Strauss and Kafka...

Just listening to the Proms concert tonight, the highlight of which, for me, is the Walton violin concerto, played by Midori with the CBSO under Andris Nelsons.  It is a piece that is never played as often as it deserves and I do not know it very well, certainly not as well as his viola concerto, and it is a great performance of a great bit of music.

Two of the other main pieces in tonight's Prom are by Richard Strauss: the tone poem Don Juan and the Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome.  I have to admit to having a bit of a problem with Strauss's tone poems, despite liking his operas and especially the Four Last Songs.  The problem that I have with them is the same one that I have with the novels and short stories of Franz Kafka and that is that they have absolutely fantastic openings, but the rest of them just doesn't live up to the expectations these openings arouse.  Think of the beginning of Also Sprach Zarathustra or Till Eulenspiegel, then try to hum another part of either.  Then recall the first sentences of Metamorphosis or The Trial and try and come up with another memorable quote from either.

Yet another brilliant Prom from what is shaping up to be a superb season.

The final piece is Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, a cantata arranged from the music he composed for Eisenstein's film of the same name.  I have a real weakness for Russian composers, so I am also looking forward to this one.

Down Those Mean Streets A Man Must Go...

...who is not himself mean.

http://cinemart-online.co.uk/2011/07/19/re-viewedre-assessed-mean-streets/

Just posting a link to an article I've written for the Cinemart website.

Frank Serpico, Where Are You Now?

With all the revelations about police corruption in the Met. I couldn't help but think back to one of Al Pacino's great early 70s movies, 'Serpico', sandwiched between the two parts of 'The Godfather' (alright, first two parts, I suppose I have to acknowledge the existence of part three, if only for Andy Garcia's riff on Bobby de Niro *taps side of head with side of index finger*).
One of Al Pacino's greatest performances, he plays Frank Serpico in Sidney Lumet's movie, based on the true story of a police officer who spoke out against corruption in the New York Police Department, earning the dislike of some of his fellow officers, who...  Well, no, I won't say.  Just check out the movie and watch it - it is one of the great early 70s cop movies with a similar almost documentary realism to William Friedkin's excellent 'The French Connection'.