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.
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.
I 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!
