pppp, and you're done

To Birmingham last night to hear the Academy of Ancient Music, a long established thirty-strong group who play on period instruments. The music wasn't all that ancient, 'twas all Mozart and he's mid-eighteenth century. Or, if you prefer, timeless.

It should have been good; perhaps it was. The conductor was Robert Levin, an academic who is also a nifty keyboardist. He played WAM's loveliest piano concerto, the twenty-fourth. conducting from the instrument not the podium. The programme said piano but it was the much smaller, much quieter fortepiano; it had to be; a modern Steinway would have drowned out the gut-string violins, the valveless trumpets and the wooden flutes. A Ferrari among Model T Fords.

Fortepianos sound OK on CDs, We've got Melvin Tan doing Beethoven's first and second piano concertos and I love his agility. In the concert hall it's another matter. So much went for nothing. And we were in the priciest seats, dead centre, eleven rows back.

Yeah, I know all the arguments. Less resonance, faster articulation, music as the composer would have heard it. But if you can't hear it... As Basil Fawlty said, it's so basic.

THIS seemingly eviscerated accordion consists of 68 tickets (Grandson Ian's coming too) for 23 movies at the Borderline Film Festival, starting February 27. The titles: La Maison de la Radio, Ida, Whiplash, Wild Tales, Still Life, Foxcatcher, Birdman, Cycling with Molière, Enemy, Inherent Vice, Winter Sleep, Most Wanted Man, Mr Turner. Lourdes, Clouds of Cils Maria, Amour Fou, Duke of Burgundy, Black Coal - Thin Ice. Boyhood, Ex Machina, Before I go to Sleep, Phoenix.

From France to UK to China to USA to Canada to Israel to Poland to Germany to Argentina to Turkey.

We'll let you know. 

The problem with baddies

More sexism last night. Couldn't have been more sexistic. Mozart's Don Giovanni transmitted from the Royal (May my left hand strike my right.) Opera House, Covent Garden to wind-and-rain girt Hereford. We've seen half a dozen other versions; this was modified beneficially (cutting out the anticlimactic "survivors" scene) and malignantly (failing to match the words to the actions).

But this isn’t about opera technicalities. What should we make of the Don? He emerges from  Donna Anna's bedroom after she raises the alarm; in most versions he is coitus interruptus but fulfilled in this case. He stabs to death DA's dad, sneers at Donna Elvira whom he bedded after getting engaged to her for just that purpose. Tries to seduce peasant girl Zerlina on her wedding eve. Puts his servant Leporello at death's risk. But here's where it gets difficult.

He meets the ghost of DA's dad and invites him to supper. Dad turns up and returns the invitation - ie, for a final supper in Hell. The Don refuses to recant his life, accepts Hell, suffers.

There is a modern-day parallel. Most of the condemned Nazis died well on the gallows at Nuremberg. Yet none has a soft spot for them. With the Don we're equivocal. Some (All men?) have a sneaking admiration. Quite unjustified. This wasn't roguishness; the Don was a hoodlum. Go figure.

WIP Second Hand (57,251 words)
That last occasion in his bed with the black sheets. “Diabolical,” she had said, and he’d laughed uncertainly even though there’d been nothing uncertain about what followed. The sex had been simultaneously rewarding and disturbing. Prolonged and invasive.  To the point where his desire to please had obliterated her sense of self.
Note: If I've posted this extract before the reason's forgetfulness, not obsession.

All hail the democratic clt

Having ransacked all databases (ie, ninety seconds with Wikipedia) I am unable to pin down a more profound definition of the concerto than the most obvious: a solo instrument (occasionally more than one) playing brilliant passages against an orchestral background. Handel muddied the water with his concerti grossi and Bartok even more so with his Concerto for Orchestra but neither significantly moved the goalposts.

Tone Deaf remains opposed to music that is showy for the sake of being showy. It’s one reason I still can’t take Rossini and it’s why I struggled with Liszt until finding Années de Pélérinage. Also – whisper it not in Gath – why I used to resent piano and (especially) violin concerti. Don’t get me wrong, I have evolved and the Sibelius violin concerto is now Top Ten. But in my callow years I felt the soloist was saying “Bet you can’t do this.” to the orchestra. In effect taunting those worthies.

And there was the cadenza mystique, where everyone worshipfully stopped music-making so that the soloist could run up and down the scales in a virtuosic (ie, frequently vulgar) manner. OK, I’m over that and Beethoven Four and Brahms Two are part of my heart-beat.

But it’s why the Mozart clarinet concerto is my favourite example of that form. Not that it isn’t technically demanding – that’s why Benny Goodman, the great swing clarinettist, recorded it. It’s just that the liquorice stick seems to integrate so well with its accompanying fellows. It doesn’t compete and no cadenza was written for it. One reason may be it is very late Mozart, K622, finished a month or so before he died. I trust this is no great discovery for TD faithful but if not, please try it. Reassuring music to wake up to: today I shall live!  

Economy's a shambles, but...

Some languages are meant for singing, others not. A huge generalisation of course and it depends on what mother tongue you start out with. But there is a grudging consensus about Italian (and Welsh, but that's another story). Take this Handel aria:

Ombra mai fu
Di vegetabile
Cara ed amabile
Soave piu.

Never was there a shadow
Of branches
Sweeter, more refreshing
Or more gentle.

Yes, I know vegetabile looks a bit weird, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to know the tune – lovely and simple as it is – you don’t have to know the words are Italian, to realise that those syllables are easily singable and that they receive their stresses gracefully.

Contrast that with the second of these two lines from the French national anthem:

Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?

Do you hear, in the countryside,
The roar of those ferocious soldiers.

I have spent half my life trying to learn French and adore its quirkiness. But that conglomeration of Ss between ferocious and soldiers (Even English sounds better!) requires gymnastics from the singer. And there’s worse.

One aria from Carmen (not my favourite opera) ends with Yes, I love you (Oui, je t’aime.). There’s so little in those vital words for the composer to hang his melody on. No resonances. As luck would have it I went on to play versions of the Queen of the Night aria from Magic Flute and the German for My Dear Son stood out: Mein liebe Sohn. (the Queen yearns achingly here). So much easier for Mozart than if she’d been French, singing Mon cher fils.

Here’s how ITALIAN (with help from Handel) wins every time

No Here Comes Santa

The alternating-grandparent system means the LdPs will be alone for Christmas Eve and Day. “Why not avoid presents and buy in some opera DVDs,” said Mrs LdP, thus despatching telly and the Queen’s Speech to Uttar Pradesh. So here’s what £124 looks like in disc form. And here’s why.

Mozart three pack, Salzburg Festival. Flute and Cosi are familiars, something to fall back on if we overreach ourselves intellectually. Neither of us has seen La Clemenza di Tito.

Strauss: Capriccio. Clever, witty words vs. music theme with Kiri te Kanawa. We had this on VHS cassette (also with KtK) but in a different performance. We’re both Strauss (Richard, that is, not the waltz man) freaks.

Strauss: Elektra. We have it on CDs but it’s pretty jagged, very modern Strauss and you need something to watch. Birgitte Fassbinder very, very dramatic soprano.

Janacek: Jenufa. New for us. Said not to be a bundle of laughs. But we’ve both been moving towards Janacek for a year or two now.

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin. New for us. It’ll be the first Russian opera we’ve ever seen.

An austere Christmas? If we get depressed we can put on the CHRISTMAS ORATORIO; try it for two or three minutes - bloody marvellous drums and an inauthentically large and exuberant choir. Otherwise there’s two white burgundies and a fino and a manzanilla (sherries). Plus reds from under the stairs.

Finally, at age 76, glasses. All the better for wine labels and movie sub-titles.

Cheers to all. Remember: music can be taken neat or as a supplement to many other pleasures. Suggested New Year resolution: try a new composer born on or after 1911.

Possible cure for depression

The readers were the best thing about my previous blog. I’m proud of that. But for reasons I won’t go into – and were in any case disbelieved – I found myself depressed and closed the damn thing down.

Luckily I do have other writing. Stumbling, knot-fingered at the keyboard I found myself humming a tune over and over. Knew it was Mozart, asked Mrs LdP who said: Dalla sua pace (On her peace of mind (depends mine too)), sung by the much put-upon Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, who should have paddled Donna Anna’s dithering backside several scenes earlier.

I Googled it and one YouTube option was by Pavarotti. I know he was a great tenor but I’ve avoided him because he’s always singing Verdi whom I can’t stand. But what does Pavarotti’s Mozart sound like? Bloody marvellous. Melodious at both ends, unforced, delicious when quiet. And I’ve heard Wunderlich and Gedda. This is what music can do. A familiar song, a new (titanic) voice, and you’ve got something different – including a tightened throat.

Mrs LdP says people liked my previous blog because it was eclectic (aka misguided, scatter-gun, indulgent). Thinks this one won’t work. She’s usually right (one commenter says she’s always right). Certainly the musical posts I did attracted little attention. And who wants to watch Jack Nicholson recovering from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?

Give me, say, three weeks.

ONE FROM MY SHELVES Includes Embraceable You – not the one where he virtually expires through his soprano – but a foretaste.