Desert Island Discs

I’ve had my list of 8 records for Desert Island Discs ready for thirty years or more waiting for the opportunity to share them to the world. The usual format for DID is the guest to choose discs relevant to their life story but for heaven’s sake I’ll be marooned on a desert island and don’t want to be stuck with something from my primary school but to give some structure to the programme I’ll take the pieces in chronological order of composition.

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George

1. Joseph Bologne’s Quartet no. 4 in C minor was composed in about 1771. Bologne was a virtuoso violinist, conductor and composer. He was a champion fencer, a Parisian socialite, excelled in swimming and riding and fought in the French Revolution. This is the music I would have as the sun sets on my island and peace reigns (with a Guinness). Here is the piece being played by the Belinfanti Quartet: Quartet no.4 in C minor

2. Beethoven 7th Symphony 2nd movement. At its premiere at the University in Vienna on 8th December 1813, Beethoven remarked that it was one of his best works. The second movement was so popular that audiences demanded an encore. Here is a link to the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in a performance at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, Spain in March 2017: 7th Symphony 2nd movement

3. Duet from Georges Bizet's 1863 opera Les pêcheurs de perles. Generally known as ‘The Pearl Fishers' Duet’. Best if you don’t know the words, I did look them up once. It’s the same for all of the operas I’m mentioning. It’s the voices that count.

I do remember hearing this for the first time. It was in Abu Dhabi and my friend asked if I’d heard this piece. I hadn’t and thought it was just ok. She said take the cassette home and try again. I did and was moved to tears on second hearing. How many times has a piece of music hit home on a second or third hearing. Here’s a link to Dimash Qudaibergen and Placido Domingo au fond du Temple Saint (2023): The Pearl Fishers' Duet

4. Léo Delibes. The ‘Flower Duet’ is a duet in the first act of the opera Lakmé, premiered in Paris in 1883. You may recognize the work from an advert. And damn them for using such beauty for commercial gains. Here is a link to Sabine Devieilhe and Marianne Crebassa performing: The Flower Duet

5. Sibelius 2nd Symphony, 3rd movement and Finale. The revised version was given its first performance by Armas Järnefelt on 10th November 1903 in Stockholm to immediate acclaim.

I remember being electrified by this music on the first time of hearing at the Guild Hall (RIP) in Preston back in about 1996. At the end I didn’t want to move. This is the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra performing at Joran Hall in 2017: 2nd Symphony 3rd and 4th movements

6. In Paradisum from the Requiem by Gabriel Fauré. The piece premiered in its first version in 1888 at La Madeleine, the church in Paris where the composer served as organist. In 1899–1900, the score was reworked for full orchestra. This final version was premiered at the Trocadéro in Paris on 12 July 1900. The composer said of the work, "Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest."

I first heard this in Dorset in about 1993. I’d been to Christchurch Priory and picked up a cd at random from their shop. I played it on a balcony overlooking the sea late in the evening and it hit me on the second hearing. I was overwhelmed. John Rutter, Cambridge Singers, City of London Sinfonia: In Paradisum

7. America, from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein AND STEPHEN SONDHEIM. The original from the 1961 film is still sharp and thrilling and much better than any attempts (yes, I am looking at you Mr Spielberg) afterwards. It still bugs me that it is called Bernstein’s West Side Story: America

8. ‘Baker Street’ by Gerry Rafferty was released in February 1978. It won the 1979 Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. The song is known for its saxophone riff, written by Rafferty and performed by Raphael Ravenscroft. I seem to remember hearing this by a swimming pool somewhere and asking a stranger who it was by: Baker Street

This blog has taken about five times longer to write than anything before. Listening to music that means such a lot and then choosing the version I like best. Actually make that ten times longer.

And I’d have Outdoor Survival by Ray Mears as my book and cans of Guinness as my luxury item. The disc I’d save from the waves would be America.

As for the poem:

l'eglise de la Madeleine

Faure’s Requiem

I’d turned on the radio
ready for the game
but instead of a whistle
came familiar sounds
easing into Requiem Aeternaum

I’d be ready for this usually
getting the timing right
in some hotel
a cassette or cd
filling me with pleasure
before an evening stroll

but tonight’s a surprise
so all I can do
is slowly stand quite still
way ahead of mindfulness
until the baritone
brings Hostias
into a spell where
knowing the meaning of words
spoils the meaning

everything he imagined
by way of religious faith
was put into this Requiem
and everything I take
can be understood
after the four minutes
of Pie Jesus
wishing I could press pause
and watch notes drift down
from the domes
of L'église de la Madeleine
instead of my kitchen ceiling.

First published in French Literary Review Jan 2021

Thanks for reading and listening, Terry Q.

Read More

Happenstance

I had absolutely no idea how I was going to tackle a blog about happenstance until I made a throwaway joke to a friend about Adele (who sings with local opera company Musica Lirica) being in a production tomorrow in Lytham St Annes - something about car men.😉

Of course, I know it's a production of Bizet's opera Carmen and I shall be there to hear Adele and company perform; (it's probably happened by the time you're reading this). But that faux ignorant play on words prompted me to think I might write an automobile-based spoof of the story of Carmen for today's post. 

Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that in a sense it has already been done, and rather brilliantly too, as a short film, Car Men, directed by Boris Pavel Conen, with choreography by Jiří Kylián, back in 2006. Now that is happenstance - something that happens by chance, usually with a happy outcome, and it has certainly taken me places this evening that I never expected to go.

movie still from Car Men with Sabine Kupferberg as Carmen and a vintage 1937 Tatra

The film is just under thirty minutes long and was shot in black and white in an old Czech open cast brown coal mine. Obviously, I didn't even know of its existence until today, but I've tracked it down on Amazon Prime and have streamed it this evening. A series of excerpts is also available on YouTube (see end of  blog for a link).

Car Men features four highly accomplished performers, Sabine Kupferberg as Carmen, Karel Hruška as Don Jose, Gioconda Barbuto as Micalea and David Krugel as Escamillo. The music is obviously Bizet's score from Carmen (or at least a subset of it), with additional sound effects provided by Max Frick.

Sabine Kupferberg started out as a dancer with the Stuttgarter Ballet before joining the Nederlands Dans Theater with whom she performed for over thirty years. She was also the life partner of choreographer Jiří Kylián, and with him she formed Nederlands Dans Theater III specifically for dancers over forty years of age.

Karel Hruška was born in Prague and made his dancing career with the Prague Ballet before going on to found his own company in France.

Gioconda Barbuto is an internationally esteemed Italian-Canadian dancer and choreographer. She was a long-time member of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, dancing with the company for sixteen years, and then of the afore-mentioned Nederlands Dans Theater III for eight years. Recognized by many for her exceptional versatility and magnetism as a performer and soloist, she has boldly embodied work by the most influential ballet and contemporary choreographers, including Kylián of course.

David Krügel is South African and started out as an acrobat and circus performer before gaining a scholarship to study ballet in New York. He danced for many years for ballet companies in Belgium and South Africa before joining Nederlands Dans Theater III and has more recently been Director of Programming for Hong Kong Ballet.

movie still from Car Men with the entire ballet cast cavorting to Bizet

The film is not operatic, in that there isn't much singing. All is modern dance and mime, with interpretations of scenes from Carmen set to musical selections from the score supplemented by sound effects. You don't need to know the story of Carmen in order to enjoy the film, although familiarity with the opera probably enriches the experience of watching Car Men, which is both wittily and wistfully done.

The dancers, given their pedigree, are naturally fabulous and expressive performers, the scenes are inventive and full of cross-cultural references, the sequence with Carmen as toreador and the car as bull is brilliant, and much of it has a zany quality partly due to a good deal of slapstick comedy and a speeded-up effect in homage to jerky old-fashioned silent movies.

movie still from Car Men  with Carmen not too impressed by Don Juan's advances

Of course the interpretation is a very liberal one, as the whole point is that the film is an extension of the Carmen - Car Men pun. So there are no dragoons, smugglers or inn-keepers, just the four principal characters building cars out of scrapped parts, racing each other in dream-sequence wacky-races style, and playing out the ebb and flow of their relationships, all in keeping with the comic opera mood of the original. And or course, Carmen gets run over by the spurned Don Jose. If you like imaginative film and contemporary ballet, you'd love Car Men and I urge you to check it out.

As for what Bizet might have made of it, I think he would have found it fun and rather complimentary, for he died suddenly after just a few public performances of Carmen and never lived to see it become one of the most popular operatic creations of all time.

Finally, there's no poem this week, but here courtesy of YouTube are a selection of scenes from Conen and Kylián's movie. Just click on the film's title to activate the link: Car Men  Enjoy!

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

Read More