I was pondering lately the problems that continental Europe seems to have with popular music. They have no difficulties whatsoever with classical music and you would have to be a fool to contend that they did, but it seems that only the Anglo-Saxon countries (alright, and the Celts) can do popular music successfully.
The problem is more complicated than it appears at first glance, because the latin countries (excluding Spain, who in this, as in so many other things, are a wonderfully distinct case apart) can do jazz pretty well. As proof then check out any of the Italian musicians on the Schema label or the Quintette du Hot Club De France, with everybody's favourite Belgian gypsy, Django Reinhardt. However they have a near total inability to produce decent rock and pop records.
On the other hand the germanic peoples seem to excel in rock and pop, especially of the quirky, experimental kind: the whole Krautrock scene, Trio, Kraftwerk, Bjork and the Sugarcubes, not to mention more mainstream acts such as Aha or Abba, but you try and think of a truly great germanic jazz artist...
Maybe it is the blending of Roman and Saxon influences in Britain that allow us to succeed in both areas of popular music, or maybe this is just complete rubbish. Regardless of this, we should be celebrating, listening to and enjoying the range of different musical cultures, not just in Europe but around the world.
Happy listening.
Thursday 31 March 2011
Monday 28 March 2011
Red wine with fish. Well that should have told me something.
So, as promised, after a slight delay, the Bond films. I make no apologies whatsoever for discounting huge chunks of them, as by the time we got to invisible cars they had given up any right to be taken seriously, which is a shame as Pierce Brosnan had the potential to have been a better Bond than he turned out to be. The 'only doing my job' exchange in 'Tomorrow Never Dies' recaptured the cold ruthlessness of Connery shooting Professor Dent, which was a far cry from the tongue in cheek Roger Moore, or the earnest Timothy Dalton. I also have not yet seen the Daniel Craig films, so I am witholding judgement on them for the moment.
The first film, 'Dr. No' sticks pretty closely to the book, apart from the substitution of death by radioactivity for death by suffocation in guano, and aside from a certain tentativeness makes a good solid start to the series. It is then followed by possibly the best of the films, 'From Russia, With Love', with its shocking pre-credit sequence, its brilliant set pieces, such as the fight at the gypsy camp and the powerboat chase, a fantastic villainess in Rosa Kleb and the great bit of snobbery that gives today's post its title, but which is less snobby than the book, where it is how Grant holds his knife like a pen that gives him away.
The next two are Connery at the peak of his form, relaxed and living the character, but they are also have the first seeds of the over the top gadget fests of the later films, especially the jet pack. 'Thunderball' also marks the first climactic battle between two teams of minions, this time underwater.
'You Only Live Twice' is the first that veers away completely from the book, taking only the title, the setting and the names of a couple of characters. It is also one of my favourites, despite it being the first of the real over the top, ludicrously unbelievable Bonds, partly for its Japanese setting, but also for the appearance of the wonderful Little Nelly. In retrospect it could be seen though as the beginning of the end.
Luckily the next film sees the first of the back to basics Bonds, a recurring theme throughout the series whereby a particularly rich dish is followed by a simpler one and in this case it is a particularly tasty one. George Lazenby has been unfairly panned for his portrayal of Bond, but watching impartially puts him up there in the top half of the table. The film has some spectacular action sequences and one of the most stunning endings of any of the films. This is the bond film beloved of the true Bond fan.
The return of Sean Connery in 'Diamonds are Forever' is a huge disappointment. He is pretty much 'phoning in the performance and it is hard for an audience to give a shit when the main actor so obviously doesn't. It is the first film where the humour is more than just a casual throwaway to accompany the action and the climactic battle in the villain's lair is the first of the silly ones, lacking the charm of the volcano in 'You Only Live Twice'. The first disappointment, and the first proof that Lazenby was not the worst Bond ever.
Roger Moore got off to a reasonably fun start with the voodoo themed 'Live and Let Die', although because of the resequencing of the books Quarrel has to have become his own son, having (spoiler alert!) died in 'Dr. No'. By the second Roger Moore movie it has become obvious that the Bond films have become parodies of other genres - 'Live and Let Die' is a riff on the blaxploitation boom in the seventies and the follow up 'The Man With The Golden Gun' is a parody of martial arts movies, ironically given that 'Enter The Dragon' is in many ways a parody of the western spy genre. It is also a disappointment, compared to 'Live and Let Die'.
Moore regains his mojo with 'The Spy Who Loved Me', which actually remakes 'You Only Live Twice' only with submarines replacing spaceships and is arguably the peak of the Roger Moore era, and the SF cash in 'Moonraker' is much weaker, despite being one of the most overblown movies. It is the sort of Bond film beloved of people who talk about the gadgets being the most important aspects of the films, as opposed to such things as plot and characters.
There was another palate cleanser next in the form of 'For Your Eyes Only', which I would probably pick as my favourite of Roger Moore's films, although the pre-credit sequence involving dropping Blofeld down a chimney in a wheelchair is rather embarrassing and a little insulting - the man killed your wife for God's sake. In the books he strangles him, which is far more satisfying plotwise than the comedy killing in this film. However, after this it settles down into a gadget lite Bond film - the Bond car is a deux chevaux - which is a return to the earlier Bond and reminds me at times of 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'.
The next two films are pretty forgettable and Roger Moore has crossed the line from being a bit too old to play Bond to being a bit too old to play M and any final semblance of believability is thrown out of the window.
The whole Dalton era was a misjudged attempt to return Bond to his roots and I sometimes wonder how Dalton would have fared if he had taken over sooner as it was an uphill struggle to stop the series being considered a laughing stock. The Brosnan era started well, but if Dalton was an attempt to remake Connery, Brosnan soon became an attempt to remake Moore, although the Chop Socky parody of 'Tomorrow Never Dies' was more successful than 'The Man With The Golden Gun', but eventually the Brosnan era runs into the same problem of gadgets and over the top villains becoming more important than characters and plots and so this has necessitated yet another return to basics with Daniel Craig.
As I said, I haven't seen 'Casino Royale' and 'Quantum of Solace', but when I have I shall report back on them and whether I was shaken or stirred, or indeed whether I gave a damn.
The first film, 'Dr. No' sticks pretty closely to the book, apart from the substitution of death by radioactivity for death by suffocation in guano, and aside from a certain tentativeness makes a good solid start to the series. It is then followed by possibly the best of the films, 'From Russia, With Love', with its shocking pre-credit sequence, its brilliant set pieces, such as the fight at the gypsy camp and the powerboat chase, a fantastic villainess in Rosa Kleb and the great bit of snobbery that gives today's post its title, but which is less snobby than the book, where it is how Grant holds his knife like a pen that gives him away.
The next two are Connery at the peak of his form, relaxed and living the character, but they are also have the first seeds of the over the top gadget fests of the later films, especially the jet pack. 'Thunderball' also marks the first climactic battle between two teams of minions, this time underwater.
'You Only Live Twice' is the first that veers away completely from the book, taking only the title, the setting and the names of a couple of characters. It is also one of my favourites, despite it being the first of the real over the top, ludicrously unbelievable Bonds, partly for its Japanese setting, but also for the appearance of the wonderful Little Nelly. In retrospect it could be seen though as the beginning of the end.
Luckily the next film sees the first of the back to basics Bonds, a recurring theme throughout the series whereby a particularly rich dish is followed by a simpler one and in this case it is a particularly tasty one. George Lazenby has been unfairly panned for his portrayal of Bond, but watching impartially puts him up there in the top half of the table. The film has some spectacular action sequences and one of the most stunning endings of any of the films. This is the bond film beloved of the true Bond fan.
The return of Sean Connery in 'Diamonds are Forever' is a huge disappointment. He is pretty much 'phoning in the performance and it is hard for an audience to give a shit when the main actor so obviously doesn't. It is the first film where the humour is more than just a casual throwaway to accompany the action and the climactic battle in the villain's lair is the first of the silly ones, lacking the charm of the volcano in 'You Only Live Twice'. The first disappointment, and the first proof that Lazenby was not the worst Bond ever.
Roger Moore got off to a reasonably fun start with the voodoo themed 'Live and Let Die', although because of the resequencing of the books Quarrel has to have become his own son, having (spoiler alert!) died in 'Dr. No'. By the second Roger Moore movie it has become obvious that the Bond films have become parodies of other genres - 'Live and Let Die' is a riff on the blaxploitation boom in the seventies and the follow up 'The Man With The Golden Gun' is a parody of martial arts movies, ironically given that 'Enter The Dragon' is in many ways a parody of the western spy genre. It is also a disappointment, compared to 'Live and Let Die'.
Moore regains his mojo with 'The Spy Who Loved Me', which actually remakes 'You Only Live Twice' only with submarines replacing spaceships and is arguably the peak of the Roger Moore era, and the SF cash in 'Moonraker' is much weaker, despite being one of the most overblown movies. It is the sort of Bond film beloved of people who talk about the gadgets being the most important aspects of the films, as opposed to such things as plot and characters.
There was another palate cleanser next in the form of 'For Your Eyes Only', which I would probably pick as my favourite of Roger Moore's films, although the pre-credit sequence involving dropping Blofeld down a chimney in a wheelchair is rather embarrassing and a little insulting - the man killed your wife for God's sake. In the books he strangles him, which is far more satisfying plotwise than the comedy killing in this film. However, after this it settles down into a gadget lite Bond film - the Bond car is a deux chevaux - which is a return to the earlier Bond and reminds me at times of 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'.
The next two films are pretty forgettable and Roger Moore has crossed the line from being a bit too old to play Bond to being a bit too old to play M and any final semblance of believability is thrown out of the window.
The whole Dalton era was a misjudged attempt to return Bond to his roots and I sometimes wonder how Dalton would have fared if he had taken over sooner as it was an uphill struggle to stop the series being considered a laughing stock. The Brosnan era started well, but if Dalton was an attempt to remake Connery, Brosnan soon became an attempt to remake Moore, although the Chop Socky parody of 'Tomorrow Never Dies' was more successful than 'The Man With The Golden Gun', but eventually the Brosnan era runs into the same problem of gadgets and over the top villains becoming more important than characters and plots and so this has necessitated yet another return to basics with Daniel Craig.
As I said, I haven't seen 'Casino Royale' and 'Quantum of Solace', but when I have I shall report back on them and whether I was shaken or stirred, or indeed whether I gave a damn.
Friday 25 March 2011
I've been expecting you...
Today, as my mind wandered about the world I found myself looking at my bookshelf and my collection of 1960s Pan James Bonds - In my opinion the best set of covers they ever had, not looking too cheap, like the girls and giant guns seventies ones, or too literary like the current Penguin Modern Classics ones. This set me to thinking about the films and then the title songs and so I thought I'd share my opinions on those, starting with the songs.
Naturally I'm not going to deal with any of the later ones - Dalton onwards because they are pretty uniformly rubbish (especially the Bono/Tina Turner 'Goldeneye') - just up the the end of the Roger Moore era.
Firstly Dr. No. The first appearance of the Monty Norman James Bond theme, but the opening tune stands out amonst the Bond movies, being a Calypso version of Three Blind Mice, which perfectly evoked the Jamaican ambiance that played a surprisingly large part in Fleming's books. It seems to be a place that Fleming loved and was familiar with, living there in his house 'Goldeneye', and this is in many ways the perfect introduction to the world of Bond. The other important song in 'Dr. No' is 'Underneath the Mango Tree', which Ursula Andress mimed to, the actual voice being that of Diana Coupland, Sid James' co-star in 'Bless This House'.
After that tentative beginning, there is then a spate of great theme songs, by great singers - Matt Monro, 'From Russia, With Love', Shirley Bassey, 'Goldfinger', Tom Jones, 'Thunderball' (a difficult song to write, as the title is actually meaningless, being the name of a military operation, but in the hands of Tom Jones it seems to make sense at the time) and Nancy Sinatra, 'You Only Live Twice', one of my favourite Bond themes and one of my favourite of the movies, although with some reservations. 'From Russia With Love' also saw the first appearance of John Barry's brilliant '007', which appeared in the rest of the Connery films and in 'Moonraker', but hasn't made a fully fledged appearance since. Shirley returned with the theme of the last official Connery Bond, 'Diamonds are Forever' which is a fantastic theme, but the first of the sub-standard films, but tucked in between the last two Connery's, there was the woefully under-rated George Lazenby in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', with the first ever instrumental Bond theme and one of the best. The fact that the film also featured Louis Armstrong singing 'All the Time in the World' (which still chokes me up because of the ending) makes it one of the best Bond films in terms of the music alone.
We then enter the world of Roger Moore, with a strong start from Paul McCartney and Wings with 'Live and Let Die' - another classic and one of the best post-Beatles songs Macca ever did. And just to lay to rest the grammar issues, I have always heard it as 'in this ever changing world in which we're living' which is fine, regardless of what Chrissie Hynde seems to think. The next film though, 'The Man with the Golden Gun' is not a great Bond movie, but despite this it is still better than the, frankly crude and embarrassing theme by Lulu, 'He has a powerful weapon', oo-er missus. The first really bad Bond theme. Thankfully the next film, 'The Spy Who Loved Me', returned to form with Carly Simon's 'Nobody Does It Better', where she shows Lulu the art of lyrical subtlety and suggestion.
The last great Bond theme, in my opinion, is another Shirley Bassey, with the neglected 'Moonraker', a pretty, wistful little song, totally at odds with the over the top attempt to cash in on the late seventies SF boom, which was the film. From then on the songs became more and more ordinary, usually performed by second rate pop stars, although there was a final attempt at producing a great theme with Rita Coolidge's 'All Time High' from the risible 'Octopussy'. In all fairness, it must be said that 'For Your Eyes Only' is not too bad and is better than anything else Sheena Easton ever produced.
So, there we have it - my totally biased views on the early James Bond themes. The best ones? In no particular order, 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', 'From Russia, With Love', 'Goldfinger', 'Nobody Does It Better' and 'Live and Let Die', with honourable mentions for two non-themes, '007' and 'We Have All the Time in the World.'
Today the music, tomorrow the films!
Naturally I'm not going to deal with any of the later ones - Dalton onwards because they are pretty uniformly rubbish (especially the Bono/Tina Turner 'Goldeneye') - just up the the end of the Roger Moore era.
Firstly Dr. No. The first appearance of the Monty Norman James Bond theme, but the opening tune stands out amonst the Bond movies, being a Calypso version of Three Blind Mice, which perfectly evoked the Jamaican ambiance that played a surprisingly large part in Fleming's books. It seems to be a place that Fleming loved and was familiar with, living there in his house 'Goldeneye', and this is in many ways the perfect introduction to the world of Bond. The other important song in 'Dr. No' is 'Underneath the Mango Tree', which Ursula Andress mimed to, the actual voice being that of Diana Coupland, Sid James' co-star in 'Bless This House'.
After that tentative beginning, there is then a spate of great theme songs, by great singers - Matt Monro, 'From Russia, With Love', Shirley Bassey, 'Goldfinger', Tom Jones, 'Thunderball' (a difficult song to write, as the title is actually meaningless, being the name of a military operation, but in the hands of Tom Jones it seems to make sense at the time) and Nancy Sinatra, 'You Only Live Twice', one of my favourite Bond themes and one of my favourite of the movies, although with some reservations. 'From Russia With Love' also saw the first appearance of John Barry's brilliant '007', which appeared in the rest of the Connery films and in 'Moonraker', but hasn't made a fully fledged appearance since. Shirley returned with the theme of the last official Connery Bond, 'Diamonds are Forever' which is a fantastic theme, but the first of the sub-standard films, but tucked in between the last two Connery's, there was the woefully under-rated George Lazenby in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', with the first ever instrumental Bond theme and one of the best. The fact that the film also featured Louis Armstrong singing 'All the Time in the World' (which still chokes me up because of the ending) makes it one of the best Bond films in terms of the music alone.
We then enter the world of Roger Moore, with a strong start from Paul McCartney and Wings with 'Live and Let Die' - another classic and one of the best post-Beatles songs Macca ever did. And just to lay to rest the grammar issues, I have always heard it as 'in this ever changing world in which we're living' which is fine, regardless of what Chrissie Hynde seems to think. The next film though, 'The Man with the Golden Gun' is not a great Bond movie, but despite this it is still better than the, frankly crude and embarrassing theme by Lulu, 'He has a powerful weapon', oo-er missus. The first really bad Bond theme. Thankfully the next film, 'The Spy Who Loved Me', returned to form with Carly Simon's 'Nobody Does It Better', where she shows Lulu the art of lyrical subtlety and suggestion.
The last great Bond theme, in my opinion, is another Shirley Bassey, with the neglected 'Moonraker', a pretty, wistful little song, totally at odds with the over the top attempt to cash in on the late seventies SF boom, which was the film. From then on the songs became more and more ordinary, usually performed by second rate pop stars, although there was a final attempt at producing a great theme with Rita Coolidge's 'All Time High' from the risible 'Octopussy'. In all fairness, it must be said that 'For Your Eyes Only' is not too bad and is better than anything else Sheena Easton ever produced.
So, there we have it - my totally biased views on the early James Bond themes. The best ones? In no particular order, 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', 'From Russia, With Love', 'Goldfinger', 'Nobody Does It Better' and 'Live and Let Die', with honourable mentions for two non-themes, '007' and 'We Have All the Time in the World.'
Today the music, tomorrow the films!
Thursday 24 March 2011
As Many Careers As Marriages
Elizabeth Taylor, when I was younger, was mostly renowned for her serial marrying, especially of Richard Burton, rather than her film career, but when you actually sit down and look back through it (and the death of a movie star does encourage this kind of reflection) you realise how many great and good films she made and, more importantly, how varied her career actually was. I shall divide her career into five phases, as it is my blog and I can do whatever the hell I want...
Phase One: The Child Star. This phase was notably marked by co-starring with animals, thus creating the classic actors' nightmare for anyone else in the picture. She was in a couple of Lassie films ('Lassie Come Home' and 'Courage of Lassie'), but in between them she was in 'National Velvet', a film which is the apotheosis of girly movies, the ultimate dream of any little girl who wants a pony for her birthday. It is also that rare creature - the horse racing movie - and also a great way to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon.
Phase Two: The Sultry Screen Goddess. The fifties. I am a bit of a fan of that much under-rated decade and Elizabeth Taylor managed to personify not only the glamour (she was stunningly beautiful then) but also the deeper, darker side shown in her movie versions of Tennessee Williams' plays, such as 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' and 'Suddenly Last Summer', and in other films such as 'A Place in the Sun' and 'Giant' alongside such doomed fifties legends as Montgomery Clift and James Dean respectively.
Phase Three: The Serious Film Actor. In the sixties she reached the heights of serious actordom, usually alongside Richard Burton as she made such films as 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?', 'Butterfield 8', 'Reflections in a Golden Eye' and 'The Taming of the Shrew'. As well as these serious, actorly pieces she also made some of the great blockbusters of the era, including obviously 'Cleopatra'.
Phase Four: Best Not Talked About. I find it hard to think of a single great, or even good movie that she made during the seventies. She appeared in a series of workaday movies, often for TV, and seemed to have given up on the whole idea of acting being anything other than a way to a paycheck. She also made a rather ill judged and self-indulgent (by Burton, rather than by her) appearance in the film (already a bad decision) of Dylan Thomas' 'Under Milk Wood'. Best forgotten.
Phase Five: The Brief Renaissance. Just when you had pretty much written her off as a film star she made one final film of note, before sinking back into TV series and being a professional celebrity and friend of celebrities, and that is her role as the declining film star Marina Rudd in the Agatha Christie adaptation 'The Mirror Crack'd'. In many ways this part was written for her and it allowed her to bid farewell to her film career with a certain amount of grace and dignity, much like the character. One of the marks of a great actor or actress is that they can make an ordinary film good and without Elizabeth Taylor this Angela Landsbury vehicle would have been at best ok, but Taylor's performance makes that film and allows you to see past its flaws and weaknesses and makes it worth watching.
So, Elizabeth Taylor, movie star and actress and one of the true movie greats.
Phase One: The Child Star. This phase was notably marked by co-starring with animals, thus creating the classic actors' nightmare for anyone else in the picture. She was in a couple of Lassie films ('Lassie Come Home' and 'Courage of Lassie'), but in between them she was in 'National Velvet', a film which is the apotheosis of girly movies, the ultimate dream of any little girl who wants a pony for her birthday. It is also that rare creature - the horse racing movie - and also a great way to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon.
Phase Two: The Sultry Screen Goddess. The fifties. I am a bit of a fan of that much under-rated decade and Elizabeth Taylor managed to personify not only the glamour (she was stunningly beautiful then) but also the deeper, darker side shown in her movie versions of Tennessee Williams' plays, such as 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' and 'Suddenly Last Summer', and in other films such as 'A Place in the Sun' and 'Giant' alongside such doomed fifties legends as Montgomery Clift and James Dean respectively.
Phase Three: The Serious Film Actor. In the sixties she reached the heights of serious actordom, usually alongside Richard Burton as she made such films as 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?', 'Butterfield 8', 'Reflections in a Golden Eye' and 'The Taming of the Shrew'. As well as these serious, actorly pieces she also made some of the great blockbusters of the era, including obviously 'Cleopatra'.
Phase Four: Best Not Talked About. I find it hard to think of a single great, or even good movie that she made during the seventies. She appeared in a series of workaday movies, often for TV, and seemed to have given up on the whole idea of acting being anything other than a way to a paycheck. She also made a rather ill judged and self-indulgent (by Burton, rather than by her) appearance in the film (already a bad decision) of Dylan Thomas' 'Under Milk Wood'. Best forgotten.
Phase Five: The Brief Renaissance. Just when you had pretty much written her off as a film star she made one final film of note, before sinking back into TV series and being a professional celebrity and friend of celebrities, and that is her role as the declining film star Marina Rudd in the Agatha Christie adaptation 'The Mirror Crack'd'. In many ways this part was written for her and it allowed her to bid farewell to her film career with a certain amount of grace and dignity, much like the character. One of the marks of a great actor or actress is that they can make an ordinary film good and without Elizabeth Taylor this Angela Landsbury vehicle would have been at best ok, but Taylor's performance makes that film and allows you to see past its flaws and weaknesses and makes it worth watching.
So, Elizabeth Taylor, movie star and actress and one of the true movie greats.
Wednesday 23 March 2011
What's good about sad? It's happy for deep people.
I'm doing the Facebook 30 day song challenge (and why not?), but I am finding it really quite hard. As the saying goes, the more you like music, the more music you like and hopefully this is one of the things that will come out of this blog as it wends its merry way through the byways of culture. Today though, has been a particularly tricky one. The subject is 'a song that makes you sad'.
Now, generally speaking, one of the things that I have found as I grow older, is that I have less and less time for things that make you miserable: I now work to the philosophy that you should concentrate on things in life that make you smile, dance or sandwiches, but in the spirit of youthful melancholy I have been making a real effort to find a sad tune.
Unfortunately most of the things that I personally associate with misery have very little that would make anyone else sad - it's the personal connections that I have formed with these songs that cause the sadness, rather than the songs themselves - and so I have been wracking my brains for the really sad stuff, the crack cocaine of misery.
I have pretty much dismissed most pop songs as their sadness tends to be of the superficial, teenage angst style misery, so I have been looking more at classical music. Again the spectre of definition raises its ugly head - I know classical is a specific style of 'serious' music, but I am using it to mean things played by orchestras etc. rather than just limiting myself to Mozart, early Beethoven and their ilk. In fact, the real misery in music starts with the romantics and carries on into the twentieth century.
One of the first things that springs to mind is the song 'Somewhere' from West Side Story. Every since seeing the first performance of the show when I was a teenager this song is guaranteed to bring tears to my eyes - I only have to listen to a few bars of the main tune and I am having to pretend to clean my glasses. The second piece I considered is a bit of Wagner - the Liebestod from 'Tristan und Isolde' - another classic tear-jerker, which Baz Luhrmann used to such great effect in his film of 'Romeo and Juliet'. However, after relistening to these I found that they weren't really suitable as they bizarrely have an uplifting spiritual quality behind the sadness, a quality of consolation that helps make them such masterpieces, but makes them not quite right for song challenge criteria. I also came to the conclusion that the reprise of 'Somewhere' at the end of 'West Side Story' is almost like Bernstein's own Liebestod, which just increased the respect I have for him as a composer.
So, having eliminated both of those pieces I had to make a decision and being someone who is not afraid to go for the obvious (because there is often a good reason for the obvious) I plumped for Barber's 'Adagio for Strings', especially after watching the YouTube video of the performance conducted by Leonard Slatkin at the Royal Albert Hall four days after the September 11th attacks. It has become in many ways the official mourning music of America, having also been used at Kennedy's funeral (JF, rather than any of the others) and it is just the right piece of music for that stage of mourning.
So there we have it - Barber's 'Adagio for Strings'. Happy for deep people.
Now, generally speaking, one of the things that I have found as I grow older, is that I have less and less time for things that make you miserable: I now work to the philosophy that you should concentrate on things in life that make you smile, dance or sandwiches, but in the spirit of youthful melancholy I have been making a real effort to find a sad tune.
Unfortunately most of the things that I personally associate with misery have very little that would make anyone else sad - it's the personal connections that I have formed with these songs that cause the sadness, rather than the songs themselves - and so I have been wracking my brains for the really sad stuff, the crack cocaine of misery.
I have pretty much dismissed most pop songs as their sadness tends to be of the superficial, teenage angst style misery, so I have been looking more at classical music. Again the spectre of definition raises its ugly head - I know classical is a specific style of 'serious' music, but I am using it to mean things played by orchestras etc. rather than just limiting myself to Mozart, early Beethoven and their ilk. In fact, the real misery in music starts with the romantics and carries on into the twentieth century.
One of the first things that springs to mind is the song 'Somewhere' from West Side Story. Every since seeing the first performance of the show when I was a teenager this song is guaranteed to bring tears to my eyes - I only have to listen to a few bars of the main tune and I am having to pretend to clean my glasses. The second piece I considered is a bit of Wagner - the Liebestod from 'Tristan und Isolde' - another classic tear-jerker, which Baz Luhrmann used to such great effect in his film of 'Romeo and Juliet'. However, after relistening to these I found that they weren't really suitable as they bizarrely have an uplifting spiritual quality behind the sadness, a quality of consolation that helps make them such masterpieces, but makes them not quite right for song challenge criteria. I also came to the conclusion that the reprise of 'Somewhere' at the end of 'West Side Story' is almost like Bernstein's own Liebestod, which just increased the respect I have for him as a composer.
So, having eliminated both of those pieces I had to make a decision and being someone who is not afraid to go for the obvious (because there is often a good reason for the obvious) I plumped for Barber's 'Adagio for Strings', especially after watching the YouTube video of the performance conducted by Leonard Slatkin at the Royal Albert Hall four days after the September 11th attacks. It has become in many ways the official mourning music of America, having also been used at Kennedy's funeral (JF, rather than any of the others) and it is just the right piece of music for that stage of mourning.
So there we have it - Barber's 'Adagio for Strings'. Happy for deep people.
Tuesday 22 March 2011
Fezes are cool...
Nope, not a Doctor Who geekfest of a post, although there will probably be one or two of those in days to come, but rather an obscure musical reference.
For the last few days in the car I have been listening to the brilliant first album by Nicola Conte, 'Jet Sounds'. Nicola Conte is an Italian jazz musician who was part of a group of musicians from Bari known as The Fez Collective (see what I did?). He is a guitarist and a classically trained musician, but is probably better known as a producer responsible for some fantastic albums which showcase his distinctive style of jazz which combines Acid Jazz (and no, I haven't got the time or the inclination to open that can of worms and define the term - I know what I mean by it...), Bossa Nova (he has compiled two excellent albums of classic Brazilian bossa nova, 'Viagem' and 'Viagem 2'), Italian film scores and Indian music. He started on the Italian Schema label, but has released later albums, such as 'New Directions' and 'Rituals' on the legendary Jazz label Blue Note.
This album (and any of his others) is a textbook example of Italian cool, up there with Vespas and Lambrettas, sharp suits, Aurelio Zen, Scuderia Ferrari, proper pizza and Fellini's 'La Dolce Vita'.
What better way to celebrate Italy's 150th birthday.
Grazie mille e ciao!
For the last few days in the car I have been listening to the brilliant first album by Nicola Conte, 'Jet Sounds'. Nicola Conte is an Italian jazz musician who was part of a group of musicians from Bari known as The Fez Collective (see what I did?). He is a guitarist and a classically trained musician, but is probably better known as a producer responsible for some fantastic albums which showcase his distinctive style of jazz which combines Acid Jazz (and no, I haven't got the time or the inclination to open that can of worms and define the term - I know what I mean by it...), Bossa Nova (he has compiled two excellent albums of classic Brazilian bossa nova, 'Viagem' and 'Viagem 2'), Italian film scores and Indian music. He started on the Italian Schema label, but has released later albums, such as 'New Directions' and 'Rituals' on the legendary Jazz label Blue Note.
This album (and any of his others) is a textbook example of Italian cool, up there with Vespas and Lambrettas, sharp suits, Aurelio Zen, Scuderia Ferrari, proper pizza and Fellini's 'La Dolce Vita'.
What better way to celebrate Italy's 150th birthday.
Grazie mille e ciao!
First Post
Well, finally got myself a Blogger account in the hopes of regular blogging. After much thought I decided I'd ramble on about the sort of stuff that interests me from a cultural point of view, which is mainly music in all its myriad forms, movies (which are more interesting than films and God forbid, cinema) and stuff like that, but which couldn't make it into the title as they don't begin with an M, such as books and TV.
So, deep breath... Stand by for the first proper blog post, coming soon to a laptop near you.
So, deep breath... Stand by for the first proper blog post, coming soon to a laptop near you.
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