Arirang

"Arirang, Arirang, arariyo", Arirang, the 1,000 year old folk melody of Korea. It's  a simple tune that  lends itself to thousands of variations. It has such emotional power that it adapts to different people in different times. I can imagine it sung without accompaniment by a peasant in the mountains hundreds of years ago. Or in mass public celebrations of Korean identity. In the west, we're hung up on the dictatorship of self.  Much more organic, and beautiful, to me, the idea of a song taking on new life and being reborn with every performance. Below, three contrasting Arirangs. The first is basic pop with good scenery. The second is a more through composed artistic version with particularly wonderful words, which for me express the concept of the song. The third is a concert version of the second, with the same singer Kim Young-im and a western instrument orchestra. It's so good that it really should become part of the western classical repertoire.

Cancellitis and sanity

Sensible and level-headed article by Ruth Elleson (an eminently wise person) on the whys and wherefores of Cancellitis HERE in her blog Croce e delizia al cor. Consider the reasons singers cancel, she says. Singers are human, not machines. They can't be expected to perform as machines, perfect at all times.  However, some audiences are drawn to opera as bloodsport. Woe betide the singer who has to brave a mob willing him or her to fail. Yet there are many who derive pleasure from other people's sufferings. The kind who'd scream JUMP! JUMP! at a potential suicide standing on a parapet. Not long ago a singer cancelled after another singer she knew well had killed herself in a career crisis. And the mob turned on her.  Had she showed up and sung less than perfectly, they'd have turned on her anyway. Few singers cancel on caprice. Just because they're paid to do what they do, that doesn't make them consumer objects. With modern technology every move singers make is scrutinized by millions, often unfairly. Opera ahould be about art, and artistic standards. It's not a gladiator arena. So read Ruth's article and remember.

Richard Tauber can't sing proper !

Here is a special gift for those who think accents are more important than anything else. This is Richard Tauber singing "White Christmas". At first he's careful to sound like a clipped upper class Englishman of the 30's. But once he warms into the song his natural instincts take over, and the accent goes haywire. So what? He knows how to sing.

The Lads in their Hundreds

The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
There's men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,
The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,
And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

There's chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,
And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,
And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,
And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell
The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;
And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell
And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

But now you may stare as you like and there's nothing to scan;
And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

George Butterworth's setting of A E Housman's poem The Lads in their Hundreds.from A Shropshire Lad.  Housman had a thing for doomed young men, and quite possibly Butterworth did too. He had a strange death wish, burning his unpublished music before joining up. I've written a lot about Butterworth including an EXCLUSIVE account of what I found in his Regimental War Diary, a minute by minute account of his last moments, written partly in pencil, at the front. Butterworth's war records were difficult to track until I realized he was enlisted under his mother's name. There's so much about Butterworth we haven't begun to fathom. Ironically, Housman outlived Butterworth by 20 years.

The absolute best recording is by Roderick Williams described HERE, it's astounding. But listen to the "mystery" voice above .It's a very unusual performance but one I've grown to love.  The singer has such range and power yet he's singing delicate sotto voce barely above a whisper.  A bit like a Lamborghini purring on idle. That takes much more skill than blasting away. Because the singer has such natural colour in his voice he  he sounds more operatic than the typical English singer. Yet he's restrained, because the song isn't theatrical,. Some notes are a little high for a bass baritone, but he manages them, and it adds to the song because it brings out its hush tension. It's achingly poignant, as if the singer is suppressing extreme horror, because he doesn't want  "the lads" to hear what will happen to them, or disturb their innocence. This is a surprisingly perceptive, sensitive performance though it's far from "English school", and has increased my respect for the singer no end.  Excellent matching of images to pictures The "friendly" lad is the only one smiling!

You might also like from past years  : Wilfred Owen Dulce et decorum est,  Ivor Gurney Strange Hells, Bach  and the Sentry,  To the Prussians of England

Mongolian Throat Singing Wars

Mongols, Tuvans, Siberians, Russians and Chinese are at each other's throats over who should register throat singing as part  of UNESCO's register of "the intangible world heritage of humanity".  Western opera fans talk about chest and head voices but throat singing is the ultimate physical use of voice. It's done by using lots of different muscles to shape sound as it moves from lungs through mouth. Once heard, never forgotten.  As you can read from this Mongolian site, there are lots of different variants, just as there are many styles even within genres of western singing.

The Mongol nation once ruled the world. Think Kublai Khan and Attila the Hun, the latter a symbol of many nomadic nations that inhabited central Asia, marauding on each other. That's why the Great Wall of China was built, to keep them out. It didn't work. What a wonderfully rich heritage for a nomadic lifestyle. The Mongols, in a sense, were early "world citizens". So the scrap over who gets UNESCO to register throat singing is a bit of a conundrum.

Western concepts of nationality and fixed borderlines are irrelevant. Cultural identity transcends the sort of boundaries bureaucrats relate to. UNESCO heritage status is important because it is an obligation on governments to put resources into protecting and preserving. Suzhou kunqu opera, which got UNESCO heritage status a few years ago has thrived under this committment. So the problem is that governments and nations aren't the same thing. The idea of nation-state is a fundamentally western concept, and doesn't necessarily apply. Not even in the west. But it shapes the way we percieve things. Western cultural imperialism is so pervasive that we don't even notice.

The  Mongol nation exists in several different jurisdictions. Inner Mongolia, for example, and China have been linked for centuries. The Mongols conquered China, founding the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Instead of bringing Mongol culture to China, the Yuan became fervently Chinese. Similarly, the Manchu, another nomadic nation, conquered China in 1644. Although the Yuan and Qing Dynasties ended, they are still part of one vast heritage. Where does one culture begin and end? Since such issues can never really be resolved there will always be tensions and rightly so. Strictly speaking, no-one owns a culture, because cultures are too diverse to define. Nomadic, one might say, constantly adapting and shifting locale.
The way technology is changing the world, we're all becoming nomads now, our heritage shared through many threads.

"We're more than mobile scenery"

Composers don't write character parts for nothing. These roles can be the pivot on which a drama turns.  Divas and divos get headlines, but character singers can make an opera work.

This month, three operas in which the character part is critical. In Tosca, it's the Sacristan, who is the counterfoil to Tosca's extreme emotion and Scarpia's cynical coldness. He shapes Act One, where he represents values of sense and reason. He disappears thereafter, but you don't forget what he means when all else goes haywire.  In Cendrilllon, it's the King around whom the high voiced hi jinks spin. In Madama Butterfly, it's the Bonze who appears for but a minute and seals Cio Cio San's fate, reminding us that beneath all that pretty fripperie, it's an opera about exploitation and cruelty.

Jeremy White sings all three parts, not quite at once. He's been singing at the Royal Opera House for 20 years, and before that sang with the BBC Singers, who are formidably good. Before that, he was one of the founders of the Tallis Scholars and also sang with The Sixteen. Extremely wide range and huge eperience. That's what goes into putting the character in character singing. It's a very different set of skills from ordinary singing because the parts are so concentrated. Dependable, flexible singing skills. Major acting skills, too.Lots of great character singers in the British tradition - John Dobson, Philip Langridge, Graham Clark, tenors. Eric Garrett, Gwynne Howell and to some extent John Tomlinson, baritones/basses. Please read more here, where Jeremy White talks about the specialism.