Ivan Hewett, an exceptionally fine music critic for The Daily Telegraph, says he had a deep aversion to Chopin's music when he was a young man: "those melting runs and arabesques made me feel physically sick.... Chopin wasn't serious, certainly not compared to the tough modern music I favoured.... If pressed to say why I disliked it so much, I imagine I would have said it was too girlie." He goes on to say how his view changed over time but I think I know how he felt then though I have a liking of Chopin that is the opposite of aversion: I love it all.
How I came to like Chopin was I think the result of seeing the film "A Song to Remember" with Cornell Wilde playing the part of the composer and Merle Oberon as George Sand. It wasn't that I found the film particularly good - indeed, young as I was then, I think I saw through the artifice and sentimentality - no, it was because the music in it was so beautiful. Now it is regarded as one of the worst of Hollywood's biopics. Someone in Time Out magazine wrote: "Hilariously inept even by Hollywood biopic standards.... Amazingly stilted kitsch, packed with unspeakable dialogue." And in Mountain Xpress (whatever that is) someone wrote: "Indefensible as either art or history... it is the absolute definition of kitsch... it's all utterly preposterous but not without its campy charms."
Neither mentions the piano music in it played brilliantly by Jose Iturbi and that was the feature of it that made it such a wonderful experience for me.
I went to Youtube and typed in "A song to remember" and got a couple of scenes from the film. Yes, it is pretty awful stuff but you can close your eyes and listen to Iturbi's superb playing.
I think Jose Iturbi, who appeared as himself in a couple of movies ("Anchors Aweigh" for one) was the second worst actor in Hollywood. The worst? That great tenor, a favourite on Housewives Choice, singing an aria from The Mastersingers: Lauritz Melchior. Both were standing lumps of wood on screen but Iturbi was ash to Melchior's teak.
Tuesday 27 April 2010
Monday 26 April 2010
Alan Sillitoe
I met Alan Sillitoe a long time ago at an adult education college in North Wales. He and two other famous authors were there to give us would-be writers advice and to read us some of their stories (it was a weekend devoted to short story writing). The two others were Ian McEwan and Alan Richards.
I remember a few things from that weekend: I was given the keys to the bar and put in charge of it in the evenings which meant I had to spend a great deal of time serving the others on the course; I had breakfast sitting opposite Iam McEwan one morning and remember him talking about his Polish royalties - he was unable to bring them here to Britain so he went there instead to spend them; when Alan Richards was asked "where are the markets for short stories? he replied "there aren't any"; and having a short conversation with Alan Sillitoe, a charming guy, who said he would not return to his roots ever again.
This surprised me. I had the idea from his early novels like "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" and "The Lonliness of the Long Distance Runner" that he was "pure Northern" and therefore loved the place. He didn't. Not one little bit. In fact I felt that he hated it.
I used to quote someone - don't know who, probably a psychiatrist - to writers on courses where I was a tutor, the following: "If you have a problem, tell it in the form of a story". So, with Sillitoe, I wondered if this is what he had done. He had not one problem but quite a few. There was his drunken, violent father, there was working in the bicycle factory, there was pneumonia which he had for a year and there was "The North" which he depicted with savage, bitter scorn. Maybe he wrote about it all to get it out of his system, like the psychiatrist had said; and once it was out of his sytem, he left and went south to London and the continent and never went back.
The trouble is he never surpassed the work he did when he was there "Oop North".
I have a signed copy of his later novel "The Death of William Posters" which I have not been able to read past the first twenty or so pages.
I remember a few things from that weekend: I was given the keys to the bar and put in charge of it in the evenings which meant I had to spend a great deal of time serving the others on the course; I had breakfast sitting opposite Iam McEwan one morning and remember him talking about his Polish royalties - he was unable to bring them here to Britain so he went there instead to spend them; when Alan Richards was asked "where are the markets for short stories? he replied "there aren't any"; and having a short conversation with Alan Sillitoe, a charming guy, who said he would not return to his roots ever again.
This surprised me. I had the idea from his early novels like "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" and "The Lonliness of the Long Distance Runner" that he was "pure Northern" and therefore loved the place. He didn't. Not one little bit. In fact I felt that he hated it.
I used to quote someone - don't know who, probably a psychiatrist - to writers on courses where I was a tutor, the following: "If you have a problem, tell it in the form of a story". So, with Sillitoe, I wondered if this is what he had done. He had not one problem but quite a few. There was his drunken, violent father, there was working in the bicycle factory, there was pneumonia which he had for a year and there was "The North" which he depicted with savage, bitter scorn. Maybe he wrote about it all to get it out of his system, like the psychiatrist had said; and once it was out of his sytem, he left and went south to London and the continent and never went back.
The trouble is he never surpassed the work he did when he was there "Oop North".
I have a signed copy of his later novel "The Death of William Posters" which I have not been able to read past the first twenty or so pages.
Saturday 24 April 2010
Wine
Roger Scruton, philosopher, fox-hunter, conservative and wine drinker, has written a book called "I Drink Therefore I am". Good title. I have not read the book and, after reading a review of it by Anthony Quinn, I'm not going. For Scruton treats wine seriously, I don't. The reason is pretty obvious: he drinks fine wines, I don't.
Whenever I read the info. on the back of wine bottles that I buy I can never understand what they mean. It may say something about "plum flavour" or "a trace of blackcurrents" and so on; well, I can never taste them. I just taste red wine (don't drink much white). Some of it is good red wine, some of it not so good (I think my leaning towards socialism was finally halted when I downed a bottle of Maltese State wine; OK it was cheap but it wasn't worth the hangover and it tasted awful).
I began drinking wine seriously as a young man in Dijon. I was there for five weeks working at a teachers' training place, a chateaux that had been taken over by the education department. It had to do with a scheme which tried to bring people of Europe together. Some hope. But never mind that - we had wine with every meal - maybe not breakfast. It wasn't bought wine but it was made locally, served in jugs and label-less bottles. We drank gallons of the stuff washing down each course merrily. And there were a lot of courses because when you had a meal there it came in bits: you'd have a plate with meat on it which you ate with bread - and washed down with wine; then you'd have beans which you ate with bread and washed down etc etc; then a plate of chips which.... and so on.
So I suppose I got a taste for cheap wine; and I still have it. Not too cheap of course. Somewhere around a fiver.
I am not therefore an oenophile like Roger Scruton (until I saw what that word meant in the review of his book I thought it had something to do with the intenstines). In fact I don't think I am anything like Scruton. I'm not a drinker of fine wines, I don't go fox-hunting, I'm not a conservative (nor a socialist after my Maltese experience). Nor, as he does, do I eat squirrels or hedgehogs which he says go well with certain wines.
Whenever I read the info. on the back of wine bottles that I buy I can never understand what they mean. It may say something about "plum flavour" or "a trace of blackcurrents" and so on; well, I can never taste them. I just taste red wine (don't drink much white). Some of it is good red wine, some of it not so good (I think my leaning towards socialism was finally halted when I downed a bottle of Maltese State wine; OK it was cheap but it wasn't worth the hangover and it tasted awful).
I began drinking wine seriously as a young man in Dijon. I was there for five weeks working at a teachers' training place, a chateaux that had been taken over by the education department. It had to do with a scheme which tried to bring people of Europe together. Some hope. But never mind that - we had wine with every meal - maybe not breakfast. It wasn't bought wine but it was made locally, served in jugs and label-less bottles. We drank gallons of the stuff washing down each course merrily. And there were a lot of courses because when you had a meal there it came in bits: you'd have a plate with meat on it which you ate with bread - and washed down with wine; then you'd have beans which you ate with bread and washed down etc etc; then a plate of chips which.... and so on.
So I suppose I got a taste for cheap wine; and I still have it. Not too cheap of course. Somewhere around a fiver.
I am not therefore an oenophile like Roger Scruton (until I saw what that word meant in the review of his book I thought it had something to do with the intenstines). In fact I don't think I am anything like Scruton. I'm not a drinker of fine wines, I don't go fox-hunting, I'm not a conservative (nor a socialist after my Maltese experience). Nor, as he does, do I eat squirrels or hedgehogs which he says go well with certain wines.
Friday 23 April 2010
Stieg Larsson
Saw the Swedish film "The Girl with the Golden Tattoo" yesterday; I have to say that it was one of the finest thrillers I have ever seen. It was tightly constructed, with twist after twist in the plot, had a cast all of whom were brilliant and gripped like a vice throughout. The girl who played the lead, Noomi Rapace, was magnificent; so was the main character, Michael Nyqvist, an investigative reporter who is asked to find the killer of a young girl whose body was never found but was one of a high caste rich family one of whom must have abducted or killed her.
The novel was written by Stieg Larsson who was himself an investigative reporter. He wrote the book but did not bother to try to get it published; he wrote two more first. When he did offer them for publication they were readily accepted. Then, suddenly at the age of fifty, he died of a heart attack; so he never enjoyed their success or the vast amount of money they made. He became, in 2008, the second best-selling author in the world.
Other artists have died before enjoying the success of their works. Alain-Fourier died soon after his only completed novel, "Le Grande Meaulnes", was published; he was killed in WW1 at the age of 28.
The young British film director, Michael Reeves, died at the age of 25 soon after he had directed his now famous film "Witchfinder General"; depressed at its reception - now it's a cult classic - he was found in his flat having taken an overdose, possibly by accident.
"Proud Valley" a film with Paul Robeson set in South Wales was directed by an up and coming talent named Penrose Tennyson who died in a plane crash at the age of 29.
What a waste.
The novel was written by Stieg Larsson who was himself an investigative reporter. He wrote the book but did not bother to try to get it published; he wrote two more first. When he did offer them for publication they were readily accepted. Then, suddenly at the age of fifty, he died of a heart attack; so he never enjoyed their success or the vast amount of money they made. He became, in 2008, the second best-selling author in the world.
Other artists have died before enjoying the success of their works. Alain-Fourier died soon after his only completed novel, "Le Grande Meaulnes", was published; he was killed in WW1 at the age of 28.
The young British film director, Michael Reeves, died at the age of 25 soon after he had directed his now famous film "Witchfinder General"; depressed at its reception - now it's a cult classic - he was found in his flat having taken an overdose, possibly by accident.
"Proud Valley" a film with Paul Robeson set in South Wales was directed by an up and coming talent named Penrose Tennyson who died in a plane crash at the age of 29.
What a waste.
Friday 16 April 2010
Critics
Thanks "London Bobby" for your remarks on Max Miller (see comment in Blog below on Miller). I agree with all you say, yet I still have a little soft spot for critics since I was once one myself. I would attend the theatre for a play or musical - or even opera - with the wish that I would enjoy it; but so many times I'd come away disappointed. Sometimes it was the performance, sometimes the play itself. No doubt, as "London Bobby" suggests, there were times when I wrote that the play was rubbish when it was evident that the audience enjoyed it. The thing is that criticism is a personal appreciation. Charles Spencer, in The Telegraph this week, gave a rave review for the new production of "Hair" but said that his wife could not be dragged along to see it because she hated pop music. It would be no good making her a pop music critic and, the trouble is, when you are a theatre critic, there is a lot of stuff out there that is just simply not to your taste.
I have read many reviews of theatre by both Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph and Benedict Nightingale of The Times and often they are at loggerheads: one may give a play five stars while the other gives the same show one or two stars. Criticism is not founded on scientific principles; it's more of a "taste thing". I hardly ever agreed with Bernard Levin but I could'nt resist reading his articles. And this is a thing you can say about reviews: it doesn't matter so much how many stars that have been given but how the critic has analysed the play and, more than anything, how well he has written about it: the review can be looked at as an essay, interesting to read though not sacrosanct.
I think I must be one of about three people in the country who does not find "Noises Off" funny. I know, I know, it's brilliant. It is brilliant in its construction and one cannot but admire it for that. But funny? No. Yet Benedict Nightingale wrote today that when he saw it first he and his wife creased themselves laughing.
You see, it's all a matter of taste. Probably he has good taste and I have bad. Yet I find Max Miller funny which surely means I have good taste!
I have read many reviews of theatre by both Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph and Benedict Nightingale of The Times and often they are at loggerheads: one may give a play five stars while the other gives the same show one or two stars. Criticism is not founded on scientific principles; it's more of a "taste thing". I hardly ever agreed with Bernard Levin but I could'nt resist reading his articles. And this is a thing you can say about reviews: it doesn't matter so much how many stars that have been given but how the critic has analysed the play and, more than anything, how well he has written about it: the review can be looked at as an essay, interesting to read though not sacrosanct.
I think I must be one of about three people in the country who does not find "Noises Off" funny. I know, I know, it's brilliant. It is brilliant in its construction and one cannot but admire it for that. But funny? No. Yet Benedict Nightingale wrote today that when he saw it first he and his wife creased themselves laughing.
You see, it's all a matter of taste. Probably he has good taste and I have bad. Yet I find Max Miller funny which surely means I have good taste!
Saturday 10 April 2010
Choking
Choking or, for actors, drying. Matthew Syad for The Times wrote an article today about this dreadful thing that haoppens to all sorts of people at moments of seeming triumph: Greg Norman in the 1996 Masters set out certain to win the last round and blew it disastrously; David Davies in 2005, certain to become the new leader of the Conservative Party blew it disastrously with a speech that was so inept that, instead of him getting the position, he was humiliatingly pitied. Who may choke when the TV debates go ahead this week? he wonders.
I used to write pantos for the college Christmas party. On one occasion I not only wrote the script but produced it too. Curtain up and I took my place in the audience, front seat. Jack, of Jack and the Beanstalk fame, was there beans in hand when his mother came on to confront him. She stood there, her index finger pointing at him - but no words came out of her mouth. She had completely forgottten her lines, the first lines of the panto. I shot from my seat, picked up a script and whispered to her the necessary words. It did the trick.
I used to run lunch-time debates at the same college. A student opposing the motion - whatever it was - stood up, faced the audience and just didn't speak. Half a minute passed which seemed like an hour then someone in authority said "OK Jean, you can sit down now."
Ian Holm, I have heard, gave up stage acting because of his fear of drying. Olivier gave up for a while because of his fear of giggling. I gave up after my first performance as a soldier in Richard the Third. I had one line. I forgot it. Never been on stage since. Greasepaint? I'll tell you what you can with the greasepaint, you can...... never mind.
I used to write pantos for the college Christmas party. On one occasion I not only wrote the script but produced it too. Curtain up and I took my place in the audience, front seat. Jack, of Jack and the Beanstalk fame, was there beans in hand when his mother came on to confront him. She stood there, her index finger pointing at him - but no words came out of her mouth. She had completely forgottten her lines, the first lines of the panto. I shot from my seat, picked up a script and whispered to her the necessary words. It did the trick.
I used to run lunch-time debates at the same college. A student opposing the motion - whatever it was - stood up, faced the audience and just didn't speak. Half a minute passed which seemed like an hour then someone in authority said "OK Jean, you can sit down now."
Ian Holm, I have heard, gave up stage acting because of his fear of drying. Olivier gave up for a while because of his fear of giggling. I gave up after my first performance as a soldier in Richard the Third. I had one line. I forgot it. Never been on stage since. Greasepaint? I'll tell you what you can with the greasepaint, you can...... never mind.
Wednesday 7 April 2010
Max Miller
There's a letter in last week's Spectator from someone who is chairman of the Sarah Thorne Theatre Club, Broadstairs in which he writes "we have been treated abysmally by the arts mafia because we still believe in putting on what the public wants to see...." Bully for them. I looked up their website and saw that their next show is a one man performance by Dave Sealey called "The Cheekie Chappie". Max Miller no less.
I never saw him in the flesh but heard him many times on radio (from which he was banned for a few years for being too cheeky) and saw him in a film which I think was called "Educated Evans" in which he played a bookie. Can't recall anything of the plot but remember him well. Throughout the film he talked, talked, talked until just at the very end his voice gave out. I think it was based on a story or novel or play by Edgar Wallace.
John Osborne said he liked to go, with friends, to see Miller because "he was the dirtiest of them all". He must have had him in mind when he wrote "The Entertainer" though, played by Laurence Olivier, there was a nastiness to the character that wasn't I believe in Miller's nature who, by many accounts was a quiet and gentle sort of guy off stage.
John Betjeman thought he was "a genius". Agreed.
I never saw him in the flesh but heard him many times on radio (from which he was banned for a few years for being too cheeky) and saw him in a film which I think was called "Educated Evans" in which he played a bookie. Can't recall anything of the plot but remember him well. Throughout the film he talked, talked, talked until just at the very end his voice gave out. I think it was based on a story or novel or play by Edgar Wallace.
John Osborne said he liked to go, with friends, to see Miller because "he was the dirtiest of them all". He must have had him in mind when he wrote "The Entertainer" though, played by Laurence Olivier, there was a nastiness to the character that wasn't I believe in Miller's nature who, by many accounts was a quiet and gentle sort of guy off stage.
John Betjeman thought he was "a genius". Agreed.
Friday 2 April 2010
Art
"Art is an activity by means of which one man, having experienced a feeling, intentionally transmits it to others" says Tolstoy. Which is a pretty good definition I think. Does Tracey Emin's "Unmade Bed" qualify? Well, she certainly experienced a lot of feelings in that bed, so she says, and I suppose she has intentionally transmitted it to others - in a way; except that simply a view of the bed after all her shinanigans has nothing to do with "feelings", not her feelings anyway; the fact is that you, the observer, might experience a different sort of feeling than she did. And Damien Hurst's "Fish"! Can't think what "feelings" he experienced when he mounted the thing but, when you look at it, all you see is a fish in a tank.
A man named Martin Elliott died recently. No, I'd never heard of him either. Well, he took a famous photo. His only famous photo. The one of the girl with tennis gear on, carrying a racket, walking away across a tennis court - you've got it! - yeah, that one, the one where she's slightly lifting the bottom of her dress. Made Elliott barrowfuls of money. As The Times reporter put it, "it swiftly claimed its place on teenage boys' bedroom walls around the world".
But is it art? I don't think Martin Elliott thought it was when he took it of his then 18 year old girl friend, Fiona Butler; he was taking a snapshot to sell. I don't think many other people who have seen the photo would bring the word "art" into a discussion of its merits. Not many. But George Melly did. He and other celebrety critics and art afficionados were asked to write articles on one of their favourite works of art. He chose the photo of Ms Butler. And in a way I suppose you can make out a kind of Tolstoyan case for it: Elliott no doubt was experiencing a feelling about Ms Butler and there's little doubt that he intentionally trasmitted it to others. In Emin's and Hirst's cases you just see the objects; in Elliott's case you see what he feels. It may not be a feeling of great import or depth but you sort of know how he felt when he took that photo.
Which makes a mockery of Tolstoy's definition because the photo isn't a work of art. Don't ask me why, it just ain't. Most photography, by its very nature, ain't.
I close my case - for what it's worth.
A man named Martin Elliott died recently. No, I'd never heard of him either. Well, he took a famous photo. His only famous photo. The one of the girl with tennis gear on, carrying a racket, walking away across a tennis court - you've got it! - yeah, that one, the one where she's slightly lifting the bottom of her dress. Made Elliott barrowfuls of money. As The Times reporter put it, "it swiftly claimed its place on teenage boys' bedroom walls around the world".
But is it art? I don't think Martin Elliott thought it was when he took it of his then 18 year old girl friend, Fiona Butler; he was taking a snapshot to sell. I don't think many other people who have seen the photo would bring the word "art" into a discussion of its merits. Not many. But George Melly did. He and other celebrety critics and art afficionados were asked to write articles on one of their favourite works of art. He chose the photo of Ms Butler. And in a way I suppose you can make out a kind of Tolstoyan case for it: Elliott no doubt was experiencing a feelling about Ms Butler and there's little doubt that he intentionally trasmitted it to others. In Emin's and Hirst's cases you just see the objects; in Elliott's case you see what he feels. It may not be a feeling of great import or depth but you sort of know how he felt when he took that photo.
Which makes a mockery of Tolstoy's definition because the photo isn't a work of art. Don't ask me why, it just ain't. Most photography, by its very nature, ain't.
I close my case - for what it's worth.
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