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Message 1 - Music in wartime
Harold -
we must not forget the contribution of Dame Moira Lymphany,(?) and later - Eileen Joyce as well as Sandy MacPherson who seemed to be on the air at all times between news bulletins ! My first purchase of a gramaphone record, was on walking home from nightshift in a Birmingham war factory, was that of Bach's "Air on G String" which stopped me cold on the pavement. When it finished I went into the shop and bought the record - the shopkeeper was a bit stunned !
It was much later - 1944 in Italy that I came to appreciate the wonderful Operatic ambience of Naples, and the nearness of the San Carlo Opera House.
Further on in the war to hear the fantastic voices of Gigli at a concert for our Brigade near Caserta, Renata Tebaldi in Rome and Dame Elisabeth Schwartzkopf
in the bombed out basement of the Vienna Statopernhaus !
These memories stay for life !
听
Message 2 - Music in wartime
Posted on: 06 January 2005 by Harold Pollins
Tom
Many thanks for this. Your reminiscences bring back more thoughts. I think I saw Moura Lymphany (not sure of spelling) at the Albert Hall - I have a feeling that she died recently. If I've got the right person I was in love with her. I should perhaps have mentioned the possible influence of the film Fantasia in stimulating an interest in music. I recall there was a school visit to a West End cinema to see it.
Another memory is of doing my school homework on Sunday afternoons while listening to the radio. I can remember two particular sessions. One was listening to Beethoven's Seventh which became my favourite (although equal perhaps to the Fifth with its familiar opening). And on another afternoon - nothing to do with music - listening to Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion.
Harold
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Message 3 - Music in wartime
Harold -
you just hit the right chord with me as I do not believe there has been a piece of music to equal that of Beethoven's seventh !
The sixth I can still whistle but the seventh ... I just listen.
I have a video of Georg Solti giving a tutorial on the seventh with the Chicago Symphony and it is very interesting to study the face of the Oboist when Solti announces that they will change the tempo back to the real one which Beethoven wrote... talk about resistence to change...however it all came out in the performance two nights later !
I have Furtwangler conducting the
Vienna Philly and it is almost worn out by now... I threw out Von Karajan's version as being too unsympathetic... much to Frank Mee's disgust as he never throws out any music ! Furtwangler's introduction to the Ninth is also away ahead of anything I have ever heard - as he states - this is the way the Master wrote it ! Who can argue with Furtwangler ! Especially when he has Schwarztkopf singing Soprano !
Moura Lymphany was a neighbour of a workmate in Birmingham just around the 1947 mark - I too thought she was the greatest - her Tschaikowski was something to behold !
great days Harold - Did you ever hear Thalben-Ball play the Toccata and Fuque - he was exhausted when he finished... couldn't blame him !
cheers tomcan
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Message 4 - Music in wartime
Posted on: 07 January 2005 by Harold Pollins
Tom
You have a much more discrminating taste than I do. I can appreciate a piece which is well played but more subtle nuances are beyond me. A bit strange as I used to play the violin and actually took music as an exam subject in General School Certificate at 16. However, my reason for choosing music in that exam was a little bizarre. Atthe age of 14 we had to choose between three subjects: art, woodwork or music. I was no good at woodwork even though my father and grandfather had been cabinet-makers. And what clinched it was the fact that the art master, handing back to me the last homework I did for him, said: I asked you to draw me a daffodil. Why have you drawn a bunch of bananas? But the music we did for the exam was largely mechanical exercises in harmny, not much aesthetic appreciation.
Harold
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Message 5 - Music in wartime
Harold -
I know exactly what you are saying
I discounted music playing but developed a perception for music which my teacher recognised so therefore didn't push me into playing - this has been a wonderful trait which has been developed over many years, sadly my hearing is down to less than 50 % in one ear only and so I am restricted to listening when no one is around !
Therefore I chose woodwork and as I had to leave in 1939 I got a job as a woodworker with potential for cabinet making apprenticeship - we finished up making blackout screens and so the owner retired - then it was war work prior to Army service !
what might have been !
regards
tomcan
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Message 6 - Music in wartime
Now listen here you two, bashing my name around and having a good old gossip.
Point one any music is a boon no matter who conducts, as we all hear it and interpret a piece differently we do not need to be note perfect as per the composer.
Some composers do leave their music open to a different interpretation as that keeps the piece forever young and not tied onto rail lines always pointing in the same direction. Why not? when I play I will take the same music and play as I feel, sad happy or even jazzed up.
Point two Tom, invest in a set of good earphones with adjustment for volume on each ear plus a ballance lever to set the music as you wish to hear it, try it it works. I too have Tanky ears.
Point three Harold I dont know how you got away with not wearing your cap, I got six of the best for taking my cap off on the bus going home along with another six for eating an apple on the bus.
As a prefect keeping the kids quiet in the corridors as they changed class Sandy Dobing an ex WW1 Soldier told me I would make a good S/Major, was he omnipotent I wonder. The same chap who was Art Master told me that in art I would earn a living white washing toilet walls so we had something in common there Harold.
The youngsters today have no idea what music and films meant to us during the war as they have so many mediums they can use, I think they miss much.
I was once dragged kicking and screaming to Ballet and spent the whole show totally mesmorised by the beautiful dancing and the music. I did not make a habit of it though.
Regards Frank.
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Message 7 - Music in wartime
Frank -
Pity you didn't take up the ballet - as it would have been a joy to behold you cavorting around the square doing a pas de deux with the ATS SSM...oh the wonder of it all !
I saw the "Nutcracker" in the Festival Hall London a couple of years ago and it was when watching the leading man dancing that the thought struck me that this was why the ballet was so named !
you are right about Harold and I having a good natter about music and school - have'nt heard from him for a while and hope he is O.K.
As a friend just e-mailed me this a.m. - when he is out for a stroll he no longer meets "old folk".... they all appear to be his age !
That's what good music does Frank.. keeps you young...good idea on the earphones..must look into that next time in the big city ! Veronica has gone off to Calgary for a couple of weeks to comfort an old friend who appears to have given up her 10 year
battle with the big C...so I can play Beethoven as loud as I wish !Bella doesn't seem to mind !
Cheers
tomcan
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Message 8 - Music in wartime
Tom,
I did take up ballet? As the ballet master, making the hoi-polloi dance around the barrack square in many changing formations to the music of my wonderful singing voice. The orders left my throat like the fluting of Angels as I guided the Corp's de Ballet of troopers around in ever diminishing circles until they disapeared into the "Errr" Wings.
I must admit that in the nutcracker it would have been a disadvatage as I danced the coco-nut style as against the normal Walnuts, you would understand that as all S/NCO's had the larger physique.
I bought Joan a DVD of the ballet it is excerpts from various famous ballet's and with the top dancers, I must admit I watch it and not only to see those long graceful legs. I do cringe at the thought of those tights on the men though.
I got myself some of those earphones so I could play the piano (Electric Yamaha) when Joan went to bed early. They are wonderful so I always listen to my music discs with them now. I can adjust so the bad ear hears almost as well as it should. Mind saying that I can still hear a five pound note fall on the floor from 100 yards.
True about not meeting old folk. I was talking to the local police on patrol around here and wondered when they started to let twelve year olds in the force, they all look so young.
I pick up the local Gazette with trepidation now as each night some one else I knew well has gone back to base, it must be getting fairly crowded back there.
Walking in the rain this morning with the snow still on my boots I counted my blessings? I am still breathing.
Regards Frank.
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Message 9 - Music in wartime
Frank -
we can and should give daily thanks for still being here no matter how deteriorated the hips become it is still a joy to take the dog for her outings although I can hardly keep up with her. She runs ahead then stops until I throw her ball then she does big circles, bringing the ball back for me to throw again, she then takes off and sniffs everything, but stopping now and then to check on me.
It is still far ahead of the alternative !
Cheers
tomcan
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Message 10 - Music in wartime
Posted on: 25 February 2005 by Harold Pollins
Dear Tom and Frank
I don't know. All this talk about being old, and deaf, and people dying.
It makes me feel old. I manage to walk a mile or so most days, although rather slowly and when I go shopping I push a shopping trolley in front of me to act as a whatchemacallit (can't think of the word. You know what I mean, the apparatus people use to help them walk). Although I suppose that being unable to think of common words is a sign of something or other.
Glad to hear, Frank, that your journey to Birmingham ended safely. I don't drive any more, in fact haven't driven since 1982, and use buses and sometimes taxis. The buses are quite cheap in Oxford, 30p a journey or with a concessionary ticket 12 journeys for 拢2.40.
Now I'm wandering, so I'll desist.
Best wishes
Harold
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Message 11 - Music in wartime
Harold -
so pleased to learn that you are still getting around and that you are well...keep it up....as a friend of mine says ... when out for a stroll..he never meets any old folk....just people of his age !
best regards
tomcan
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Message 12 - Music in wartime
Posted on: 25 February 2005 by Harold Pollins
For the last six hours, on and off, I have been trying to think of the word I could not remember in my last message, that is, the apparatus to help one walk. I was thinking of words beginning with 'g' or 'd'. for some reason. Then after six hours it came in a flash: ZIMMERFRAME. I suppose taking a quarter of a day to think of a word is not too bad.
Harold
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Message 13 - Music in wartime
Hello Harold,
I have been off the computer all weekend so did not see your letter until this morning.
That will be altered tomorrow, i get my new laptop and that will free me up to write when and where I wish. It is wireless and needs no connections apart from a charger though it will probably end up with a free standing keyboard as the last one I used was a bit fiddly even for a pianist.
Zimmer frames come in several engine sizes, Tom has an old Bedford flat twelve in his he stole from a Churchill. I have a Rolls Royce Eagle in mine after throwing out the Leyland Multi fuel job, Leyland must have laughed all the way to the bank with that thing and we could do nothing to it without pulling the whole power pack out of the tank. That was usually up to your up to your eye's in mud on the North German Plain.
We all race each other around here and have a scramble course set up, you have to fit four leg drive to the frame though or get stuck. I tie my little dog on the front and shout mush, that does not work but an M&S chicken leg gets him going, he is either in gear or not and I end up on my back in thick mud, what is it with me and mud I do not need it for facials as my looks are perfect even at 76.
Well enough of this rubbish, glad to hear you do at least get about. I count my blessings being still able to drive my car and walk for miles.
There is extra spring in my step today as the sun shone the snow had gone and there is a sense of spring in the air. You cannot keep us old bats tied down for long. I raised a few laughs at computer school today and got my knuckles rapped, "We are supposed to be working not having happy hour" "Ohhhh listen to errr" they all went out smiling and that is the main thing for me.
Keep strolling along even if it is only one mile a day. Regards Frank.
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Message 14 - Music in wartime
Frank / Harold -
isn't it astonishing the way people take things so seriously to-day..thankfully we have a bit more to laugh at than many others but still a smile goes a long way - with or without a zimmer !
At our local Post Office there is a lady who is a bit of awag and always has a fast retort. Usually I get a bunch of bills on fridays..as she says just to b..... up my week ends.
Today Monday, I got a few bills so I went in and asked her " what happened to the Friday Bills ?"
Quick as a flash she says " I've been away " ! Mind you she served in germany with her husband and is used to abit of banter !
Bit different to the usual Post Office shirkers you have !Good luck with your lap top - I guess your lap is big enough to hold It ?
The best engine was the flat 12 Meadows- it just never quit !
cheers
tomcan
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Message 15 - Music in wartime
Tom
My reply to this disapeared into the blue around two this afternoon under a page unattainable notice. why do we bother if the Beeb with all its money cannot keep a constant configuration. I will return on my new laptop at a later date.
Regards Frank.
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Message 16 - Music in wartime
Tom
You may remember we had a brief exchange of messages about classical music. You mentioned Moura Lympany. Today in The Guardian newspaper there is an obituary of her. She died on 28 Match. She was actually Mary Gertrude Johnstone. I always thought she was Russian but apparently she was always called Moura because her mother loved Russia, having taught there. Her surname was that of her mother's family which came from Devon and Cornwall and could trace their ancestors back to Edward I.
The obituary has this to say:
'Lympany became a major artist in the early years of the second world war. She was identified as a Russian specialist and she herself said that the concertos by Rachmaninov and Khachaturian really established her reputation.'
She was aged 88 when she died and apparently unmarried - there is no mention of a husband or partner (of any sex).
Harold
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Message 17 - Music in wartime
Harold -
That is extremely disturbing news of Moura Lymphany - I know that we all have to go, but there goes greatness - the joy she gave so many during the war with her playing - anything - brought great comfort in very difficult times, she will rank alongside the great Myra Hess.... and Sandy MacPherson.... as bringing some relief in those days.
It is somewhat trite to say that we shall not see her likes again...but it appears true as the generations to-day seem to place no value in being great - as long as they make the millions it doesn't matter what rubbish they come up with.I am thinking generally of Kennedy - Church - Jenkins even my newest opera star - the Danish Sissal, has turned her back on Opera to go for the pop stuff !
It has been said that we don't know as much about plumbing as the Romans of old... we now appear to have forgotten what greatness was, in most things, Great Britain is now England or the U.K.
Thank you for letting me know Harold !
best regards
tomcan
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Message 18 - Music in wartime
Tom
The trouble with being great is that it involves responsibilities and also inevitably brickbats. But talking of greatness, in another sense, I went into the centre of Oxford today (as it happens, April 1, but that's not relevant) to meet my elder daughter and granddaughter for lunch. After that my ten-year old granddaughter took me to the pictures - I haven't been for years. We saw an animated thing called 'Valiant'. It turned out to be quite good. It was about pigeons in WWII and centred on May 1944 with some pigeons (all speaking of course) and their adventures in obtaining a message from the French Resistance and returning with it. The last scene is of various red tabs receiving the message and one of them, having read it, saying: 'Change of plan. We invade Normandy'.
But the grteatness bit is that afterwards I went into a shop called The Works which sells remaindered book cheaply. I noticed a table of CDs, mostly pop but with some classical stuff intermingled. I saw that Beethoven was included and searched for his 7th Symphony but it was not there so I contented myself with no. 6 The Pastoral, but also including Leonore Overture no 3 and something I didn't know of, Romance for Violin and Orchestra no 2 in F Major. SInce the notice said two CDs for 拢5 I also bought a CD of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos nos 1-3, also including Toccata & Fugue in D Minor as well as Organ Concerto in D Minor, after Vivaldi.
That was the greatness I referred to at tha beginning.
Harold
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Message 19 - Music in wartime
Harold -
with those additions to your music library - I don't see you venturing too often into the hub of knowledge which is Oxford.That is quite a collection and I am reminded of the first time I ventured into the Vienna Woods and attempting to retrace the footsteps of Ludvig Van...whilest whistling most of the 6th Pastoral, you know ...it really took me back to his days of the 1700's when he was composing this 2nd best ( in my view)
symphony... I still can't whistle the 7th , apart from a few bars of the poco sensonuto.
The Brandenburgs will keep you awake as will the Toccata and Fugue, Vivaldi also wrote some great stuff but then again - his four seasons have been done to death to the detriment of all the great baroque music.
I have a video of Isaac Stern and Jean Rampone, in a concert tribute to
the retiring conductor of Washingtons National Orchestra - the great Russian cellist and rebel -Slava Rostopovich - and Stern made reference to the fact that he "always went for broke"... so they would play some broke(Baroque) music,
it was fantastic, the Vivaldi suite for violin and flute !
Those were also great things !
stay well Harold and enjoy your Beethoven, Bach and Vivaldi !
best regards
tomcan
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Message 20 - Music in wartime
Gentlemen,
After listening to the wail of the pipes and disco music as my three year old grandson danced his feet off, (going to take after me there)I was glad to put my Vivaldi disc on for a while done to death or not. Music is in the place and time of hearing it played. I was in the right place to hear Clara Butt and Blow the Wind Southerly, the Northerly we were getting had ice in it.
The Vienna Woods are magic to me what ever music I play, my memories of Austria are all good and I hope I may make another visit some day. I had to listen to a Country and Western Pianist on the disc player as we came back and found myself whistling along so music must be relevent Satisfaction=Time x place squared or something like that.
After my miles of walking the lovely Northumbrian Coast and breathing the fresh sea air I was fit enough to take on the jungle I call a lawn, it now looks more presentable much to my neighbours delight we cannot blot the area with a blade of glass out of line, it is worse than the army.
Regards Frank.
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Message 21 - Music in wartime
Frank / Harold -
I was wondering when you would be getting back from the promised land - or is it still promising ? I went through there last september and was downcast to learn that the train's kitchen had blown a fuse - so no lunch !
Clara Butt singing "Blow the wind Southerly"? - you havn't lived old chap until you listen to the late Kathleen Ferrier sing that, and a few more of the old folk songs - like "It wasn't the Tanks that won the war - t'was my boy Willie" or something to that effect !
I can go along with your Vivaldi's Four seasons but ... you should hear the Violin and Flute - that will get your feet tapping all the way home.
I have just had my first look at my 20' x 20' allotment...arrrrgh...there is a lot of really back breaking work to get that in shape for planting by the 18th April...meanwhile the Rhubarb is on the menu for dessert sta sierra, so I am now scouring the village for a volunteer with a roto-tiller to do the initial necessary...probably cost me an arm and a leg !
Glad to have you back in one piece Frank...it's been very quiet, with nothing to get excited about anywhere !
best regards to you both
tomcan
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Message 22 - Music in wartime
Tom/Frank
My knowledge of Northumberland came from a short stint when I was employed by the National Coal Board and it was my job to do research at collieries - that was when there was a coal industry. I visited a colliery in that county and it was only a fleeting vsit so that all I saw was a normal colliery, all coal dust and machinery.
Tom is quite right about Kathleen Ferrier. A wonderful voice and such a pity she died young.
I have now played the two CDs I bought the other day. I recognised the Romance for Vioin and Orchestra by Beethoven, I just didn't know its title. And Bach's Toccata and Fugue reminded me of a school visit to a cinema in the West End of London in about November 1941 to see 'Fantasia'. I'm sure that picture was a reason for sparking off an interest in classical music even though (or perhaps because) it was done in a jocular manner.
Yesterday my married daughter took me by car, along with my other daughter and granddaughter, to London to visit a niece who put on a wonderful lunch, mainly for her aunt, my sister-in-law and her daughter, who were visiting from Israel. They were in London for the formal ceremony for the gravestone-setting of a brother who died last year. (The brother was a bit of a comedian. Many years ago he told the story of a friend who had a budgerigar of which he was very fond. So find, in fact, that he lavished all sorts of toys on it - mirrors, bells, ladders etc. Ss much so that the bird had hardly any room to move. When I was first engaged to be married I was invited to lunch at my future wife's house. A bit of a stony silence and to break the ice I told them this story but near the end I noticed that my future mother-in-law had a budgerigar and the cage was full of toys. Collapse of stout party.)
Anyway the gathering yesterday was
quite a crowd - my sister, her husband and son, a cousin and his wife and the cousin's son and partner who had driven them, and my niece's husband and his mother. All very enjoyable. The niece's husband has an interesting pedigree. His father came from Guyana and was married to an Englishwoman. Of Indian (or possibly Pakistani) origin and Muslim, but not a strict one. He was a big drinker. His son converted to Judaism in order to marry my niece.
We spent several hours at the table talking, reminiscing and looking at old family photos which first my parents had collected and then had passed to a sister whose daughter, my niece, had inherited them. On a previous visit I had collected a photo I had not seen before. It showed ny paternal grandparents accompanied by two daughters and a baby. The baby was my father who was born in 1888 very soon after the family arrived in England from Russia.
And another photo I saw yesterday was of my maternal grandmother and her two children, presumably taken soon after her husband died early, in the 1890s, in his thirties. She was a remarkably handsome woman (I only knew her of course in her later life when she was an old invalid and I was very young).
She never remarried and to support herself and the children became a cook.
Harold
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Message 23 - Music in wartime
Harold,
There is a lesson in your Budgy story, "always reconnoitre" we always sent the Recce Platoon in first if they came back we would go in if they did not we chose another way.
I remember Fantasia well seeing it many times but my love of classic's came from Father, he was more into the light Opera's though. The Heavy stuff came with the Piano, in those days I often wondered when I would get to play a real tune but switched on in time.
Lovely to be with family Harold I bless mine in that they have never really left apart from military service, two sons and a daughter in the forces, now out and married with family. They all say the forces did them no harm at all it made them independant and able to solve problems as they arose, they are all level headed that is for sure.
No pits in Northumberland now apart from opencast, the people need the tourists to live. Funny old world.
Regards Frank.
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Message 24 - Music in wartime
Harold -
Fantastic pedigree and it so rare to hear of such a closeness of family these days, although much more prominent of those of the Jewish faith. Ron Goldstein has a similar pedigree and I can attest to the entertainment of guests as both he and Nita entertained myself and my wife royally when we last visited the U.K. this past Sept/Oct. We had a wonderful lunch and afternoon in their compnay, for which we were most grateful.
The tragically short life, 41 when she died, of Kathleen Ferrier was so full of promise and was reminiscent of the short life of Jaqueline Du Prie, wife of Daniel Barenboihm. The Schubert "trout' quartet always reminds me of her with Perlman on Violin- Barenboihm - Zehta on Bass and Zuckerman on Viola. This was at some big festival in Tel Aviv when it seemed as though all the first class string players of world wide note were present..Stern - Haendel - Vengerof - Shamen and many more - it was a fantastc occasion, full of joy and friendship.The only violinist missing was Kennedy, Yo Yo Ma would have had a tough time getting to the top of the Cellists list !
Ida Haendel is a particular idol of mine as I had seen her in Bournemouth at least three times when in the 70/80's, with Pavvo Nurland, she would play Sibelius. She half retired to Montreal,playing with the Symphony there and wintered in Florida for a while but I note she is back in the U.K. now. What a performer she was, especially with Beethoven's Violin Concerto, I could go on all day with my favouites !
best regards
tomcan
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Message 25 - Music in wartime
Frank
I take your point that I should have made a recce but that would be against my nature. I never plan anything and if I have to do something I usually rush at it without thought. I often go wrong and have to start again. I know it's ridiculous but there you are.
Harold
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Message 26 - Music in wartime
Tom
I'd forgotten Ida Haendel. I'm sure I heard her at a wartime Promenade concert (I think I went more than once.)
When I go into Oxford by bus I pass a notice pointing to the Jacqueline du Pre hall at the sole remaining women's college (all others are mixed sex.)
Harold
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Message 27 - Music in wartime
Harold /Frank -
Our present Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson was at one time, a producer for the CBC and as such she made a two hour show of the Life of Ida Haendel and it was so good to see how she managed to struggle from the day as a 3-1/2 year old picking up her sister's violin and playing a melody, to the shock of her father when he returned from work, and repeating the tunes he hummed to her, from there of course the long journey to Warsaw - Paris and finally London where she lived very close to where my daughter now lives in Belsize Park ! Talk about a child prodigy - she played the Albert Hall when she was just 14, with Sir Thomas Beecham, I;m not sure of the progrqmme but I think it was Beethoven and possibly Szeimanenski(?) or the other Polish violnist/ composer !
It's good also to read that Jaqueline De Prie is still remembered
albeit in the only female college in all of Oxford, no doubt Cambridge is similar, what should have been my Alma Mater - St. Andrews went that route years ago... thankfully I elected (?) to have the grand tour of Africa and Italy, Austria instead !
As Field Marshal Smuts said - I went to the finest University of all - the 8th army - I think he was right as we had lessons which were unforgettable, and did us the world of good - just think - I might have become a teacher complete with an M.A. etc ! So the children of Scotland were spared to be left in gnorance !
Don't suppose it bothered them one bit
regards
tomcan
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Message 28 - Music in wartime
Hi Harold,
You should have had the Infantry training I had it taught you to stop and think but not for long.
You learned to weigh up the situation on the move, form your plan and put it into action all in one smooth movement, the thought a wrong decision could be painful certainly made you think on your feet. I never did like my feet in my mouth they smell a bit.
By Tom's standards I am a bit of a lightweight when it comes to music although I love it all. "Poet and Peasant" Suppe, "Carnival Overture" Dvorak, any Piano Concerto's, Wagner, Gounod and all the Strauss, Country and Western, the nursery rhymes I play for the grandchildren what ever turns you on at a particular time. Music is of the moment Harold just enjoy.
Regards Frank.
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Message 29 - Music in wartime
Frank
I had 16 weeks of infantry training.
All I remember is drill, marching, shouting, and sundry exercises. I tended to follow what the chap next to me was doing.
Harold
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Message 30 - Music in wartime
Harold/Frank -
I thanked God that I only had six weeks infantry with the Beds & Herts at Bury St Edmonds - about all I recall was crawling through the mud - as Ron Goldstein was also indoctrinated at that Gibraler Barracks, it was he who caused all the mud !
No harm in being a lightweight Frank - I too started with all of the Overtures until I could whistle them all...then it was a dawning that if these were the overtures - what was the rest of the music like ? Then the winnowing starts and the discarding of some composers until finally you reach the upper echelons, in my case it is Beethoven. Exactly the same with the voice...I have narrowed my particular favourites to - Schwartzkopf - Freni - Cotrubas - Caballe and Battle - doesn't mean I can't listen to Callas(Tosca) - Sutherland/Horne - Sissal - Te Kanawa....and von Stade -I still think that Tetrazinni - Turner - Melba - Galla-Curci and Ponselle could take them all on - and win !
as you say - it's all mood music !
Cheers
tomcan
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Message 31 - Music in wartime
Can only agree Tom,
I have a Te Kanawa disc I have nearly worn out and did like Callas at her best.
Piano was always my favourite though and when I listen to those piano pieces I drift away into a world of wonder.
Unlike you and I do know the reason you have her so high, I always put Caballe slightly above Schwartzkopf but then it is all a matter of taste, we all keep saying there is n
o bad music? Sorry I take that back. I did get to hear some dreadful radio music from over the fence while weeding today. I had to shove a parsnip in each ear mud and all to blot it out.
I thought of getting my radio out and starting a war with the Classic FM programme, best not peace on earth to all men or women in this case, she hates classics.
Regards Frank
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Message 32 - Music in wartime
Sorry about the typo advance, I forgot to take the parsnips out of my ears and they gave me virtigo or was it the the wrap? rap? How the hell do you spell that stuff, on the radio over the fence.
Regards Frank.
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Message 33 - Music in wartime
Frank -
I am beginning to think that the parsnips you had in your ears - fermented and the parsnip wine percolated into ye olde brain box. I would not have shied away from that type of confrontation, I would have played some of Wagner.... that would have shut her up !
Cheers
tomcan
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Message 34 - Music in wartime
Frank -
was interupted earlier as I was going to make the point that as regards Caballe vs Schwartzkopf...as the old professor used to say " it all depends on what you mean". If you are talking Bel Canto - then Caballe wins hands down as her 'Casta Diva' from Bellini's Norma cannot be bettered although Beverley Sills in the US and Joan Sutherland came close, again it was only Beverly Sills who came close to Caballe's farewall aria to Donizetti's "Anna
Bolena". Sill's performance in the three Queens has never been bettered - nor sung sufficiently to make a determination ! Only Caballe and Sutherland have tried them !
Schwartzkopf remains the only one to sing - German Operetta - Leider - German - Italian - French and English Opera ! I didn't mention Renata Tebaldi although I should list her in my top ten if only for keeping Callas out of the mainstream for many years. Callas made her debut in Athens in 1941 singing the lead in Tosca which became the hallmark of her career and strangely, her life. Vissi de Arte ! She had a very short reign at the top and I am still convinced that there was some kind of flaw in her voice, which showed up very badly towards the end when I have a video of her singing Casta Diva - that was the night she should have retired !
Again also in my top ten would be Janet Baker if only for her performance in "Orfeo e' Euridice"
in which she excelled whilest lying on the floor clutching her dead lover
to her chest, amazing performance.
But as you say - it's what you get a kick out of in the end ! If you were to play either Janet or Kathleen to your neighbour - she would smarten up !Might surprise you as possibly it's all she knows !The younger generation have not been too well exposed to the greats - as the DJ's are all about shouting the odds at the top of their voices - they need calming down.
Cheers
tomcan
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Message 35 - Music in wartime
Tom,
Sutherland I loved, Renata Tebaldi too but show my ignorance in never knowingly heard Beverley Sills, told you I was lightweight. Callas at her short lived best was to me very good indeed and underrated by many.
Lieder is an aquired taste but I did come to understand it in time, I give you Schwartzkopf was queeen in that department.
Regarding your mud plugging did you forget the words of the Hippopotamus song?
Mud Mud Glorious Mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood,
So follow me follow, Down to the hollow,
And there we will wallow in glorious Mud.
All that free mud pack that women pay zillions for and you are complaining, never satifiedyou tin cannies.
Regards Frank.
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Message 36 - Music in wartime
Harold,
You obviously did learn how to get yourself into a hole hence your Gaffe, the diplomacy was getting back out without showing the seams.
I was a section leader very quickly and my pianists ear could hear the first pressure being taken on a trigger two Counties away. Nano seconds later many feet under ground with my Bren Section, pictures on the wall and the scones set out waiting for the cream and jam whilst the kettle gently sang on the tommy cooker. We would be singing ribald versions of Lilly Marlene whilst the Platoon leader scratching which ever part of his anatomy his brains were in was wondering a) where his platoon had gone too and b) what do I do now.
When all was quiet we would pop up like rabbits. Collecting another brand new Platoon leader complete with shiny pips and full of old wives tales that Officers should be obeyed. We would say yes Sir but think "how fast can you dig matey" and continue to ramble through the country side. We would be looking out for the local milk maids with thoughts of toasted cheese suppers and more while my number three thought the same thoughts about the Nanny Goats, we were a hard lot and never told him the difference.
I learned a lot in that training, the main lesson being the Mark 1 platoon latrine digging spade was worth carrying along with the bren ammo and assorted food plus the third sock, (change one each day). We could be underground while the others were still cutting nice square grass sods with those trenching tools.
See Harold if you had taken note instead of following the man in front your education would have flowered and your exit from holes of your own digging may have been more decorous. As I used to tell my troops, "Watch and learn lads" the only way.
Regards Frank.
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Message 37 - Music in wartime
Frank -
I had forgotten Ian Wallace's rendition of that song, and I wonder just how many times he sang it - there was a case of a noted Opera singer fastening onto a popular song and making a lot of money out of it.
And talking of money - Beverley Sills was a fantastic Bel Canto/ Coloratura soprano who spent most of her operatic life in France although born and trained in New York, Marylin Horne only spent three years in Germany learning her trade ! When Sills decided to return to New York she applied for an audience with the Met....and was refused as they too - had never heard of her ! This stung and she brooded for a couple of weeks and then - being of the Jewish persuasion - she made some phone calls - and came up with pledges of more than 20 Million US - and started the New York Operatic Society - then moved in next door to the Met - The Ironic touch is that just last year - the Met had approached her to lease her Concert Hall ! She was also responsible for - along with the late Isaac Stern - in saving Carnegie Hall from the developers and renovated it in the same style that was original when the Dunfermline born Andrew Carnegie built the place. She is still in high demand and most of her earlier music can still be obtained from Amazon etc.She seems to be a jovial character !
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Message 38 - Music in wartime
Tom,
looks as If I missed a lot but checking the e-mail I could be catching up. Thanks for that, regards Frank.
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Message 39 - Music in wartime
Tom, Harold,
The time and the place, bowling along in the car after mending my grandsons bike and cuddling Hannah the world was lovely on a warm sunny day. I switched on to Classic FM and they made my day. Enigma followed by Vaughn Williams English folk music and then as I was getting near home The Blue Danube, my day was made.
Music was our mainstay in the war and the latest anniversary coming up made me remember how we felt about it.
We all sang and as a piano player however bad I was in demand, in this age of none music the classic FM programme does very well indeed so the demand is there.
If music be the food of love (I believe of the gods) play on.
Regards Frank.
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Message 40 - Music in wartime
Frank/ Harold -
the Blue Danube - takes me right back to Vienna - one of the times I was in Austria,on leaving Salzburg I decided to do the boat trip from Melks down passed the castle which held Richard the Lionheart until he was discovered by Blondin, to Krems both of which towns have fantastic Benedictine Abbeys a la MonteCassino which can take days to appreciate. I was a smoker in those days - so standing on the forward deck I dropped my dog end on the deck and as I stood on it ..I realised that it is NOT done ...so I surreptiously hunkered down with my clean handkerchief, and wiped the deck as spotless as the rest of the boat !
In Vienna I then decided to take the boat trip around the Danube Canal which goes past the Industrial area and the Fair grounds with its giant wheel.
On the return trip they started to play the "Blue Danube" and the boat did a fair representation of waltzing
back to the dock ! It was a hoot !
regard
tomcan
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Message 41 - Music in wartime
Posted on: 13 April 2005 by ODYSSEY
Hello Frank, Since I know you longest and enjoyed your help just as long:I read all the:"THE MUSIC IN WARTIME" contributions;I am puzzled.
Was it meant as a list of personal likes or dislikes of Classical Music?: an impression I got. Wrongly perhaps???
I thought it would be more about what was popular and important to the people working in the WAR EFFORT f.i. and to help people forget the daily grind. And don't forget the occupied countries where local bands did bring us what was popular in Britain and where it was used as a protest against the Humpa- Humpa music of the GERMANS .
We did listen to:"Music while you Work" possibly frowned upon as so-so music., but listened to as protest.
Don't get me wrong :I love classical music as well !I love the uneven## of Beethoven's Symphonies more than the even ones: (De gustibus etc.)
During the occupation it was a treat to hear good classical music by great orchestra's andsolo茂sts.MENGELBERG was a genius as conductor.
Mostly only available in the main cities before devastation from bombings, transportation problems,hunger put an end to that.
Some cities put local talent to good use. In a city where my mother lived , in the South of Holland ,the MATTHE脺S PASSION was sung each year by local talent- some of my nieces had wondefull voices -.
Band music from Britain and later from America was a morale booster!
Holland had a band:THE RAMBLERS playing all those be loved melodies.
When the NORMANDY invasion was announced over the radio we heard VERA LYNN sing : "White Cliffs of Dover" and I still remember the spot in the hospital where I was in nurses'training where I heard it!!!
I think you ,Frank, mentioned how important music was and how youths of today miss out on a lot.
just a few musings, Josephine.
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Message 42 - Music in wartime
Dear Josephine
I think you did not pick up what we were saying which is there is no bad music but it must suit the mood of the moment.
My own mood changes from Mozart to Strauss. I can listen to the Brandanburg or Clair de lune through Bacchanale to Pavane for a dead Princess.
Follow this up with the Sabre Dance and then the Piano Sonata No 14 in C Sharp minor (Moonlight)then maybe some Lehar (Merry Widow)two rousing choruses of Lily Marlene and some Country and Western. Tom thinks I am lightweight but that is my taste and I do not need defend it.
Wartime Music suited the mood of the people and we had lunchtime classical concerts as well as the popular music it all went down well even with people who had never heard classics in their lives before.
Music was the peoples drug to ease the pain of the war and all music does that.
Frank.
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Message 43 - Music in wartime
Tom
Your mention of sailing along the Danube reminded me of a non-war occasion which may be of interest.
During 1950-3 I was living in Swansea and in the autumn of 1953 I was invited to go on holiday with a group of adult students from Neath and Llanelli. We were supposed to go to Spain but there was a French rail strike so we first went to Brussels and then to Bonn. While in the latter place we took a trip along the Rhine. I was a bit uncertain about being in Germany so soon after the war, wondering what these people had been doing during the war. But - and this is the point - the Welsh people I was with who were Welsh-speaking - after we had heard the Germans singing some songs, began singing some penillions. These are songs with different parts (I don't know the technical term) but they sang absolutely brilliantly. The Germans on the ship all stopped talking and listened intently, and applauded. The only song I remember was the Welsh equivalent of The Ash Grove (I think that's the right title). This was in the days when it seemed all the Welsh could sing apparently because of their experience in the chapels. However, despite the closure of many chapels I noticed that the singing at Cardiff at the recent six-country match was just as good.
Harold
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Message 44 - Music in wartime
Harold,
I was always told the Welsh could sing because the outside toilets had no doors. When sitting on the throne you sang to avoid embarasment. Our outside toilet had a door but I still sang on cold and frosty mornings as my bare flesh hit the cold seat, you could hit top C no problem at all.
Writing the story of starting work in wartime I remember the Canteen Concerts in some of the large factories we went to on jobs. The Nuffield factory ICI and many others often had live music in the lunch break. I saw packed canteens where you could have heard a pin drop as some Pianist played a Concerto, or a string quartet played. People had a yearning for music of all kinds and those lunch time concerts were wonderful.
I loved Austria, and the funny part was my very early morning strolls often led me through the heart of town and meeting the workers who had the place washed cleaned spic and span for the tourist waking up.
.The number of men who came up to speak saying I was a POW in England and the people were wonderful to us, did I know this or that town. We would all talk around the little workers coffee stalls and I do not remember having to buy my own coffee.
I was disapointed in that the Blue Danube is not Blue but then you cannot have it all.
I have sung my heart out with the best of them, jug of beer in hand in the Munchen Beer cellars and never saw any angst, I think all people wanted to move on after the war was over we had all had enough.
Regards Frank.
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Message 45 - Music in wartime
Harold -
there is no arguement that the Welsh have a great ability to sing - and at the drop of a hat.
It should be recalled that the Great Luciano Pavarotti made his name when he and his Father along with the men's Choir from Modena Italy came to an Eistedfodd(forgive the spellng)and took first honours ! Modena isn't the biggest city in Italy but it has produced two of the best Opera Stars in the past 50 years - Luciano of course and also the very great Mirella Freni who, at 70 is still getting standing ovations recently in a Concert with Claudio Abbado with the Berlin Philly ! Her Violetta and Mimi will take a long time to be forgotten, or surpassed !Ileana Coturbas comes close though ! One little thing about Freni is the fact that she will not perform the Opera Madam Butterfly - she will sing it in concert form but not as an Opera - "too emotional" she says. Think she is right there !
We are not bereft of Welsh Singers out here in "The Golden West" since Puccini gave it back ! We have a very active Welsh men's Choir based in Vancouver and they do a tour of the Valley and some Interior towns just about every year to sell out crowds !
Cheers tomcan
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Message 46 - Music in wartime
Josephine -
all this started inncocently enough when I wrote an article about "Music in Wartime Italy" this went on for a few postings from people like Gerry Chester who had attended two concerts at Rossini'e college in Pesaro near Ancona, Italy(when he was 'resting' from the battle - he says !)- then Frank Mee jumped in with his tales of Music from Cairo
and Alexandria - naturally in pubs when he should have been working !then it seemed to die off for a while so i wrote an "addendum" - this didn't go very far and seemed to die a death.
A few weeks ago Harold Pollins came back on with a different thread telling us how he enjoyed "Music While You Shirk " etc and of course the proms and Frank, Harold and I have been having a good old ramble through various stages of Music as heard in Naples - Rome - Milan - Vienna - London - Oxford - and even Stockton on Tees but now we are treading the boards of the Welsh Choirs and their famous festivals as well as a quick look at Modena Italy -touching briefly in Japan with Madam Butterfly
and British Columbia .... and Seattle, Washington, with the "Girl from the Golden West' so you see we do get around and I am surprised that everyone appears to have let us get on with it without addition !Which is a shame really as many many people enjoy ALL kinds of music let alone my particular taste !We havn't even mentioned the Bagpipes !
Cheers
tomcan
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Message 47 - Music in wartime
Tom
Actually there has been a reference to bagpipes. I mentioned it briefly in my piece called Training In Scotland A2577109. I rather liked the sound of the dudelsack. It certainly eased the marching when behind such a band. Although I was surprised to find that the bandmaster was Welsh.
Harold
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Message 48 - Music in wartime
Posted on: 14 April 2005 by Andy1971
Just like to say ive very much enjoyed
reading these posts. Im not a classical music fan, but its been great reading about your memories fellas and not forgetting Josephine.
Andy
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Message 49 - Music in wartime
Harold / Andy
Bagpipes or dudelsaks but no glockenspiels - I have a great memory of that well known German/Austrian, Herman Frey skipping around the stage in Rosenkavelier with a minature glockenspiel type of instrument and getting a rousing acclamation from his peers, including Pavarotti- Domingo - Milnes - Hampson- Ramey - then there were the girls like Freni - Battle - Von Stade - Anderson et al.
That was quite the show in New York !
Cheers
听
Message 50 - Music in wartime
I mentioned the other day that I had seen an obituary notice of Moura Lympany. In today鈥檚 Guardian newspaper there is a letter adding to the obituary. It says:
鈥業n 1942, at the age of 17, I started going to the Proms, and heard Dame Moura Lympany play the Grieg Piano Concerto, the Beethoven Fourth Concerto and the Mozart Piano Concerto No 21 in c major - all wonderful first-time performances for me. Looking at those wartime programmes, I am reminded that Lympany was one of a wonderful galaxy of soloists, such as fellow pianists Myra Hess, Eileen Joyce, Solomon and Benno Moiseiwitch, violinist Ida Haendel and contralto Kathleen Ferrier.
The Royal Albert Hall was always full, despite imminent air raids. On either side of the conductor were red and green light bulbs. When an air raid siren sounded, the red lights came on, and no one moved. When the green light came on, signalling an 鈥渁ll clear鈥, you could hear a sigh of relief from everyone. The concerts were unforgettable, and so was Moura Lympany鈥.
I haven鈥檛 kept any programmes but since I also started at the Proms in 1942 and I heard Moura Lympany it must have been one or more of the works mentioned above. I don鈥檛 remember the coloured lights; when I attended there weren鈥檛 any air raids.
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Message 51 - Music in wartime
Harold -
gosh that chap hit it right on - Moura Lymphany playing Grieg - Beethoven - Mozart - it just wouldn't happen today - they play one and that's it - they are exhausted...She could play at least two of them one after the other without batting an eyelid ! the Mozart I had underrated until I bought a record of Serkin playing it.
I have a video of some Puerta Rican playing Beethoven's fourth and doesn't he enjoy playing the second movement. I haven't heard Grieg played since Bournemouth in 1979.
He certainly hit all the right artistes in that period when all I had to put up with was the San Carlo
and Rome Radio some time later !
I am now playing a cd of Leon Fleisher
with the Cleveland Orch and George Szell conducting Beethoven's fourth !
this is as good as it gets with that wonderful opening few bars - but again - Alfred Brendal plays it very well with NY Philly and Mazur!
regards
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