On a dark and rainy day with science cuts looming, I thought I’d cheer myself (and hopefully some of yourselves) up with a little bit of Tom Lehrer. Here are the chemical elements set to the tune of I am the very model of a modern Major-General – the ultimate patter song – from the Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert & Sullivan. Enjoy.
ps. Anyone with some time to spare might wish to work on a set of alternative lyrics, in which the first line ends with “Chief Executive”..
At the end of a very busy week I was wondering if I’d have the energy to cope with a Friday night at the Opera, but last night’s performance of The Magic Flute by Welsh National Opera was definitely worth making the effort. It was a revival of a production first performed in 2005, sung in English to a very witty translation by Jeremy Sams of the original German libretto.
I have actually reviewed the Magic Flute before (at ENO) and have also written about my theory that it’s all about particle physics (here). I’ll just repeat here that this gloriously silly piece is one of my absolute favourite operas and I’ve now seen (I think) nine productions of it in various locations. This one was a lot of fun, well sung and imaginatively directed. I particularly enjoyed the references to surrealist art; the main set consisted of wooden doors embedded in a cloud-flecked blue sky, a clear reference to Magritte; and the monster that assails Tamino at the start was a lobster, a symbol associated with many works by Salvador Dali although not usually such a large one as this!
The plot, such as it is, is as follows. A prince, Tamino, is rescued from a monster (a giant lobster) by three Ladies who work for the Queen of the Night. He then meets Papageno, a comical bird-catcher replet with feathery costume, nets and cages. The two are sent to find Pamina, the Queen’s daughter, whom they are told has been abducted and imprisoned by a chap called Sarastro. The unlikely pair are given a magic flute and a set of magic bells to help them. Guided by three boys they journey to Sarastro’s realm, where there lives a brotherhood of men ruled by wisdom. Tamino learns that Sarastro isn’t in fact the evildoer he has been portrayed and Sarastro convinces the dynamic duo to join the brotherhood by passing a series of trials. Papageno flunks, but succeeds in getting what he really wants, a girlfriend (Papagena). Tamino succeeds and is united with Pamina. Together they endure the final ordeals of fire and water and are united in love. The forces of light prevail over darkness, and they all live happily ever after.
Of course the plot doesn’t really make any sense by itself, but it’s not really supposed to – it’s full of Masonic symbolism and is rooted in a much older tradition of musical drama that provides context but which you don’t need to know about in order to enjoy the music. What is so very special about the Magic Flute however is that it is so unapologetically absurd that it somehow ends up seeming immensely profound. I’m reminded of the old proverb “If a fool will persist in his folly he may become wise”. I think it’s daft, but in the same way that life is daft and that’s why it’s so universally popular. As in his other great operas you also experience Mozart’s uncanny ability to produce moments of robust comedy bordering on the slapstick followed by moving expressions of the deepest emotion. Perfect examples of the former last night were provided by the hilarious scene in which Tamino’s magic flute charms a motley variety of animals, including a very tarty bird, and also the priceless moment when the magic bells turn away the evil Monostatos and his henchmen by making them dance off like ballerinas, which was a hoot. By contrast, Pamina’s solo aria in Act II where she thinks Tamino has spurned her, beautifully sung by Elizabeth Watts, was heartbreakingl in its sincerity.
I think all the principals were pretty good, although Tim Mirfin’s Sarastro was lacking in the gravitas that only a true basso profundo can supply. Laure Meloy as the Queen of the Night negotiated the difficult coloratura passages and duly hit her top F, although it was little more than a squeak if truth be told. At times her voice sounded like it was coming into and going out of focus, but she had real stage presence and looked fabulous in a wonderful frock. Neal Davies was a genial Papageno, Elizabeth Watts an outstanding Pamina. A special mention must be made of the three boys (actually played by two groups: Guy Roberts/Rory Turnbull, Robert Field/Henry Payne, and Erwan Hughes/Josh Morgan; I don’t know which was which last night). These parts are often considered too demanding to be sung by boys so are frequently done by female singers. I thought the boys last night were absolutely wonderful, although I suspect they may have been miked as they produced unusual power.
All in all, an excellent night out. I think I could do with some of those magic bells at the Board of Studies on Monday morning…
Another sign that the summer is over is that the autumn season of Welsh National Opera has started at the Wales Millennium Centre. Last night I went to the opening night of their new production of Fidelio, the only opera ever composed by Ludwig van Beethoven.
I was particularly looking forward to this performance, partly because it has been very heavily plugged by the WNO publicity machine and partly because I’ve never actually seen it done live, although I have seen it on DVD and heard it on the radio. The opening night press presence and a full house added to the general sense of occasion as we took our seats in front of a bare stage dominated by a huge metal cage representing the prison about which the entire plot revolves.
Leonore has disguised herself as a man, Fidelio, and has gained employment as assistant to the chief gaoler, Rocco, in the hope of finding and freeing her imprisoned husband Florestan. To complicate matters, Rocco’s daughter, Marzelline, has fallen in love with Fidelio, which annoys her suitor Jaquino (even though he doesn’t know Fidelio is actually a woman). Leonore persuades Rocco to let her help him in the underground cells where the political prisoners are held in inhuman conditions. The prison governor, the villainous Don Pizarro, learns of an impending inspection by the minister and decides that Florestan – who has been particularly cruelly treated – must be killed to hide the evidence of his abuse. Leonore hears of the plan to murder her husband and, as the prisoners are briefly allowed out into the sunlight, she searches in vain for Florestan among them. He is still in chains below ground. Eventually Leonore and Rocco descend into the darkness of the dungeon and find Florestan, near death having a vision of an angel that has come to rescue him. Leonore looks on as Pizarro arrives and tries to kill her husband, but she stops him and reveals here true identity. In the nick of time (geddit?), the Minister, Don Fernando, arrives and, appalled by what he sees, commands that all the prisoners be released. Leonore sets her husband free.
Much of Beethoven’s music from his “middle period” – Fidelio was first performed in 1805 – is about the struggle for political liberty and social justice that was taking place throughout Europe at the time so it’s not difficult to see why he was attracted to this story. Although originally written in three acts, it is now performed in a version with only two. This gives the opera a fascinating structure. The music in Act I is clearly a nod back in the direction of Mozart, while Act II is dramatically different, with a much wider range of orchestral colour, and is clearly a look forward towards Romanticism. Another thing that struck me was that, throughout, there is much more of an emphasis on combinations of two or more voices (compared to solo arias) than you find in many other operas in the standard repertoire; an example is the wonderful Act I Quartet. Also there are no less than four published versions of the overture. Often this opera is performed with the version called Leonore No. 3, but the one simply known as Fidelio.
Unfortunately, though, the overture was where it started to go wrong. The orchestral playing was ragged and out of balance, with the brass section (especially the horns) particularly lacking in control. This carried on into Act I and seemed to affect the singers who appeared ill-at-ease. Worse, the movement of the actors on stage was bizarre: moving backwards and forwards along straight lines, or sometimes circling around each other, as if they were automata running on rails. Perhaps this was supposed to emphasize the constraints on individual liberty represented by life in the prison. Who knows? I thought it just looked silly.
Fidelio is really a singspiel (a form of opera in which the recitative is spoken not sung). In this performance however much of the spoken text essential to understanding the plot was cut so it was hard to understand the context of what was going on. I was lucky in that I knew a bit about it before seeing it, but I’m sure a total newcomer would have been completely baffled. The set was stark and minimal, and the costumes grey and nondescript – appropriately enough for the prison setting – but they didn’t do much for the plot either, especially in the pervasive semi-darkness provided by the lighting.
It was only near the end of Act I that the cast seemed to settle down. By the time the massed ranks of the supporting singers appeared for the celebrated Prisoner’s Chorus it had really started to gel.
I don’t know if words were spoken at the interval, but Act II was a great deal better, although not quite good enough to banish memories of the debacle that was Act I. The compelling stage presence of WNO stalwart Dennis O’Neill as Florestan (who only appears in Act II) gave the performance a much-needed focus, the acting was more relaxed, more naturalistic, and more compelling than in the first act, and the rousing finale as uplifting as anything you could want to hear.
Lisa Milne was a fine Leonore/Fidelio, Robert Hayward a menacing Pizarro, Clive Bayley was in superb voice as Rocco, and as I’ve mentioned above, Dennis O’Neill was great too. Also worthy of a mention was the superb WNO chorus, led by Chorus Master Stephen Harris.
I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t a bit disappointed by the way this performance started, but I’d still recommend going to see it. I’d have happily paid the money just for Act II. Perhaps it was first-night nerves anyway. I don’t do stars, but if I did I’d give it three…
This time of year always fills me with nostalgia. All the talk of new students arriving, taking their first steps on a new life away from home, reminds me of the time many years ago when got on the train in Newcastle and made the long journey to Cambridge with most of my belongings in suitcases. No-one in my family had ever gone to university before I went to Cambridge – and none have gone since, if truth be told!
I’d only been to Cambridge once before (for the interview). When I got there, after several hours’ travel, and sat down in the room in Magdalene College that had been allocated to me, I felt someone (possibly me) had made a terrible mistake and there was no way I would ever feel like I belonged there.
In fact, I’m now feeling second-order nostalgia, because one of my very first blog posts, almost two years ago, was about that trip. I remember sitting in the garden writing it just as I remember sitting in my new room in Cambridge all those years ago thinking “What on Earth am I doing here?”.
Having set off on a sentimental journey, I might as well complete it with this track from Bronski Beat which – for reasons which I hope are obvious – completes the sense of wistfulness. This was released in 1984, a couple of years after I left home, but I’ve never been one to let mere chronology get in the way of self-indulgence.
Follow @telescoperJust a quickie today, as I have a lot to do this afternoon. Last night I stayed in and listened to Prom 66, the penultimate Saturday evening concert of the 2010 season of BBC Promenade Concerts from the Royal Albert Hall in London. In fact it was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and then shown on BBC television a bit later, a strange arrangement but one that at least let me listen to some of the music twice.
I haven’t listened to all that many of the Saturday concerts this year – on a weekend the scheduling is often somewhat orthogonal to my tastes – but this one was one I’d been looking forward to for ages. It didn’t disappoint. The performance featured the Berlin Philharmoniker conducted by Sir Simon Rattle in a very varied programme of music, including the Prelude to Act I of Parsifal by Richard Wagner and three marvellous orchestral suites by Arnold Schoenberg (Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16) and two of his students from the 2nd Vienna School Anton Webern (Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6) and Alban Berg (Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6). All of these were played quite beautifully by an Orchestra whose name is synonymous with the highest standards of musicianship.
Even better than these, however, was the centrepiece of the concert, Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, sung by the wonderful Finnish soprano Karita Mattila. I particularly wanted to hear this because the very first recording I bought of the Four Last Songs was by her (conducted by Claudio Abbado). It got mixed reviews when it came out about 10 years ago, but it’s still one of my favourites. Anyway, I thought her performance last night was as moving as any I’ve heard. Ten out of ten.
I’ve always known that the Four Last Songs were published after his death, so Strauss never heard them performed. What I didn’t know before the discussion on TV during the interval immediately after the performance was that the very first time they were performed was in 1950 at the Royal Albert Hall, by the London Philharmonia, so this was an occasion especially redolent for those who love this exquisite work. One can only imagine what it must have been like for the orchestra making this music live for the very first time. Apparently the first time any of them had seen the score was when they turned up for the rehearsal. I’m sure they knew as soon as they started playing that it was a masterpiece.
Anyway, I’ve posted a version of one of the Four Last Songs already – the last one, which happens to be my favourite. I thought I’d put up another one today and, given the historical connection, it seemed apt to pick a recording of the World Premiere of the work from 1950, by the London Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler and featuring the legendary Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad. You have to make some allowance for the sound quality given that it’s such an old live recording, but it’s fascinating to listen to it. For one thing it’s a very different tempo to that of most modern recordings. Here they are performing the second song which, appropriately enough given the time of year, is called September.
Well, the summer’s over and soon we’ll be welcoming the new academic year. I thought I’d mark the occasion of the First of September with a piece of music that celebrates the genius of Django Reinhardt, the great Belgian-born gypsy guitarist who overcame the terrible injuries he suffered as a child (in a fire in his caravan) to become one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time. He had an unparalleled gift for melodic improvisation and a unique style of playing the guitar he invented himself to get around the fact that the third and fourth digits on his left hand were so badly burned he could effectively only use two fingers. Add him to your list of famous Belgians right away!
Here he’s playing the beautifully poignant September Song, by Kurt Weill:
Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
Just by way of a change I thought I’d put up these two classic videos featuring very different singers. One connection between them is that both of them are records that I bought when they came out. The other is that both videos essentially consist of nothing but close-ups of the artiste’s face. The first is Private Life, by Grace Jones
and the second was a big hit for Sinead O’Connor in 1990:
Incidentally I once saw Sinead O’Connor in person at the Zap Club in Brighton when I literally bumped into her trying to get to the bar. When she turned around I was staggered to see such a beautiful face looking at me, although to be honest I did for a moment assume she was a boy…
Anyway, that wasn’t the point of this post. In fact I was wondering if anyone can think of any other pop videos done like this, entirely in close-up? Answers through the comments box please!
It’s a grey gloomy and rainy August lunchtime here in Wales and so I thought I’d just try to brighten things up a little by posting this video of a lovely set by the quintet led in the early 60s by the great Dizzy Gillespie, clearly enjoying himself on the BBC TV program Jazz 625. This was the band that also featured the brilliant James Moody on saxophones and flute. As you can hear, they played music that was strongly flavoured by Dizzy’s lifelong interest in Cuban jazz. The programme was introduced by the late great Humphrey Lyttelton and it’s in several bits which you will have to click through if you want to see them all. I hope you at least go as far as Part 3, where there’s a big laugh waiting for you…
It’s been a tiring and frustrating day during which I accomplished very little, apart from becoming tired and frustrated. I think I’m going to have an early night, but before doing that I thought I’d share this old record with you. There’s not much information about it on Youtube, but I actually have it on an very battered vinyl LP. The sleevenote doesn’t give the exact date of the recording session, but it was somewhere around the middle of December 1945.
The band is dubbed Slim Gaillard and his Orchestra, but it’s just a seven-piece band. It is, however, notable for the presence on it of two giants of the bebop era, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. I thought I’d put it on here primarily because it has such a relaxed atmosphere and is a lot of fun to listen to, as well as providing a fascinating window into this transitional period of American Jazz in which Charlie Parker was the leading figure.
Before 1945 Charlier Parker had worked mainly as a featured soloist in big bands of the swing era, including those of Jay McShann, Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine; after 1945 he almost exclusively performed and recorded in small groups. The year 1945 was also important for two other reasons: it was the first year he was able to record any of his own compositions and it was the first time he was able to record with Dizzy Gillespie in a band made entirely of like-minded musicians, rather than a mixed bag as on this track.
Another quite interesting thing I almost forgot to mention is that this particular 1945 track is – I think – the earliest known recording of Charlie Parker’s voice…
This period also marked the beginning of Parker’s acceptance as an important solo voice by music critics and by the “hipper” sections of the American public. This spreading awareness of his importance is why both he and Dizzy were invited to perform on the West Coast of America, specifically at Billy Berg’s club in Hollywood. It was during a short residency there that Slim’s Jam was recorded.
Apart from Charlie Parker (alto sax) and Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), the band also contained the relatively unknown swing-era musician Jack Mcvea (tenor sax) as well as young bebop devotee Dodo Marmarosa (piano). The drummer was the great Zutty Singleton, who in fact played on some of the Hot Five recordings with Louis Armstrong in the 1920s, and the bass was “Bam” Brown. Slim Gaillard played guitar on this track as well as doing the intros in characteristic fashion.
Slim Gaillard was a truly remarkable character who led a remarkable life, as his wikipedia page makes clear. He was a talented musician in his own right, but also a wonderful comedian and storyteller. He’s most famous for the novelty jazz acts he formed with musicians such as Slam Stewart and, later, Bam Brown; their stream of consciousness vocals ranged far afield from the original lyrics along with wild interpolations of nonsense syllables such as MacVoutie and O-reeney; one such performance figures in the 1957 novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac. It’s also very much the style of the commentary he adds to this track.
In later life Slim Gaillard travelled a lot in Europe – he could speak 8 languages in addition to English – and spent long periods living in London. He died there, in fact, in 1991, aged 75. I saw him a few times myself when I used to go regularly to Ronnie Scott’s Club. A tall, gangly man with a straggly white beard and wonderful gleam in his eye, he cut an unmistakeable in the bars and streets of Soho. He rarely had to buy himself a drink as he was so well known and such an entertaining fellow that a group always formed around him whenever he went into a pub in order to enjoy his company. You never quite knew what he was going to do next, in fact. I once saw him sit down and play a piano with his palms facing upwards, striking the notes with the backs of his fingers. Other random things worth mentioning are that Slim Gaillard’s daughter was married to Marvin Gaye and it is generally accepted that the word “groovy” was coined by him (Slim). I know it’s a cliché, but he really was a larger-than-life character and a truly remarkable human being.
They don’t make ’em like Slim any more, but you can get a good idea of what a blast he was by listening to this record, which is bound to bring a smile to the most crabbed of faces. But alongside the offbeat humour there’s some terrific playing too. Charlie Parker’s virtuoso blues-inflected choruses and Dizzy Gillespie’s dissonant pyrotechnics form a strong stylistic contrast with Jack McVea’s earlier tenor sax solo which sounds positively old-fashioned by comparison.
Anyway, it’s time for bed-o-voutie so I’ll say goodbye-o-reenie with a little hot cocoa on it. I gotta get up early in the mornin’ myself…
In the Dark 