A dullish
academic in Sweden listed several results (Happier, Calmer, even Angrier) but
not, I’m glad to say, Collapsed With Laughter. I’ve never believed music, as
opposed to song lyrics, can make us laugh, whatever po-faced advocates of the
Bach double violin concerto and that wearisome Haydn symphony say.
But I do find
myself agreeing with the vicar of a London church saying of funeral services:
when the first hymn starts, that’s when people feel it’s OK to cry. Which was to
some extent reinforced with a clip from the London Olympics when Scottish
singer, Emeli Sandé (above), sang Abide With Me unaccompanied. “Good lyrics”,
she observed and I bethought myself how tune and words combine:
Swift to its
close, ebbs out life’s little day
Earth’s joys grow
dim, its glories pass away
The programme was
uneven and gave too much time to those with hobbyhorses. But two things
stood out.
● Kindergarten
children sitting on their mother’s lap (she wearing sound-blocking earphones to
prevent the transmission of her own
reactions) responding instinctively to a quite complex piece of posh music,
kicking their feet and in one case also thrusting the chest forward
contrapuntally.
● In a home for
the ghosts of people suffering from dementia a keyboardist plays an exceptional
version of A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square and there are signs on those
remote, cut-off faces that it’s getting through.
VR’s sister died
last year and asked for a hymn recording without “others joining in”. We
applauded her typically pawky choice. But she was gone and we needed catharsis.
Some music (without words) makes me laugh, but it could be the performers, or I'm imagining what the composer was thinking.
ReplyDeleteMore music stirs me to dance though, or to feel like crying.
Julia: Funny things can happen at musical events. Debra Voigt (Brunhilde) slipped and fell on the Met's gigantic wavy, plank device, though I did not see it; I wonder if Bryn Terfel (Wotan) helped her up. Our truly magnificent Stephen Hough (pno) played an encore and explained it was written by Paderewski, virtuoso pianist and later Polish prime minister; turning back to the keyboard he said, "This piece is by a slightly better known Pole." which I liked because of the flattery. Our equally magnificent Paul Lewis (also pno; terribly sexy, too, according to VR) stopped in the midst of one of the late LvB sonatas and apologised: "I felt sure I was going to sneeze," he said. "Go ahead and sneeze, none of us will mind," said an entranced member of the audience.
ReplyDeleteBut none of this humour emerged from the music. "Till Eulenspiegel's lustige Streiche" is supposed to be a hoot musically, but it leaves me stone-faced. Nor does that meowing cat song duet any better.
Wanting to dance, yes but mainly from jazz, though you'll be glad to hear, knowing me you do, I don't try.
Feel like crying. Oh, over and over.I'm ready to play all the mourners and more for Dido.
Music moves sometimes because of associations and sometimes because a particular note or interval or combination of notes seems to vibrate, regardless of associations, somewhere between the brain and the base of the spine. My problem is that I don't know when precisely my feelings are driven by sentimentality or by some more profound in the measure of sensibility.
ReplyDeleteI am grateful to your robot check for the word "thuction" which I will treasure.
Would you laugh or cry here?
ReplyDeleteShe travelled with children in tow and sang while husband stayed here and played contrabass.
Natalie Choquette Lima Peru 2005 Nessun Dorma on youtube or Kalinka.
Joe: When it comes to that physical restriction in the throat I don't think we can argue about sources: we are the final point in an inescapable process; sentimentality or profundity, it doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteEllena: Had to check this out early in the morning; I rise before VR (my wife) and must avoid making noises. But in a sense I didn't need audio to get your point. The cameraman with those deliberately shaky hands and that weirdly shrunken spotlight transported me back to the 1910s (early twenties) back into movie innocence. I'd have laughed, I guess.
Incidentally I am sure you're not old enough but back in the early fifties Jo Stafford (whom I admired for her solid singing voice and technique) did a song, possibly April in Paris, in which she deliberately made every possible error a singer can make. All the more persuasive, given her terrific voice. I did laugh at that, and the joke was musical.
RR! Yes, but, Natalie makes no errors with her terrific voice.
ReplyDeleteShe is proficient in exercise and terrific voice combined.
Ha, can't remember what I listened to in the early fifties. Possibly 'Wenn bei Capri die rote Sonne ins Meer versinkt...". I was on a different road from yours but same age. Do you now understand why it is so difficult for me to learn new tricks?