Dave Shortland, (the lead singer for the bands Damn The Icebergs and One Man Down) and I have been trading and talking about tunes for DECADES now. Recently Dave sent me a batch of 15 deep cuts of a Classical Music Nature (whatever that actually means). I thought this would be a great place to start with, as I jump (slowly) back into this writing about music ‘’thang’’.

This new blog is not meant to be, in any shape or form, a conventional review or even discussion, but rather, a somewhat left field flow of consciousness, full of true love for what music does to me and my battered soul. So here are some thoughts on some tunes. (Here also be fragments… deal with it)

ONE)

Satie:  Gymnopédie #1 – Lent et Douloureux

The esteemed Mr Shortland writes: Amongst all the other stuff I had been listening to at the time, his music hit me like a bolt out of the blue when I first heard it. I still think this sounds like it could have been composed in the last 50 years or so.

Pardon my unseemly flow of consciousness. I was reminded of Danny Kaye singing Inch Worm, which we learnt to sing in junior school.

Same brand of serenity.

I have heard this, I have NOT actually heard this, but I HAVE heard works created by artists who HAVE heard this.

So Modern.

This is Airports (at any time) and empty train stations at 3 am.

This is like an idea I have for some arty photographs where the central figure is in sharp focus, and very still and the crowd/s around them are in deep motion blur.

This is me walking home from my room of unsubtle torture in the hospital, 5 am, (I am seeing a pattern here) Through the vast halls and passages, no one about except for cleaners, guards and nurses coming in for the morning shift.

The calm before the calm before the calm before the storm

Mysterious guest creator Sian Z writes this short poetic take on the piece, which I find quite lovely.

Out my window

Early, tea stained morning

Old person slow stepping down a big city street

New light, narrowing to their steady, uneven tread.

Lingering now at new and familiar

Flower pot, lamppost, newspaper-stand

And on

Now less now last now gone from sight

TWO)

Schubert: Symphony 8 in Bm  Unfinished  (D 759) – 1 Allegro Moderato

How has this not been used as the theme music for a dark murder mystery TV show? It’s got it all, a sense of foreboding, which then slips into something epically and romantically doomed.

I went back and read that lovely description/review, which I, for this, respectfully and slightly disagree with. I don’t hear the sunshine, but rather old sepia videos of time spent in the sunshine. See ‘notes’ below.

This then is looking back, nostalgia and regret from the point of view of a lover, who has lost their partner under dark circumstances.  This could potentially weigh the whole narrative down in a cloak of morbidity, but the strength here is that it does not. Rather though, it reveals a journey in which acceptance may be the destination.

But isn’t that the beauty of any good damn piece of art. It makes each one of us feel what WE feel; there is no right or wrong reaction. Sometimes the creator delivers their intent boldly in black and white, as to try protect their work from being anything other than what the creator felt. This hardly ever works and it is my humble opinion that; if it DOES work, the piece is less for that.

Also it must be noted that usually these takes are on pieces that are sections of a much larger work. Like you are channel flipping and come upon the middle of some movie you have never seen and watch for a few minutes. I love the idea of that . Even without what went on before, or what comes after, we can still take such profound insights and beauty and wonder, from just what is unfolding right now before us.

Notes: Mr Shortland quotes this lovely critique/ Review from the 19^th century by Eduard Hanslick : ”When, after a few introductory bars, clarinet and oboe sound (una voce) a sweet melody on top of the quiet murmuring of the strings, any child knows the composer and a half-suppressed exclamation “Schubert” runs hummingly through the hall. He has hardly entered, but it is as if you knew his steps, his very way of opening the door… The whole movement is a sweet stream of melodies, in spite of its vigour and geniality so crystal-clear that you can see every pebble on the bottom. And everywhere the same warmth, the same golden sunshine that makes buds grow! The Andante unfolds itself broadly and [even] more majestically [than the opening Allegro]. Sounds of lament or anger rarely enter this song full of intimate, quiet happiness, clouds of a musical thunderstorm reflecting musical effect rather than dangerous passion… The sonorous beauty of both movements is enchanting. With a few horn passages, an occasional brief clarinet or oboe solo on the simplest, most natural basis of orchestration, Schubert achieves sound effects which no refinement of Wagner’s instrumentation ever attains.”

Three)

Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending

Aaah Vaughan Williams. If my granny from the Brit side of my family, had been more genteel, taken to long afternoons in the ‘library’ safe from the sun and the noise outside, this is what I always imagined  would be the sort of music listened to.

When I think of Williams I ALWAYS picture 10 inch heavy vinyl, birds on the cover, perhaps a bit of the ocean.

It is very English, but then again it just isn’t.

The opening section sounds totally eastern to my uniformed ears. So is this restraint in two different forms?

Should I need to soundtrack a dream where I am flying over fields and streams and polite (in a good way) forests, and then I would not hesitate to choose this.

Ok third track in and so far I sense a theme emerging. All three seem to be good for the soul, healing. I like that a lot and it’s a welcome respite from the stuff I listen to normally or perhaps even send you, where the tunes beat you up just a little before offering you a possible redemption. There is a need for both of course but right now, right here, perhaps I need this just a little more.

Notes: Mr Shortland writes: Oooh. England, a year or so after the War To End All Wars finished up. An antidote. Simply the most beautiful piece of music I’ve ever heard.

The composer’s second wife, Ursula, herself a poet, wrote that in ‘The Lark Ascending’, Vaughan Williams had “taken a literary idea on which to build his musical thought … and had made the violin become both the bird‘s song and its flight, being, rather than illustrating the poem from which the title was taken”.

A few years ago, I saw the full documentary that this clip is taken from THE LARK ASCENDING (performed as originally heard) – YouTube A small, life-changing moment. The violinist was 15, I think.