Time Capsule - Welsh Clog Dancing

Discovered not long ago in the archives of the British Film Institute, Clog Dance, a documentary which is a time capsule that seems to exist as if in a parallel universe.  The Welsh village of Porthmadog filmed as if  the world outside didn't exist : the streets are empty, the terrraces neat, as if untouched by time. At the turn of the last century, Welsh Slate from the mountains of Ffestiniog  was a major export industry and Porthmadoc an international trading port, where Welsh seamen travelled the world.  By the time the film was made in 1959 that was almost forgotten memory.  Gwenyth Thomas, who was a child then, resolves that her grandchildren should learn their heritage before it's too late.   Even the film-making is surreal : by modern standards Mrs Thomas looks aged, though she's probably only in her 60's and her grandchildren looked like they've stepped out of a time warp that could have existed at any time from the 1920's.  Suddenly, the camera sitches back to the past : Mrs Thomas becomes a little girl, looking out of a window on the harbour, watching a sailor dancing.  The dances are rhythmic, the click of the wooden clogs providing simple percussion. Because the  sailors travelled,  they adapted dance figures they'd seen abroad, even a "cossack dance" for girls as well as boys.  The film shows "the intricate Toby Step", dancing over brooms, and dances to harp accompaniment.

John Edwards, the clog maker, who once made clogs for miners to work in, but now makes clogs for boys to dance in.  The film documents his craftsmanship : he chooses the wood, carving it to fit the curve of the foot, binding the uppers to the wooden base with copper and nails.  Then he cycles (no gears)  through the village, tossing them in front of the new owners’ homes  Mrs Thomas then trains her "new material" as the narrator calls the kids she teaches.  Clog dancing has become the local craze. The Porthmadog dance team become the first to dance in public and win prizes at eisteddfodau. And they don't just dance. In the film they travel by horse cart, sitting on bales of hay. Then home to "tea and Welsh cakes and melting butter".  Most of the scenes are shot with the dancers in costume (bonnets, breeches, aprons) in a room which looks like a farm kitchen, with stone floor and dressers filled with pottery.  Even if this nostalgia is re-created for film,  it's still nostalgia closer to source than  much of the nostalgia industry today.  The teacher in the film was a real dancer — Mrs Parker  (no first name) and the harpist, who also arranged the music was Eleanor Dwyryd, so there is an element of authenticity in this film though it's clearly referencing times that have passed.  But its very innocence gives it charm, and thus sincerity.  Clog Dance is an "orphan" film whose rights holders cannot be traced ("President Pictures,  made with the help of Yr Part'r Gest").  but its legacy lives on. I wonder what happened to the kid in the film ? Some of them  (like George) have such personalities : they can't have been professional actors.   View Clog Dance HERE on the BFI website. 

Please also see my piece on  Nothing Venture : Surreal Nostalgia England 1948 a much stranger film than meets the eye at first, another time warp where everything feels like an eternal, idealized childhood summer where bad guys know their place.

Posthumous Christmas : Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Christmas Overture is "posthumous", in the sense that the present form in which it's known was made thirteen years after the composer’s death by a popular arranger, Sydney Barnes.  Colerdge-Taylor's original music was more extensive, being incidental music for a children's play, The Forest of Wild Thyme, in 1910.  There must be dozens of Christmas compilations but this is robust and rather jolly. One wonders what remains of the original manuscript. There's a good recording by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth.

While still a student at the Royal College of Music, Coleridge-Taylor came to the attention of August Jaeger and Edward Elgar who arranged a commission for him at the 1897 Three Choirs Festival.    Hiawatha's Wedding Feast followed soon after, then the full Song of Hiawatha. By the age of 25, Coleridge-Taylor was a resounding success.   Hiawatha was a hit because it suited the taste of the time for grand excess, but it's actually a more more sophisticated work than its reputation might suggest.  Even in Hiawatha, Coleridge-Taylor experiments with non-western form, following Longfellow's attempts to recreate Native American chant and the use of exotc speech rhythm. 

Although he never knew his father and was brought up in an entirely English  environment, being half Black might have shaped his sense of identity, though his interest in the possibilities of "new world" music might also have been sparked by Dvořák and German and French composers of the era. Imagine if he had lived to know Ravel or Starvinsky, or to experience the Jazz Age and the innovations of the 1920's!  Understanding Coleridge-Taylor means understanding the social context in which he was operating, and very specifically the black and non-western culture  of his time.  

Thus I cannot recommend highly enough the book Samuel Coleridge -Taylor: a Musical Life by Jeffrey Green (Pickering & Chatto, 2011, 296pp). This is the kind of proper examination that Coleridge-Taylor deserves. Green is a meticulous researcher, with an encylopedic knowledge of Black society in Britain in Coleridge-Taylor's time.  Green's research is meticulous, drawing on sources rarely explored, and is presented with intelligent analysis. It's absolutely essential for anyone interested in multi-cultural Britain. But he's also superb on the social context of Victorian  and Edwardian Britain: a lesson for anyone really interested in knowing what life might have been like in crowded terrace houses and large extended families. Indeed, anyone interested in modern Britain needs to know Green's work.  

The first books on Coleridge-Taylor were written in the early years of the 20th century, before most could even conceive the subtleties of race and class politics. Thus the early books were a sanitized mix of myth and wishful thinking.  The tag "The Black Mahler" for example which has nothing to do with Coleridge-Taylor as a man and his music. It was coined in reference to Coleridge-Taylor’s celebrity when he arrived  in the United States, the reference being to the celebrity as a conductor accorded to Mahler when he visited America in the same period.  Nowadays anything with the word "Mahler" in it sells, so the temptation is to exploit the term for money value even though it's highly misleading.

Calypso General Election

In 2011, Parliament passed a Fixed Term Election law designed to block frivolous, costly electioneering.  So why another General Election? If the Referendum result was as binding and unshakeable as Brexiteers make out, what's there to prove?  To strengthen negotiations with the EU  at the price iof dividing the nation, stirring up hate and destroying the values that made Britain great in the first place?  There's a lot more to good government than politics. And a healthy democracy is not a one-party state.  So here's a look back at 1951, the snap election called after the 1950 election didn't secure a big enough majority for Labour.  Lord Beginner was an immigrant, who spoke patois and didn't have a posh education. But he took an interest in what was going on, and he took part.

"This is a Calypso about the General Election in Great Britain. Me, Lord Beginner, make this calypso in the style of the old minor calypso which we sing in Trinidad since many years ago"
.
General Election we had in Great Britain, caused a sensation. independents also Liberal. It was essential. Socialist was glad, Communists was sad, Conservatives did cheer at the results in Trafalgar Square.

Chorus :  But I was confused, waiting to hear the news. Me and Dorothy in the rain and the cold in the whole night Piccadilly. 

Two long days there was announced in the parties with both majorities. It was said that the King was listening, so nothing was missing, traffic could not pass, Police had a task. It was the best election I'll say, proudly there til the break of day. At Piccadilly was a grand illumination, names went up in rotation. Some said, we will get more employment, others said better house rent. Balloons  went up too, I saw  red and blue,  for Attlee supporters draw, and for Churchill who won the war 

Get the recording from Honest Jons HERE. In fact, invest in the whole 6 CD set . Calypso was social commentary as much as entertainment.

Manipulating the Reformation - political bias at the BBC?

From St John's Smith Square a very good concert marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, with soloists Mary Bevan, Robin Blaze, Nicholas Mulroy and Neal Davies, with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, and Clare Baroque, conducted by Graham Ross. Works by Bach and Mendelssohn and Martin Luther himself, but also by non-believers like Brahms and Ralph Vaughan Williams.  Excellent programme and performances.  But far less admirable was the deliberate political bias with which the BBC packaged the concert and indeed, the whole concept of Reformation.  

The Reformation was a revolution in European history, definitely worth commemorating.  But it was not "Martin Luther's Reformation" as if he dreamed it up on whim.  Christianity always was schismatic, but this break succeeded because social conditions were changing.  The development of printing, for example.  Intellectuals like Erasmus and Linacre were changing attitudes.  When Luther posted his 95 theses on the doors of the church at Wittenberg, he was not starting a new religion. The Reformation took off because it was politically expedient, and exploited as leverage by kings and princes. We should mark the Reformation, but we should also see it in the wider context of cultural change, rather than as a calculating power grab. 

So why does the BBC package the Reformation as "a Brexit Moment"? A stupid comparison, demeaning to religion, and to the millions who have died for their faith on all sides.   AN Wilson says that "Protestantism was the first great Eurosceptic thing, the setting up of local power bases against a shared wisdom." which is true to some extent, but disregards the Pax Romana which brought civilization to the tribes of the north. Or perhaps some people don't want to be reminded of the Sack of Rome by "barbarians" and the dark centuries of ignorance that followed ?  "Breaking Free", indeed. 

For centuries after the Reformation, Europe was torn apart by wars, using religion as an excuse.   There was no universal consensus, nor should there have been, since society isn't monolithic, except through  repressive coercion.  Democracy is an ideal which recognizes that no-one has to think the same thing. Otherwise there wouldn't be a need for representation and discourse, or checks and balances against abuses of power. Absolute control is the opposite of democracy. Leaders who fear opposition become dictators.  There is a difference between winning elections and good governance.

The sad fact is that the media can manipulate opinion, thereby destroying the fundamentals of democratic process. An institution as big as the BBC can't help but have some bias, but when bias becomes so pronounced, it no longer reflects the fact that not everyone thinks the same way, nor should have to.  That is why the BBC needs to be more scrupulous, since it should be responsible to the nation as a whole.  British identity draws strength from concepts like fairplay and tolerance, even diversity.  Values that reflect Jesus's teachings : "Love thy neighbour as thyself". These tenets are the fundamentals of democracy.  Will the BBC be able to stand up to political and commercial pressure? For the sake of this nation, I pray.

Malice in the Palace - the mad rush to Starvania

So Brexit is Triggered ! off we go on a mad rush to Starvania.   A minority party with no MP's hijacks the Palace of Westminster and enforces an extremist agenda onto a government with the largest majority in living memory, which should in theory make it immune to intimidation.  So much for Parliamentary Democracy. Who needs it when cardboard heroes can lie their way to control ?  Effectively, London, the Home Counties and Scotland are disenfranchised.  The regions that fuel the economy are stifled and have to pay those who don't pay their way.  Who needs democracy when the media can manipulate "The People" ?  Malice in the Palace !  The prophetic title of a Three Stooges satire from 1949. Except this madness isn't funny. 

Nothing Venture - Surreal Nostalgia England 1948

Nothing Venture, NOT "nothing ventured". What is a "nothing" venture ?  Perhaps the title is meant to be ironic, since the film is a  fantasy. An old man is writing, correcting his words as he goes "It was a lovely day in June, when three boys, funnily enough  named Tom, Dick and Harry were walking across the sand between Penforth and Bywater, looking for adventure"  Out of nowhere the boys pop up. "We heard you were writing a new book and thought you'd like to include us in it again".  So this is a surreal world which exists in the imagination, as if frozen forever in time. So much for the sentimental nostalgia, laid on with a shovel.  It's not reality, even though it resembles an idealized England that a fortunate few were lucky enough to experience, for a time. This film was released in 1948 by British Lion and Elstree Independent, and made in Viking Studios of Kensington. None of which now exist  But boys of a certain vintage will swoon, transported back to childhoods long past. Delicious escapist dreams!

Tom, Dick and Harry were acted by "The Artemus Boys", Philip, Peter and Jackie, who may or may not have been brothers, since they don't look genetically related, and speak with wildly differing  accents  One is  definitely northern, with vowels as wide as the horizon, though the story is set somewhere on the south coast (Penforth and Bywater don't exist in the same vicinity). But Tom, Dick and Harry cycle off on gearless bikes, through a quaint old town, through fields and  up steep hills, to a tower with a view over several counties, approached through Norfolk Island pines   The boys overhear some men discussing "the Boss"  Just as villains in Enid Blyton are easy to spot because they're not white, these men must be villains because they drive a big car. What are they doing in this remote spot?  Is Michael, a "flatfoot" in a trench coat on their trail?  If so, why is he whistling loudly so all can hear ?  Fortuitously, a lady gets knocked off her horse and Michael drives her and the boys back to her place, Diana's extremely wealthy, and a horse breeder, but she and Michael, rather too posh to be a cop, hit it off "This isn't going to turn into a love story? says one of the boys squeamishly.

Michael, Diana and the boys head off to SoutHEMpton (Diana's accent),stopping off first in a fancy hotel,with a dance band. The two older boys wear tuxes They can''t order food – the menu's in French.  The younger boy gets a job as a busboy to spy on the villains, who are staying in the hotel. Next day, they're down at the docks, where the Queen Mary is docking. Great scene, artistically shot, with music that sounds like parody Elgar though it's the best part of the whole soundtrack  The villains are smuggling a secret weapon. The stiff upper lip earnestness is a satire on the militaristic mindset left over from the war that's just ended, but lives on in "boy's magazines". Hence big words are spoken syllable by syllable with histrionic exaggeration.  Diana doesn't turn up at a race meeting but her horse box does. She's been kidnapped by the villains, one of whom has "ways of making people talk", because he ran a concentration camp during the war (I kid you not!)  Diana's Dad is a scientist who knows secret inventions. Luckily one of the boys followed the horsebox and scribbles a clue in chalk for the others to find   Diana and Dad head to a secret underground chamber beneath the tower   Daddy blows up the secret weapon and Diana embraces Michael. "It did turn out a love story after all"  The author reappears "Good bye old chaps, perhaps we'll meet again" The boys are sen walking back towards the horizon at the beach, whence they came.

The Artemus boys made one previous film The Great  Escapade in 1947 for the same director, John Baxter, with a script by the same writer, Geoffrey Orme, and then seem to have disappeared   Perhaps they're still around, in their 80's but they'll remain forever young in Nothing Venture.. The eldest boy  had star quality, and was very personable.  Baxter and Orme had rather longer careers, Orme writing a segment for Dr Who, in the 60's.  I loved Nothing Venture because of its tongue in cheek good humour, and the shots of a lost England,where people cycle through quaint countryside, and class divisions are entrenched, though the Artemus boys, Diana and Michael break down stereotypes  The music was by Kennedy Russell, who wrote for film. Extra ! A genealogist friend ran a search and found that there haven't been any people named "Artemus" in the UK since the mid 19th century. So, clearly a stage entity.  Pity, it would be nice to know what became of them, esp the bright one. (Subsequent thinking : Artemus is almost certainly a fake name because the boys aren't brothers and two of them clearly aren't thespian material. So who was the talented one ? Someone who can act liie should have been in movies. Compare photos of Richard Attenborough in his youth. Think about it !)
 

Juan Diego Florez saves the Last Night of the Proms 2016

Juan Diego Florez saved the Last Night of the BBC Proms 2016.   First, he reminded us that Paddington Bear was an immigrant, from darkest Peru, who arrived, alone and nameless in Paddington Station.  JDF sang star turns, diplomatically avoiding Don Alvaro from La forza del destino. That opera might unsettle some who side instinctively with the Marquis de Calatrava, who hates foreigners.  Florez sang instead a love song in Spanish, celebrating "dark eyes and cinnamon skin". To Paddington Bear, who certainly has cinnamon skin (or fur). With wry humour, JDF defused what might, potentially have been  a very ugly situation in post-Brexit Britain and the intolerance it represents.  Later, dressed as an Inca King, Florez (a Peruvian) dazzled in shining gold. Again, those who know history know that violence can end even the most spectacular of Empires.  Every LNOP in recent years has featured a comic diva or divo, but Florez made a real statement, in a gentle and subtle way.

Seventy years ago, my mother was at the Last Night of the Proms. It was 1946. She'd arrived, a refugee, a stranger in a new land, having spent the war years in a camp.  For her, the LNOP was an affirmation of the ideals that made Britain great in the first place.  Once, Britain shone like a beacon in the world.  It stood for Hope and Glory, dreams built on progress and expansiveness.

I was dreading this Last Night of the Proms, seeing how those ideals have receded into selfishness and insularity.  Flag waving has been a part of the LNOP for years but more benign than vindictive. We didn't defeat Hitler in order to embrace Goebbels-style mass rallies.  Patriotism and jingoism are not the same thing. Indeed, the flags at LNOP have always included those of other nations. Last year, the tricolor and the Marseillaise in honour of those killed in France. Sixteen years ago, subdued respect for the victims of 9/11.  In any case  the Proms have never been about nationalism.  For Sir Henry Wood and Prince  Albert, a German, before him, the pursuit of knowledge, the arts and sciences  meant human progress. Bildung, to use a foreign term, the cultivation of civilized values.  On Thursday afternoon, I watched members of the Staatskapelle Dresden eating picnics near the Albert Memorial before their Prom. Sir Henry, and Prince Albert, would have beamed.

So no need for waving EU flags at the LNOP. Music is international, a river fed by many different streams.  Cultural insularity is a dead end. Without Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and much else we'd be impoverished. In any case, the arts industry in Britain is part of a global economy.  Infinitely more worrying, however, was news that Arron Banks was planning to flood the Royal Albert Hall with Union Flags to counteract the waving of the "illegitimate" EU flag.  Banks bankrolled UKIP and Brexit and is apparently planning a new lobby movement outside of the Parliamentary system.    Nothing new in that: rich people have always used wealth to serve their interests.  But the Union Flag means "union", the idea that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are better off muddling together than squabbling.  Without London, the whole country would collapse. The Union Flag is a symbol of co-operation, not coerciveness, not intimidation, not bullying.

So three cheers and hurrahs for the audience at tonight's Last Night of the Proms 2016, who didn't fall for the bait. Fewer flags this year than for ages, few aggressive big flags and blasts of vuvuzelas.  Instead, people paying attention to the music and not trying to grab attention for themselves.  Phew, what a change !  A pity that, despite some good performances (Duncan Rock singing something unworthy)  the music was diluted by BBC commercialism, but unfortunately that's part of a wider dumbing down.  Sakari Oramo in his quiet good natured way, also helped head off any tension. Who could be mad at a nice guy like that? And so this year, when everyone sang Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory,  things didn't seem as bad as they might have been.  That, I thought, was what "Being British" is really all about.

 photo credit : Chris Christodoulou