Lazy Sunday Afternoon – Me, me, me

Under strict instruction from our editor to ‘theme’ my fortnightly outings on Lazy Sunday [Quite right – Ed] I have held the line over the last few months. Looking back, most of the selections have been related in some way to my personal enthusiasms and the reaction to them, if the comments are a guide, has been generally positive, bearing in mind that the path trodden has nearly always been somewhat overgrown – deliberately.

This time around I would like to share, selfishly, my stand-out turn-ons from a lifetime of listening and watching. The hardest part has been reducing the dozens down to a quartet…

As Artie said to Hank in a wonderful episode of The Larry Sanders Show, ‘Hank, you don’t start with a show-stopper’. Here, I’m with Hank. The 50 year old Texan Jennifer Holliday was a teenager when she first appeared on Broadway and here, in her mid 20’s she reprises the number from Dreamgirls that made her a star. Like Aretha, her credentials embrace the southern gospel tradition, but the overwhelming sense you get watching this is her total commitment to selling a song, this song.

No difficulty selecting Beau Travail as a mesmerizing favourite film. The seductive opening here, with sensual african girls dancing to Tarkan‘s hit Kiss Kiss, sets the ambiguous mood for the whole film, an exploration of men among men in a barren desert landscape. It has been called a homoerotic Billy Budd, and the music from that great Britten opera slides in and out of the narrative, but that is too simplistic and the director Claire Denis rejects the notion, rightly. It is more about jealousy and resentfulness, and the links with Melville’s novel become clearer as the movie unwinds. No car chase, no sex, no violence, very little dialogue, and not much of a story – but this film has, for me, everything.

There is everybody else; and then there is Mozart. He stands alone. His name is uttered in hushed tones.

But it is worth remembering that as recently as the mid 19th Century, Mozart was considered a slight composer compared with Beethoven. Delicate, tuneful, but slight. Even today, though his stock is high, if a promoter wants to fill the hall, he turns to any Mahler, or an odd-numbered Beethoven symphony, or perhaps one of Tchaikovsky’s last three. But listening to (any) Mozart after, say, any Mahler, is like drinking fresh spring water after eating a bar of chocolate; it cleanses the palate. The Magic Flute, his singspiel opera of 1791, amazingly the year of his death, is full of wonderful music, with barely a hint of the distress and ill-health that was enclosing him. Here, the famous Papagena/Papageno duet offers a flavour of the whole; an uplifting miracle.

What can anybody say about X-Factor that hasn’t already been said? Can 8 million people be wrong? Yes, most assuredly they can. Is it about ‘living the dream’? No. Is the venal contempt and insincerity shown by the producers, with no longer any attempt at concealment, the real truth, along with the phone-line income, and the lingering carrot of a better life if you can win? In the same way as I would struggle if Wayne Rooney were to give us his views on Schopenhauer, should I sit by while a quarter-wit like ‘Louise’ Walsh fakes-up another ratings-lifting rant with Cowell on the musical worth of another dead-head?

They should all take a look at this magical 3 minutes from the late Nell Carter. Almost unknown over here, she seems to me to represent an understated artistry that is fast vanishing. With just a skeletal piano for company, she is able to wring the last ounce of pathos from this great ballad. Watch and weep kids; this is how it is really done. And yes, ‘me’ is a four syllable word.

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About Author Profile: Mahlerman

Mahlerman's life was shaped by his single mother, who never let complete ignorance of a subject get in the way of having strong opinions about it. Facing retirement after a life in what used to be called 'trade', and having a character that consists mainly of defects, he spends his moments of idleness trying to correct them, one by one.

8 thoughts on “Lazy Sunday Afternoon – Me, me, me

  1. Gaw
    November 21, 2010 at 11:26

    Another magnificent selection MM! Never heard of Beau Travail so thanks for the introduction. I shall rent it.

    One of the The Magic Flute’s miracles is how something so full of absurdities and daft jokes can also be so fantastically moving – Papageno very much included. Mysterious.

  2. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    November 21, 2010 at 13:46

    Wow, Jennifer and Nell, awesome, dynamic, scary, shattering pair of chanteuse. More air movement potential than a 55CC Husqvarna and such skilfull use of Evo-Stik on the barnets.
    The Magic Flute, Mozart’s pat on the back and kick up the backside for the ‘stake ’em out on the beach at low tide and rip their hearts out’ wobbly handshake mob. Utterly sublime, conceived with great love and musical genius, can’t get enough of it, seen it an endless number of times. Try Ingmar Bergman’s movie, pure joy throughout. Better still Von Karajan’s 1950 version with Dermota, Seefried, Kunz and Wilma Lipp plus the Wiener Philharmoniker, never been bettered, Wilma lipp’s Königin is astounding and Seefried’s Pamina a genuine seven hankie job, released in 1952 and still available today.

  3. Wormstir@gmail.com'
    Worm
    November 21, 2010 at 17:03

    Another great selection mahlerman! Nell carter vid is great and hearing tarkan has a proustian effect on me as it was always playing in the kebab house next to my flat in London

  4. Brit
    November 21, 2010 at 20:02

    I went to see the WNO’s Magic Flute a few weeks ago, such a great and silly opera, I love it too. The production used Magritte surrealist stylings to good effect.

  5. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    November 21, 2010 at 20:46

    Did they sing the Ar Hyd Die Königin der Nos chorus Brit?

  6. finalcurtain@gmail.com'
    mahlerman
    November 22, 2010 at 21:43

    Yes Gaw/Brit – it is rather uplifting to look at the bare bones of Magic Flute, realize how potty the whole thing seems, and then be transported by the sublime music. Like many great works of art, there are so many ways to ‘read’ it. At a base level it can be a fairy story, complete with happy ending, as this clip shows. But look a little closer and is that masonic symbolism I see before me? Or is it, as in Bergman’s great film version mentioned by Malty above, an idealized depiction of personal growth, out of darkness and into the light – or even the Enlightenment?
    Glad to be able to lead you back down Memory Lane and the kebab houses of your youth Worm – from Djibouti to Dalston. What a journey.

  7. andrewnixon@blueyonder.co.uk'
    November 23, 2010 at 09:34

    Oh I expect so, Malty.

  8. dslevin2000@yahoo.com'
    wayfarer
    December 3, 2010 at 20:35

    Thanks for the heads up for Beau Travail. I had never even heard of it, but after watching the clip I just ordered it from the library.
    And talking about perfect film music, I just saw “Elevator to the Gallows” (1957) the other night. It was Louis Malle`s first film (he was 25!) and also the first film for Jeanne Moreau, although she was famous as a stage actress at the time.
    Anyway Miles Davis scored it over the course of one night with 4 French musicians playing and LM and JM sitting in.
    The sight of Jeanne Moreau walking the streets of Paris at night babbling to herself (she thinks her lover has deserted her ( it`s noir, murder-gone-wrong, stuff) with the only lighting coming from the shops she passes, is amazing, and the Miles Davis music makes it even more haunting. Perfect really.

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