Old Fogey’s Favourites

‘A dove descends, in the heat of the day, and from the shadow a jewel shines, the purest, most loving heart.’

This is Hildegard of Bingen, the most mystical of medieval poets. The dove is God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, come down to intercede for us.  We, now, can’t really understand, inside, what this meant in the 12th century. God and religion don’t mean that much to us now - yet we can still get the echo of that feeling when we hear this - like we might have believed it had it been then, rather than now, when we are listening.

It is sung by Emma Kirkby, Emily van Evera, Poppy Holden and Judith Stell.

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In Blackpool, for our annual family day trip to the seaside, the highlight of my day was a visit to the fun fair. I loved the rides, the Ghost Train, the Big Dipper. And The House of Mirrors, that strange, odd room with its arrangement of distorting mirrors, one that made my head disappear, another that made me enormously fat, or skinny. And the one where standing between two mirrors I was able to look back at myself and see my image repeating and disappearing down a long curve into infinity.

This piece is by the contemporary Estonian composer, Arvo Part. It is ‘Mirror in the mirror’. A simple theme, little bell-like notes, on the piano, and over it a spacious melody on violin. Simple to the point of naivety. Repeated, then repeated, and so on. Like the image you see of yourself repeated in the double mirror. Going on forever.

The violinist is Tasmin Little; the pianist Martin Roscoe.

I understand that, being so simple, this is fiendishly difficult to play.

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Kate Mcgarrigle died yesterday, aged 63. This is one of her songs, accompanied by her sister Anna, posted in her memory. I don’t always understand her songs, or her sister’s. Sometimes they seemed to be singing about some other world, perhaps from their childhood, to which only they really had access, and on which we are eavesdropping. But there was always an intensity about the feeling they instilled into their songs that always impressed me. And their voices. Neither can be said to have good voices. The best that can be said is that their sound was homely. Kate’s voice was the lower, Anna’s quavering burbling the higher one. But it is part of their appeal. Kate sings like my mother used to do in the kitchen, while baking or washing. They are honest and utterly unpretentious. It’s hard to see how in today’s manufactured musical world of Pop Idol and X Factor what meaning they could have. I’m glad I’m of her generation,and been able to listen to them singing their impenetrable, sad and touching songs.

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A short, lovely choral piece for male voice choir by the Czech composer Leos Janacek. It’s a traditional folk song ‘Laska opravdiva’, or ‘True Love’.

‘If you love me, I love you even more, so much that words cannot tell. Love that’s true does not lie on the tongue, but dwells within a quiet heart. That is true love.’

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A single slow movement, for piano trio, written by Schubert, which came to light after his death. It was probably meant as part of a larger four movement piano trio, either for which he never got round to writing the other movements, or it was intended first as the movement for one of his existing piano trios, but set aside in favour of another, perhaps less dominating slow movement. I’m inclined to think the latter, since I can’t imagine three other movements surrounding it that could possibly measure up, and like Beethoven did before him, with his Grand Fugue for string quartet, he replaced it with a slighter movement so as not to unbalance the rest. It stands alone.

It is night, and all is serene under the stars. Passionate feelings are evoked, then are calmed under heaven’s gaze. Eternity is near. One of the most sublime pieces of music ever written.

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One of the biggest hits of German popular song before the war, sung by Josef Schmidt. He was known as the ‘pocket Caruso’ on account of his stature - barely five feet tall - and his thrilling tenor voice. His voice was perfectly suited to the tenor operatic repertoire but his success on the opera stage was limited because of his size, and the fear of ridicule. But his voice was superb, especially in the upper register, where he reminds me of Jussi Bjoerling. No higher praise. For much of his career he sang popular songs, and German lieder - notably Schubert, where his size was no problem.

Schmidt was a Jew, and at the outbreak of war he fled Germany to Switzerland, where he died in an internment camp. He was 38 years old.

This is a song of joy - the most beautiful day of his life, since she loves him.

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A famous recording from before the war, and my last for this Christmas. It’s sung by the Celebrity Quartet. It belongs to a world where celebrity was earned through talent and achievement, not instant fame from appearance on ‘Big Brother’ or because your father was a pop star. Each member of this quartet was at the top of their profession and two - Isobel Baillie (soprano) and Heddle Nash (tenor) - had international reputations. The contralto was Muriel Brunskill and the baritone, Norman Allin.

There is a stateliness about their singing that comes from another world - the past. You couldn’t sing like that now, except ironically - in our fear-ridden, febrile times. Hearing it now, across the distance of more than seventy years, it is heartening in its confidence and innocence.

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For almost ten years, before I left home to go to Leeds University in 1964, I served as an altar boy at my local Catholic Church. These were in the days before the Second Vatican Council, so during Mass, said by the priest with his back to the congregation, it was the altarboys who took the place of the congregation, making the responses on their behalf, in Latin. Latin for me was the true and original language of the church, so even now, on the occasions when I do go to Mass, responses in the vernacular don’t sound quite idiomatic.

When we sang this carol at Christmas it was always in its Latin form, as ‘Adeste fidelis’, with its insistent ‘Venite adoremus’ at the end of each verse. It still seems more natural to me.

This, though, is a famous recording of the English version, beautifully sung, if with not quite idiomatic pronunciation, by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

I’ll sing along the Latin version.

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This title is the best I can make of the mumbled French of the Bec-Hellouin Abbey Choir. I bought the record thirty-odd years ago, though I only ever played the first side - a Gregorian Mass for Advent - the four weeks anticipating Christmas. At the end of the Mass the nuns of the Abbey sing this chant, composed by the Huguenot, Claude Goudimel, who died in August 1572, one of many slaughtered by Philip the Fair during what is known as the St Batholemew’s Day Massacre. I’m not sure why it shows up on in a Catholic Mass, but I’m glad it does. It starts gently, and slowly blossoms into a harmony that says just welcome - as if the nuns are opening their arms to us all. The right message for Christmas.

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This is Franz Liszt’s version for piano of this famous carol. It’s simply conceived. The main tune is played against a pretty counter melody, like two parts of a child’s conversation, each tune speaking to the other. I like to think of the counter melody as a portrait of the Christ-child, rocking in his cradle, gurgling and playing, then as the melody fades away at the end, falling gently asleep.

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