Gabriel Fauré (1845 – 1924) was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his name sits comfortably amongst those of his near-contemporaries Berlioz, Debussy and Saint-Saens. It is said that his career straddles the gap between Romanticism and modernism: when he was born Chopin was still composing and by the time of his death jazz had arrived. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, and his nocturnes for the piano but I’m going to look at an interesting collection of pieces for piano duet that Faure composed called the Dolly Suite, Op. 56.
The Dolly Suite consists of six short pieces written between 1893 and 1896, to mark the birthdays and other events in the life of the daughter of the composer’s mistress, French singer Emma Bardac (who went on to become Claude Debussy’s mistress, too; she clearly had a thing for composers!). Each piece has its own title: Berceuse, Mi-a-ou,Le Jardin de Dolly, Kitty-valse, Tendresse, and Le Pas Espagnole, and the complete suite takes about fifteen minutes to perform.
The best-known piece is Berceuse (French for “lullaby”), which in the UK became famous as the play-out tune to the BBC radio programme for very young children, Listen with Mother, which broadcast from 1950 onwards, and which will likely be recognised by many a baby boomer. The Berceuse has been arranged for several combinations of instruments over the years but below we’ll listen to it in its original piano duet form, played by Dutch brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen. Are you sitting comfortably?
In Search of Lost Time (French: À la recherche du temps perdu) is a monumental novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust, written between 1909 and the author’s death in 1922. Weighing in at 3200 pages, it really is a magnum opus and indeed was Proust’s life’s work (his only other novel, the earlier Jean Santeuil, was unfinished and was something of a prototype since it contained many of the themes and motifs that he would deploy later). So, has your blogger gone above and beyond and read the whole thing? Of course not! However, I have recently read volume one, Swann’s Way, and judging by the quality of writing and the enjoyable way I was sucked into his world, who knows, I may yet attempt the whole series, in time.
My version is in English of course, rather than the original French, and so a word should be said about the quality of the translation. This definitive translation was rendered by Scotsman C K Scott Moncrieff whose job it was to use the appropriate phraseology and le mot juste to reliably capture the essence of the Proustian text in English. To illustrate how this may differ, consider his original title Remembrance of Things Past, compared with what publishers latterly decided upon, the more literal In Search of Lost Time.
The theme of the book is signalled by this title: the nature of memory. Despite the book being fictional, Proust’s childhood and early adulthood in late 19th century and early 20th century high society France must have been plundered prodigiously: the detail is extraordinary and you could be forgiven for believing you are reading a true autobiography, and that the fictional town of Combray, in which most of the events take place, was a real French town. Throughout the book are instances of “involuntary memory”, that is, vivid memories conjured up for the narrator by sensory experiences such as sights, sounds and smells. Perhaps the most famous of these occurs early in Swann’s Way, namely the “episode of the madeleine”, which I reproduce here:
No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. … Whence did it come?What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? … And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.
For the archetype of the dangerously passionate artist, go no further than Caravaggio. Caravaggio (full name Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1571–1610) lived a tumultuous life in Rome in the late 16th century, painting masterpieces in between being locked away for various offences usually involving brawling and assault. Many records exist of his being sued for one infraction or another: he was sued by a waiter for throwing artichokes in his face; he was sued by his landlady for not paying his rent and then for vandalism when he threw rocks through her window. Usually, Caravaggio was bailed out by wealthy patrons but when, in a duel in 1606, he actually killed a local gangster, he was forced to go on the run and he spent the final four years of his life moving between Naples, Malta, and Sicily. Thus, Caravaggio, like none other, compels us to separate the artist from his art.
But what an art: Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro (the use of strong contrasts between light and dark) that came to be known as tenebrism. He used the technique to transfix subjects in bright shafts of light between dark shadows, and since he often chose crucial moments and scenes from the Bible and literature, his works were often vividly expressed drama. He worked rapidly, with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and instead work directly onto the canvas: if he had been a snooker player he would have been Hurricane Higgins.
A case in point is The Calling of St Matthew, held in the Contarelli Chapel, Rome, and depicting the story from the Gospel of Matthew: “Jesus saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom house, and said to him, ‘Follow me’, and Matthew rose and followed Him.” Caravaggio depicts Matthew the tax collector sitting at a table with four other men. Jesus Christ and Saint Peter have entered the room, and Jesus is pointing at Matthew. A beam of light illuminates the faces of the men at the table as they stare at the new arrivals. When you look at the picture, you could be forgiven for wondering which sitter is Matthew: is the bearded man pointing to the slumped figure (“Who, him?”) or at himself (“Who, me?”). Fortunately, two other paintings sit alongside this one in the chapel (The Martyrdom of St Matthew and The Inspiration of St Matthew) and they feature the same bearded man unequivocally playing Matthew.
Walt Whitman (1819–1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist, famous for his major poetry collection Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855 and revised multiple times before his death in 1892 (the first edition consisted of only 12 poems; the final edition contained nearly 400). The collection represents a celebration of Whitman’s philosophy of life and humanity, and focuses on nature and the individual human’s role in it, rather than focusing on religious or spiritual matters.
Most of Whitman’s poems are written in free verse and neither rhyme nor follow standard rules for meter and line length. If that was controversial to the purist, so was his use of explicit sexual imagery, and his collection was lambasted at the time (though championed by influential figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau). Over time, however, the collection has infiltrated popular culture and became recognized as one of the central works of American poetry.
In the 1989 film Dead Poets Society (set in 1959), Robin Williams’ English teacher John Keating advocates doing away with the restrictions of poetic rules in order to give creativity free rein. He encourages his students to “make your life extraordinary” and “seize the day” and incites them to rip out the page on dry poetic rules from their textbooks. His unorthodox teaching methods inevitably attract the attention of strict headmaster Gale Nolan, who contrives to remove the heretic. As Mr Keating enters the classroom to collect his belongings, the inspired students express their solidarity by climbing on to their desks and quoting the opening line from Whitman’s O Captain! My Captain! (though ironically this poem does rhyme).
During the American Civil War, Whitman, a staunch Unionist, had worked in hospitals caring for the wounded, and his poetry often focused on both loss and healing. O Captain! My Captain! was written in response to the death of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, and who had been assassinated in April 1865 just as his great work was coming to fruition. The three-stanza poem uses a ship and its dead captain as a metaphor for the Unionist cause and Lincoln himself.
Ezra Pound called Whitman “America’s poet…He is America”. Well, let’s hear the poem recited and then let’s enjoy the emotional power of that final scene in Dead Poets Society.
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
Jean de Florette is a 1986 French comedy-drama film directed by Claude Berri and based on a novel by one of France’s greatest 20th century writers, Marcel Pagnol. The film takes place in rural Provence, where two local farmers (Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil) plot to trick a newcomer (Gérard Depardieu) out of his newly inherited property. The film thus stars three of France’s most prominent actors, and this is a great place to see them all in action in one place.
The film was shot back to back with its sequel, Manon des Sources, over a period of seven months in and around the Vaucluse department of Provence, and whilst at the time it was the most expensive French film ever made, it was also a great commercial and critical success, both domestically and internationally, and was nominated for eight César awards, and ten BAFTAs. The success of the two films helped promote Provence as a tourist destination (a tendency that was cemented three years later when Peter Mayle’s best-selling memoir, A Year in Provence, was published ).
Anyway, I have my mate Jason’s wife Liz to thank for introducing me to Jean de Florette: whilst at their house several years ago, she thrust the DVD of the film into my hands, saying “you’ll love this”. I took it home and dutifully watched it…and she was right! What was at first sight an obscure French film with a dull name and an odd plot became a hugely enjoyable ride. The plot is indeed unusual, involving jealous designs on rural arable land, hare-brained plans and machinations around the blocking up of a natural spring. However, it is a joy to watch: the rural village scenes are so gloriously, authentically French, and the characters conjured up by these great actors, and a strong supporting cast, are tremendous.
This scene I have chosen is pretty representative, I think: we have Depardieu’s irrepressibly optimistic Jean, proselytising about his plans to breed rabbits and grow marrows, Auteuil’s Ugolin trying at every turn to dissuade and dispirit him, and Montand’s Le Papet (Ugolin’s uncle), a wily owl presiding over his and Ugolin’s schemes to drive the newcomer away and take the land for themselves.
I don’t recall now how I actually discovered Be-Bop Deluxe and came to be the owner of their 1976 album Modern Music. Possibly I heard the album’s single Kiss of Light on the radio, since it is that song that slots into my memory as “the first”. Equally, I may have been introduced by schoolmates Rocky Collier or Chris Hobbs, since they too were big fans and indeed the latter was there with me at my first ever gig: Be-Bop Deluxe at Leeds Grand Theatre, February 1978. However, own the album I did, and my overriding memory is the feeling of reverence I had for it. The themes and concepts conjured up by band leader and guitar genius Bill Nelson were thrilling and otherworldly; I recall at the foot of the back cover a line that summed it up simply but effectively: “Music and lyrics written by Bill Nelson to enchant”.
Modern Music was the band’s fourth album, so I had discovered them late (to be fair, I was only thirteen) and only retrospectively educated myself in the band’s evolution from glam rock pretenders to sophisticated art rockers. The band had formed in Wakefield in 1972 and had started out playing the West Yorkshire pub scene, one regular venue being the Staging Post in Whinmoor, Leeds. Several personnel changes had ensued by the time I had got into them, with my definitive line-up being Simon Fox on drums, Charlie Tumahai on bass and Andy Clark on keyboards, an ensemble that understood Nelson’s vision and was eminently capable of helping him manifest it.
The track listing itself gives hints of the fantastical nature of that vision: Orphans of Babylon, The Bird Charmer’s Destiny, Honeymoon on Mars, The Dance of the Uncle Sam Humanoids. To the uninitiated, such titles might smack of prog-rock concept-album pretension but the melodies, the textures, the hooks, and the overall musical splendour argue against such a simplistic appraisal. It is certainly conceptual, and indeed Nelson can get away with making the whole of side B a suite of short tracks merging into one another, but pretentious it ain’t. Too much quality.
The album cover shows the band besuited and un-rock star like, with Bill presciently sporting a “TV-watch” (or smartwatch, as we’d call it today, albeit without the antennas!). This was nothing like their glam rock origins, nor anything like the punk nihilism that was bursting onto the scene at around the same time (in the same month as the album’s release, September 1976, the 100 Club was hosting a two-day punk festival featuring the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Damned). Modern Music represented a unique sound and vision, and although the band would only release one more album and disband before they could achieve lasting fame, it stands as a monument to Bill Nelson’s considerable musical abilities.
Here is the title track, which gives but a flavour of the music though I would recommend immersing oneself in the whole album to get the proper Be-Bop experience.
Léo Delibes (1836–1891) was a French Romantic composer, best known for his ballets and operas. His works include the ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876), both of which were key works in the development of modern ballet and remain core works in the international ballet repertoire, and the opera Lakmé (1883), which includes the well-known “Flower Duet“. I say “well-known”; it’s possible that you know it without knowing you know it (although you may need to wait for the 1.05 minute mark before it clicks). Although Delibes’ name may be less famous today than other contemporary French composers such as Berlioz, Debussy or Ravel, the melody he has bequeathed is a gem.
Lakmé was Delibes’ attempt at a serious opera, having composed several light comic opérettes in the 1850s and 1860s. The opera combines many orientalist aspects that were popular at the time: an exotic location (similar to other French operas of the period, such as Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles and Massenet’s Le roi de Lahore), a fanatical priest, mysterious Hindu rituals, and “the novelty of exotically colonial English people”. The stuff that would probably discomfit modern sensibilities but which in 1883 was firmly de rigueur.
The opera includes the Flower Duet (“Sous le dôme épais“) for soprano and mezzo-soprano, performed in Act 1 by Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin priest, and her servant Mallika. Here we see it performed by soprano Sabine Devieilhe and mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa.
Incidentally, have you ever wondered how foreign language poems still rhyme when translated into English? Of course, this is where translation has to be creative in its own right. The Flower Duet provides a case in point. See how Theodore T Barker, in 1890, turned the original French lyrics into singable English, preserving the form and rhyme:
French lyrics Viens, Mallika, les lianes en fleurs Jettent déjà leur ombre Sur le ruisseau sacré qui coule, calme et sombre, Eveillé par le chant des oiseaux tapageurs
Literal English Come, Mallika, the flowering lianas already cast their shadow on the sacred stream which flows, calm and dark, awakened by the song of rowdy birds.
Singable English Come, Mallika, the flowering vines Their shadows now are throwing Along the sacred stream, That calmly here is flowing; Enlivened by the songs of birds among the pines.
If you grew up in Britain in the seventies, you would be well-versed in the comedic TV output of writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais: Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? (1974-1976) and Porridge (1974-1977) were a staple of whichever night they were broadcast. I loved those shows of course, but in 1983 the pair launched a comedy-drama so replete with character and brilliant dialogue that it stands out for me as a masterpiece: Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
Seven English construction workers leave an unemployment-hit England to search for employment overseas and find themselves living and working together on a building site in Düsseldorf. The “magnificent seven” characters were Dennis (Tim Healy), Neville (Kevin Whately), Oz (Jimmy Nail), Barry (Timothy Spall), Moxy (Christopher Fairbank), Bomber (Pat Roach) and Wayne (Gary Holton). I don’t know how the casting process works, but they struck gold with this group of actors; they displayed an on-screen chemistry and authenticity that warmed the hearts of the viewing public.
The triumvirate of Dennis, Neville and Oz provide the core of the group due to their Geordie origins and shared trade as brickies, though the three couldn’t be more different: whilst Dennis provides the common sense and pragmatic leadership, Neville is an inexperienced and homesick fish out of water, and Oz…well, what can we say about Oz? No filters or self-consciousness, blunt and irascible, blatantly xenophobic tendencies, a serial absconder from his missus, Oz is no angel (and a constant source of angst to the others)…but hilarious nonetheless.
Barry, an electrician from the Black Country, loves to expound boringly but charmingly on the diverse range of topics he’s read about, which are usually of no interest to the others because they don’t involve beer or women. Wayne the Cockney womaniser of the group, Moxy the slightly odd and usually under-the-weather Scouser, and Bomber, the gentle Bristolian giant who nonetheless is well-capable of looking after himself, complete the group.
The key word for me about Auf Wiedersehen, Pet is “authentic” – the day-to-day banter on site, in “barracks”, and out on the town, feels real and it’s a joy to watch. Here’s a montage of typical Auf Wiedershen, Pet fare.
The writer Edmond de Goncourt wrote in his journal in 1873: “Yesterday I spent the afternoon in the studio of a painter named Degas. Out of all the subjects in modern life he has chosen washerwomen and ballet dancers”. That same year Edgar Degas (1834-1917) would join forces with Monet, Renoir, and Cézanne, to exhibit paintings under the banner of Impressionism and would go on to achieve fame as one of the world’s great artists and renderers of movement. Half of his prodigious output (of 1200 or so works) depicted dancers and the world they inhabited, and he claimed the ballet for modern art as Cézanne claimed the landscape and Monet the haystacks and lilies.
In the 1870s Edgar Degas had become fascinated with ballet dancers, paying frequent visits to the magnificent Palais Garnier, home of the Paris Opéra and its Ballet. He haunted the wings and stalked the classes where the Opèra’s ballet master, Jules Perrot, trained groups of young girls. He would be constantly sketching his observations and accumulating ideas for paintings to render later in his studio. Degas’s pictures of ballerinas performing onstage convey exquisitely the balance, grace and radiance of the dancers, whilst at other times, Degas stripped away the poetry and illusion to show the hard work behind the scenes: the hanging around, the stretching at the bar, the rubbing of sore muscles, the tying of shoes.
It is at this point that I should signal the need to separate art from reality, for the reality of the ballet was that it had a sordid underbelly. The dancers were usually young, poor, vulnerable and ripe for exploitation by abonnés, the name for wealthy male subscription holders who often lurked in the foyers, and there was more than a hint of prostitution (often with their mothers in collusion, desperate I suppose to push their daughters up the ladder). The glamour was only on the surface.
To defend Degas from the obvious fleeting thought, however (although his character may be called into question for various other reasons such as misanthropy and anti-semitism), it is understood that his relationship to the dancers was paternal and professional rather than predatory.
Of the several hundred Degas paintings to choose from, here’s one that features the old Perrot schooling his ballerinas in The Dance Class (1874), with the dancers in various stages of preparation. The girl on the left appears to be looking at her mobile phone!
If you’re going to write just one book, it’s a pretty good outcome if that novel – To Kill A Mockingbird – goes on to win the 1961 Pulitzer Prize, become the twentieth century’s most widely read American novel, and which still sells about a million copies annually today. Harper Lee (1926-2016) did just that (OK quibblers, she did publish a second novel in 2015, Go Set A Watchman, which was written before Mockingbird and touted as a prequel but this was essentially a first draft of To Kill A Mockingbird).
Harper Lee (1926-2016) grew up in Monroeville, Alabama, and had a lawyer father who once defended two black men, a father and son, who had been accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both men were hanged. So you see, the young Nelle (Harper was her middle name and was only used as her pen name) had ample material with which to work in her novel about the irrationality of attitudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as seen through children’s eyes.
To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression. The protagonist is Jean Louise (“Scout”) Finch, an intelligent and courageous young girl who ages from six to nine years old during the course of the novel. She is raised with her brother, Jeremy (“Jem”), by their widowed father, Atticus Finch, who is a prominent lawyer. Atticus encourages his children to be empathetic and just, notably telling them that it is “a sin to kill a mockingbird,” alluding to the fact that the birds are innocent and harmless.
When Tom Robinson, one of the town’s black residents, is falsely accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a white woman, Atticus agrees to defend him despite threats from the community. At one point he faces a mob intent on lynching his client but refuses to abandon him. Scout unwittingly diffuses the situation. Although Atticus presents a defence that gives a more plausible interpretation of the evidence—that Mayella was attacked by her father, Bob Ewell—Tom is convicted, and he is later killed while trying to escape custody.
Here’s an extract from the scene just mentioned, in which Scout diffuses the situation with the mob (led by Walter Cunningham).
“Hey, Mr. Cunningham.”
The man did not hear me, it seemed.
“Hey, Mr. Cunningham. How’s your entailment gettin‘ along?”
Mr. Walter Cunningham’s legal affairs were well known to me; Atticus had once described them at length. The big man blinked and hooked his thumbs in his overall straps. He seemed uncomfortable; he cleared his throat and looked away. My friendly overture had fallen flat.
Mr. Cunningham wore no hat, and the top half of his forehead was white in contrast to his sun-scorched face, which led me to believe that he wore one most days. He shifted his feet, clad in heavy work shoes.
“Don’t you remember me, Mr. Cunningham? I’m Jean Louise Finch. You brought us some hickory nuts one time, remember?” I began to sense the futility one feels when unacknowledged by a chance acquaintance.
“I go to school with Walter,” I began again. “He’s your boy, ain’t he? Ain’t he, sir?”
Mr. Cunningham was moved to a faint nod. He did know me, after all.
“He’s in my grade,” I said, “and he does right well. He’s a good boy,” I added, “a real nice boy. We brought him home for dinner one time. Maybe he told you about me, I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won’t you?”
Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in. Mr. Cunningham displayed no interest in his son, so I tackled his entailment once more in a last-ditch effort to make him feel at home.
“Entailments are bad,” I was advising him, when I slowly awoke to the fact that I was addressing the entire aggregation. The men were all looking at me, some had their mouths half-open. Atticus had stopped poking at Jem: they were standing together beside Dill. Their attention amounted to fascination. Atticus’s mouth, even, was half-open, an attitude he had once described as uncouth. Our eyes met and he shut it.
“Well, Atticus, I was just sayin‘ to Mr. Cunningham that entailments are bad an’ all that, but you said not to worry, it takes a long time sometimes… that you all’d ride it out together…” I was slowly drying up, wondering what idiocy I had committed. Entailments seemed all right enough for living-room talk.
I began to feel sweat gathering at the edges of my hair; I could stand anything but a bunch of people looking at me. They were quite still.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
Atticus said nothing. I looked around and up at Mr. Cunningham, whose face was equally impassive. Then he did a peculiar thing. He squatted down and took me by both shoulders.
“I’ll tell him you said hey, little lady,” he said.
Then he straightened up and waved a big paw. “Let’s clear out,” he called. “Let’s get going, boys.”
Harper Lee
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