slavery and superstitions. 

Ely Belyutin. Guitarist module. 

Stating this maxima I plunged into the problems of the novel “Woodstock, or the Cavalier”, strictly speaking – the events of Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell (1599 – 1658).

King Charles II appears disguised as a young page, trying to escape in the old dominion Woodstock, where the family of his friends-royalists abides.  

Oliver Cromwell, having already seized all possible power, but suffering of unbridled puritan passions and suspecting everyone of disobedience.

Charles is described as just a careless boy, who is sure; everything belongs to him, while the hardships are temporary and should not be the obstacles to entertainments and strong romantic feelings. 

   Oliver Cromwell is most of all afraid of staying face to face with… Oliver Cromwell, i. e. himself. No, this is not his ill conscience; such fanatics are confirmed in their deeds. This is the feeling of simultaneous delight and devastation. It’s usually caused by nothing on the peak of completed victories, or accepted decisions.

Charles II behaves as good-for-nothing, although chased by the Roundheads and condemned to non-existence. He is saved by courageous Albert Lee, his friend, the true knight and most wise man, who finds exact armour against Cromwell – the Old Testament (here and their adduced by Cromwell and his adherents puritans), reciting the history of the King Zimri, when Queen Jezebel  greeted him with the words: "Is it peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?" (2 Kings 9:31).

Now let’s step aside to explain the situation. Walter Scott shows that deep in his heart Cromwell is already tired of policy, for he had already committed regicide and formed his “court”. Why did the words of Albert Lee outrage and discourage him?

The reason of his uneasiness is concealed in the question – should the Protestants have initially resorted to the Old Testament, having utterly neglected its original Hebrew nature and the people having created its texts, whose ink was their fate?

Thus Walter Scott notices, that when you borrow something and accustom it for your needs, be sure the original author will somehow reveal his nature, and you’ll feel the banner you carry is strange and unknown to you…