tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169837328470608452024-03-13T16:38:15.988+00:00CLASSICAL ICONOCLAST"Tradition ist nicht die Anbetung der Asche, sondern die Bewahrung und das Weiterreichen des Feuers" - Gustav MahlerDoundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.comBlogger3844125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-78697925043868701752021-04-12T12:01:00.000+01:002021-04-12T12:01:00.819+01:00From Macau through China, India and Burma: Hong Kong Portuguse in the Chindits. By Anne Ozorio<p><i>A few y years ago, Anne Ozorio,who died last August, gave me a typwscript copy of an article she had written on the experiences, after the 1941 Japanese invasion and occupation of Hong Kong, of some of the Portuguese/Macanese (many of whom had fought against the Japanese as members of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps) or were seeking other ways to resist the invadqrs, Until recently, I had thought that the article was unpubldhed. However I now find that it appeared in 2005 in the journal of The British Historical Society of Portugal.</i></p><p><i>Here is a <a href="https://www.bhsportugal.org/uploads/fotos_artigos/files/HongKongPortugueseintheChindits.pdf">link to the published article </a></i></p><p><i>NB There are a couple of errorso in the published version that do not appear in the typescript:</i></p><p><i>Page 120 'sit will shuld read 'sit well'</i></p><p><i>Page 124 'saw advantage' should read 'saw no advantage'</i></p><p><i><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>ROGER THOMAS</span> </i></p>Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-34923736405281824952020-12-14T12:37:00.006+00:002020-12-15T16:34:47.964+00:00Review of Grange Park Opera’s production of Owen Wingrave. By Claire Seymour<div style="line-height: 1.08px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm; text-align: left;"><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">In 1954, the year in which Benjamin Britten completed <i>The Turn of the Screw</i>, he wrote to Eric Walter White that he had just read another short story by Henry James with “much the same quality as the Screw”. That story was <i>Owen Wingrave</i>. Thirteen years later, Britten asked Myfanwy Piper to adapt it for his next opera, a “television opera” commissioned by the BBC. <i>Owen Wingrave</i> was first broadcast in May 1971 and staged at Covent Garden two years later. Since then, there have been a handful of productions – most recently at <a href="https://seenandheard-international.com/2014/06/macabre-ambiguity-in-aldeburghsowen-wingrave/">Snape Maltings in 2014</a> and by British Youth Opera in 2016 – but what many have labelled Britten’s “pacifist opera” has remained in the operatic margins.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">In 2001 Margaret Williams directed a new film of <i>Owen Wingrave</i> for Channel 4 TV, with Gerald Finley in the title role alongside Josephine Barstow as his fearsome aunt, Miss Wingrave, and Martyn Hill as his militaristic grandfather, General Wingrave, with Kent Nagano conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Now in 2020, the year of “opera on screen and stream”, we have a new production, on YouTube, directed by Stephen Medcalf for <span style="color: #0563c1;"><a href="https://grangeparkopera.co.uk/whats-on/owen-wingrave/" style="color: #0563c1;">Grange Park Opera’s 2020 interim season</a> , fil</span>med on location in Highgate and Surrey over five days in September.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">James’s Owen Wingrave is the son of a long line of military heroes. Surrounded by relatives with a fierce loyalty to the traditions of duty, public sacrifice, and death in conflict He is being coached for entry into Sandhurst and a career as a soldier. Owen decides that war is “barbaric” and refuses to continue his army training. His family and other acquaintances gather at the family home, Paramore, with a view to persuading him to change his mind. The old house has a macabre history, including a room in which a former Wingrave mysteriously died – “without a wound” – after striking and killing his young son, who had refused to fight when challenged by another boy. Owen continues to resist their entreaties, taunts and derision. Kate Julian, an opinionated young woman who expects to marry Owen, accuses him of cowardice; whereupon he offers to spend the night in the ill-fated room. She locks him in, and the next morning he is found dead on the same spot as his ancestor.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">The conventional view has been that the opera is an expression of Britten’s long-held pacifist convictions and an attack on dynastic military traditions. In preparing the libretto, Britten and Piper studied their Marbot and Clausewitz (<i>On War</i>) and this and other reading furnished Piper with many a military metaphor. Indeed, against the backdrop of Vietnam the opera was viewed by one critic as “blatant propaganda”. In Max Webster’s British Youth Opera production, the opening parade of the ancestral portraits which hang in Paramore’s gallery was replaced by Brechtian placards carried by rifle-wielding youngsters (played by Southend Boys’ Choir) which brandished bills numbering the human losses incurred in the Boer War and in Vietnam, against a back-drop of a rollcall of the dead.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">But the story of a pacifist resistance against a clique of grotesques rests uncomfortably alongside the private fight against disquieting revenants of whom Owen sings, “the bully and the boy … I cannot forget them … stalking their way to the room which saw their deaths … Walking, walking – these two: the old man and the boy, for ever in each other’s company”. There are essentially two stories that are not satisfactorily reconciled, and the ending struggles to serve them both.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">So, behind this ostensibly straightforward tale of youthful rebellion and idealism lies a network of half-illuminated ideas and unanswered questions. What is the relationship between Owen and the former Wingrave youth, who refused to fight a childhood friend and was beaten to death by his furious father? What has happened in the locked room? And, <i>why</i> has Owen died? If James’ short story and Britten’s opera are not about pacifism what are they about? If one rejects pacifism as the focus of James’s tale, one might surmise that the tale is primarily a ghost story in the tradition of Poe and Hawthorne; indeed, it was published in Leon Edel's selected anthology, <i>The Ghostly Tales of Henry James</i> (1948). Set in the provocatively named Paramore, a country house which is a psychic repository of supernatural presences, <i>Owen Wingrave</i> is in many ways an operatic companion piece to <i>The Turn of the Screw</i>, matching its psychological intensity.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">Which story should a director tell? Stephen Medcalf opts for a combination of pacifism and psychological unravelling, and largely dispenses with the paranormal: “<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I've given full rein to the satirical, often blackly comic aspects of the opera. Alongside that there are three serious themes: the pressure from society to conform; the courage it takes to stand up for who we really are; the destructive love of family.” He updates the action to a modern setting but visually evokes an ancestral past by filming in monochrome, the only splash of colour the blood-red wine in the glasses on the Wingraves’ dining table at Paramore (interestingly, Piper had written to Britten, “Kate’s red dress good for colour T.V. I think”.)</span></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">In 2001, Williams had similarly moved the action from its Edwardian setting to the 1950s, establishing a connection with World War II. Medcalf’s shift is more uncomfortable. The opening scenes feel anachronistic. We see Owen and his fellow Sandhurst aspirant, Lechmere, receiving military instruction from Spencer Coyle, in Coyle’s late-20</span><span style="font-size: 12.2222px;">th-</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">century London home. Lechmere peers fervently at his Mac laptop on which is displayed a field map of Napoleon’s war strategies. Miss Wingrave’s militarism is suggested by her rabid obsession with violent video games (presumably this is the “black comedy” of which Medcalf speaks), while a fairly young Sir Philip Wingrave, dressed not in military uniform or formal dinner attire but in a civilian suit, doesn’t really conjure the terrifying spirit of patriarchal tyranny. The action feels a long way from the 1914-18 conflict which the visual imagery evokes.</span></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">The reduction of Britten’s orchestra to a duo of piano and percussion was inevitable, given Covid restrictions, but it does deprive the score of its suggestive power. Gone are the sweeping harp flourishes that might come from Quint’s magic casements and which convey Owen’s rebellion; the horn melody that identifies him and communicates his riposte to his bullying grandfather during their off-stage interview; the low tuba which announces his disinheritance (reminiscent of Grimes’ defeat by the Borough); the woodwind chords and gamelan-like shimmer which evoke the ascendancy of love during Owen’s Act 2 “peace aria”.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">The pounding, percussive chords of the Prologue, which accompany the parade of portraits and signify the rigid militarism and repressive psychological grip of the Wingrave family upon its young heirs, still make their mark though – even if the sepia portraits that we see at the start turn out not to be imposing family portraits staring fiercely down from the walls of an ancestral gallery but just a huddle of photographs on a hallway table.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">One element of the original 1971 film that was criticised was the producers’ over-literalism in the ghost scenes, even though Piper had urged: “The [televisual] technique should be used, not to create ghostly appearances, making figures walk out of frames etc but simply to draw attention to the hallucinatory powers of a heightened imagination.” <span style="font-size: 11pt;">In Medcalf’s production, Owen seems more haunted from within than without (there’s a nice touch when, in Hyde Park, a troupe of mounted officers ride by, we see them only as reflected in Owen’s eyes). This Paramore is no Bly; just a large smart house in the Surrey stockbroker belt. When Owen approaches his family home, he looks up at a window framing the formidable female trio who will harass and harangue him for his dishonour and cowardice (and decides to enter by the back door), but there is little sense of the past.</span></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">During Owen’s interview with his grandfather, which takes place “off-stage”, the Wingraves gather agitatedly outside the door; the domestic mundaneness of the décor deprives the scene of its tense melodrama – I half expected Miss Wingrave to put a glass to the wall to better hear and relish the young man’s lambasting and humiliation. The locked room itself is a concealed servant’s door at the end of a corridor on the top floor. It seems too nondescript to house the Wingraves’ guilty secrets or to evoke the repressed emotional currents that James tells us haunt Paramore. The legend-ballad, sung by the Narrator (and here complemented by just a single treble rather than Britten’s Chorus), which frames Act 2 seems blanched of its power to connect past and present, to establish a historical perspective by which the violent destruction of innocence is seen as part of a recurring pattern at Paramore. Disappointingly, Medcalf makes no use of the cinematic devices – montage, intercutting – which might have reinforced such tragic connections.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">If the Wingraves are an unlikable clan of near caricatures, then Medcalf has assembled a terrific cast to embody them – many of whom in fact sang in the 2014 Aldeburgh production, though not necessarily in the same role. Ross Ramgobin’s lyrical baritone conveys Owen’s artistic sensibility – “Courage in war is false. Courage in peace, the kind that poets know wins everything.” – but he does not neglect the fierceness of Owen’s convictions and the strength of his determination. Both elegant and intense, the sweetness of the “peace aria” suspends time much like Billy Budd’s “far-shining sail” but there is also a surprisingly vehement anger and almost Grimes-like defiance at times, in his self-defences and as he implores the family portraits, and we are reminded that Owen is, after all, a “soldier”.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">At Snape, James Way appeared as Sir Phillip’s nurse and as the ballad-singing Narrator; here his ardent tenor is just right for Lechmere’s impetuosity and over-enthusiasm, and he captures, too, both the immaturity and remorse that Lechmere displays in Act 2 – gulping down his wine during the fraught dinner party, flirting naively with Kate, and then, fearful of his friend’s fate, anxiously seeking the guidance and support of his mentor, Coyle.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">Susan Bullock reprises her fearsome Miss Wingrave, shaping the phrase and enunciating the text with clarity and control, even as her fictional ego descends into histrionic ranting. Richard Berkeley-Steele partners her as he did in 2014, singing with elegance as Sir Philip Wingrave, though he never quite commands and terrifies. Mrs Julian and Kate are a thoroughly nasty pair: Madeleine Pierard captures the former’s hyper-nervous restlessness while Kitty Whately is fittingly unsympathetic as Kate. Her mezzo-soprano is powerful and domineering, but always expressive, and her final duet with Owen creates terrific dramatic tension as he asks her to leave Paramore and share a new life with him. Kate fails Owen and, at the close, the tear-smudged black kohl that shadows her eyes doesn’t touch one’s heart.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">Only Spencer Coyle and his wife seem possessing of genuine human feeling. William Dazeley blends authority with balanced judgment, and evinces a genuine affection for young Owen and respect for his ideals. Janis Kelly (who sang Mrs Julian in 2014) is superb as his empathetic wife, a welcome source of wisdom, calm and kindness.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">At the close of <i>Owen Wingrave</i> there is just a locked room and an unanswered question: what happens behind the locked door? Some have suggested that the secret chamber houses not only the ghosts of a repressive military tradition but also the spirit of repressed love. Why does Owen die? Is it a choice between conformity and “living”death” and defiance and “literal death”. For some, such as George Bernard Shaw, Owen’s death is a “dispiriting fatalism” but for others it is a private and public validation of self.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">One might argue that Owen violates family tradition and as a consequence is either punished or dies to atone. Or, that Owen is a brave soldier and, despite his family’s disdain, dies like a brave soldier. As the esteemed Jamesian scholar Leon Edel stated: “Owen wins his grave”. Both Shaw and Virginia Woolf challenged James about the ending of the play, <i>The Saloon</i>, which was based on his short story, the latter complaining that, “The catastrophe has not the right relations to what has gone before.” James responded to Shaw’s criticism: “There was only one question to me, that is, that of my hero’s … getting the best of everything, simply: which his death makes him do by, in the first place, purging the house of the beastly legend, and in the second place by creating for us, spectators and admirers, such an intensity of impression and emotion about him as must promote his romantic glory and edifying example for ever.” Although he stubbornly rebels against the militaristic traditions of his family, he shows courage and valour in accepting Kate Julian's challenge to sleep in the haunted room, fully aware of the legend and his danger. His moral victory is achieved only through death: the “beastly legend” is now eradicated and the ghost exorcised. Owen “wins with his life”. If he had lived, James retorts, then he would have been a failure.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">But, for opera directors the question is not just why Owen die, but <i>how </i>he dies. Medcalf’s solution is in keeping with his decision to excise the supernatural element of the tale. Spoiler alert: this Owen is found lying face-down on the patio beneath the window of the locked room, a victim of his own psychological schisms rather than paranormal haunting. But, it’s still not clear what pushes Owen to suicide. Is it Kate’s rejection? Or, shame? After all, he’s been taunted by Sir Philip, “Insulting the family name, dragging our name in the dirt – disgusting!” But, when challenged by Kate to sleep in the haunted room, Owen declares, “I thought I’d done with that, with the Wingraves and the house. Would you drag me back? The anger of the world is locked up there, the horrible power that makes men fight: now I must take it on.” This suggests that his self-sacrifice is an act of heroism.</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">In contrast, Medcalf’s conclusion seems to deny James’ argument that his hero gets “the best of everything”. though it is in keeping with the spirit of the domestic tragedy that Medcalf creates. It’s not really a solution to the opera’s conundrums, though. A master of indirection and obliqueness, James’s only directorial instruction for <i>The Saloon</i> was that at the closing climax the stage should be plunged into darkness. Perhaps ambiguity may speak more powerfully than artistic closure?</p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><b>Owen Wingrave – Ross Ramgobin, Miss Wingrave – Susan Bullock, Sir Philip Wingrave – Richard Berkeley-Steele, Mr Coyle – William Dazeley, Mrs Coyle – Janis Kelly, Lechmere – James Way, Mrs Julian – Madeleine Pierard, Kate Julian – Kitty Whately, Narrator – Richard Berkeley-Steele, Boy Bugler – Chloe Morgan; Director – Stephen Medcalf, Conductor – James Henshaw, Video Production – Fintan O’Connor, Sound – Tom Marshall, Piano – Chris Hopkins, Percussion – Craig Apps.</b></span></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><b>Grange Park Opera, 2020 Interim Season, streamed on YouTube.</b></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;">Claire Seymour is the author of <i>The Operas of Benjamin Britten: Expression and Evasion</i></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><i><br /></i></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><i>____________________________________________________</i></p><h2 style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm; text-align: left;">Postscript by Roger Thomas: Anne Ozorio on Owen Wingrave and War</h2><h4 style="text-align: left;"><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 400; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The late founder of Classical Iconoclast, Anne Ozorio, wrote some interesting pieces on <i>Owen Wingrave</i> that complement Claire Seymour'sr review. See:</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2013/02/britten-owen-wingrave-imbarilo-broadcast.html">https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2013/02/britten-owen-wingrave-imbarilo-broadcast.html</a></span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2014/06/britten-owen-wingrave-aldeburgh-music.html">https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2014/06/britten-owen-wingrave-aldeburgh-music.html</a></span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2014/06/at-home-with-benjamin-britten-and-owen.html">https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2014/06/at-home-with-benjamin-britten-and-owen.html</a></span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2014/06/made-for-tv-britten-owen-wingrave.html">https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2014/06/made-for-tv-britten-owen-wingrave.html</a></span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;">Anne Ozorio was vociferously averse to romantic notions of the military and of warfare. She was born in 1951 into families that had grim memories of the Batte of Hong Kong (the Japanese 1941 invasion of the British colony, the brave but ultimately fruitless defence, followed by harsh, often murderous Japanese occupation until 1945). The Japanese assault began on 8 December 1941 and Hong Kong forces surrendered on Christmas day. Anne's forebears lost two family members in the Battle – an uncle of Anne, Gunner Manuel Heleodoro Ozorio (in an action that amounted to and was tried as a Japanese War Crime) and a great uncle, Private William Markham. Others in the family, including Hong Kong resident Macanese, English, Anglo-Chinese, Norwegian, and a Shanghai-born Iranian national,were held as prisoners of war or civilian internees, or took refuge in neutral Macau.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;"> Anne recalled how the older members of her family found themselves unable to celebrate Christmas even decades after 1945 Rather, they sank into a gloomy, dpressive mood. Anne, who as a historian unearthed important documents in the archives on the Battle of Hong Kong and taped interviewa with veterans, to an extent took the family mood into her adult life (“I hate Christmas”, she sometimes said), though she wrote scintillating pieces on Christmas music on this blog. Nor could she bring hersrlf to hate the Japanese. On the contrary, almost every 6 August she blogged sensitively about the bombing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki and about the music that sprang from these Japanese tragedies.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;">For the adult members of her family in the post-war years, things brightrned up from Christmas gloom only with the New Year, when the ladies of the Hong Kong Macanese community liberated their mink coats from cold storage and partied the night away. </span></p><div dir="auto"><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p></div><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 400; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><br /></p></h4><div><br /></div><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><br /></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><br /><br /></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><br /><br /></p><p class="western" style="color: #00000a; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.84px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"><br /><br /></p></div>Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-22143309590079899832020-10-18T14:29:00.009+01:002020-10-19T11:08:18.548+01:00Harawi 12 years on<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinQJEHbQoU6BYoBm4Sq_c7bJjdLXN74RhwokdRKTQoo-Njs0EcIlC8tJKNAeTIuQgVrKlj3IOEoMdS7EgXHsAue0782-DTTtWVY7FEzAOGrINnhiZMDbtuXgD2lquFyS167GNMB6y6uV0/s2048/IMG-1124.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinQJEHbQoU6BYoBm4Sq_c7bJjdLXN74RhwokdRKTQoo-Njs0EcIlC8tJKNAeTIuQgVrKlj3IOEoMdS7EgXHsAue0782-DTTtWVY7FEzAOGrINnhiZMDbtuXgD2lquFyS167GNMB6y6uV0/s320/IMG-1124.PNG" width="320" /></a></div><br />Gweneth Ann Rand sings Messiaen’s song cycle Harawi, with Simon Lepper, piano, at Wigmore Hall this evening at 7.30 UK time. A free live video of the performance will be available on the Wigmore Hall website for 30 days (with donations to Wigmore Hall funds welcome).<p></p><p>Anne Ozorio wrote a review of Rand’s (then Gwenerh Ann Jeffers) Proms performance of Harawi in 2008. (<a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2008/08/gweneth-ann-jeffers-harawi-messiaen.html">Please see here</a> AN<a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2008/08/prom-pcm4-harawi.html">D here</a>). “Easily the best Messiaen singer of her generation,” Ozorio wrote in another blog post.</p>Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-22667462728101448072020-10-08T10:24:00.002+01:002020-10-08T10:33:45.363+01:00She had a lot to teach me – Remembering Anne Ozorio, Number 2 <p></p><h4 style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p></p></h4><h1></h1><h4><p></p></h4><h4></h4><h3></h3><h4></h4><h1></h1><h4><p></p><p></p></h4><h2></h2><h4 style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtztyge-pbWtiHmYqv6-788uHqryIE0NKtRCa4nBNJZLJsr3HI5FR0IEMrV80t4Mrs2EiBR1121Oj7YQnwuaudEoYsZ-YNphKg09d5iuqnnY7szDQPEa0FP4S8QMuHAOmvqNPolFufmhs/s2048/26F1D81C-DA6A-447C-A7E5-F20EFC72DD2E.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtztyge-pbWtiHmYqv6-788uHqryIE0NKtRCa4nBNJZLJsr3HI5FR0IEMrV80t4Mrs2EiBR1121Oj7YQnwuaudEoYsZ-YNphKg09d5iuqnnY7szDQPEa0FP4S8QMuHAOmvqNPolFufmhs/s2048/26F1D81C-DA6A-447C-A7E5-F20EFC72DD2E.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"> </a></div>Music critic CLAIRE SEYMOUR<i> (Opera Today) </i>recollects the</div><div style="text-align: left;">phenomenal knowledge, writing skills and generous advice of </div><div style="text-align: left;">Anne Ozorio, who would have been 69 today </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><div style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">“I’m a large Eurasian, and I’ll wear something bright.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">You won’t miss me!” </span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Anne’s response when I asked how I might recognise her when we first met, at an evening recital at Wigmore Hall during 2008, was characteristically no-fuss and direct.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">And, there she was when I arrived – smiling brightly, chatting vigorously, bustling among the other concert-goers in the foyer, many of whom recognised Anne and greeted her warmly.</span></div></span></div></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our paths crossed when I was asked to join the </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Opera Today </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">team of music reviewers based in London.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Both of our lives had been driven by a passion for music: listening, reflecting, writing about musical performances, recordings and experiences.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But, in very different contexts.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whereas my background had been a rather conventional ‘academic’ one and most of my writing undertaken for ‘scholarly’ purposes, Anne later told me of how her listening experiences, from her earliest years, had led her to a career in music journalism and broadcasting.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I still know little of Anne’s personal life and career.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But, I realised from our conversation that first evening at Wigmore Hall that – vivacious, witty, knowledgeable, her chain of thought quickly making connection across diverse fields – she had a lot to teach me.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkuVJjhhX1S9j5pgrvbxHEeAj2IyUpJq688aqD84x8CIO_gsUtbOxbZuuYHGue6V9cImenv8necgUD4k8lipRs0c25eAnSL9RXD6-1N4k27TAzNEwqLtmzBRdIIsUstBdr9PWBkc_E-3M/w320-h240/B9F54B53-AFF7-4369-AB34-1F80F73CBDB2.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div><i>Home from home: Anne Ozorio at Wigmore Hall on 23 November 2019. This was Anne's last of hundreds of visits to Wigmore Hall <span style="color: #2b00fe;"> </span><span style="color: #e06666;">- <a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2019/11/wigmore-hall-mahlerschubert-andre.html">see this</a>.</span><br /></i><i> (photo: </i>Roger Thomas) </div></td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkuVJjhhX1S9j5pgrvbxHEeAj2IyUpJq688aqD84x8CIO_gsUtbOxbZuuYHGue6V9cImenv8necgUD4k8lipRs0c25eAnSL9RXD6-1N4k27TAzNEwqLtmzBRdIIsUstBdr9PWBkc_E-3M/s2048/B9F54B53-AFF7-4369-AB34-1F80F73CBDB2.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"> </a><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>One important thing that I learned was that there was not just one way of listening, evaluating and writing – and that by broadening and developing my own, rather entrenched, habits and style, I could gain new understanding and pleasure.</span> <span>My own writing was, and still is, I fear, rather formal and painstaking.</span> <span>Anne’s pieces – reviews, commentary, interviews – for </span><i>Opera Today </i><span>and for her idiosyncratic and eclectic blog, </span><i>Classical Iconoclast</i><span>, were dynamic, succinct, funny – sometimes quite satirically or pointedly so. – as well as incredibly </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">well-informed.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whereas I honed in on a detail and got stuck there, chewing over every inference and intimation, Anne skilfully brought together a wealth of such details – her quick ear and mind instantly absorbing and responding – and assimilated them within an almost impossibly diverse cultural and historical embrace.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was never a single superfluous word.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The reader was hooked from the first pithy utterance. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anne’s pieces were a kinetic kaleidoscope of knowledge, ideas and personal responses, brought together into a perfectly controlled form.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">She taught me the importance of developing a personal voice that could present one’s opinions in an open-minded but confident way; of writing both for myself and for others; of seeing and appreciating the significance of the bigger picture.</span></span></span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She also showed me the practical ropes.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Back in 2008, Anne welcomed me warmly to the London team of reviewers, encouraging me through her generous praise but also suggesting that I might be more selective and pointing me toward things that she thought, invariably rightly, would be of particular interest and satisfaction to me.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m sure that this was partly to save me from my own workaholic tendencies.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But, more than this, Anne’s intuition and insight – about people as much as about the music and performances that we were sharing and discussing – were both sharp and sensitive.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Quietly but thoughtfully, she made sure that I had new opportunities; and, then, would just as unobtrusively offer some honest guidance – and probably a few warnings too! – to ensure that I was able to gain the most from them.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Preparing to conduct my first interview with a singer, at the Royal Opera House, I was pleased to receive an email from Anne with some honest words of advice, and a review of the dos and don’ts.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">She combined a no-nonsense pragmatism with diplomacy and kindness, and I benefited enormously from her guidance.</span></div><span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Later, when her health made it more challenging for her to deal with all the daily chores of scheduling, emailing and organising on behalf of </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Opera Today</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, she suggested that I might like to take over some of her responsibilities.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I like to think I’m an efficient and reliable ‘administrator’, but there are unspoken traditions and rules in the world of classical music and here, again, Anne introduced me to them with foresight, tact and thoughtfulness.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Performers, box offices, media relations companies, artists’ agencies: they all like things done a certain way – often they all like things done a different way! – and Anne knew the ins and outs better than anyone.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">She took me inside this world and showed me the workings.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I couldn’t have had a better mentor.</span></div><span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I enjoyed countless lively exchanges with Anne over the years: in person, at Wigmore Hall, at the Proms, at the Royal Opera House, in foyers, between the concert hall aisles, at press party gatherings after the show; and by email after events that we’d both enjoyed – or not enjoyed!</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">As time passed, and her health (though never the sharpness of her mind or pen) became a little less robust, she became a less frequent presence in the opera house or concert hall – though if there was something that she really wanted to experience, then Anne would be there.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">And, if she couldn’t be, then the words flowed no less profusely, nor less productively and perceptively.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I used to read her regular reviews of the BBC’s radio broadcasts of the Proms concerts, and ruefully reflect on how much I </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">hadn’t </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">heard even though I’d been at the Royal Albert Hall the night before.</span></div><span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Problems with her eyesight and mobility were never going to stop Anne.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I never heard her complain.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact, the only comment I do recall her making about having to reduce her active concert-going was typically forthright: “I may not be able to attend the performance, but I can still hear the music.”</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anne began more regularly to write CD reviews, and a glance at the </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Opera Today </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">archive will attest to the diversity of her cultural experience and the depth of her powers of integration and evaluation.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anne’s lifetime of musical memories, and her love of the art form, informed every piece that she wrote.</span><span> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">And, if it’s a cliché, then to suggest that the expanse, eclecticism and depth of her knowledge was ‘lightly worn’ is both true and captures nothing of the effortless sweep of Anne’s writing.</span><span> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The title of her blog was apposite: she was indeed a radical, sometimes subversively so, and an individualist.</span><span> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But she was also one of the most sincere, warm-hearted people I have known.</span><span> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Many was the time when a small parcel would thud, unannounced, onto my doormat: a new book or CD recording that Anne thought I would enjoy.</span><span> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">My memories of Anne won’t fade: she was too full of life, fierce energy and passion, and kindness.</span><span> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Generous, funny, intelligent, and indomitable.</span></div></span><p></p><p><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">More blogs soon Remembering Anne Ozorio</i></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><p style="font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.08px; margin-bottom: 0.28cm;"></p></h4><p></p></div>Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-86607300963434668802020-09-03T13:09:00.002+01:002020-09-04T19:02:20.941+01:00Mr Wu and Beano — Remembering Anne Ozorio, Number 1<p></p><h4 style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzJBv2GE8S5ZDfkfUOVk3td0gFUK07E5cAa7W0x4fZcnLW6Cvse1ra_He_iGkFdPQKe1aXhU-zYWTNpowgZ-EpiqAIW3oRoGNUrnv5xkh8Hm_T4sEdHhwnPkd7w7wzw-Yt511Iqwr8NGM/s1836/33C0295B-024A-453F-8C75-699B64F20045.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1374" data-original-width="1836" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzJBv2GE8S5ZDfkfUOVk3td0gFUK07E5cAa7W0x4fZcnLW6Cvse1ra_He_iGkFdPQKe1aXhU-zYWTNpowgZ-EpiqAIW3oRoGNUrnv5xkh8Hm_T4sEdHhwnPkd7w7wzw-Yt511Iqwr8NGM/s640/33C0295B-024A-453F-8C75-699B64F20045.jpeg" width="640" /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">Anne Ozorio and her brother Joe at the Ozorio family mausoleum in Happy Valley, Hong Kong</span></h4><div><br /></div><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>Anne Ozori told me abou Mr Wu as we waited for a Barbican Hall concert on January 10, 2007. The next day I typed up from memory what she had said. So it is not pure Anne Ozorio, but the next best thing. Anne said I would have loved Mr Wu. </i><i style="font-size: 12pt;">I can see why. By </i><b style="font-size: 12pt;">ROGER THOMAS</b></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Anne Ozorio’s fathr was Joseph Maria Augusto Ozorio. (His Macanese nickname was Beano.) There has been a José (or Joseph or Joe) in every generation </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">of the Ozorios since they started appearing in the Macau parish records when these were initiated at the beginning of the 17th century. Beano had a great friend in Hong Kong called Mr Wu. Mr Wu was an extremely rich, flamboyant businessman whose businesses included generic pharmaceuticals such as aspirin and the sourcing of medical supplies such as cotton wool. Beano was a senior government pharmacist.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mr Wu was indeed highly flamboyant. He had a cowboy-style belt with a massive buckle that he liked to wear around town, going to the bank, etc (à la rhinestone cowboy). Except that the big stones set in Mr Wu’s belt buckle were scores of diamonds, not rhinestones.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mr Wu had his rough side; he had connections with the “Green”as opposed to the “Red” Triads of Shanghai.“Yes I’ve had people killed,” he said, “you had to in order to survive, but I never killed anyone personally.” But he was also cultured. He was from a wealthy family in mainland China with a recorded history going back 800 years and had made a personal fortune before the Chinese civil war of the 1920s, the Japanese occupation and the communist revolution. His business interests in China included farms and vast tea estates. As a young man, he had studied the violin under several distinguished teachers. He was also a long-time school chum of one Zhou en-lai, later the People’s Republic’s founding prime minister and foreign minister.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Come the late 1920s there was civil war between the Communists and the Nationalist Kuomintang. But there was also internal civil war in Shanghai within Nationalist ranks involving the “Red” and the “Green” Triads. Despite Mr Wu’s links with Zhou en-lai, he refused to join the Communists and stuck with the Green faction of the Nationalists. With the defeat of the Japanese and the impending victory of the Communists in the late 1940s it was time for Mr Wu to retreat – to Hong Kong.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But before heading for the island, Mr Wu took a sensible initiative: he swallowed a large number of diamonds. So after going to the toilet in Hong Kong and cleaning things up, Mr Wu started his Hong Kong business career with a substantial amount of capital. Meanwhile, in China, Mr Wu’s businesses, including his tea estates, were expropriated by the Communists, but not for long. With the People’s Republic firmly entrenched in 1949, the Zhou en-lai connection kicked in. Mr Wu’s tea estates were returned to him. In later years, if you went to tea with Mr Wu in Hong Kong you were served the finest tea from his mainland estates.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mr Wu was, as we saw, a trained violinist. And he had a piano in his office. What does a wealthy music lover with a violin background do? He sought out a very fine violin. For Mr Wu that meant a fabulously expensive 17th-18th</span><sup> </sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">century Guarneri. “Stradivarius violins are rubbish,” reckoned Mr Wu.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It is said that antique violins stored away permanently lose their sound quality. They need to be regularly played. So Mr Wu engageed an Italian violinist resident in Hong Kong called (like the playwright) Dario Fo to regularly play in his office on the Guarneri. Beano was often invited to these sessions. And the Guarneri also came out from the vaults for public concerts at which Fo played. The high point of the evening was not so much the music as the arrival of the Guarneri with its armed guard.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Beano’s frriendship with Mr Wu was in part </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">built on business. Beano, as Hong Kong’s chief pharmacist, realised that the colony and its people were being ripped</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> off in the supply at inflated prices of generics such as aspirin and basic medical goods by the quasi-UK government agency the Crown Agents for the Colonies. This monopolistic intermediary supplied a wide range of inputs to the UK's Crown Colonies.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mr Wu could source goods of equivalent quality much more cheaply than the Crown Agents. That included cotton wool out of China. As Mr Wu said: “Cotton grows in China; it doesn’t grow in Lancashire.”</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The cotton wool contract agreed with Mr Wu by Beano led to litigation against the HK pharmacy department and Beano. The Crown Agents claimed a legal right to its monopoly trade. The case got through the Hong Kong courts and ended up in the final court of appeal for the colonies, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. Triumph for Beano and the Hong Kong peope (and Mr Wu!). No such legal right exists, the Privy Council judges ruled</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Anne Ozorio claimed there was nothing that could be construed as corruption in the Mr Wu/Beano relationship. But Mr Wu set Beano off on an antique-collecting path with the gift of a 19th</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">-</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">century green jade snuff bottle that Anne later owned for a while. And Anne, as a secondary-school pupil, became a crucial agent in Beano's quest for antiques. Anne got to know Mr Wu, who advised Beano that she could be of great help. “She knows all about Chinese history,” he said.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Anne started to frequent the antique dealers’ shops. The shop-owners were </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">prepared to explain things to a young schoolgirl that they wouldn’t confide to a grown man. Soon, as they got to know her and her father, she was allowed to take items home “on approval” – a Ming vase here, a jade statue there, secreted in her schoolbag.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Later, university student Anne is rushing along the street to get to a History lecture. A vast chauffeur-driven limousine draws up. “Hello Anne,” says Mr Wu. “Get in the car. And why are you running?” “Because I’m late.” “And why are you late?” “Because I don’t have a watch.” “You silly girl. Come to tea with me tomorrow.”</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">At tea the next day Mr Wu brought out two watches, a plain gold one and one studded with diamonds. You can have whichever you want, he said. “I’ll have the plain one,” said Anne. “I’d be scared that the diamond one would be stolen or I’d lose it.”</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">One day, Mr Wu told Beano that he had disowned his eldest son, who had gone to the US to study aeronautical engineering at MIT. Why? Because the boy had married an (admittedly rich) American woman. “I don’t want half-breed grandchildren,” said </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mr Wu. “And what do you think I am?” said Beano, laughing. Beano was half Macanese, a quarter German and a quarter Filipino.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Another day, Beano received a sharp summons from Mr Wu. “Beano, come to my office straightaway.” Beano arrived to find a convoy of cars with armed guards and some mystery Americans on board. Beano was put in one of the cars and they drove to Hongkong & Shanghai Bank where they were taken down to the vault within the vault within the vault. The Americans were museum people from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC who had heard about an exquisite object of great value and had</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> requested a viewing. Out came an amazingly carved jade statuette that was made for a Chinese Emperor. “No touching,” said Mr Wu as the Americans gasped in wonder. “We’d like to buy it,” they said. “No way,” said Mr Wu. “But you owe me money anyway – the insurers charged $85,000 extra cover premium for it to be allowed out of the vault.”</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mr Wu is now dead of course. As is his friend Beano – and Anne.Where’s the jade from the bank vault? Anne reckoned Mr Wu would have made arrangements for it to be sent back to China. Perhaps the Guarneri went there too.</span></p><p class="western" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>More blogs soon Remembering Anne Ozorio</i></span></p><p></p>Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-59819168357322981562020-08-27T13:36:00.002+01:002020-08-30T08:19:50.242+01:00Anne Ozorio 8 October 1951--22 August 2020<p></p>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;"><span>Anne Ozorio <i>(right) </i>with soprano Sarah Minns in 2011 </span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: center;"><span><i>(photo: Roger Thomas)</i></span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: center;"></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">Sadly, the owner of this blog, Anne Ozorio, died on 22 August 2020. A few days before she left us, Anne asked me to keep Classical Iconoclast alive. In no wayy can I hope to rival or replace Anne's broad-based expert writing – on classical (and some popular) music and opera, film (especially from China/Hong Kong and Weimar Germany) and Chinese/Hong Kong/ and Macanese culture and history. For a start I would like to tell existing and new readers more about Anne and her background, based on things she told me and somewhat random research we did together over the past 14 years. </h3>
<div><b>Coming soon, so keep checking the blog. And Anne's blogs from 2008 to 2020 will always be worth exploring.</b></div>
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<div><b>Roger Thomas</b></div>
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Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-22043332786507545312020-07-15T17:20:00.001+01:002020-07-15T18:11:23.410+01:00Secrets of the Sahara - Le Désert and L'Atlantide<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Secrets of the Sahara ! Two magnificent evocations of the Sahara and its seductive mysteries : Félicien David's <span style="color: red;"><i>Le Désert </i></span>(1844) an ode-symphonique, and Jacques Feyder's film <span style="color: red;"><i>L'Atlantide</i></span> (1921). Both are long term favourites, but the soundtrack in the restored version of the movie is pretty banal, so I muted and played Félicien David's<span style="color: red;"><i> Le désert</i></span> instead. The combination worked extremely well !<br />
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Perhaps it's because the rhythms of <span style="color: red;"><i>Le désert </i></span>so strongly resemble the rhythms of a caravan of camels marching single file through the desert. Scored for narrator, orchestra, tenor and choir, the piece unfolds at a steady pace, unhurried yet purposeful. For thousands of years, caravans like these have crossed the desert : it is as if the endless sand dunes (depicted by the strings) defy Time itself ; the tracks of the caravan erased as soon as the caravan has passed. David lived in Eygpt from 1833-35 so the atmospheric exoticism feels drawn from lived experience.<span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="color: red;"><i>Le désert </i><span style="color: black;">was sensationally successful in its time, and was to influence the whole genre of French orientalism. If it isn't as well known today, other than to fans of the genre, this might be because it doesn't fit modern ideas of form. David wrote operas, but </span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><i>Le désert </i></span>is neither opera nor conventional concert piece and requires fairly large forces which make it relatively tricky to programme. In David's time, this form was relatively common (think Berlioz) so it needs to be appreciated as such. This means performances of a vey high and idiomatic standard. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5-tD5ebcJ_SUwd3r04WgzHT33tkmSepISAtJjVbzHFxL1rC7lFzpkg-gvfSbvQ-G9YMN9mPHtQeSqL4Se22TyNzCqnOLhVmC3U76waBzp7EjCr3zUywVfRtjcYc7R8mWDitNnCJqN4pc/s1600/daviud+le+desret.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5-tD5ebcJ_SUwd3r04WgzHT33tkmSepISAtJjVbzHFxL1rC7lFzpkg-gvfSbvQ-G9YMN9mPHtQeSqL4Se22TyNzCqnOLhVmC3U76waBzp7EjCr3zUywVfRtjcYc7R8mWDitNnCJqN4pc/s320/daviud+le+desret.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">David's
depiction of the sound of Arabic/North African music aligns to
sounds very different from the western tonal scale. </span></span>The role of narrator is fundamental, holding the piece together and giving it shape. </span></span>Dawns rise and nighgt descends : As darkness falls, the tenor sings the exquisite "O Nuit!"(Hymne à la
nuit), suggesting the night sky with boundless horizons. This song is a tour deforce for a very high tenor or countertenor in
the tradition of Grand Opéra. By far the best recording to get is the
one with Cyrille Dubois and Zachary Wilder, tenors; Jean-Marie Winling,
speaker;
Accentus, Orchestre de chambre de Paris, conducted by Laurence
Equilbey from 2015. The few copies left on the market retail over £50
so if you have it already, treasure it and accept no imitations. <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Dubois's
timbre is unique. His voice soars to stratospheric heights, then
swoops downwards while remaining elegant. "Le chant du muezzin" resembles the call of a muezzin, carrying over great distances, calling the faithful to mark the start of a new day. Another reminder of the vast distances of the desert, and of the timelessness of experience. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Eighty years forward to Jaques Feyder's film <span style="color: red;"><i>L'Atlantide</i></span>, innovative on many levels. This, too was innovative, shot on location in Algeria in the desert, employing Algerians in major supporting roles and dozens of locally-recruited extras . No fake blacking up, and earnings for local people. the difference between French colonialism and other forms of colonialism, including Hollywood could not be more pointed. The sand dunes themselves provide an underlying narrative, which no set of the time could imitate. The scenery is authentic, too, showing native villages as they were at the time, and spectacular mountain cliffs. Even the indoor scenes were assembled on site, using regional textiles like carpets, combined with stylized designs reminiscent of the fashion for "primitive" alien cultures, that made the Ballets Russe so popular. To audiences in 1921, this must have been a revelation to people who weren't used to seeing foreign places in such deatail, or, indeed, to moving images. <span style="color: red;"><i>L'Atlantide</i></span> became a box office hit, also starting a trend for films set in exotic places, like <span style="color: red;"><i>The Sheik</i></span> (1926) with Rudolph Valentino, and Pabst's 1932 remake of <span style="color: red;"><i>L'Atlantide</i></span> starring Brigitte Helm, both made with assumptions that western values went unquestioned.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Like David's </span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><i>Le désert</i><span style="color: black;">, Feyder's </span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><i>L'Atlantide </i><span style="color: black;">employs cyclic narrative. A Frenchman (Lt Saint-Avit) is found wandering in the desert, maddened by thirst and bizarre visions. Only towards the end do we realise he's telling his tale back to front. Back to the beginning : he's</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"> invalided back to France under a cloud. suspected of being involved with the mystery disappearance of his friend and mentor, Captain Morhange. Two years previously, a French expedition had been massacred and the leader Lieutenant Massard had been captured. Morhange and Saint-Avit approached the desolate mountains of Tidefest, taking shelter in a cave at the approach of sandstorm. Inside, they found insciptions in early Greek with the name "Antinea". Danger lurks. Their faithful guide is poisoned and they turn to a Tarqui from Haggar, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Cegheir ben Cheik</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> who suddenly appears, to lead them deeper into the caves below the mountains. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Cegheir ben Cheik intoxicates them with hashish. He's smoking Lt. Massard's pipe. The Frenchmen are catured and taken to the palace of Ahaggar. Both men are bathed, massaged and treated well but they don't know where they are, or why. In the place’s archive, they meet a librarian who tells them that they are in the centre of Atlantis, ruled by Altinea, descendent of the first Atlanteans. He takes them to a tred marble room filled with solid gold sacrophagi and pins a name on the latest arrival "Lt. Massard", whom Morhange had seen jumping to his death. These are the husbands of Altinea, who die, insane, when she rejects them. Only one has ever escaped and he made his way back, unable to break the spell. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Altinea wants Morhange but he will not be seduced. Altinea is like a wild animal, slithering like a serpent, eyes always alert to her prey. Those palpitations might have seemed erotic in a more buttoned up era, but to modern eyes, they're overacted. still, she must have titilliated the audiences of 1921 who thought vamp was sexy. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Why doesn't Morhange respond ? In </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>France,
he had decided to take holy orders as a monk, but the Abbott told him
to return to Algeria first, to test his destiny. Hence the crucifix and
beads (not a rosary) he wears, which is not standard uniform. To get revenge, she feeds Saint-Evit narcotic cigarettes and gets him to smash Morhange's skull with a silver hammer. Yet Morhange forgives him, as Christ did. The original novel, by Pierre Benoit, would have appealed to audiences brought up on Catholic morality. Rejection makes Altinea mad with grief: she sees crucifixes shining everywhere and lets Morhange be buried according to his own religion. Luckily for Saint-Avit, he's been befriended by Tanit-Zerga, Altinea's assistant, who wants to escape and return to her home in Gao, from which she was taken in a raid by slavers. She arranges a camel, and the two make a plucky escape, aided by </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Cegheir ben Cheik. In the desrt, though, their camel dies, and when they reach a well, it's dried out. Tanit-Zerga dies, with a mirage of Gao in her mind. Thus we return to the beginning, when Saint-Avit was found, lost in the desert. But, like Morhange and others before him, the spell of Altinea haunts him, and he wrangles a posting back to the desert, knowing full well that he is compelled by some unknown, irrational force. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-74415742070343871242020-07-11T16:58:00.000+01:002020-07-12T12:31:14.590+01:00Two Pastorals : Beethoven Symphony no 6, Knecht Le portrait musical de la Nature<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Two pastorals : Beethoven's <span style="color: red;"><i>Symphony no 6 "Pastoral"</i></span> op 68 and Justin Heinrich Knecht <span style="color: red;"><i>Le Portrait musical de la Nature </i><span style="color: black;">, with Bernhard Forck conducting the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, part of the ongoing Harmonia Mundi series where Beethoven's music is presented in thoughtful juxtaposition, geared towards listeners already familiar with the basics of Beethoven. This recording examines Beethoven's <span style="color: red;"><i>Symphony no 6</i></span> in the context of pastoral traditions in European music, which evolved from the17th century and adapted to the Early Romantic aesthetic. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Justin Knecht (1752-1817), a generation older than Beethoven, was an organist and composer who lived all of his life in Upper Swabia.</span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><i> </i>Knecht described <span style="color: red;"><i>Le Portrait musical de la nature</i></span> as a <i>"Tongemälde der Natur oder Groẞe Symphonie" </i>(a tone painting in the form of a large symphony). In the first Allegretto, Knecht's written description suggests a scene where the sun shines, zephyrs blow, and brooks flow merrily through a valley where birds call, shepherds pipe and shepherdesses sing. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">An Arcadian idyll, embraced for centuries by painters, writers and musicians. Knecht's</span></span></span></span> detaied commentary helps, since this movement describes tranquillity, its flow gentle and elegant. The greater part of the piece - four of the five movements - address the progress of a storm. allowing for more spirited musical depiction. In the second Allegretto, as Knecht wrote, "<i>Der Himmel verdunkelt schnell</i>", the sky clouds over and "<i>der Donner grollt</i>" presaging the storm to follow in the third movement where "<i>der Bergstrom</i> w</span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><i>älzt seine Wasser mit entssetzlichen L</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><i><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><i>ärm" </i></span></span></span></span></i><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">and gently subsides in the brief third Allegretto. At last "<i>Die Natur ist von Freude erf</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><i>üllt</i>" and idealized serenity is restored. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">It
is known that Beethoven knew Knechts's theoretical writings, but there is no direct documentary evidence that Beethoven knew Knecht's </span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><i><span style="color: red;">Le portrait musical de la nature</span>. </i>Nonetheless, <i> </i>Beethoven's structures are similar enough he may well have been aware of it. But Beethoven goes far beyond replication. In an era when symphonic form was relatively new, it was perhaps inevitable that Beethoven should respond to the pastoral genre by writing a "modern" symphony. Beethoven's symphony is highly original. He "<i>provides a reinforcing counterpart to the underlying structure</i>",writes Peter G</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">ülke,<i> </i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>and achieves "<i>more concrete and radical programmatic effects the murmuring brook, the trio of birds, the character of the oboist of the village band who comes in too late several times and its bassoonist who can only play three notes, the sudden thunderclaps....</i>" Charming as Knecht's <span style="color: red;"><i>Le portrait musical de la nature </i></span>is, Beethoven's symphony is altogther more sophisticated. His landscape portrays the storm in the context of the lives of people who live in the countryside, the storm part of the wider cycle of Nature. His titles refer to emotional states : "<i>Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunftauf dem Lande</i>", and "<i>Frohe und dankbare Gef</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><i>ühle nach dem Sturm</i>"</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>. As </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">G</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">ülke says, the initial notes "<i>come so close to the character of bird calls that it is only a tiny step to Nightingale - Cuckoo -Quail, in which Art and Nature finally become one</i>." </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">G</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">ülke also compares and contrasts the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, premiered together in the </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Vienna concert of 22nd December 1808. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Although there are so many Beethoven <span style="color: red;">Sixths </span>on the market, this recording is well worth attention because the performance, by the </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, </span></span>is that of a specialist ensemble with a strong background in 18th and early 19th century repertoire. They have just released a new recoring of Beethoven's <span style="color: red;"><i>Symphonies 1 </i></span>and<span style="color: red;"><i> 2.</i></span> (There are other recordings of Knecht but they're not nearly as well performed). Period-informed performance does make a difference with Beethoven, and especially with the unique aesthetic of <span style="color: red;"><i>Symphony no 6.</i></span> Period instruments highlight the "pastoral" delicacy in the orchestration. This free-spirited lightness of touch evokes the simplicity and purity inherent in the idea of a population living in harmony with Nature. There is a strong underlying sense of pulse, that feels as natural as breathing. Because there is no sense of rush, details can be lovingly savoured, without pressure. Natural horns and simple percussion sound as they might have been heard in countrysides where people depended on Nature for sustenance, where hunting and harvests depended on understanding their connection to the natural forces around them. Clear, pure winds, sprightly strings and more than a slight touch of cheerful good humour. Even the storm, vividly portrayed, does not need to be heavy handed or brutal : the countryside survives, refreshed. Beethoven's <span style="color: red;"><i>Pastoral</i></span> is no disembodied, idealized landscape but one which evokes the spirit of life. <a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2020/07/freiburger-barockorchester-heras-casado.html"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Please also see my review of Beethoven </b></span></a><span style="color: red;"><i>Symphony no 9 </i></span>and <i><span style="color: red;">The Choral Fantasy,</span></i> also in this Harmonia Mundi series, with Pablo Heras-Casado conducting the Freiburger Barockorchester. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-52006644530067373102020-07-03T15:41:00.000+01:002020-07-13T16:14:49.835+01:00Freiburger Barockorchester, Heras-Casado : Beethoven Choral Fantasy and Symphony no 9<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Beethoven <span style="color: red;"><i>Symphony no 9 "Choral" </i></span><span class="st">in D minor, Op. 125, </span>and the <span style="color: red;"><i>Choral Fantasy </i></span><span style="color: red;"><i><span style="color: red;"><i> in C minor </i></span>op 80 </i><span style="color: black;">with soloist K</span></span>ristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado conducting the Freiburger Barockorchester, new from Harmonia Mundi. In this Beethoven anniversary year, it is good that there are ventures which probe more deeply into the composer and his music. The year started with reconstructions, in full performances concerts throughout Europe, of the concert of 22nd December 1808, in honour of the composer, in Vienna which included the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, concluding with the <span style="color: red;"><i>Choral Fantasy </i></span>providing a grand finale, Beethoven himself playing the piano part. Perhaps it says something about the stamina of modern audiences that some could not understand the ambitious scale of the programme. The <span style="color: red;"><i>Choral Fantasy </i></span>is in many ways the embryo of Beethoven's <span style="color: red;"><i>Symphony no 9</i></span>, now an anthem of hope and unity, all over the world.<br />
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Although the <span style="color: red;"><i>Choral Fantasy </i></span>wasn't successful at the 1808 concert for many reasons, it is hardly a neglected work. The Adagio begins with a substantial section for solo piano, for this is very much a piece for piano, supplemented by orchestra and voices. The familiar "Ode to Joy" motif is introduced first by the piano, then elaborated by different sections in the orchestra. A concerto, in effect, the piano very much part of the evolution of the whole. Not for nothing is the <span style="color: red;"><i>Choral Fantasy</i></span> in the repertoire of many fine keyboardists. Kristian Bezuidenhout on fortepiano is complemented by the Freiburger Barockorchester, whose period sensibilities enhance finer textures and a "personality" in the approach which feels more intimate and direct, very much in keeping with the idea of individuals interacting as individuals, gradually building up towards communal expression. Just as in the <span style="color: red;"><i>Choral Symphony</i></span>, the choir and vocal soloists in the <span style="color: red;"><i>Choral Fantasy </i></span>enter only in the final Allegro, which has been purposefully reached as a result of what has gone before.<br />
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The character of these performances make this new recording a strong recommendation even in a market saturated with Beethoven Ninths. The vivacity and vigour of the Freiburger Barockorchester works extremely well with this symphony, given its fundamental message. "Alle Menschen werden Brüder" was a radical concept in the context of its time, when authoritarian regimes were giving way to new ideas, which included the freedom of the individual, and the right to tolerate self-determination. It is significant that Beethoven replaced the text used in the <span style="color: red;"><i>Choral Fantasy (</i></span>by Christoph Kuffner) celebrating the harmony of Nature where "Nacht und Stürme werden Licht" with the even more explicit Friedrich von Schiller <span style="color: red;"><i>Ode to Joy</i></span>.<br />
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Beethoven's <span style="color: red;"><i>Symphony no 9</i></span> perfectly captures the revolutionary spirit of the Romantic era, and of the ideals Beethoven held so deeply. What would Beethoven, Schiller and their contemporaries think of modern societies where such values seem to be in retreat ? While this symphony is expressive with the full blast of a large modern orchestra and massed voices, the Freiburger Barockorchester, with their appreciation of the more intimate soundworld of Beethoven's time, also bring out the human scale and personal warmth in this symphony. The power of this piece lies in the way Beethoven uses individuals to create a greater creative whole. The Freiburger Barockorchester have also recorded a superb Beethoven<span style="color: red;"><i> Leonore</i></span> (the 1805 version of <span style="color: red;"><i>Fidelio</i></span>) with René Jacobs, livelier and more spirited than John Eliot Gardiner, emphasizing the originality of Beethoven's writing for the two female roles, who are much more developed than in the 1814 version. It is essential listening. The Freiburger Barockorchester have recently released a new recording of Beethoven's <span style="color: red;"><i>Piano Concertos no 2 and 5 "The Emperor"</i></span> also with Kristian Bezuindenhout and Pablo Heras-Casado.<br />
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The superb playing of the Freiburger Barockorchester is enhanced by Heras-Casado's direct, vivid style, and by the quality of the soloists, Christiane Karg, Sophie Harmsen, Werner Güra and Florian Boesch. Their voices are exceptionally well-balanced, and operate in consort with each other, which is also part of underlying meaning. Not a weak link here, as is sometimes the case with lesser performances. The choir is the Zürcher Sing-Akademie, also very rewarding. <br />
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Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-79583496189986554652020-06-29T14:35:00.005+01:002020-06-30T10:50:50.980+01:00Glyndebourne magic at home - Ravel L'enfant et les sortilèges<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L'enfant et les sortilèges - Teapot (François Piolino) Child (Khatouna Gadelia) Chinese Cup (Elodie Méchain) Credit Simon Annand</td></tr>
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Glyndebourne at home, minus the garden. Champagne and strawberries optional. But a glorious chance to experience once more the magic of Ravel<span style="color: red;"><i> L'enfant et les sortilèges</i></span>, in the Laurent Pelly production. In <span style="color: red;"><i>L'enfant et les sortilèges</i></span>, the world is seen through the eyes of a child, still full of wonder, too young to be locked into rigid assumptions : innocent, yet still aware that there might be darker forces lurking just beyond. This isn't an opera that can be approached literally, with the judgementalism that some adults might prefer. Pelly, however, captures its elusive delicacy, where magical thinking co-exists with an awareness that harsh reality will eventually intrude, even on the pure in spirit. "<span style="color: red;"><i>L'enfant et les sortilèges</i></span>" said Pelly, <i>"lasts about 45
minutes, but has the depth of an opera of three or four hours</i>".This production's timeless, endlessly refreshing. What a joy it is to experience its freedom again via Glyndebourne streaming, especially in these times when it seems that the world seems bent on self destruction.<br />
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The combination of this <span style="color: red;"><i>L'enfant et les sortilèges</i></span>, from 2012, with Pelly's much earlier <span style="color: red;"><i>L'heure espagnole</i></span> underlines the freshness of Pelly's conception. In <span style="color: red;"><i>L'heure espagnole </i></span>the adult figures are cynical, as inhuman and as inhumane as the clocks Torquemada surrounds himself with. Machines can be controlled to suit. Torquemada's a classic case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where process means more than goal, the need to regulate a mask for existential anxiety. Concepción thinks she can escape by playing men off against each other, but she, too, is operating on clockwork. Everyone in <span style="color: red;"><i>L'heure espagnole </i></span>is trapped in an infernal machine they don't even recognise : no-one's happy, or innocent.<br />
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The 2012 Glyndebourne cast was brilliant - Stéphanie d'Oustrac and Kathleen Kim, for starters ! Altogether unforgettable ! Please see <a href="http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/08/glyndebourne_ra.php?fbclid=IwAR20wSnt8jDqR0HFbDIUNLtslM1F3Ye9IT3uK6HI91fQzV3b3SjV7azC-P8"><span style="color: blue;"><b>my original review from the premiere </b></span></a> and <a href="http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/07/laurent_pelly_o.php"><span style="color: blue;"><b>also my interview with Laurent Pelly</b></span></a>. <br />
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Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-9875689139929423342020-06-21T17:05:00.003+01:002020-06-22T13:00:31.839+01:00The New Babylon - Kozintsev, Trauberg and Shostakovich <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Dimitri Shostakovich's first film score, for the 1929 film by Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg, The <span style="color: red;"><i>New Babylon</i></span> (Novyy Vavilon). The film makers were part of a co-operative known as FEKS (the Factory of the Eccentric Actor) that thrived on the daring new possibilities offered by film as an artistic medium, thriving on futurism and the avant garde. The subversive spirit of the 1920's squeezed into political orthodoxy.<br />
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Like the film makers, Shostakovich was young and idealistic : this was his first commission for the movies. (the score to be played live at screenings). Cinema was a truly innovative art form, in that it appealed to mass audiences who might not otherwise have been drawn to “art”. By the standards of the day, <span style="color: red;"><i>The New Babylon</i></span> was daring. By working on it, the youthful Shostakovich was right in the centre of what was artistic avant garde in Soviet terms. He didn’t have the relative luxury composers in the west had, of conducting and teaching. He needed the movies to make a living. What is intriguing is how much film influenced the development of his music. Thus the brassy militaristic marches, interposed by manic crowd scenes, chreographed to highlight excess and abandon. <br />
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The film celebrates the Paris Commune, dutifully showing images of downtrodden workers, capitalist degenerates, effete officers, healthy peasants and other stereotypes. The plot is simple: the downtrodden rise up against the system with some vague idea of “getting rid of the bosses” but are soon crushed by the military. The acting is banal. The heroine uses one pained expression for every purpose. It’s a relief when she suddenly falls out of the plot, her place taken by a minor actress who really can act, so much so that her personality seems to enliven the screen, even if she’s long dead and forgotten.<br />
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This being a propaganda film, the plot doesn’t bear analysis. One moment the washerwomen struggle with weariness. Once they’re told they’re free they suddenly wash with such hysterically manic vigour they get soaked through in the process. If only it were that simple….. The climactic scene is one where the communards and the bourgeoisie face each other in a stand-off. Of course the communards are supposed to be expressing contempt for the depraved ways of the capitalist class, proving their moral superiority and ultimate victory. Perhaps it’s the bad acting again, but the distinct impression I got from the scene was that the actors playing the communards would much rather have been enjoying sinful hedonism.
Perhaps the film was banned because it portrayed the degenerate capitalists with too much glee. They may be a drunken lot with rotten teeth, but they sure seem to have a good time. At least they get to do it in satins and lace. Indeed, the decadence is portrayed with such historical detail that in one brief shot, I’ll swear I saw why the Can Can was so scandalous! Mixed messages, then, in this film.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJYoNkG3ifLbAip6f6VKVzBsX16R85qu4fWwGKeNvl7wW8D6QnFTBb3cI-itBc1FIP0YB1hfZfN8AYzm0v2zwG4Fl4MGGovz59u7TUHLWByisSI9ShMXJKKrKos1-h4FR5_bzsMW7NyCg/s1600/new+babylon2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="512" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJYoNkG3ifLbAip6f6VKVzBsX16R85qu4fWwGKeNvl7wW8D6QnFTBb3cI-itBc1FIP0YB1hfZfN8AYzm0v2zwG4Fl4MGGovz59u7TUHLWByisSI9ShMXJKKrKos1-h4FR5_bzsMW7NyCg/s400/new+babylon2.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
Shostakovich's score is a delightful riot of witty set pieces, such as the Marseillaise and variations thereon, Can Can music and a maudlin Tchaikovsky piano solo to match the onscreen scene where a communard plays an instrument consigned to the barricades. Moreover, there are obvious “scenery” effects, such as gunshots, the trundling of carts, cannonades and so on. Subtle this isn’t. Someone somehow managed to edit film and music in such a way that they are perfectly synchronised. When I first saw the restored fim, back in 2006, I wasn't too impressed by the cinematography, but re-watching after all these years, I appreciate it a lot more for what it is. We're all puppets, the film seems to suggest, caughtup in situations beyond our control. </div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-981890927118108602020-06-14T15:16:00.000+01:002020-06-14T16:55:24.662+01:00Keeping live music alive - Royal Opera House live from Covent Garden<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Lots to listen to this weekend : <a href="https://stream.roh.org.uk/watch-now/videos/live-from-covent-garden"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Live from the Royal Opera House, London,</b></span></a> from the<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ceskafilharmonie/videos/1189035988113488/?hc_location=group"><span style="color: blue;"><b> Rudolfinium Prague with Simon Rattle conducting the Czech Philharmonic </b></span></a>and Magdalena Kožena, Britten from Aldeburgh, <span style="color: red;"><i>Britten on Camera</i></span> documentary on BBC TV 4, plus the <a href="https://lso.co.uk/whats-on/alwaysplaying.html"><span style="color: blue;"><b>LSO tonight</b></span></a> (John Eliot Gardiner, Mendelssohn) plus much more.<br />
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"<i>Doing our best to re animate the spirit of this gorgeous house</i>" says Antonio Pappano in the introduction. And the ROH is glorious - it's heartbreaking to see it empty and its grand traditions silenced for the forseseeable future. That is WHY we need concerts like this, to remind us of what we might lose forever, if we don't take this crisis seriously. Most musicians are freelance : they can't suddenly end up on the dole or get jobs filling boxes at Amazon. Like athletes, they need to keep training to keep their skills. All that expertise gone to waste. The Royal Opera House is the second largests arts employer in this country, after the BBC, and contributes greatly to the economy. It is significant that far too many music fans do not recognize the
role of live performance in keeping music alive. Typical sneers on the net from "music lovers"- "we
don't do live in my neck of the woods", "too many classics around
already", "We only need Youtube" and most shameful of all, "We
don't need professional musicians, amateurs are enough". We're not just
up against a pandemic and financial disaster but up against music fans who
can't even comprehend the role of live performance in music-making. <br />
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Above all, live performance is a communal activity, which constantly regenerates artistic growth. The ROH is huge, not particularly suited to chamber recitals, but at least the company is making an effort, not, like the South Bank, giving up and closing down while keeping governments grants. So we might have to pay £4.99 to view later ROH concerts, but so what ? We should all be doing something to help. In recent years, the notion that everything should be free is delimiting experience and poisoning growth. The ROH website (as always) is full of petty complaints but it's not hard to access the concert (which starts a few minutes in) and remains online for repeat listening There is a certain amount of echo at the beginning of the film before the mikes adjust by the time the performance starts. Louise Alder sings Britten <span style="color: red;"><i>On this Island,</i></span> and Toby Spence sings Butterworth <span style="color: red;"><i>A Shropshire Lad,</i></span> and Gerald Finlay sings Mark-Anthony Turnage <span style="color: red;"><i>Three Songs </i></span> and Finzi <span style="color: red;"><i>Fear no more the Heat of the Sun</i></span>. The pianist is Pappano himself. For opera regulars, "Au fond du temple saint" from Bizet <span style="color: red;"><i>The Pearl Fishers</i>,</span> an opera that's notoriously difficult to stage, and Handel "Tornami a vagheggiar" from <span style="color: red;"><i>Alcina</i></span>.<br />
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Since the ROH is also the home of the Royal Ballet, Francesca Hayward and Cesar Corrales dance the world premiere of a new pas de deux, choreographed by Wayne McGregor to Richard Strauss <span style="color: red;"><i>Morgen! </i><span style="color: black;">, Louise Alder singing the Lieder. Listen to McGregor describe why the arts must not be left to desiccate by default. "</span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><b>And tomorrow the sun will shine again (<span class="gOGZsb">Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen) </span></b>And that support needs to be coming from listeners like ourselves. </span><br /><i></i></span></div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-42440357075004195312020-06-12T17:26:00.000+01:002020-06-13T13:02:46.185+01:00Roderick Williams - defeating cultural apartheid in Lieder, Wigmore Hall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Roderick Williams sings Schumann <span style="color: red;"><i>Frauen-Liebe und Leben</i></span> at the Wigmore Hall with pianist Joseph Middleton, highlight of an unusual programme Williams calls "Woman's Hour" because it features Lieder that highlight the lives of women. As Williams says, Lieder aren't necessarily gender-specific, but works of imaginative expression. So composers and poets were male, but that didn't stop them from caring about how women might think or feel. The idea that songs should be rigidly classified as male or emale is cultural apartheid, a regressive demeaning of the very values of humanity that Lieder, and indeed the whole Romantic movement, stand for.<br />
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Towards the end of the last century, Schumann's <span style="color: red;"><i>Frauen-Liebe und Leben</i> </span>came in for flak from some Lieder fans, thereby ruining it for female singers who risk being attacked for being "anti-feminist" if they like it. But surely serious Lieder fans should have known better. Nineteenth century women may not have had equal opportunities but they were human beings with feelings, and even now, women who chose love and marriage are not traitors to their sex. Hating <span style="color: red;"><i>Frauen-liebe und Leben</i></span> says more about the haters than about the music.<br />
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Adalbert von Chamisso (1781-1838) was a progressive by the standards of his time, a man of the world and open minded, and a friend of Madame de Staël who was no Handmaid's Tale. In these poems, Chamisso describes a young woman as she matures and develiops her identity. She becomes strong enough to handle being on her own. Schumann, too, was not repressive. He knew that Clara was the top celebrity pianist of her time, forging a career without the support of managements and modern PR teams. She'd fought her father in court for the right to marry. Not the sign of a shrinking violet. She was the breadwinner, continuing to work long after Robert's death. Though neither she nor Robert knew it at the time, <span style="color: red;"><i>Frauen-liebe und Leben </i><span style="color: black;">was almost prophetic. Schumann's setting is delicate but it's not "effeminate", but rather reflects tenderness and intimacy. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">When Matthias Goerne did a programme with </span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><i>Frauen-liebe und Leben </i><span style="color: black;">and Wagner's</span><i> Wesendonck Lieder </i><span style="color: black;">some audiences went apoplectic, but again that says more about themselves. It's always easier to hate something different than take it on board. He did this programme at the Wigmore Hall in 2006 where audiences in general know what Lieder is about and aren't threatened by any deviation from recieived wisdom. He revealed the innate beauty of these works, and the fundamental dignity of human expression. If Lieder fans (or self styled Lieder fans) can't cope with that, they desreve to stick with kitsch and schlock. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Williams and Middleton extended to programme with Lieder by Schubert and Brahms, also portraits of women with feelings and minds of their own, and Clara Schumann's <span style="color: red;"><i>Liebst du um Schönheit</i></span>, which is pleasant enough but proves the case that some women can decide for themselves where their true talents lie. </span><i> </i></span></span><br /><i></i></span></div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-88439605425492466062020-06-10T17:10:00.003+01:002020-06-11T20:42:49.796+01:00Night Mail 1936 - Art and covert socialism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Available now on BFI player, <span style="color: red;"><i>Night Mail,</i></span> the pioneering documentary produced by the General Post Office film unit released in February 1936. It's fairly unique, a factual documentary about train services,but it's lifted out of this into the realm of art, by its sensitivity to the subject. Real railwaymen and postal workers, not actors : nothing faked. It's an idea that connects back to the futurism of the 1920's and 1930's and even further back to to William Morris's concepts ideas of art and socialism as continuum. Mail sorters are seen putting letters into pigeonholes : repetitive rythmic movements which streamline the process, their movements almost balletic. Then, look at the trains themselves - engines puffing, pistons moving, travelling in orderly, organized lines across the country. Much more than mundane mechanical process ! Even the sound of steam rushing through the chimneys and the banter of the workers sound like music. The Postal Special is so efficient that letters and parcels posted in one area can be sorted and bagged on the train within half an hour. On this orderly efficiency, rests the prosperity of industrial Britain. <span style="color: red;"><i>Night Mail</i></span> was created to boost the morale of low paid workers, but also as public relations. On this orderly efficiency rests the prosperity of industrial Britain.<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><i>Night Mail </i></span>is "industrial poetry" so it's perfectly apt that it should end with poetry and music. W H Auden's poem captures the rhythms of machines and men, working in unison, while opening out to the world beyond - letters of every kind, from all over the world, communicating human stories of every kind. Th very young Benjamin Britten picked up on this context, his music replicating the lines of the text to brilliant effect. Produced and directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, this film is also influenced by Alberto Cavalcanti who had made <span style="color: red;"><i>Rien que les heures </i></span>(Nothing but time) - a day in the life of Paris, from 1926, not unlike WaltervRuttman's <i><span style="color: red;">Berlin : Symphony of a Great City</span></i> (<a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2009/11/berlin-symphony-1927-frozen-in-time.html"><span style="color: blue;"><b>read more here</b></span></a>). Very much in the spirit of futurism and creative modernity. Sadly, some things don't change. Cavalcanti was poised to head the GPO film but was cut off as he wasn't British. He returned to his native Brazil, then returned to Europe, East Berlin and France.</div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-23610866170978423672020-06-05T12:48:00.002+01:002020-06-06T17:16:08.665+01:00People or pianos ? Good for Yuja Wang !<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yuja Wang (Photo : Julia Wesley) </td></tr>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/yujawang/posts/10158226388015629"><span style="color: blue;"><b>On her Facebook page </b></span></a>Yuja Wang has spoken out on the image of a piano trashed in the protests after the murder of George Floyd #blacklivesmatter :<br />
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"<i>Pianos will continue
to be crafted with love and care, music will be shared to unite and
uplift people during this time of crisis, and stores will be rebuilt,
through the hard work and generosity of their communities. What we can’t
rebuild or replace, however, are human lives. Those are the most
precious thing of all, and we must safeguard the lives of people whose
voices aren’t being heard."</i><br />
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<i> "<i>Human expression takes many forms. It has to, especially when
marginalized voices are not being acknowledged, and are met with hatred
and judgement. I hope you will look at this powerful image and recognize
everything that it is trying to say to us</i>."</i><br />
<i> </i>
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".....when marginalized voices are not being acknowledged and are met with hatred and judgement" Think on that. The vicious abuse aimed against her for saying that abolutely proves the case. Racism is endemic ; indeed you could argue that some sections of western society would collapse if they didn't have targets to hate, whatever the target might be. Right wing extremists are only the tip of the iceberg, (or rather inferno). Their values tap into a mindset that runs so deep that even supposedly decent people who vomit at DT & Co happily accept the way his agendas have permeated. Too many Uncle Toms, too. It's the whole Cold War mentality of good guys versus subhuman bad guys, the "good guys" assuming the moral imperative, however much double standards might apply. Yuja Wang knows first hand how petty minded and vicious some people can be. So all the more her courage deserves respect.<br />
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If pianos are more important than the millions of lives damaged and lost through racism, that says something about society. True artists use their instruments to create something more sublime than material things. In any case, what kind of artist uses white painted pianos, anyway ?<br />
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Sure, mass gatherings in times of pandemic are not a great idea for infection control. But racism is even more contagious than COVID and it kills even more. strange, usn't itbhow the same poeple who believe in their freedom not to respect disease limitation suddenly advocate it when other people are concerned. Like the woman who claimed to be a feminist because domestic violence has spiralled during lockdown. As if domestic violence would disappear overnight if lockdown stopped? Or the man who complained because he's isolated for weeks, so therefore no-one else should be out demonstrating, yet doesn't complain about yobs who cheerfully ignore anything other than their own needs. #onlymylife matters <br />
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Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-44415442613728278372020-05-30T14:36:00.002+01:002020-05-30T14:36:31.728+01:00The Proms as Covid Supernova ?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Does some of the London media want a supernova of COVID infections this year ? The BBC Proms this year will respect safety guidelines, switching from live concerts to recordings, with the prospect of some live events at the end of the season. Perfectly sensible, considering that the capacity of the Royal Albert Hall is well over 6000, squeezing that many people together (with impacts on public transport) would be a recipe for disaster. This virus isn't going away anytime soon, but what do some people care ? In these circumstances, what kind of person could "enjoy" endangering musicians, audiences and service personnel ? Yes, we need to keep live music alive, and save thousands from bankruptcy but not at the cost of killing people.<br />
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In any case, the BBC has so much in its archives that there should be enough to keep classical music lovers happy, even if it's not the same as good live performance. But for years now, the Proms have gradually shifted the balance away from classical music. So the Arron Banks crowd, for whom the Last Night of the Proms is politics, not music or even fun, can celebrate. </div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-61483738885251815362020-05-28T16:06:00.000+01:002020-05-28T16:35:09.855+01:00Zemlinsky Die Seejungfrau - Jurowski Concertgebouw Amsterdam<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Alexander Zemlinsky <span style="color: red;"><i>Die Seejungfrau </i></span>with Vladimir Jurowski conducting the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam Orchestra in 2013 on the RCOA streaming site (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b53ihPZaMRQ&t=3672s"><span style="color: blue;"><b>link here</b></span></a>). Jurowski has conducted <span style="color: red;"><i>Die Seejungfrau </i></span>with numerous orchestras so many times that he's pretty much the main man when it comes to the piece these days. Since the score was thought lost until 1984, there really isn't any "performance tradition", though many learned it from Ricardo Chailly's 1994 recording. Jurowski's enthusiasm for the piece has helped to make it now one of the most popular of all Zemlinsky's works. So it's worth listening to the commentaries before the concert starts.<br />
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Jurowski conducts the most recent edition, compiled by Zemlinsky specialist Anthony Beaumont, who has studied Zemlinsky and his contemporaries (including Ama Mahler) and is probably the main researcher in this field. Approaching Zemlinsky without access to Beaumont's experience is like trying to swim without water - an apt a metaphor for Die Seejungfrau who loses her identity when she's on alien ground. This edition reinstates the Sea Witch sequence, which is pretty much fundamental to interpretation, connecting the tale of the mermaid to much more sinister, supernatural forces. This "Little Mermaid" isn't cutesy Disney but a sister of the Sirens, who lured sailors to their deaths. This Mermaid is all the more cursed because she isn't a serial killer who kills on autopilot, but a person with deep emotions, who is forced to destroy the man she truly loves. One can imagine what psychological levels that might imply.<br />
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Knowing the background to any work gives the music extra poignancy. The disturbing, mysterious first movement of <span style="color: red;"><i>Die Seejungfrau </i></span>came from a sketch for a symphony about death, but the piece as we know it was written in February 1902, weeks before Alma deserted Zemlinsky to marry Gustav Mahler. In the second movement, which portrays a ball at the underwater palace of the sea creatures, some notes are reversed, inextricably linking the mermaid's tragedy to the joys of others who accept what they are meant to be. The mermaid sees the image of a prince, who is so alien to her world that she longs to be like him, instead of herself. A storm arises, sinking the prince's ship – no missing this. As the mermaid walks on shore with painful human feet, she treads in pain, and the music deliberately drags. The mermaid is forced to have her tongue cut out and never sings again. For a musician, giving up creative expression is particularly cruel. Zemlinsky identified with the mutilated mermaid : like her, he could never be what he was not. Fortunately, he turned his anguish into art, sublimating trauma through works like<span style="color: red;"><i> Der Traumgörge</i></span> and <i><span style="color: red;">Der Zwerg</span> </i>until the transcendance of the <span style="color: red;"><i>Lyric Symphony</i></span> in which renewal takes over from the past. (please see my piece on Zemlinsky's<span style="color: red;"><i> Lyric Symphony</i></span><a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2011/01/eschenbach-zemlinsky-lyric-symphony-why.html"><span style="color: blue;"><b> HERE</b></span></a>)<br />
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This is what I wrote about Jurowski's Zemlinsky <span style="color: red;"><i>Die Seejungfrau</i></span> with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2016, some years after the RCOA concert:<br />
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<i>Jurowski captured the menacing depths in the introduction. Small, sparkling figures served to highlight the sinister gloom. The violin melody suggests the upward movement of the mermaid swimming upward: the LPO playing with energetic sense of purpose. Jurowskiu didn't bask too long in the sunshine. the urgent, almost violent theme which might represent the prince as huntsman churned up dissonance. Already we know this fairy tale will end in death. Jurowski and the orchestra delineated the churning undercurrents. Frequent turbulent contrasts between lyricism and violence. Jurowski didn't steer clear of the innate ugliness lurking within. The two-minute Sea Witch passage unearthed and edited by Anthony Beaumont makes a difference, intensifying the violence and the ultimate tragedy. Jurowski's background as opera conductor helps greatly, too, for he emphasizes the inherent drama in the orchestration. Jurowski's Die Seejungfrau is an opera where the orchestra sings for the characters. It's vivid in a cinematic way without being maudlin or sentimental.
Descending diminuendos prepare us for the final confrontation. Jurowski lets sounds surge forth, yet holds it back, creating extreme tension. The LPO play with such richness that you could feel the intensity of her loss. Had she had legs instead of a fishtail, she might have been a princess, but in her sacrifice, she finds Isolde-like transfiguration. </i></div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-52249120199077172452020-05-23T17:15:00.000+01:002020-05-27T12:59:41.737+01:00The personal Roger Quilter : Mark Stone - Songs of Roger Quilter vol 3 <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Mark Stone and Stephen Barlow present Volume III in their series the <a href="https://stonerecords.co.uk/album/the-complete-quilter-songbook-vol-3/"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Complete Roger Quilter Songbook, on Stone Records.</b></span></a> Quilter made more settings of Shakepeare than most others, so Volume I in the series focussed on his Shakespeare settings, while volume II featured his settings of Jacobean poets. In contrast, this third volume highlights Quilter's interest in folk-inspired sources. This shows a more informal Quilter than the greatly admired art songs, but reveals the intimate side of Quilter's personality. Superb notes enhance this series, which re-assesses the range of Quilter's output.<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><i>The Arnold Book of Old Songs </i></span>was c ollected for Arnold Vivian. Quilter and his older brother Arnold, for whom their nephew was named, seem to have ben very different personalities, though they were very close. Arnold was extravert, athletic, tall (6 foot 7) and had served in the Boer War. He was also part of the circle around Rupert Brooke, whom he helped bury. Two weeks later, he, too, was killed at Gallipoli. When the younger Arnold joined the Grenadier Guards at the outbreak of the Second World War, Quilter expanded a smaller collection published in 1924, for Arnold to sing when he was away.But yet again, tragedy struck, when Arnold was shot in September 1942 while trying to escape from a prisoner of war camp.<br />
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The Arnold Songs are based on songs from earlier vernacular songs, which are so well known that they've enetered the mainstream almost as popular song. <span style="color: red;"><i>Drink to me only with thine eyes</i></span> is a setting of Ben Johnson, based on Philostratus, the second-century Greek poet, the tune we know now published in the late 18th century. Similarly, <span style="color: red;"><i>My Lady Greensleeves</i></span> was first published in 1600 as a lute song, though there are references to it in Shakespeare's <span style="color: red;"><i>The merry wives of Windsor</i></span>, suggesting that it was well-known long before. <span style="color: red;"><i>Barbara Allen </i></span>was mentioned in Pepys diaries.It is folk song as popular music, a best seller in the ballad-selling broadside trade, enabling its dissemination, with many regional variations, throughout the English-speaking world. Quilter's version adapts the tune with great sensitivity. Delicate piano figures illuminate the name "Barbara Allen", suggesting her beauty: perhaps it even suggests a softer side of her nature, which explains her change of heart. Dramatic chords evoke the "dead bell". Barbara dies, chastened and meek : this is no simple love story.<br />
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The Irish songs in the <span style="color: red;"><i>Arnold Bookof Songs </i></span>also originate from the end of the 18th century. The text for <span style="color: red;"><i>Believe me, if all those endearing young charms</i></span> could come from two sources in the mid 17th century, but the form suggest traditionl ballad. The jolly, rythmic<span style="color: red;"><i> Oh ! 'tis sweet to think </i></span>seems to stem from country dance. All three of the Scottish songs have connections to Robert Burns, who collected and adapted songs as part of his fascination with all things Scottish. <span style="color: red;"><i>Ye banks and braes</i></span> is now so famous that it's almost basic repertoire. <span style="color: red;"><i>Charlie is my darling </i></span> refers to Bonnie Prince Charlie. Though the text is by Lady Nairne, the song may have had topical appeal for people who knew the Jacobite cause and its brutal suppression at Culloden in 1746. Quilter's <span style="color: red;"><i>Ca' the Yowes</i></span> is very
different to earlier arrangements, such as the version by Maurice
Jacobsen made famous by Kathleen Ferrier, and the version by Benjamin
Britten, much more frequently perfomed. Jacobsens's version is gentle,
like a lullaby, while Britten's version is more austere and plaintive,
as befits a song which might once have been a lament from harsh times,
long ago. Both Britten and Quilter evoke a sense of abandoned
desolation, recognizing the context from which the song might have
arisen. Quilter's version is even closer to lament, particularly in
favouring a lower, masculine register : the piano part is understated,
suggesting, perhaps, the bleak internal landscape. In the final verse,
the voice swells in intensity : "I can die but canna part, My bonnie
dearie". The song is attrributed to Isobel "Tibbie" Pagan (1741-1821)
a colourful character, who owned an alehouse where she wrote poems and
sang songs for her customers. Robert Burns heard it sung by a clergyman, who may or not have got it
direct. Burns himself revised his version of the poem three times. (<a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2020/05/ca-yowes-to-knowes-folk-song-and-arrt.html"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Please read more here</b></span>). </a><br />
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Also of interest is Quilter's version of <span style="color: red;"><i>The Rose of Tralee</i></span> based on a poem from 1846, set in the same period. The song is so popular that it has entered into the canon as "traditional song", and may well have antecedents. Quilter develops the piano part with subtle sophistication : art song without artifice.. Although Quilter has been described by some as a "walled garden", perfect but intensely private, he was well aware of what was happening in the world around him. Marian Anderson and Quilter were friends, and he accompanied her in his own songs at her WigmoreHall debut in 1928. <span style="color: red;"><i>I got a robe </i></span>was written for the occasion, based on a an arrangement of a spiritual arranged by Harry Burlieigh as <span style="color: red;"><i>Heav'n, heav'n</i></span>. Quilter also worked in musicalm theatre, partnering Rodney Bennett (father of Richard Rodney Bennnet) in several popular musicals, of which <span style="color: red;"><i>Where the rainbow ends </i></span>was successful enough to encouage Quilter to write a light opera <span style="color: red;"><i>The blue boar<span style="color: black;">,</span></i><span style="color: black;"> premiered as <span style="color: red;"><i>Julia</i></span>.</span></span>. Two songs from <span style="color: red;"><i>Songs from "Love at the Inn" </i></span>suggest a more modest, vaguely pastoral theme. More substantial is <span style="color: red;"><i>The Man behind the Plough</i></span>, Bennett's adaptation of a 19th century French song, which is included among the four French songs in the <span style="color: red;"><i>Arnold Book of Songs</i></span>, <span style="color: red;"><i>The Pretty Month of May</i></span> derived from a composer at the court of Louis XIII. Quilter's <span style="color: red;"><i>Four Songs of Mirza Schaffy</i></span> set poems in German based on an Azerbaijani poet who taught languages in Germany. of these <span style="color: red;"><i>Die helle Sonne leuchtet</i></span> is lyrical, the piano - Quilter's instrument - radiant, emphasising the glorious crescendo in the final verse. <br />
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More personal is <i><span style="color: red;">Daisies after the rain</span> </i>by a contemprary of Quilter's, Judith Bickle, published in 1951. All his life, Quilter was plagued by ill health, yet survived, unlike his more robust relatives and friends. Like the wild daisies in the poem, humble blooms can defy odds that fell more showy flowers. Thus it is appropriate that Stone and Barlow conclude this recording with <span style="color: red;"><i>The Ash Grove</i></span>, from<span style="color: red;"><i>The Arnold Book of Songs</i></span>. The song as <span style="color: red;"><i>Llwyn Onn</i></span> was first published in 1802 in a collection of Bardic songs called <span style="color: red;"><i>The Bardic Museum</i></span>, which implies that even then it had early origins. Texts vary. Quilter set words by Rodney Bennett who understood very well how their meaning applied to Quilter's personal life. The piano line is discreet, intensifying the suppressed emotional anguish. Once friends gathered in the Ash Grove <i>"How little we knew, as we laughed there so lightly,/ and time seemed to us to stretch endless away,/The hopes that then shone like a vision so brightly/ Could fade as a dream in the coming of day!</i>" But memories live on in the song of a lone bird and the whisper of the wind. In 1950, Quilter was nearing his own end, so it mattered to him that "there in the Ash Grove my heart be at rest". </div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-38090395374831340662020-05-20T15:49:00.001+01:002020-05-20T15:50:58.377+01:00Hi'ilawe - one of the loveliest songs, ever<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: red;"><i>Hi'ilawe </i></span>is one of my favourite songs ever, which is saying a lot since I've been doing Lieder and art song since I was a kid. More than most people have been alive. On what woud have been Israel Kamakawiwi'ole' s 61st birhday, hearing him sing this song is as refreshing and life-enhancing as the waters that feed the crops beneath the falls in the Waipi'o Valley on Big Island, Hawai'i, sustaining farmers growing crops for sustenance. It's a traditional song, attributed to Martha K. Maui under the title of Ke Aloha Poina ʻOle (Unforgettable Love), and also to Sam Liʻa Kalainaina, Sr. and first printed in 1902, four years after annexation by the United States. Kawakawiwi'ole, also known as Bruddah Iz, was passionate about Hawaiian identity, sovereignity, another very good reason for loving his performance. Instinctively, I identify with what he was about, and why. And what a voice he had - so pure, so agile! Hawaiian vowels are elegant, the syntax flexible, single words held together like a phrase.<br />
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For the text and translation, <a href="https://www.huapala.org/Hi/Hiilawe.html"><span style="color: blue;"><b>please see Huapala.org HERE </b></span></a><br />
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Kūmaka ka ʻikena iā Hiʻilawe<br />
Ka papa lohi mai aʻo Maukele<br />
Pakele mai au i ka nui manu<br />
Hau walaʻau nei puni Waipiʻo<br />
ʻAʻole nō wau e loaʻa mai<br />
A he uhiwai au no ke kuahiwi<br />
He hiwahiwa au na ka makua<br />
A he lei ʻāʻī na ke kupuna
*(A he milimili hoʻi na ka makua)<br />
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No Puna ke ʻala i hali ʻia mai<br />
Noho i ka wailele aʻo Hiʻilawe<br />
I ka poli nō au o Haʻi wahine<br />
I ka poli aloha o Haʻinakolo<br />
Hoʻokolo ʻia aku i ka nui manu
I like ke ka ʻina meka uahoa<br />
He hoa ʻoe no ka lā leʻaleʻa<br />
Na ka nui manu iho haunaele<br />
E ʻole koʻu nui piha akamai<br />
Hala aʻe nā ʻale o ka moana<br />
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Hao mai ka moana kau e ka weli<br />
Mea ʻole naʻe ia no ia hoʻokele<br />
Hoʻokele o ʻuleu pili i ka uapo<br />
Honi malihini au me kuʻu aloha<br />
He aloha ia pua ua lei ʻia
Kuʻu pua miulana poina ʻole<br />
Haʻina ʻia mai ana ka puana<br />
Kūmaka ka ʻikena iā Hiʻilawe
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Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-23202341658932065702020-05-16T17:08:00.001+01:002020-05-17T13:47:04.126+01:00Ca' the yowes to the knowes - folk song and art song<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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New from Stone Records, Part 3 in their Roger Quilter Complete Songs series, Roger Quilter's<span style="color: red;"><i> Ca' the yowes </i></span>with Mark Stone and Stephen Barlow. Quilter's <span style="color: red;"><i>Ca' the yowes</i></span> comes from a a set named the Arnold Book of Old Songs, written for Arnold Vivian, Quilter's nephew, named after Quilter's brother Arnold, killed at Gallipolli. Tragically, Vivian, too, was killed, in 1942, shot while attempting to escape from a prisoner of war camp. Quilter's <span style="color: red;"><i>Ca' the Yowes</i></span> is very different to earlier arrangements, such as the version by Maurice Jacobsen made famous by Kathleen Ferrier, and the version by Benjamin Britten, much more frequently perfomed. Jacobsens's version is gentle, like a lullaby, while Britten's version is more austere and plaintive, as befits a song which might once have been a lament from harsh times, long ago. Both Britten and Quilter evoke a sense of abandoned desolation, recognizing the context from which the song might have arisen. Quilter's version is even closer to lament, particularly in favouring a lower, masculine register : the piano part is understated, suggesting, perhaps, the bleak internal landscape. In the final verse, the voice swells in intensity : "I can die but canna part, My bonnie dearie". The song is attrributed to Isobel "Tibbie" Pagan (1741-1821) a colourful character, who owned an alehouse where she wrote poems and sang songs for her customers. <a href="https://newcumnockhistory.com/key-historical-events/robert-burns/robert-burns-trail/polquhirter-and-tibbie-pagan/"><span style="color: blue;"><b> Click HERE for a well researched piece on the evidence of Pagan's life</b></span>. </a> It seems she was an outsider, not only because of her looks, but may have been born illegitimate. Nonetheless, the song's origins may well go much further back, to undocumented traditional ballad. (Pagan wasn't a farmer, nor was she illiterate). Robert Burns heard it sung by a clergyman, who may or not have got it direct. Burns himself revised his version of the poem three times. The version in the photo at right was published in 1790.<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><i>Ca' the Yowes </i><span style="color: black;">demonstrates one of the fundamentals of vernacular song, that the music and text are flexible, depending on the performer or composer. Furthermore, these songs were being collected, and notated, too, long before the "folk revival" at the turn of the 20th century. It's just a question of luck which performer happens to be collected, and that doesn't stop good composers and performers from making the most of the material at hand. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2020/04/ballads-folk-song-art-song-and-creative.html"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="color: black;">Please also see my piece Morbid Lullabies : ballads, folk song, art song and creative vision </span></b></span></a></span></span><br />
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Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-69652010997236048222020-05-13T12:42:00.001+01:002020-05-13T17:32:56.669+01:00Herbert Howells Missa Sabrinensis, revealed in its true glory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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At last, Herbert Howell's <span style="color: red;"><i>Missa Sabrinensis </i></span>(1954) with David Hill conducting the Bach Choir, with whom David Willcocks performed the piece at the Royal Festival Hall in 1982. Willcocks commissioned the Mass for the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester in 1954, when Howells himself conducted the premiere. "<i>Such was the level of intricate detail of Howell's counterpoint</i>", noted Wilcocks, "<i>that he was like a medieval stonemason carving high in a cathedral, knowing that his details would be perceptible only to the composer.</i>" This new edition by Paul Spicer and David Hill, recorded irded by Hyperion using modern sound technology, reveals those details in their full intricate glory.<br />
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In <span style="color: red;"><i>Missa Sabrinensis</i></span>, Howells adapts the Mass format to celebrate the river Severn, (in Latin, "Sabrina") and by extension its role in British history, and specifically its connections to British music. The 1954 premiere of Howells’s <span style="color: red;"><i>Missa Sabrinensis </i></span>was paired with Vaughan Williams' <span style="color: red;"><i>Hodie</i></span>, dedicated to Howells in his maturity. By extension, the Mass also celebrates the Gloucestershire landscape and its personal significance for Howells and Ivor Gurney, with whom he would go walking in the surrounding countryside. <br />
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Nonetheless, Howells breaks away significantly from conventional choral tradition in the sophistication of this Mass. As Jonathan Clinch writes in his notes "<i>the Mass can be heard as more of a choral symphony, in which he gradually
builds up significant blocks of sound, using the soloists, chorus and
orchestra as contrapuntal forces. This is the main reason that the work
was considered so difficult, as the orchestra was not there to support
the chorus in the traditional manner, but rather to build more and more
lines of polyphony. </i><i>The river metaphor is appropriate as Howells writes such long lines,
which are subsumed into the overall mass of sound, surging forward
through the first four movements and gradually dispersing in the final
two; thus, despite the complexity and number of Howells’ parts, it is
the overall symphonic arch that dominates." </i><br />
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The surging lines of the Kyrie with their complex melismata suggest vast horizons, such as the flow of a mighty river, or plainchant under the vaulting of a cathedral. Soprano (Helena Dix) and tenor (Benjamin Hulett) function as an extension of the chorus. Their lines undulate, creating dense textural patterns, as if the search for faith were greater than the need for simple resolution, the final movements ending in diminuendo. Though Clinch identifies elements of Debussy and Ravel in this Kyrie, as well as Parry and Vaughan Williams, the synthesis is distinctively Howells’, closer to the spirit of Howells' <span style="color: red;"><i>English Mass</i></span>, from the following year, 1955 (<a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/search/label/Howells%20Herbert"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Please read more here </b>)</span></a> In the Gloria, Clinch notes "<i>ecstatic fanfares and constant dotted rhythms... creating a texture teeming with life, reinforced with bright high brass and percussion.</i>". Again, the image of a great river, fertile and fertilizing, while the underlying flow remains strong and unhurried.<br />
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Of the Credo, Howells wrote <i>"this movement is begun in full cry, chorally and orchestrally, using a theme that will return at all cardinal moments.....At ‘in Spiritum Sanctum’ the theme of ‘Qui sedes’ and that of ‘Kyrie’
and ‘Agnus Dei’ are quoted. Thereafter the movement’s climax is reached
through the style of opposed diatonic chords (‘et apostolicam
Ecclesiam’), recapitulation (‘Confiteor’) and coda (‘Et vitam venturi
saeculi’).</i>". This Credo is a statement of hope and faith : all four soloists (Dix, Hulett, Christine Rice and Roderick Williams) join in, their voices reflected by the their counterparts in the choir. For a moment the soloists sing with relatively little accompaniment, but on "et resurrexit tertia die secundum scripturas" all voices combine. Here, too, the orchestra (the BBC Concert Orchestra) comes to the fore, in glorious finale.<br />
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Howell's Sanctus begins with reference to Stravinsky's <span style="color: red;"><i>Symphony of Psalms</i>,</span> which he regularly cited in his teaching at the Royal College of Music. <span style="color: red;"><i>The Symphony of Psalms</i></span> is a <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">hybrid, its texts drawn from Psalms 38, 39 and 150, blending the form of ritual religious music to orchestral
style, at once ancient and modern, with the unmistakable austerity that would mark Stravinsky's
later style. Huge blocks of sound, hewn as if from a rockface, yet
moving forward with slow but monumental pace. There are connections between the two works. Howells creates a wall of sound, building up dense, complex textures culminating in an outburst where the organ leads voices and orchestra. textures building up in density : "Osanna in excelsis" before yet another return to pregnant stillness, from which the Benedictus emerges. The voice parts here are spare, resembling plainchant, enhancing the purity of the text, creating luminous contrast with what has gone before. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">In the Agnus Dei, Howells reiterates themes from the Kyrie, emphasizing the cyclic symphonic structure of this <span style="color: red;"><i>Mass</i></span>. It is as if Howells were looking back while at the same venturing forward to new musical territory. It reminds us of the tragedy that generated the <span style="color: red;"><i>Hymnus Paradisi, </i></span>as if the offering up of the life of Michael Howells, so many years previously, had made the tenderness and resolution of this conclusion possible. Howell's<span style="color: red;"> </span><i><span style="color: red;">Missa Sabrinesis</span> </i>is a masterpiece, its true genius revealed in this exceptionally sensitive performance, recorded so lucidly that it defies its reputation for being difficult to perform. This is essential listening for anyone into Howells and the true greatness of his work. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">This recording pairs the <span style="color: #ea9999;"><i><span style="color: red;">Mass</span> </i></span>with <span style="color: red;"><i>Michael</i></span>, written one morning whern Howells was having breakfast with his son. It's a joyous hymn tune employing youthful voices, highlighting the simple joys of life. The brass fanfares might evoke adventure, hope, and promises that tragically, would never come to pass. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-18104986162069381942020-05-10T14:03:00.001+01:002020-05-10T16:35:20.653+01:00Mahler Festival Online LINKS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Plans for the 2020 Mahler Festival with the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam had to be cancelled at short notice, thanks to coronavirus. Not daunted though, the RCOA created a new programme of recordings made live over the years, every symphony in order, with conductors like Mariss Jansons, Daniele Gatti, Pierre Boulez, Bernhard Haitink, Ivan Fischer and Fabio Luisi. Sponsored by the Mahler Foundation, the Festival is now the Mahler Festival Online, all concerts, talks and specially filmed documentaries available for free, internationally. <a href="https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/plaatsen/netherlands/amsterdam/mahler-festival-2020-amsterdam-online"> <span style="color: blue;"><b>Please follow THIS LINK for the complete schedule. Scroll down past the schedule for individual events. </b></span></a><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">Years ago we would have been there or sure - we love Amsterdam - but in the circumstances no-one sane would want to risk the musicians, patrons and the people of the city to be put at risk. And in lockdown, listening (and relistening) is all the more welcome ! </span></span></div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-85136902786038000352020-05-07T18:36:00.000+01:002020-05-08T11:15:48.811+01:00Prophetic Nemesis : Hitchcock the Birds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRkGfhK_jeOpyWe9vWy-e4VOh4BvJypwZMgacu1dn_vnbE7sx7hx36rJjWYNrNY-AA8QOlZVcyBMzVsXSnuUV3Tp8_6eY6eTM2lYMOjZdsKwzqLycsPHj7-NEHyNwKTBFSM-qfJRbtrY/s1600/birds2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRkGfhK_jeOpyWe9vWy-e4VOh4BvJypwZMgacu1dn_vnbE7sx7hx36rJjWYNrNY-AA8QOlZVcyBMzVsXSnuUV3Tp8_6eY6eTM2lYMOjZdsKwzqLycsPHj7-NEHyNwKTBFSM-qfJRbtrY/s640/birds2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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In times of COVID pandemic, it's scarier than ever to watch Alfred Hirtchcock's <span style="color: red;"><i>The Birds</i></span>, released in 1963. Since I used to live round there, the dichotomy between art and reality had an even greater impact than an ordinary movie. We knew that gas station when it was still hand pumped, and the pier when it was still worked by fishermen, bringing in their catch. We used to drive past the schoolhouse, up a narrow lane. One year the rose covered cottage where Annie the schoolteacher supposedly lived, but didn't join the crowds of tourists who went to view. Some scenes filmed on location, others copied in studio, but absolutely convincing. So scenes such as Melanie sitting "driving" a car against a badly cut filmed background of birds might have been deliberatly unsettling - what is real, what is not ?<br />
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Hitchcocks <span style="color: red;"><i>The Birds </i></span>works on many levels. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hendren) is a rich bitch whose life is aimless so she does silly stunts like dancing naked in a public fountain and smashing. Daddy's a millionaire newspaper owner., so she gets away with anything, including getting reporters to track people down by their car licence plates - illegal then, as now. While she's in a bird shop, a lovebbird escapes and goes berserk flying round the room. What does it know ? Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) gently catches it and puts it back in its cage. Melanie becomes obssessed with Mitch and figures out a way to stalk him, even if it means sailing a boat across Bodega Bay to his home. She brings him a pair of lovebirds, but lies non stop about her motives. Yet he lets her into his life. Annie, (Susanne Pleshette) knows something's wrong with Melanie but she loves Mitch so much she's willing to play second fiddle rather than lose him.. Mitch's mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy) also has psychiatric issues so perhaps Mitch, Annie and his family are in cages of their own. Melanie blames hrer problrems on her mother who walked out on her but doesn't wonder why her mother needed to do that in the first place. Though the mayhem doesn't start til the birds go mad, the people here are already waiting to explode.<br />
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Birds attack the children playing at Cathy (Mitch's sisters)'s birthday party, burst in the balloons. Seagulls come down the chimney and attack Mitch's family as they sit after dinner - rural bliss destroyed by something alien. On the farm next door, the chickens haven't been feeding, something's amiss. Next moring, the farmer is found dead, his eyes picked out by birds. This is no silly prank. Chickens, who don't fly, avenged by crows. Then the famous schoolyard scene. While the kids sing in the classroom, Melanie waits outside, smoking a cigarette. A crow appears on the climbing frame, then another, and another...... Calmly tells the kids to move as quietly as possible but the birds descend on them as they walk to the cars. Melanie goes to the local gas station to phone her Dad. No phones at home, then ! And goods delivered by horse and cart. The crows attack. Gasoline spills and ignites into a fireball. Melanie hides in a phone booth ( a glass cage). She and Mitch go fetch Cathy, who is at Annie's but Annie is dead. She died, pushing Cathy into the house before she was pecked to death on the doorstep.<br />
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The family hides out at their farm, which is boarded up in vain defence. But the birds get in, through the attic and attack Melanie. They don't really know what's happening outside Bodega Bay except that most locals have evacuated, they're alone and attacks have occured in Santa Rosa (nearest major hospital) so they start to drive to San Fransisco. But as they're fleeing, the car is besieged. What happens ? Hitchcock's <span style="color: red;"><i>The Birds </i></span>is a masterpiece. Nature can turn the tables without notice. The trappings of civilisation collapse quickly when people think they know better than Nature<br />
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Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-55554373920041663752020-05-01T14:47:00.000+01:002020-05-01T19:07:59.093+01:00After COVID, what will workers (and non workers) do ? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Luton Town Hall burhed down, May Day 1919 worker's revolt</td></tr>
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What happens when COVID 19 is "over" ? Unprecedented economic collapse,industries that may never recover, billions of lives destroyed. Is it OK that big corporatioins get bailed out, especially if they're built on dodgy financial models. Some industries, like airlines and holiday travel, are based on delusion - tourism destroys the places it gets inflicted on, plus it's environmentally unsustainbable : but rich white folk want to get drunk and think they're doing the natives a favour. And offshore tax havens which could at a single swoop pay for the damage done all over the world. But what about small businesses on which the economy is dependent And what
about the gig economy and those living hand to mouth ? And the long term toll on survivors, families, key workers, who include cleaners, underpaid care workers and so on. This includes orchestras, musicians, soloists : professionals whose lives have been built on years of expertise, suddenly cut adrift, perhaps never to recover. Let them harvest strawberries for the rich !<br />
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But how will people respond ? It says a lot about the UK that a 100-y ear old man can raise more money for the NHS than self righteous folks who think clapping at 8pm compensates for lack of PPE testing etc etc. Let's drink bleach ! Hail Our Leaders even if they kill us. When the working class themselves are deluded, what hope is there for the world ? More than ever this year on May Day we should be thinking about the rights of workers and non-workers, the disenfranchised, the unacknowledged, the poor.<br />
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Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-416983732847060845.post-75894684517600516662020-04-22T17:10:00.002+01:002020-04-23T15:32:07.316+01:00Morbid Lullabies : ballads, folk song, art song and creative vision<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm06mNrhX5YEJXUyV61JGE025LMhowQlgV4n3fLFXMqPqz1MTdciL8RtxI3bByRLxxrfQhTrtKjkG3o6_ceNAIhJ5sj5pjKMgE3hZr0jK53zyOlBoB0C88HQ2mXO9t2M0HZvK972yfFyU/s1600/thomas-rowlandson-the-ballad-singer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="480" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm06mNrhX5YEJXUyV61JGE025LMhowQlgV4n3fLFXMqPqz1MTdciL8RtxI3bByRLxxrfQhTrtKjkG3o6_ceNAIhJ5sj5pjKMgE3hZr0jK53zyOlBoB0C88HQ2mXO9t2M0HZvK972yfFyU/s640/thomas-rowlandson-the-ballad-singer.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thomas Rawlinosn The Ballad Singer</td></tr>
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What "is" folk music ? Since the term didn't even exist until the 20th century it's wiser to understand how popular music evolved over the centuries. Quite possibly the Greeks sang ballads of some form, and certainly in
medieval Europe they were extremely common. Norse and Icelandic sagas are an extended form of ballad. The rich had their
troubadors, the poor had itinerant musicans who performed at fairs,
market-days and gatherings. Ballads are possibly the oldest form of vernacular music, since they're portable and can be performed anywhere with or without instruments. Moreover, they're strophic, so they're to remember and to adapt to changing situations and individual variations. By their very nature, oral traditions evolve and change - they can never be rigidly confined to authoritarian categories. That's what keeps oral tradition alive !<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpyJDBEzDC5QqWwS0LkGSYN4P8b9ET_oS8-ieOVhvqM2ckw0dO6hzg9d5aVlQJrUsMR5Hj-wIqg_hhf3nVjP4QX52vrj8-tnpiIKYLX3sd6CfiGEON-H-_xSFkU5FbuKIUYYd0AbTT_ig/s1600/ballad+seller.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="647" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpyJDBEzDC5QqWwS0LkGSYN4P8b9ET_oS8-ieOVhvqM2ckw0dO6hzg9d5aVlQJrUsMR5Hj-wIqg_hhf3nVjP4QX52vrj8-tnpiIKYLX3sd6CfiGEON-H-_xSFkU5FbuKIUYYd0AbTT_ig/s400/ballad+seller.jpg" width="252" /></a>In Western Europe, ballads and songs were collected from very early on. Chaucer included some in <span style="color: red;"><i>The Canterbury Tales</i></span> and there are references in other literary works. By the 18th century ballads were big business, printed on broadsides and displayed for sale on the streets, and collected in published books. The genre made its way into more formal literary circles - Goethe and Schiller wrote ballads, too. Ballad form entered the classical music mainstream in the wake of Early Romantic fascination with an idealized, Arcadian past, and with the interest in wild places and "non-civilised" ways of life.<br />
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Ballads are an integral part of "folk" music. Music travelled between different regions adapting to new locations. <span data-offset-key="43iek-0-0"><span data-text="true">Printed texts and oral tradition existed in symbiosis, each form adapting and influencing the other.</span></span>At the end of the 19th century, a song might hve morphed over many generations. Gottfried Herder wrote a poem based on a gruesome Scottish ballad, which Carl Loewe set as <span style="color: red;"><i>Edward, Edward</i></span>. Gradually the song morphed and changed, and connects to the Country and Western hit <span style="color: red;"><i>Knoxville Girl </i></span>(<a href="https://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2013/10/another-edward-richard-dyer-bennett.html"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Please read more here</b></span></a>). The idea that folk song can be separate from human development is an artificial modern construct. Basically, there's no such thing as dogmatic gold standrad.<br />
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One ballad I'm particularly fond of is <span style="color: red;"><i>The Trees They Grow So High</i></span>, which may or may not be a 16th/17th century Scottish ballad. Though it comes in different variations, it tells the tale of an arranged marriage between a child and an older woman. The protagonists aren't poor, (the kid goes to school) so it might have been a transaction for money and status. Trees grow high but the boy, who marries so early is killed aged 18. "Cruel death put an end to his growing". Ralph Vaughan Williams recorded this in the field. In his version, the woman begs her father not to marry her off, but her father seems to think the boy's some kind of trophy. Yet the woman seems OK with this and accepts widowhood and single-parent status. But it's a horrible tragedy. Perhaps, over the centuries before it was collected, the song was cleaned up so it wouldn't disturb conventional mores.<br />
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Since oral traditions vary all the time, depending on performer and circumstances, it's perfectly natural that they should evolve further when approached by artistic minds. Britten's version of the song, from the beginning of 1942, addresses the tragedy more directly. The piano part is lyrical, lilting lines suggesting vernal freshness, making the text all the more poignant. The loss of innocence, for both partners in the marriage, and for the orphaned infant : characteristic Britten. "Growing, growing (intoned wth tenderness) as I watch over his child,while he's growing". Though the song is understated, gentle and rhythmic, like the rocking of a cradle, the suppressed motions are quite horrific when you think about them.<br />
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Another good example of how a song can adapt accordingbto the vision and creativity of a composer. W B Yeats called <span style="color: red;"><i>Down By the Salley Gardens </i></span>"An Old Song Re-Sung", quite specifically his own version of a song he heard was W B Yeats's attempt to capture the spirit of a ballad he heard an old woman sing to herself in County Sligo. in the ballad, a man recounts a long lost love who "bade me take life easy, just as the leaves fall from the tree, but I being young and foolish, with her did not agree ". It's a song of loss and nostagia with a mysterious, otherworldy quality. In Britten's version, the piano part begins tentatively, as if anything too forceful might breaknthe spell, later, it affirms the vocal line with richness and depth, as if the lovers are reunited in spirit. Ivor Gurney's version is even more "art song". The voice leads from the start, the line curling tenderly, "When I was young and foo-o-olish and now am full of tears". Nothing whatseover crude and "folksy" here. And in any case, we can't assume that Yeats’s old lady was either, though she seems to have been a poor peasant. Both Britten’s and Gurney's settings are ravishingly beautiful, so delicate that that they capture the gossamer fleeting feel of the monment. They're very different, too : but that's what art is about : creative vision adapting to individual responses. </div>
Doundou Tchilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07469682216179706743noreply@blogger.com0