Lazy Sunday Afternoon – Thankee, Killick

Earlier in the week Owen Polley reviewed The Way Back, Peter Weir’s first feature film since 2003’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

 

Now as a Portsmouth lad I’m an absolute sucker for all things connected with the Age of Sail, and, for me, Patrick O’Brian’s genre-transcending ‘Aubrey-Maturin’ series of books is one of the great reading experiences available to humanity. But even allowing for my natural bias, I’m convinced that Master and Commander (which loosely adapts a novel from right in the middle of the series, so there’s an epic faithful O’Brian adaptation still waiting happily to be made) is a movie of the very highest calibre. It is, properly understood, an exploration of all the forms and foibles, strengths and stupidities, of masculinity.

But more pertinently to today’s post, it also boasts a quite wonderful soundtrack. The original score by Christopher Gordon is as ominous as rolling thunder at sea, interspersed with salty shanties and reels, but today I’m going to give you the expertly-selected classical string elements. In the novels Captain Jack Aubrey and his great friend, the surgeon and naturalist Stephen Maturin, are keen amateur musicians, regularly convening in the captain’s cabin to murder a bit of Corelli, but here are some pieces used the soundtrack played as they should be.

The first selection is an anachronism musically, since Master and Commander is set in 1805 and Ralph Vaughan Williams didn’t compose his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for another hundred-and-five years, but what a gorgeous, soul-stirring piece of music this is. It accompanies the scenes on the Galapagos.

 

Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso Op.6 No 8 in G Minor – aka the “Christmas Concerto” is more the sort of thing that Aubrey and Maturin would have enjoyed at concerts and played at home. The soundtrack makes good use of the Adagio movement…

In an early Lazy Sunday I looked at some great cellists and included a Pablo Casals performance of the Prelude of Bach’s Cello Suite No.1. Master and Commander employs a Yo-Yo Mar rendition…

From the French-American-Chinese Yo-Yo Mar to the German-Japanese Susanna Yoko Henkel. Here she is playing Mozart’s Violin Concerto in G major, K. 216 (3rd movement), in Seoul with the KBS Symphony Orchestra in 2006. The movie soundtrack uses an extract, from about 3 minutes in.

I’ve saved my favourite for last. Boccherini’s sublime String Quintet for 2 violins, viola & 2 cellos in C major (“La Musica Notturna Delle Strade Di Madrid“) plays over the final scene and credits, as we see Aubrey and Maturin attack it with gusto: Russel Crowe a-strummin’ and Paul Bettany a-sawin’. I’d probably have this one on my Desert Island…

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17 thoughts on “Lazy Sunday Afternoon – Thankee, Killick

  1. rosie@rosiebell.co.uk'
    February 13, 2011 at 16:30

    I’ve only seen Master and Commander on the small screen. I’ll see it on the big yin if I ever get the chance as I thought it was excellent. As you say, it’s about a certain kind of masculinity.

    (I reviewed it here http://rosiebell.typepad.com/rosiebell/2008/03/battling-agains.html).

    I haven’t read the series – leaving it to my dotage – nice to think that there’s a big fat series to get involved in waiting for me along with the arthritis and care home.

    Christopher Hitchens has a good essay on Master and Commander – I think it’s in his Unacknowledged Legislators collection.

    • andrewnixon@blueyonder.co.uk'
      February 13, 2011 at 22:18

      Oh, don’t leave O’Brian til your dotage, Rosie, you’ll have no chance for re-reading. Pertinent to your reference to ‘Persuasion’ in your review, he has been described as ‘Jane Austen sur mer’ for his prose and insight. One word of warning, the first two books are merciless in their use of unexplained nautical jargon, but by the third you’re no longer at sea, as it were.

      I reckon the film is about many aspects of masculinity, rather than one particular kind. The central conflict in the film is not with the froggie ship, it’s Aubrey’s loyalty to his pal vs his duty. And within that Maturin and Aubrey represent two male drives: thirst for knowledge; and military aggression. There’s loads more in the minor characters too, and the operation of the ship’s hierarchy etc.

  2. Worm
    February 13, 2011 at 20:08

    I loved all the music, my two faves being a direct competition between the RVW and the Boccerini! Super stuff

  3. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    February 13, 2011 at 21:00

    The combination of Henkel and Mozart, sublime indeed, if you like her playing Brit, try the Tchaikovsky Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D, fiendishly tricky, she polishes it off with aplomb, aided and abetted by the Duisburger Philharmoniker. Available for download from you know who for a very modest sum, and a bonus, the Williams-Tallis-fantasia. If you have the opportunity, see her live in concert, she is a sensation, stunningly beautiful and talented, a heady mix. Mind you, it was the Rheingau Music Festival and the Vaux was free flowing.

    Susanna Yoko Henkel, the perfect name for half-a-Kraut

    • andrewnixon@blueyonder.co.uk'
      February 13, 2011 at 22:20

      Thanks for the tip, Malty. Yes a beautiful violinist is a heady thing indeed. I saw Nicola Benedetti playing not long ago: stunning is the word.

    • andrewnixon@blueyonder.co.uk'
      February 14, 2011 at 09:27

      Blimey, that’s fantastic, Ms Marmite Lover. But really, would it have killed you to rustle up a suet pudding in the shape of the Galapagos Islands…?

  4. bpeschel@gmail.com'
    February 14, 2011 at 00:43

    Let me add my vote for the wonderful audio books, narrated by Patrick Tull. Wonderful speaking voice, he was capable of translating the naval idioms so they’re understandable. I spent many happy hours on the road and before falling into sleep listening to his voice and the stories.

    • andrewnixon@blueyonder.co.uk'
      February 14, 2011 at 09:33

      Quite a feat, reading all that lot. There is one particular bit of rigging with a very rude name in the jargon… I imagine that would jolt one awake when spat aloud (but that’s probably a good thing if one is on the road, of course…)

  5. john.hh43@googlemail.com'
    john halliwell
    February 14, 2011 at 09:14

    The Tallis Fantasia? Vaughan Williams? Wasn’t he a leading member of what Elisabeth Lutyens described as the “cowpat” school of English pastoralists? Is that the same Vaughan Williams who composed the Tallis and umpteen other wonderful pieces for string orchestra, and nine astonishingly varied symphonies, at least three of which can, by comparison with the works of any other composer, be termed ‘great’? And a whole load of other fascinating stuff. Is that the chap ?

    Stand the achievements of RVW against those of Lutyens, and compare their relative contributions to both British and world music; absolutely no contest – like putting Barcelona up against Barnsley.

    Sorry about that; bugger all to do with Master and Commander, but Lutyens’ remarks continue to irritate me. I really must let go.

  6. sophieking@btinternet.com'
    Sophie King
    February 14, 2011 at 10:26

    Ah yes, Brit, that would be the c***t-splice, I’ve no doubt. Just finished my third re-reading of all 20 volumes. I never fail to feel bereft at the thought that there will be no more.

    • Brit
      February 14, 2011 at 11:00

      That’s him, Sophie. Three re-readings – so four readings – of all 20? Strewth, do you have any grip on reality left at all, or do you wake up every morning shouting for Killick to bring you coffee and a pint of champagne?

  7. sophieking@btinternet.com'
    Sophie King
    February 14, 2011 at 11:06

    Not champagne but certainly toasted cheese.

  8. info@shopcurious.com'
    February 14, 2011 at 12:18

    The Vaughan Williams fantasia concertante is one of my all time favourite pieces of classical music. Love the Corelli too. Curiously, the ad which popped up with the Boccherini said ‘adults learn to play the ‘cello’. Anyone tempted?!

  9. info@shopcurious.com'
    February 14, 2011 at 12:24

    oops, not concertante am confusing it with Tippett’s equally wonderful fantasia on a theme of Corelli.

  10. finalcurtain@gmail.com'
    mahlerman
    February 14, 2011 at 13:40

    Yes JH, Lutyens was an ‘interesting’ character, but the fact that she didn’t read from the same song-sheet as the ‘cow-pats’ was hardly a reason for bad-mouthing VW and the others – and not even accurate, as VW’s symphonic span is now rightly recognized as one of the greatest of any Brit, including Elgar. She was a combative sort of woman, from a very artistic background (Dad was the architect Sir Edwin), and early in her life held potent philosophical beliefs, not least in the theosophical movement.
    But try whistling one of her tunes….

  11. john.hh43@googlemail.com'
    john halliwell
    February 14, 2011 at 14:39

    Thank you, Mahlerman. I’ll give the tune-whistling bit a try; suspect it will sound like the song of the crow, but not quite as tuneful.

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