Gertsamtkunstwerk

Muggy midgy mossy misery

Unusually I awoke last night. We opened the window. Then I couldn't decide whether to lie under or on top of the duvet. And do I change to the 'summer' one tomorrow?

Tossing and turning, turning and tossing, I felt some suspicious itchyscratchiness. Feels like mosquitos, I thought, and dismissed the idea. We don't get mosquitos in Brixton. A thought ran through my mind that it might be some bed bug or something.

I forgot about it until I was on the phone with my brother this afternoon. One of the subjects was the weather. We were agreeing that it was weirdly muggy.

Then he mentioned that there were far too many Mosquitos in Ilkley. Or midges, maybe. Yazooks! I exclaimed. I'm so glad you said that. I think I was bitten last night.

I just stood up and my instinct was to scratch my back. I think I have midgesquito bites all down my spine.

Musical jokes

Available here

A girl went out on a date with a trumpet player, and when she came back her roommate asked, "Well, how was it? Did his embouchure make him a great kisser?"

"Nah," the first girl replied. "That dry, tight, tiny little pucker; it was no fun at all."

The next night she went out with a tuba player, and when she came back her roommate asked, "Well, how was his kissing?"

"Ugh!" the first girl exclaimed. "Those huge, rubbery, blubbery, slobbering slabs of meat; oh, it was just gross!"

The next night she went out with a French horn player, and when she came back her roommate asked, "Well, how was his kissing?"

"Well," the first girl replied, "his kissing was just so-so; but I loved the way he held me!"

What do you see if you look up a soprano's skirt?
A tenor.

What happens if you play blues music backwards?
Your wife returns to you, your dog comes back to life, and you get out of prison.

But my favourite:

From: EFFICIENCY & TICKET, LTD., Management Consultants
To: Chairman, The London Symphony Orchestra
Re: Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor.

After attending a rehearsal of this work we make the following observations and recommendations:

1. We note that the twelve first violins were playing identical notes, as were the second violins. Three violins in each section, suitably amplified, would seem to us to be adequate.
2. Much unnecessary labour is involved in the number of demisemiquavers in this work; we suggest that many of these could be rounded up to the nearest semiquaver thus saving practice time for the individual player and rehearsal time for the entire ensemble. The simplification would also permit more use of trainee and less-skilled players with only marginal loss of precision.
3. We could find no productivity value in string passages being repeated by the horns; all tutti repeats could also be eliminated without any reduction of efficiency.
4. In so labour-intensive an undertaking as a symphony, we regard the long oboe tacet passages to be extremely wasteful. What notes this instrument is called upon to play could, subject to a satisfactory demarcation conference with the Musician's Union, be shared out equitably amongst the other instruments.

Conclusion: if the above recommendations are implemented the piece under condsideration could be played through in less than half an hour with concomitant savings in overtime, lighting and heating, wear and tear on the instruments and hall rental fees. Also, had the composer been aware of modern cost-effective procedures he might well have finished this work.

And two links to the sayings of Thomas Beecham

Florence Foster Jenkins

I have finally broken the Rule of my "Blog All the Records By Forty". I think I can honestly say that even if I get to 80, or 120, I will never, ever play this record again except with the express intent of irritating people.

It's dire. Everyone knows it's dire. Well, everyone except Florence Foster Jenkins

At the age of 76, Jenkins finally yielded to public demand and performed at Carnegie Hall on October 25, 1944. So anticipated was the performance that tickets for the event sold out weeks in advance. Jenkins died a month later.

Click on the first link, and you'll be able to hear CD audio samples. Never be so thankful for a webpage that doesn't start the music immediately on opening, but requires you to click another link...

Parenting skills

Heads back parent lessons for all

I'm not sure about this. I think it's insulting to very many people to be told that they have to learn what should be second nature to any half-intelligent person.

And those that need it the most are likely to be the ones that object the loudest.

We were in a restaurant last night and there was a group of about eight adults and two children. One of the children, aged about six kept making a noise. It was an extremely high pitched tone with pronounced wobble, loud and sustained, intermittently for an hour or so. This set my teeth and nerves on edge, and I ordered red wine when I had meant to order white. The waitresses were visibly wincing. The other one, about eight, intermittently beat his fork against his glass arrhythmically. They were ignored by their adults. The other adults in the restaurant kept looking at them in irritation.

Mother told the restautant at least four times that she was going to half nine 'Marss' tomorrow (this morning).

When the boys were running round she drawled languidly, in an unpleasant artificially high and elocuted voice "Henry, you're being too noisy. Henry you're being too noisy." Henry and the other one totally ignored her. She had no authority in her voice. When they ignored her, she carried on ignoring them. They carried on running around.

Eventually, Mother announced "It's time to leave." As one, the restaurant the rose and applauded wildly.

Jimmy, who had his back to them, exclaimed in horror "They're not Toddlers...?"

Simon and Garfunkel

Homeward Bound is said to have been written on Wigan station. Have you ever been to Wigan station? Which Wigan station I hear you cry?

Wigan has the strangest station arrangement of any town I have ever visited - well, except from Mansfield, which doesn't have a station at all!. There are two Wigan stations, Noth Western and Wallgate. North Western serves the Inter Citys and Cross-Countries, Wallgate the locals. They are highly visible from each other. Indeed, they are just down the stairs, negotiate the drop-off layby, cross the road and Bob's your uncle. Wigan North Western is a high level station exposed entirely to all the winds that rush from the Irish Sea to the Pennines and back again. Wallbank has no station indicator. The trains display only the final destination, and run entirely randomly, not to a timetable. So it is not uncommon to see a queue forming on the platform of people asking the driver "Is this train going to X?"

America mentions the New Jersey Turnpike. Actually, I think lyrically it's a great song, the way they describe the other people on the bus and make up stories about them. I have been on the New Jersey turnpike twice. The first time was on a coach tour setting out from Bayonne, NJ to Niagara Falls (NY and Canada), Washington DC, and Philadelphia PA, so very evocative as we had gone to look for America.

The second time was in a limo from Staten Island to Newark airport to catch a plane to Buffalo-Niagara (we then caught another plane to Boston, and a train to Washington DC, and a plane to New Orleans via Atlanta GA and another plane back to La Guardia to spen a final day in NY before catching a plane from JFK to Heathrow or Geneva via Frankfurt - so we'd all gone to look for America)

Keep the Cutomer Satisfied is a fairly mediocre song, but the rass arrangement in it is something special. It has a sound that is somewhere between big-band and jazz, sweet music to the ears...

Of course, the toppest track is Bridge Over Troubled Water. When I really really like a piece a music that is really really popular, I feel slightly embarrassed. It sort of goes again the grain, knowing that, often, universal popularity is the product of the unthinking minds of tasteless people. So, with songs like this I keep listening sceptically and critically. But in the end, there is no escaping the fact that the tune is brilliant, and the way it works up to a crescendo at the gae is just fab.

Renée Fleming

I seem to have gone into a slight hiatus in my 'Blog All the Records By Forty'. But as I'm not 37¼ until Friday, I still have plenty of time.

I bought this CD soon after seeing her live at the Royal Festival Hall last year. Of course, if I had been smart, I would have bought the CD there and then and joined a very long queue and got her to sign it. But I didn't. However, I shall be seeing her as Desdemona next month, and in recital in November.

Since that concert and buying the CD, I have read manay of her detractors describe her style of singing as swooping, much to the consternation of very many "Fleming Flappers", who argue it's portamento But once something's been drawn to your attention, you can't help notice it.

It's more noticeable in some arias than others eg Rachmaninov's Vocalise. But it doesn't especially bother me, and certainly not to the point of marring the album. There are some truly gorgeous arias on this, such as É strano...Ah, fors'è lui...Sempre libera from Traviata, which are evry difficult to ruin, and Renée certainly doesn't. I also adore Je marche sur tous les chemins...Onéissons quand leur voix appelle from Massenet's Manon, even though I translate it as 'I march on the railway, obeying as your voice calls' (I have a similar problem in Nium Me Tena in Otello which is mindblowing music but I have an irritating habit of thinking that he's singing "I've come to the end of the railway line").

I just love the way she sings Come scoglio. And of course, the Song to the Moon from Dvorak's Rusalka, which is sort of her signature aria.

Overall a really pleasant album, especially for a warm Sunday afternoon that's pretending to be summer.