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.