… of life, of literature … & MORE
www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67285117
What is old is new again…
Play it again (John, Paul, George & Ringo) for one last time! 14:00 GMT today 2nd November 2023.
3rd November: Well I listened in, albeit just a tick late! But now it is the day after and the official music video has been released. So here it is, The Beatles last song: ‘Now and Then’.
From my recent post and having been inspired by the newly (by me) discovered Gertrude Trevelyan and, therefore, as ever, by musings on Woolf, as one who had (probably) inspired her (and in more ways than the room and 500 quid), I had thought to write some more on the Pargiters. But, as I am only right now going about, and rather ponderously at that, re-reading and writing up Woolf’s diary that covers that period immediately following her speech to the National Society for Women’s Service on 21 January 1931 from which The Years (as lived by the Pargiter family) would evolve (and not in the way Woolf had at that time envisaged), I realize now this to be a more complex exercise than I thought; it seems there is a lot to be said on literary method and creative choices, and deserving, therefore, of greater attention. Simply said: this, whilst not exactly relegated to the bucket list, a task to be held in abeyance until I have pulled the very many threads together to do it justice.
…as “threads” with their own “tale to tell” – hanging there like stitches in Time […] so cleverly entwined that they become inherent to the composition; implemented to establish the focus, shift the perspective – visual or temporal …
On which, then, this thread must find an end … but just before finishing up on Trevelyan’s book (and the Trevelyans), it has occurred to me that I didn’t previously emphasize one particular characteristic enough. From the very first page, the novel’s narrative is interspersed by the listing of factual events – some short, some long; from close to home and from far shores; some of historical significance such that they are still familiar but very many now lost in the passing years; and which David Trotter in his essay variously refers to as a “database”, “news crawl”, or as “threads” with their own “tale to tell” – hanging there like stitches in Time. But they are so cleverly entwined that they become inherent to the composition; implemented to establish the focus, shift the perspective – visual or temporal, often reflecting out of or into Katherine’s classroom, or Robert’s lab or bed-sit.
An unusual stylistic choice, and one that could easily date a book; and one that may have contributed to Trevelyan’s novel disappearing into obscurity for so long – others perhaps making the (superficially based) decision that later and contemporary readers would be put off by (or ignorant of) the real world goings on during those between the wars years.
Finally, I end with the admission that I can not think of a book quite like Two Thousand Million Man-Power. (Writing about the same time but on a grander scale, Dos Passos – sorry a gap in my education! – is mentioned as one employing a similar methodology.) Coming to my mind is only a song – albeit, a list song – that tracks the post-war years in the second half of the century, and that has special significance to me (another story!). Radically different, yet with something in common, these two listings of the people and events of different generations – strewn realities to be made palpable, and therefore relatable, only with the sensory overload stimulated by the natural phenomena of noise and fire respectively. Take it away … Mr. Billy Joel!
Legendary moments in a legendary life, as curated by The Guardian: “Symphony for the devil: Mick Jagger’s 80 greatest moments, on his 80th birthday”
Just one of them below: The Rolling Stones appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show during their first US tour in 1964.
In the mortal world it may be that Mick Jagger celebrates his 80th birthday today, but such a contrived time reckoning belongs to the mundanity of earthly matters. In our imagination – and perhaps in his reality – Jagger resides on a plane more akin to the godly – a life lived with all the excesses and ecstasies of a Dionysus cult.
And, by the way, along the way, we have been gifted some great music and some great moments to call our own. Happy Birthday, Mick, and keep on rolling!
Tár has been on my mind. A Todd Field film released at the end of last year; much talked about, though receipts suggest not seen nearly as much – albeit more so of late (award season!) and much more so since its wider release outside of the US. And looked upon mostly favorably and sometimes not. For now I can only add that it says much about these fractious times that a film about an absolutely not-nice but lauded female conductor – that all agree is brilliantly portrayed be Cate Blanchett – could be hauled from the creative space of the movie theater and plunged into the vitriolic and intransigent arena of the culture-war theater. I will see it and then have my say. (Though be warned my impartiality is not assured: most anything with Blanchett – with the exception of Armani ads! – is okay by me. I like to think we sound alike.) And have been encouraged to do so by a just read piece by Nicholas Spice in the LRB (Vol. 45 No. 6 · 16 March 2023) that broadly considers the art of conducting through Field’s film, a recent translation and commentary of Richard Wagner’s essays “On Conducting” (amazingly open access at JSTOR) and an experiential memoir by Alice Farnham.
There is probably no reason Spice should mention Ethel Smyth in his essay, but I would not have minded her spirited and stubborn presence; for she, too, has been fluttering around in my head. In the midst of my continuing Virginia Woolf stuff, I have been occupied with that period at the beginning of the 1930s during which Woolf found herself the object of the affections of the celebrated composer, conductor and suffragette; the attentions of whom aroused and irritated at the same time.
At the beginning of 1931 Woolf attended rehearsals of Smyth’s opera The Prison, adapted from a poem by her friend Henry B. Brewster, and then its London premiere performance on February 24. All did not go well. Accordingly, a very belated first recording in 2020 and its warm reception is of interest, and to be complemented by this essay, also from The Guardian, by Leah Broad.
Mysterious is this friend of hers, Henry Bennet Brewster, about whom information (in the internet anyway) seems scarce* but, when unearthed, is often in respect to his relationship with Smyth; his own work, seemingly, to have fallen into obscurity. Of any substance I can only find this 1962 essay by Martin Halpern in American Quarterly (pub. The John Hopkins University Press) held at JSTOR. (*Halpern’s essay suggests more could be learned by way of others, like another even more famous friend – Henry James. A task for another time. But the rediscovery of Brewster that Halpern hoped for sixty odd years ago seems not to have eventuated – unlike that of Smyth. Unless of course she has coattails to match her tailcoats!)
The Prison can be sampled below on Spotify; other interpretations of her work can also be heard there (with an account) including Mass in D from the BBC Symphony Orchestra; also resurrected and recorded for the first time in 2019.
In a diary entry made following the 1931 rehearsal of The Prison, Woolf writes a colorful -and comical – portrait of Ethel Smyth, which concludes with her being struck that Smyth, so practical and so strident in common discourse, could spin such music – so coherent, so harmonious – and asks the question: “What if she should be a great composer?” Well, that I cannot answer. But, what can be said, is that Dame Ethel Smyth has been granted that rare gift of an afterlife; enough qualified others over the years having concluded her music had merit and warranted reappraisal – and, this, long after her once radical presence in this mortal world had seemingly been confined to feminist folklore, footnotes – or even the diary and letters of Virginia Woolf.
Good grief – what an odd expression; coming, surely, only at the end of a good life. Such is my state of the doldrums. If it’s not enough to confront, and daily, one’s own mortality and those near, there are those more distant who have somehow been there on life’s journey.
The death of two Melbourne girls made good – very good – and only days apart, moves one (such as I) for whom they were omnipresent from childhood through teenage years, then fading into the background as time passed and life got messy – but always sort of there. Essential accompaniments to the sound track of this one life.
Until she came to my mind last year in an unusual context, I hadn’t thought of Judith Durham for a long, long time, and I was initially quite taken aback at how familiar she remained, and the ease with which she transported me back to my childhood – suddenly I was there (in front of the TV) watching The Seekers farewell concert in Melbourne in 1967 – and how thrilled I was to hear her distinctive voice again.
As fate would have it, in a Guardian piece reporting Judith Durham’s death on 5th August, Olivia Newton-John is mentioned as one, after The Seekers played at her Melbourne school, inspired by Durham, and is quoted as once having said: “She was one of the first Aussie girls to make it overseas.” Olivia Newton-John died on 8th August, just three days after Judith Durham.
Not everyone’s music to be sure – too folksy, too poppy, whatever – but, even when not, in and about Melbourne, at different times, everyone’s darlings, both. In retrospect, it is clear that the trajectory of their careers and how that effected their lives says a lot about the demands of the music business and the pitfalls of celebrity. Especially when that celebrity is catapulted outside the provincialism of home-shores and played out in the international arena. For Judith Durham, her relatively modest star shined only for a relatively short time; the end of which she alone determined. For Livvy (everybody in Melbourne called her Livvy), it was a fame, that was greater, lasted longer but took its tribute. Two women, two talented artists – both driven and confined by the dictates and the expectations of an industry, both visited by serious illness, but nevertheless bravely making the (very different) decisions that each could live with. Until they couldn’t anymore.
Following are a pair of videos as tribute. Chosen at random from You Tube, they are sentimental for sure, some would say overly so, but they are songs I remember vividly. Firstly, coming to my notice because it was embedded in The New York Times obituary and is wonderfully remastered, is a video from The Seekers’ 1965 hit “I’ll Never Find Another You” and, secondly, and it’s harder to find free stuff for Olivia, this (available for the moment at least) 1978 performance in Amsterdam of “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from the mega-film Grease released that year, in which she starred with John Travolta – and which, as I remember it, made her a superstar.
In both songs, You sing of some idealized other You. By the many who, in one way or another, grew up with You both, You are remembered. Not just because You were so exceptional, but rather because, during those heady days of youth when everything or nothing seemed possible, we could imagine – with just a little bit of good fortune – being just a little bit like You.
Not an aftermath exactly, but preoccupied still with words, words, words, this much more than a mere afterthought: the NYT reports under the headline “Hip, Woke, Cool” – also three words – that Henry Louis Gates as director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard is editing in cooperation with Oxford University Press a new lexicon dedicated to the richness of the African American language, the Oxford Dictionary of African American English (ODAAE)
It’s a long way from the Harvard of Longfellow and Lowell to that of Henry Louis Gates, and as far from Trench’s mid-nineteenth century idiosyncratic glossary to this one in planning across the pond and in this 21st century, with all the creativity, nuances and melodies that time and place bring to the English language in all its variations; a vibrant reminder of the evolutionary power of language as ideas and experience are given form and rhythm. A terrific project, I think, and with a multidisciplinary character and application; projected completion in 2024.
As a quick reference, some resources:
And, Cab Calloway doing his own marketing! Wonderful!
Earlier in the year, I celebrated the 50th anniversary of one of my personal favorite albums – Carol King’s “Tapestry”. Joni Mitchell worked musically on that album, and on June 22 of the same year released a new work of her own; called “Blue”, it too has become a work of legend. (James Taylor also worked on both, and his guitar playing is essential to the overall character of some of the tracks on Mitchell’s album.) Taster below, go to Spotify to hear more.
At the NYT, a great interactive celebration of “Blue” with tributes – in the form of personal and varied analysis of each track – from Mitchell’s peers; her contemporaries like Taylor, Judy Collins, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, and from members of younger generations who have been inspired by her work.
Following on from a previous post, and beyond The Waves, some (probably many!) others have been thinking and writing about the role played by music in Virginia Woolf’s work. And creating their own musical response.
In 2015, one of the guests on the Radio 3 program celebrating The Waves, the pianist Lana Bode, founded a collaborative concert project, Virginia Woolf & Music, with Dr Emma Sutton from the University of St Andrews. A project that happily appears to continue. Video clips and notes from previous concerts are available on the website; for instance, embedded below a 2016 concert at the Clothworkers’ Centenary Hall at the University of Leeds.
In this post at The Conversation, the aforesaid Emma Sutton gives an interesting, plainly written appraisal of classical music being an essential element in both Woolf’s creative thought processes and the literary form of her composition. Such a worthy read, and The Conversation being so fair, that I have republished Sutton’s piece to a page on my site.