aka freuben
Please visit freu pinta for more informal experimental short pieces
for Large Ensemble
Performed by students of the Koninklijk Conservatorium
"You set me the orbit of Mars, no let me speak, you set me this orbit, a most intractable problem, yet you give me no readings for the planet; how, I ask, let me speak please, how I ask am I to solve it, do you imagine?"
Tycho shrugged elaborately. "De Tydske Karle," he remarked to the table in general, "ere allesammen halv gale," and Jeppe the dwarf, squatting at his master's feet under the table, tittered...
Christian Longberg clasped his hands as if about to pray. "You expect to solve the problem of Mars, do you, Herr Kepler?" smiling thinly at the idea...
"You do not think me capable of it, sir? Will you take a wager-let us say, a hundred florins?"
"O splendid," cried young Tyge. "An hundred florins, by Laertes!"
"Hold hard, Longberg," Tengnagel growled. "Best set him a certain time to do it in, or you'll wait forever for your winnings."
"Seven days!" said Kepler promptly, all swagger and smile without while his innards cringed. Seven days, my God. "Yes, give me seven days free of all other tasks, and I shall do it- provided, wait," and nervously licked his lips, "provided I am guaranteed free and unhindered access to the observations, all of them, everything."...
Tycho... nodded, and then shrugged again, and called for more wine, making the best of it. Kepler pitied him briefly.
"Well then, sir," said Longber, his look a blade, "we have a wager."
From John Banville's Kepler