Here's to good health

Last night at eight the street stood on their thresholds and clapped a tribute to the NHS and other key workers. Possibly for the last time. I hope the NHS doesn't take this as a signal to withold future treatment.

Richy, our neighbour, has added to these occasions by playing carefully selected songs through the hi-fi of the caravan parked in his drive. Those I can remember are: We'll Meet Again (Vera Lynn), Land of Hope and Glory (Probably the audience at a Proms concert), Sing As We Go (Gracie Fields), There'll Always be an England (Anon).

Richy knew exactly what was needed - songs which almost everybody had heard before and could at least hum. Familiar and simple, musically on a par with Happy Birthday. My choices would have ruined the event.

But what would I have chosen? Music that represented England but avoided Brexit's angry isolationism. The oldest, perhaps: Summer is Icumen in.

No need to be serious: Noel Coward wasn't serious in The Stately Homes of England. But - to my horror - I find one line is antisemitic. So no-go.

How about another oldie (17th century): Over the Hills and Far Away.

The introduction to Fairest Isle (Notes: Henry Purcell; words, poet laureate John Dryden; soprano, Anna Dennis) is subdued but the melody is glorious

Or perhaps the best (ie, the most philosophical) song from World War One: Pack up your troubles. (Note the horrific words of encouragement from the nurse.)

Pro or anti?

Here's a dilemma: should I sing Who is Sylvia? in English or German?

For Brexiteers it's a no-brainer. Having been told via the word of God (ie, The Daily Mail) the song was by Shakespeare who, despite a foreign-sounding name, came from the Midlands, it's gotta be like we all speak, innit?

However the setting is by Schubert. Admittedly he was an EU native and therefore to be isolated, yet his setting not only fits the German translation but also the original English. Which is quite clever. And Schubert died young and therefore deserves Brexit's tendency to be maudlin.

Words or music? The choice cannot be resolved and Richard Strauss (alas, another non-Brit) wrote an opera called Capriccio to prove the point.

As a treacherous reactionary Remoaner I'm happy to sing both.

Who is Sylvia?

An Sylvia

But in doing so, despite rusty German, I saw there were textual differences. So I asked my great friend and super-linguist Rouchswalve (whose impossible-to-pronounce blogonym I shorten to RW (zS) - the bracketed letters standing for "zu schwer" or, in Brexit, "too difficult") to re-translate the German. Here it is and as a tribute to her skills and friendliness I shall break my normal 300-word limit for Tone Deaf posts.

Who is Sylvia, O say,
That fields of nature should praise her
Beautiful and tender I watch her approach
Proven by heaven’s grace and traces
That all are devoted to her.

Is she beautiful and good too?
Like gentle childhood, charm refreshes
To her eye rushes Cupid
Where he heals his blindness
And whiles in sweet peace.

For Sylvia, sound, O tune
For lovely Sylvia’s honour
She exceeds every charm by far
Which earth can grant
For her, garlands and chords of strings!

Help me out. please

I have a problem.  I would appreciate views (especially from women), be they profound or glancing.

Mid-19th century Robert Schumann published a song cycle Frauenliebe und -leben (A woman's love and life). To me the music is utterly lovely but the lyrics (in German) are thought sexist. "Irrefutably," insists The Guardian - not alone in this matter.

I take women's rights seriously and try to reflect this in my novels. Yet almost every decent diva has recorded these songs. Listen to the grave, yet impassioned Helen Watts, the first version I heard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0THOBujl9M

Careful, you may catch my infection.

By sexist we're not talking boobs, asses, slags or other laddisms. Rather applause for women who willingly lose themselves in men. Here are extracts from the most suspect eight songs:

FIRST SONG I have no wish to join
My sisters with their playthings;
I would far rather go and weep
Quietly in my room

SECOND To watch from where I stand’s enough
To experience utter bliss and sadness, too.

An ordinary girl, nothing to you,
You star of all that’s marvellous!

THIRD Here cradled on his breast,
Embracing death with happiness,

FOURTH I want to serve and live for him,
To be his own by right,
Freely give myself to him,
Transfigured by his light

FIFTH You stand before me,
Shall I reflect your radiance?
Then, let me bow my head
In all humility

EIGHTH (Husband dies)
So I withdraw into myself,
Quietly draw down the veil;
There I will find the joy I’ve lost,
You, my whole world, without fail.

Copyright © 2014 Uri Liebrecht

You get the idea. Is there room for such doormat sentiments in the twenty-first century? Does the text corrupt the notes? Should I go on listening?

Rising above the hanging comma

Nay, sir, he's no good at stringin' the words together wi'out book; he'd be stuck fast like a cow i' wet clay. But he's got tongue enough to speak disrespectful about's neebors...

Seven apostrophes plus cow-byre talk! I diagnose Adam Bede disease! But the same author wrote one of the greatest novels ever in English.

George Eliot's crime with Adam Bede was to keep me away from another apostrophised British writer: Robert Burns. Except he had more excuse, he was writing in Scottish. Just recently I've made amends by letting him move me. Who could resist:

How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu' o' care!
Thou'll break my heart, thou warbling bird

Or

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

Both familiar. Slightly less so (I didn't know it had been set to music) is the humanity of:

A man's a man for a' that:
For a' that, an a' that,
Their tinsel show, an a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

I read it aloud, apprehensive about, then relishing, that staccato repetition. Followed by the last verse, sung by politicians (!) at the first opening of the Scottish Parliament:

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

The Bard embroidered

Do musical settings of Shakespeare risk gilding the lily  (or the gingerbread, if that's your preferred cliché)? In one instance at least it's the other way round; surely Finzi's tune for It Was A Lover And His Lass is dragged down by the words. The four verses contain one good line - How that life was but a flower - with the rest encumbered by hey-nonny and ding-a-ding.

Here's an unnamed, no-frills soprano doing her best after being parachuted into a GRAIN SILO. And what about that piano made exclusively from Heinz baked beans tins? They at least deserve A for effort; the sound recordist deserves the treatment accorded to Hamlet's father.

What YouTube takes away, it may also bestow in large measure, and Finzi's reputation gets an out-of-this-world propulsion with this magnificent, definitive version of Fear No More The Heat O' The Sun (Cymbeline) sung by peerless BRYN TERFEL accompanied by Malcolm Martineau. I tell you, boyo, Wales is just down the road from where I live and listening to this inclined me to rush over the border and embrace everyone individually. That voice is beef stroganoff, followed by Christmas pudding, followed by half a stone of bleu d'Auvergne. Rich? It could pay off Greece's debt.

Finally another singer who really deserves the over-used adjective "beloved", jazz-singer CLEO LAINE (pictured) who is eight years older than me. Like Janet Baker she got a damehood not least for the fact that she was Grammy-nominated in three categories: jazz, pop and classical. Here she is singing Our Revels Now Are Ended (The Tempest), arranged by someone or something called Cantabile, and which brings tears to my eyes.

So was the lily or the gingerbread gilded? I was only joking. Most of the time Shakespeare's lyrics can up a composer's game.

Misguided aid for kids

Touching to find that Lucy and Plutarch also had a bit of previous with I Know Where I’m Going (see last post)

FigMince, who’s good at sarky comments, had further suggestions about modifying the lyrics but it occurs to me I didn’t make myself clear about the song’s appeal and how the bowdlerisation horrified me.

The key lines for me are:

Some say he’s black
But I say he’s bonny

Thus the singer (always a woman) loves Johnny who is not merely disadvantaged but the victim of neighbourly racism. Subsequent meddlers, presumably with miscegenation on their mind, decided to protect children singing the song by inserting “poor” instead of “black”, missing the point of the powerful original lines. We’re all against poverty; fewer of us (I hope) are against blacks and whites commingling.

The song is Celtic in origin. Mrs LdP tells me that in this context “black” can mean criminal, a tearaway. Even if it does, this does not justify the substitution.

Am I breaking a butterfly on the wheel? I don’t think so. Music makes sentiments stronger and more memorable. Consider “Some say he’s black”: four notes for four syllables ending with the abruptly snapped-off K sound. Whereas the twin-syllable/twin-note “bonny” is softer, more affectionate and can be extended.

This is a lovely little song which says something worthwhile about love. Please use “black” at the washing-up bowl, in the bath and while stuck in traffic on the M25.

Who cares how many years

It’s Schubert’s anniversary and here’s his birth-house in Vienna. Offering wall-to-wall Franz BBC Radio 3 ditched coyness and repeatedly insisted “he died of syphilis at 31”. Had it been typhoid the Trout might, presumably, have become the Mackerel.

For me Schubert is songs and chamber music. The orchestral stuff doesn’t cut it. My (our!) little nosegay has nothing obscure. Why bother since FS says it all in the song most people know: An die Musik (To music). Here’s a slightly over-charged translation:

Oh lovely Art, in how many grey hours,
When life's fierce orbit ensnared me,
Have you kindled my heart to warm love,
Carried me away into a better world!

How often has a sigh escaping from your harp,
A sweet, sacred chord of yours
Opened up for me the heaven of better times,
Oh lovely Art, for that I thank you!

But you get the idea. A permanent text for Tone Deaf’s sermons even though I also read books, dream about rock climbs I’ll never do and motorbikes I’ll never ride. Putting aside a Janet Baker version (Murray Perahia (!) at the joanna) how about a very early LUCIA POPP.

In the String Quintet in C major the additional instrument is another cello. The music is thus sombre but not solemn. The showboat pianist, Artur Rubinstein, didn’t say he wanted it played at his funeral but while he was dying. Reflect on that and listen (on Mrs LdP’s recommendation) to the ADAGIO by the Cleveland with Yo-Yo Ma.

The Trout seemed obvious but Mrs LdP, getting into her stride, said why not The Wanderer fantasy for piano, Schubert’s muscular equivalent of LvB’s Hammerklavier. Note: It can be wilder than this BRENDEL version (eg, by Pollini) and still work.

But let this be the humblest of springboards. There’s so much more.
..

Tingle in anticipation

No one has come up with a formula for writing successful songs but, once written
and recognised as such, they can be enhanced by kicking off with an intro - called The Verse in the trade. This was regular practice in the thirties and singers like Sinatra usually include them. But not everyone is au fait. Can you predict these imperishable masterpieces from their verses? Answers below

(1) Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom
When the jungle shadows fall
Like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock
As it stands against the wall

(2) My story is much too sad to be told,
But practically everything
Leaves me totally cold.
The only exception I know is the case,
When I'm out on a quiet spree,
Fighting vainly the old ennui
And I suddenly turn and see,
Your fabulous face.

(3) Times have changed,
And we've often rewound the clock,
Since the Puritans got a shock,
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.

(4) At words poetic, I'm so pathetic
That I always have found it best,
Instead of getting 'em off my chest,
To let 'em rest unexpressed

(5) When the only sound on the empty street
Is the heavy tread of the heavy feet
That belong to a lonesome cop
I open shop

(6) After one whole quart of brandy
Like a daisy I awake
With no Bromo-Seltzer handy
I don't even shake

(7) Behold the way our fine feathered friend
His virtue doth parade
Thou knowest not my dim-witted friend
The picture thou has made

(8) Summer journeys
To Niag'ra
And to other places
Aggravate all our cares
We'll save our fares

(9) Once there was a thing called Spring
When the world was writing verses
Like yours and mine

(10) The world is lyrical
Because a miracle
Has brought my lover to me.
Though he's some other place
His face I see

ANSWERS (1) Night And Day: Cole Porter, (2) I Get A Kick Out Of You: CP, (3) Anything Goes: CP,(4) You`re the top: CP, (5) Love for sale: CP, (6) Bewitched: Rogers and Hart, (7) My Funny Valentine: R&H, (8) Manhattan: R&H, (9) Spring is here: R&H,(10) Dancing on the ceiling; R&H.