...can't think straight to post properly at the moment because I have a nasty cold. None of my usual remedies seem to be working (lemsip, whisky etc). Anyone know any good ones to recommend (available or creatable in UK)?
Meanwhile, my sympathies to the person who found my blog through a search on the words "fell in love with my violin teacher"...
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Wagnerama
Every so often, I write about Wagner. It's always a tad daunting because so many music writers spend their whole lives delving into this extraordinary world; I merely dip a toe in the water. But a commission from my boss at the Indy led to this article focusing on Wagner's women which came out yesterday (but the Indy's website didn't put it up until today). We currently have two Rings on the go in London: the Royal Opera House has got as far as Die Walkure, while ENO is about to start Gotterdamerung. My interview was with the latter's director, Phyllida Lloyd, and lead soprano, Kathleen Broderick.
It's easy to think that the Ring carries some kind of curse - mainly because it's so expensive - but anyone who does believe in a celestial conspiracy theory around it would have found grist in their mill yesterday. For the first time EVER, the BBC decided to televise a complete Wagner opera live - Walkure from the ROH, (it showed Rhinegold, not quite live, the night before). So guess what? Wotan - the redoubtable Bryn Terfel - went sick. And they only showed Act 1, which of course doesn't feature him. Acts 2 and 3 will pitch up at some point when Bryn feels better and the Beeb can clear another slot. I was most upset as I'd kept the evening free for the treat of seeing this - and the first act was absolutely stunning.
I hope that the Curse of the Ring leaves ENO in peace on Saturday's opening night, because I have press tickets for once. I haven't seen Gotterdamerung live since the week after Margaret Thatcher resigned...
It's easy to think that the Ring carries some kind of curse - mainly because it's so expensive - but anyone who does believe in a celestial conspiracy theory around it would have found grist in their mill yesterday. For the first time EVER, the BBC decided to televise a complete Wagner opera live - Walkure from the ROH, (it showed Rhinegold, not quite live, the night before). So guess what? Wotan - the redoubtable Bryn Terfel - went sick. And they only showed Act 1, which of course doesn't feature him. Acts 2 and 3 will pitch up at some point when Bryn feels better and the Beeb can clear another slot. I was most upset as I'd kept the evening free for the treat of seeing this - and the first act was absolutely stunning.
I hope that the Curse of the Ring leaves ENO in peace on Saturday's opening night, because I have press tickets for once. I haven't seen Gotterdamerung live since the week after Margaret Thatcher resigned...
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Heaven is...
...in Oxford, and it's called Blackwell's. I can't work out exactly why this bookshop is different from all other bookshops - something to do with the layout - but I could spend all day in there, being tempted by all kinds of different books that don't leap into the hand in quite thesame way in any other shop.
I came out with a volume of Mallarme poems, but arranged so cleverly that it's hard to understand why it's not done more often. As well as copious notes, it includes both the original French AND an English translation, printed side by side. It makes perfect sense. Standard practice for opera libretti and Lieder in CD booklets, of course, but not elsewhere. Normally we have to buy just one or the other; and, if you're me, you either miss all kinds of words and nuances in the original through not knowing the language well enough, or you feel the lack of the poem's native music when it's lost in translation. I had a quick hunt to see if anyone had done the same for Rimbaud or Baudelaire, but they hadn't.
Oxford is wonderful. I often wish I'd gone there instead of the other place, where the wind comes straight from Siberia.
I came out with a volume of Mallarme poems, but arranged so cleverly that it's hard to understand why it's not done more often. As well as copious notes, it includes both the original French AND an English translation, printed side by side. It makes perfect sense. Standard practice for opera libretti and Lieder in CD booklets, of course, but not elsewhere. Normally we have to buy just one or the other; and, if you're me, you either miss all kinds of words and nuances in the original through not knowing the language well enough, or you feel the lack of the poem's native music when it's lost in translation. I had a quick hunt to see if anyone had done the same for Rimbaud or Baudelaire, but they hadn't.
Oxford is wonderful. I often wish I'd gone there instead of the other place, where the wind comes straight from Siberia.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Fiction schmiction
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who got 'stuck' trying to read JD Landis's 'Longing' - Richard responds to the book quiz by wondering how I got along with this. While I'd hate to throw cold water over a book that has evidently taken so much research, immersion and general blood and guts from its writer, I just can't get into it. That started me thinking back over the handful of novels I've attempted to read that are based on the lives of composers. The results are not encouraging - not least because I've always kind of fancied writing one myself.
I ploughed through Janice Galloway's 'Clara' - like 'Longing', it is of course about the Schumanns. I had my doubts about it, though most people do seem to have loved it and it is a great achievement, exquisitely written too. I felt that she dodged all the difficult issues, however - whereas Landis jumps straight in with both feet, speculating almost immediately about whether Brahms could have been the real father of Felix Schumann. My main complaint over 'Clara', however, was that although it is poetic, it is also over-intellectual and pretentious and although it paints the most fabulous picture of a Schumann who is totally, utterly, stupendously nuts, it never truly touches the heart. The same is true - as far as page 60 - of 'Longing', which on the other hand tries to be poetic but never quite makes it. Its self-conscious intellect, clumsy sexual symbolism and a style that attempts much but doesn't flow easily prevents any real identification with the characters. What's more, unlike Clara, the writer doesn't seem to have managed to assimilate his research into a fictional world of his own. Footnotes that take about third of a page spin you off at a tangent and there's nothing more offputting in fiction than constant reminders that it is based on fact. It's like flying a plane without retracting the wheels.
Most other novels about composers that I've read have been about Beethoven and Mozart. I hated Leslie Kenton's 'Ludwig' so much that it put me right off even trying John Suchet's multi-volume effort, though I've been told it's rather good. There was a book about Mozart writing Don Giovanni in Prague that was quite fun but, in writerly terms, somewhat amateurish. I haven't ventured into Anthony Burgess's 'Mozart and the Wolf Gang'...or a more recent book called 'Igor and Coco' (what more can one say?).
Here's the nub of the problem: either the fictionalised biographies of composers appeal to the head and not the heart - perhaps because of a perception that their potential market loves to be intellectually pretentious - or else they are just plain awful. The question is WHY? Is that what comes of trying to base a novel on fact? Or is it more the case that in musical spheres we all have our own mental images of our heroes and don't particularly like to take on board someone else's interpretations of them? I don't know, but I do know that the tempting scenarios that whisper to me from the 19th century need to be handled with extreme care and are probably best left alone.
I ploughed through Janice Galloway's 'Clara' - like 'Longing', it is of course about the Schumanns. I had my doubts about it, though most people do seem to have loved it and it is a great achievement, exquisitely written too. I felt that she dodged all the difficult issues, however - whereas Landis jumps straight in with both feet, speculating almost immediately about whether Brahms could have been the real father of Felix Schumann. My main complaint over 'Clara', however, was that although it is poetic, it is also over-intellectual and pretentious and although it paints the most fabulous picture of a Schumann who is totally, utterly, stupendously nuts, it never truly touches the heart. The same is true - as far as page 60 - of 'Longing', which on the other hand tries to be poetic but never quite makes it. Its self-conscious intellect, clumsy sexual symbolism and a style that attempts much but doesn't flow easily prevents any real identification with the characters. What's more, unlike Clara, the writer doesn't seem to have managed to assimilate his research into a fictional world of his own. Footnotes that take about third of a page spin you off at a tangent and there's nothing more offputting in fiction than constant reminders that it is based on fact. It's like flying a plane without retracting the wheels.
Most other novels about composers that I've read have been about Beethoven and Mozart. I hated Leslie Kenton's 'Ludwig' so much that it put me right off even trying John Suchet's multi-volume effort, though I've been told it's rather good. There was a book about Mozart writing Don Giovanni in Prague that was quite fun but, in writerly terms, somewhat amateurish. I haven't ventured into Anthony Burgess's 'Mozart and the Wolf Gang'...or a more recent book called 'Igor and Coco' (what more can one say?).
Here's the nub of the problem: either the fictionalised biographies of composers appeal to the head and not the heart - perhaps because of a perception that their potential market loves to be intellectually pretentious - or else they are just plain awful. The question is WHY? Is that what comes of trying to base a novel on fact? Or is it more the case that in musical spheres we all have our own mental images of our heroes and don't particularly like to take on board someone else's interpretations of them? I don't know, but I do know that the tempting scenarios that whisper to me from the 19th century need to be handled with extreme care and are probably best left alone.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
A nice book quiz from Helen
Helen has put up a lovely book quiz and declared she's passing it to me next, so here's my take on it.
1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
See Helen's excellent explanation of it. Safe to say, it involves memorising a single book.
I'd choose Dodie Smith's 'I Capture the Castle' - which I love so much that I've nearly memorised it anyway.
2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Yes. I think a few of the men in my past were actually fictional, because their real selves turned out to be very far removed from who I'd thought they were. If you see what I mean.
3. The last book you bought is:
'Longing' by JD Landis. A novel (yes, another one) about Robert and Clara Schumann. I'm currently stuck, around page 60.
4. The last book you read:
'Ferruccio Busoni: A Musical Ishmael' by Della Couling.
5. What are you currently reading?
'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult.
6. Five books you would take to a deserted island:
Vikram Seth: 'A Suitable Boy'
Ian McEwan: 'The Child in Time'
George Eliot: 'Middlemarch'
Tolstoy: 'War and Peace' (though if 'Anna Karenina' could be appended to it, that'd be nice)
A very large book of poetry, including as much as possible of Keats, Yeats, Eliot and Ted Hughes, ideally with some Verlaine and Rimbaud and Baudelaire thrown in in the original French, and some Lorca, preferably translated...does this book exist or is it the poetic equivalent of iTunes?
7. Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons)? And Why?
Will think about this and do it later because the people I wanted to suggest have already done it!
1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
See Helen's excellent explanation of it. Safe to say, it involves memorising a single book.
I'd choose Dodie Smith's 'I Capture the Castle' - which I love so much that I've nearly memorised it anyway.
2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Yes. I think a few of the men in my past were actually fictional, because their real selves turned out to be very far removed from who I'd thought they were. If you see what I mean.
3. The last book you bought is:
'Longing' by JD Landis. A novel (yes, another one) about Robert and Clara Schumann. I'm currently stuck, around page 60.
4. The last book you read:
'Ferruccio Busoni: A Musical Ishmael' by Della Couling.
5. What are you currently reading?
'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult.
6. Five books you would take to a deserted island:
Vikram Seth: 'A Suitable Boy'
Ian McEwan: 'The Child in Time'
George Eliot: 'Middlemarch'
Tolstoy: 'War and Peace' (though if 'Anna Karenina' could be appended to it, that'd be nice)
A very large book of poetry, including as much as possible of Keats, Yeats, Eliot and Ted Hughes, ideally with some Verlaine and Rimbaud and Baudelaire thrown in in the original French, and some Lorca, preferably translated...does this book exist or is it the poetic equivalent of iTunes?
7. Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons)? And Why?
Will think about this and do it later because the people I wanted to suggest have already done it!
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