A very Happy Un-birthday

I completely omitted to post anything in celebration of William Shakespeare’s “birthday”, commonly given as April 23rd (last week).

But as by now a lot of people know this wasn’t his birthday at all, and in fact we don’t actually know when he was born, only when he was baptised – 26th April 1564 and when he died – 23rd April (bingo!) 1616.

Anyway, should you wish to ‘celebrate’ in any way this week and you really don’t want to sit through another Hamlet or Romeo & Juliet then you could do no better than listen to this week’s Words and Music on BBC Radio 3 (click here), with 75 mins worth of “poetry, prose and music inspired by Shakespeare”. But click in haste as the broadcaste will be available but until next Sunday (4th Maye)! (weak attempt at Shakespearean language..)

Which brings me to my little grouch about Words and Music : why oh why can’t we have a download/podcast of each programme after they’ve been broadcast? These programmes are so well put together and of such good quality that it seems a shame they have to disappear after a week.

But as The Bard himself would have said: “Parting (with a one week only netcast) is such sweet sorrow”, or “If (words and ) music be the food of love, play on…”.

Happy Un-birthday Mr. Shakespeare.

edit: having published this post, WordPress spookily informed me it was my 23rd … 

Voulez-Vous a tipple?

I’m back from a lengthy hiatus mostly caused by the mammoth task that is ‘moving house’ and all that it entails, but what better way to signal one’s return than to celebrate yet another anniversary! this time it’s 40 years since pop-group Abba’s victory at the Eurovision Song Contest. It was in fact on th night of 6th April 1974 that the Swedish entry to the contest, a song with the unlikely title of Waterloo, beat all the competition (including Olivia Newton-John, the UK entry) to come top of the seventeen participating countries.

The rest is history of course, although perhaps just as famously ABBA’s success, especially in the UK, was far from instant, making them initially seem the classic Eurovision one-hit wonders.

Fast forward a good five years later though and despite punk rock, new-wave and all that ABBA were top of ‘the pops’ in more ways than one. They had released seven hit albums, several number one singles and had effectively achieved world domination, on an almost Beatles-ian scale. Amongst all the fortieth anniversary celebrations, marketing and internet paraphenalia I was particularly impressed by these exclusive rare Radio Times pics taken of the group backstage at their Voulez-Vous live shows extravaganza at Wembley Arena in 1979. The black and white pictures show the foursome effectively at their professional peak enjoying the fame and a bottle of bubbly in front of the cameras. Skål Abba!

photo: Don Smith / Radio Times archive

 

 

“Good luck needs no explanation”

..unquote: apparently uttered by Shirley Temple, who died yesterday at the age of 85.

I actually felt a little guilty when I heard the news, as I thought she had already died, but I was obviously wrong. Most famous as possibly the first child star of Hollywood, she also entered into politics towards the end of the sixties and even became US ambassador to Ghana in 1974 and subsequently the last ambassador to Czechoslovakia between 1989 and 1992.

By way of coincidence here’s a picture of Temple and her daughter Lori Black taken with The Beatles  in February 1964.

pic: pinterest

JFK, 7th February 1964

The Beatles awaiting their luggage at JFK airport, New York, 50 years ago. It was their first time in the USA. Nothing would ever be the same again.

more info on this day at Beatles Bible

Classical Clemency

Somewhat disillusioned with the state of modern popular music I seem to have drifted back into listening to classical music this year. I’ve always had a love/not-so-love relationship with classical music: it was never part of my childhood household but was always somewhat inculcated at school, where I was lucky to have some good music teachers who of course mostly tried to teach us about classical music, the use of the instruments and so on. Seems hard to believe now that Mr. B. played a different classical piece every single morning at assembly, breaking his routine only when the school orchestra had something to let us hear. Some of that must have got through into my developmental psyche, surely?

I was further exposed to classical music during the school holidays through a posh family where my Mum used to help out with household chores (they didn’t even have a telly), but we ourselves were too humble a family to be able to afford music lessons for me or my sister although to my parents’ credit we did have an old piano in the house.

My adolescence coincided to the post-punk/new wave years of the late-70s and early-80s and so classical music was definitely abandoned by the wayside. Oh follies of youth! Not completely however as I do still have some battered old cassettes of recordings by artists such as Satie and Vivaldi, and I think my love of (electronic) instrumental music are a consequence of a sub-conscious appreciation of the classics.

Clemency Burton-Hill

But back to now, and indeed  and what better way to listen to and at least try and appreciate the genre than in the company of Ms. Clemency Burton-Hill, now presenter of BBC Radio 3’s Breakfast programme starting at 6.30 a.m. GMT.  Clemency is not just a pretty face (see pic.): writer, novellist, broadcaster, violin-player, blonde, intelligent, doe-eyed, and with an amazing posh-yet-friendly accent and soft tone, and of course has a massive knowledge of music – classical and other wise…what’s not to like?I

Clemency Burton-Hill’s breakfast show starts at 6.30 am every weekday on Radio 3.

*edit!! since writing this draft Clemency has read out on air an e-mail I sent to her with a request!  

*new edit: I removed the last bit. I’m a married man.

Addio Abbado

It was with some sadness that I read yesterday the news that Italian orchestra conductor Cluadio Abbado had dies in Bologna at the age of 80. Ironically i was also preparing a blogpost about classical music, my appreciation of which was also thansk to seeing Abbado both in performance and in TV interviews , where he always came across as a very modest and friendly person, not at all the musical ‘snob’ one may associate with a person of such importance and standing.

I remember one story in particular where he told of his s batons, specially handcrafted in Vienna, being stolen prior to a performance in New York sometime in the 1960s. Abbado promptly went out to a music store where all he could find as replacement was a baton made of plexiglass. That baton has stayed with him ever since.

His work with younger players and youth orchestras is also reknowned, always encouraging youngsters even with little experience to play in groups .  He also spoke often of his hate of limits and boundaries especially between countries. A truly international figure who I am sure will be greatly missed.

Well done to Classic FM for getting a special tribute programme together last night, whereas Radio3 failed to defer from the usual Monday night opera spot.

  

Twenty-fourteen

Hello and welcome back. It is with no small amount of shame that I realise how long it’s been since I last posted here on this blog and for that I must apologise.  It’s a brand new year, 2014, and one that I have realised is full of quite a few special anniversaries, not least my own fiftieth birthday which is all too rapidly approaching.

One hundred years since the outbreak of the First World War is probably the one that will get the most coverage.  Its historical importance is of great significance of course: from shaping Europe and its individual countries and indeed leading them, and the world, into war once more just over twenty years later. Reading material on the events of 1914 is abundant, although I am glad to have completed Paul Ham’s excellent and succinct  1913: Eve of the War on Kindle at the end of last year.

WWI diary extract (Nat. Archives / BBC)

On the same subject I also learned from the Today programme this week that The National Archives have made availabl eon-line a series of WWI diaries which give an amazing insight into the war and the men who were involved. You can sign up for free in order to help with the mammoth task of ‘tagging’ the diray pages with names, dates, places and so on. See Operation War Diaries (in collaboration with Zooniverse).

Similarly the BBC are also producing the usual high quality specialist broadcasts regarding World War 1 under the Music and Culture of WW1 umbrella. Check out the podcasts page and in particular Radio 3’s WW1 – Music on the Brink highlights page.  (NB  it doesn’t seem to be appearing on i-tunes!)

 

More 2014 anniversary posts to follow!

Like a Virgin..?

…or would you just prefer the usual, sir? … really bad and possibly sexist joke to come back with after such a long time away, but I just had to get it off my chest. Anyway all this to mark the fact that Virgin Records are celebrating their 40th Anniversary this year with a whole lot of special record re-issues, new compilation albums, an exhibition and the like. Details are all given over on the special “40 years of disruptions” site.

I suppose it’s right in a sense to do all this since Virgin has come to be one of the most well known commercial success stories, and brands, of our age. Starting firstly with a student rag (aptly named ‘Student’) then moving on to slightly illegal grampohone record trading, young upstart Richard Branson (right) went on to form the Virgin record label, which then became a chain of record stores, then an airline company, then a mobile phone company, a chain of gyms, and even a bank. Whatever you think of Branson you’ve got to hand it to him – he had great insight and courage, and perhaps most surprising of all knew very little about music.

Although Virgin Records actually issued four LPs on their launch in May 1973, the most famous is of course Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells which bears the all important V2001 catalogue number. Close on its heels came Gong’s Flying Teapot and  Faust’s Faust IV. The label set out to be a flagship for prog rock, much in vogue at the time, even though Oldfield’s debut was almost a genre in itself and indeed, as some may say, was the start of the ‘new age’ genre which materialised much later. Oldfield’s early life  and work and the making of Tubular Bells (and Virgin Records) was the subject of a recent BBC4 documentary. Catch up with it if you can.

Personally I  associate Virgin Records more with the label’s second phase, ie. the punk and new wave years, when they turned their  back on prog, Oldfield et al in favour of the new upcoming bands such as XTC, The Human League, Magazine, Simple Minds and (as they used to say on the telly adverts) many many more.  Flicking through my own vinyl collection from back then it’s surprising to see how much “Virgin” there was, some of the best music often dressed in some of the best sleeves too.

Catch up with Virgin40 celebrations here, and have a browse around their shop (or  “store” if you will) here.

Expo 58

Well I’m slowly getting back into some kind of routine now the August holidays/mayhem/anarchy is over, although due to stuff that will be going on over the next few months (new house – say no more) perhaps I won’t be able to give as much attention to this blog as I would like.

Any road up, this morning – quite by chance – I discovered that Brummy-born novelist Jonathan Coe is about to publish his new novel Expo 58. Coe is one of those authors whose novels I have consistently enjoyed and indeed devoured one by one over the years. What  A Carve Up, The Rotters’ Club (also made into a decent TV drama series) and The House of Sleep to name but a few. I must get round to re-reading those some time or other although right now of course I’m looking foward to Expo 58, described by the man himself as

…… a rather elegaic story, shot through with the sense of regret that seems inevitable when we look back on the hopes and dreams of an earlier era ­ whether these dreams involve the peaceful co-existence of nations, or the possibility of love between individuals. ”

The story is in fact set in 1958, in and around the Brussels Expo of that year, a time when Europe was at last  shaking off the post-war depression and really looking forward to a modern era. A new optimism and The Swinging Sixties were just around the corner. I often wish I’d been a young adult in those years – it must have been very exciting.

Doing a bit of web-researching into (read: googling) “Expo 58”, I see that it was in fact the reason why the Atomium monument / sculpture was erected, and what a wondrous sight it is too.

There are also lots of fabulous retro-graphics from the era , like this advert for the Soviet Union’s pavilion. They were obviously reaching out for a whole brand new world as can be seen in this:

and this:

I can’t wait to find out if the Soviet Pavilion is featured in Jonathan Coe’s novel! 

Expo 58 is out in paperback on Viking, 5th September (I think) and in Kindle format. 

More of the Soviet Pavilion propaganda here .

Enjoy the silence