Old Fogey’s Favourites

This song, perhaps more than any other, makes me feel English. Not British so much, but English. ‘British’ isn’t enough. It doesn’t capture what I feel about myself and the country I live in. Many people are British, yet despise the country. Some of them have tried to blow me up.

Sometimes, like here when I’m listening to Kathleed Ferrier, who, like me was born in Lancashire, in the North of England, I feel it distinctly, something seeping in my brain along with the sound of her unique and lovely voice . English that’s not a passion. That’s not a flag. It’s hardly an expression of pride - though pride is there somewhere, dimly. Englishness evoked in the sound of this voice, or the smile on that young girl’s face, or in that gesture – say, the half smile and vague wave of the hands (so different from the cynical Gallic shrug) that means ‘let’s not take it so seriously’

Like English summer rain. That starts falling apologetically, unsuspected. Not heralded by the fierce build up of a Mediterranean storm after weeks of fearsome heat.

Soft, not threatening.

Just like this song.

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcasts: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (192)

Read Full Post »

Before I started this blog I did a trial run where I posted a few pieces on a trial site just to see how it would work. One of these pieces was the slow movement from Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto. It’s so good I’m reposting it here.

I can’t understand why Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto is not more widely popular. It is easily the equal of Bruch’s First Violin Concerto, which is done to death, and much better than any of the Russians since Tchaikovsky. This is from a BBC broadcast from Cheltenham, England on 7 July 2007. I had switched on the radio for want of something to do, just in the silence before the opening of the heavenly slow movement. Enough to bring tears to a stone.

Here, from that concert, is the English teenage violinist, Chloe Hanslip, playing that slow movement. It has never been played better.

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcasts: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (148)

Read Full Post »