Translate

Showing posts with label Chicago. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

MY Saint's Day!


SAINT STEPHEN’S DAY, 2017.



















    Not the first up today, as Carmen is already in her natural home: the kitchen.  But yesterday she was in a restaurant and so she had at least one day off!  At the moment she is cleaning the prawns and as well as trimming the legs and whiskers, she also takes out the eyes as she says she doesn’t like them looking at her.  I do not share her squeamishness, but I am going to say nothing to such a competent cook!

    In Spain, one’s name day is almost as important as a birthday and presents are to be expected – one of which I already know, as I am the one who bought it.  
    Solti: The Complete Chicago Recordings
    This is a boxed set of Solti’s complete oeuvre with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on CDs.  I know, I know, I have heard all the arguments for ditching my allegiance to such an outmoded form and turning to the dark side of Spottify (or possibly with one ‘t’?) for all my musical needs, but memory stops me. 

    I can still remember the cost of the LPs and the first CDs of people like Solti at prices that I could never afford.  It was only with the advent of the bargain LPs that my classical music library grew. 
    Datei:Heliodor Logo 003.svgResultado de imagen de mfp logoI am eternally grateful to Music for Pleasure, Heliodor, Marble Arch, Classics for Pleasure and one or two other more obscure labels that allowed me to spend 9/11 (nine shillings and eleven pence, under 50p!) to start off my collection.  Admittedly the prices soon rose to 10/- (ten shillings) then up to 12/6 and so on following inflation, but even I could afford one or two a month.

    These labels gave me introductions to Nielsen, Mahler, Sibelius other than the Karelia Suite, Hindemith, 

    music from the Middle Ages and other odds and sods that have become part of my musical vocabulary.  I found that the great thing about being interested in Classical Music as opposed to Pop was that every shop record sale, no matter how meagre, would yield something of interest.  Let’s face it, if you like The Greats in Classical Music then there is a substantial back-catalogue to get to know, and therefore always a justification to buy.  Which I did!


    So, the opportunity to buy quality music for just over a euro a disc is not something that I can resist and anyway I tend to listen to the music in the car where the CDs are more convenient than anything else.  For Christmas I had two CD cases to contain the discs so that they can be kept in the dashboard compartment and then I go through the music fairly religiously disc by disc – though full operas I tend to listen to at home.  Though I do make an exception with car/opera if I am trying to get to know one of the operas in the Liceu season.  The amount that I pay for my seat gives me the incentive to do a little preparatory work for the ones that I do not know so maximize my investment, so to speak!

    Nowadays with the ‘bargain’ CD boxes, the individual discs sometimes have the artwork of the original LPs, so, for someone like myself there is an added pleasure is actually recognizing some of the covers that were well out of financial reach when I was first flicking through the music years ago!

    Much of the music will be familiar to me, some of it very familiar, but when was the last time that I actually heard it?  I am sometimes shocked by my reactions on hearing some insanely popular piece of music and realizing that I haven’t actually heard a performance of it in years.  For me the real pleasure is relaxing (if that is the word) into the detail of remembered orchestration and also sensing some of the associations of time and place of hearings. 

    For example, my first hearing of The Manfred Symphony by Tchaikovsky was in the Swansea Music Festival in the Brangwyn Hall and being almost startled out of my seat by the entry of the organ that for me (in those days when I had the raw material for it) was literally hair raising.  Every consequent performance and recording has been compared with that first experience and found to be lacking!

    Sometimes the experience can be less than ideal.  For example I got to know the Concierto de Aranjuez from a cfp LP where the soloist sounded as though he was actually inside the microphone, one soft pluck of a single string on the guitar was able to drown out the orchestra.  Imagine my disappointment on a student trip to Paris and a live performance where, from the lowly seat (i.e. very high and at the back) that I could afford, I could see the guitarist strumming away but all I could hear was the orchestra!

    I am reminded of an amateur performance of The Country Wife by Wycherley, a text I was teaching to an A Level group in Cardiff, where the performance was so dire that, in spite of knowing the text pretty well, I couldn’t follow what was happening on stage.  Restoration ‘comedy’ is arguably something that amateurs should not attempt, but even so they managed to make my own language unintelligible and strange!  In the same way I have heard professional orchestras mangle music where sometimes it is physically painful to listen.  With the ease of access to the best in the world not only in terms of performance, but also in terms of editing, it is hardly surprising that some local orchestras suffer by comparison!

    But Solti is a safe pair of hands, and I can be persuaded by a different interpretation of some music I know well, if it is sincerely compelling.  Tempi are the clearest point of divergence for listeners, and departures from what individual feel is the ‘norm’ for pieces of their favourite music can be unbearable.  For me there is one Sibelius symphony conducted by Karajan that makes my skin crawl because of its all-encompassing wrongness.  Even then my inability or disinclination to throw things away meant that I merely added a “DO NOT LISTEN!” sticker to the front of the LP and put it back in its place!

    I will have to wait until after lunch to get my hands of what arrived in my house a week ago and, just like the books, I am still amazed at my restraint and ripping off the packaging and getting into them.

    But resist I did, and I am sure that I will enjoy my present more as it comes with added deferred gratification!