But it's such FUN, Ollie!

I think it's time to wean you away from the Haitink box, r, though personally I'll not be pointing you in the direction of Sir A Davis, for any alternative renditions...

Incidentally, of all the works commissioned for the Proms in the last 40 years or so, is there any that's had more performances than the Tippett? It's had three recordings (one, admittedly, from a live performance), and I seem to possess a minimum of seven off-air readings in the archives, at least two of which are from the States. 

The fields that RVW's Pastoral evokes aren't British at all, but the battle-ravaged fields of the WW1 Front, where beautiful sunsets might still occur even though the land was churned to mud and the few remaining trees charred, jagged splinters. It is an elegy for lost times and lost friends, suffused with the ghosts of bugle calls through morning mists and the resigned sadness of personal disappointment.

Those who believe it was anything to do with cows looking over a gate couldn't have been further from the mark.

Tony, I have to admit that the Sea Symphony is the least played of the cycle in my collection: and anyone who considers me a Shostakovich anorak might be staggered to learn that even without the four complete boxed sets (Boult(1), Previn, Haitink and A Davis) which are elsewhere, my RVW symphonies on CD take up over two feet of shelf space. (And that's without the Norringtons, IGI!)

# 15          Catching up, George.    I've now transferred the Nichols & May LP to minidisc and the "George"/"Marcia" exchanges are not included -you are so right, the inflections tell all - but Mike Nichols  was working on the screenplay for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" in 1965, before directing the film for Warner's with the Burtons and it's quite likely that George/Marcia was a parody on George/Martha in Edward Albee's play.

However, the Bach to Bach track has a background piano solo by Marty Rubenstein, as has Rachmaninov's second piano concerto in "The Dentist" - a delicious send-up of "Brief Encounter" with Mike Nichols using Coward intonations to convince Rima that it was her cavities which turned his attraction to infatuation.      "You mean it wasn't my rotting tooth - it was ME you really wanted?"   Finally, he leaves to work in a Leper colony to get over it.   In turn, she decides to devote her life to dentistry in Saudi Arabia.   Shades of  Celia in "The Cocktail Party"?  

"Bach to Bach" is a masterpiece of inspired improvisation and I've been told that the post-coital banalities between the pair after a casual pick-up has inhibited subsequent conversation with several listeners, albeit free from promiscuity. So they say.   There is a wicked sense of toe-curling embarrassment  and sheer delight to hear all the familiar cliches pour forth.

He:         "My family was your usual dull, middle class, burgoise family, I guess."

Her:        "My story is the same.   There was no relating; there was proximity.....but no relating."        

Him:   "When Huxley had him committing suicide to the last movement of the 15th, I understand that so well.    Too many people think of Adler as a man who made mice neurotic.  He was much more, much more."

Her:    "I can never believe that Bartok died on Central Park West."

Him:     "Ugly."

Her:      "Ugly, ugly"      (Listening to Bach)    "I love this part."

Him:      "Here."

Her:       "Here, here.     When I read 'Thus Sprach Zarathustra' it almost hurts."

Him:       "Beauty often hurts.    I know exactly how you feel."

Her:       "Do you know how I feel?"

Him:       "Exactly."

These interchanges should be obligatory in every Drama School.
If you'd like a CD-R, George, drop me a pm.   No trouble, I assure you.

Interesting, too, that Plato's Symposium was also published - in Pelican edition? - circa the mid-60's.      I was in Rep at the time and instead of burning the midnight oil, learning lines, a group of us were dissecting the text.  Thank goodness Mike Nichols wasn't around!

Re "Othello", I think that Iago's first Rabeliasian earthiness is made when he rouses Brabantio from his sleep:  "......."Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe.... "

Did you see Peter Hall's production, late 70s, at N.T.     Michael Bryant's chilling Iago, the personification of malice.    A perpetual fixed smile without warmth.    Grr.  Still makes me shudder.          

          

Yes to both, exactly! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! 

         

I did indeed Stanley. A brilliantly and horribly persuasive Iago. For a man who exuded good nature and fun, that's real acting. IIRC he didn't confide his thoughts conspiratorially into Othello's ear but the two sat far apart at separate (and separate status) desks, Iago in the 'outer office' ostensibly trying to get on with the paperwork rather than having the answers to Othello's questions dragged out of him. Othello didn't have a chance, even if it was Paul Scofield's Othello weighing up each piece of evidence with careful and massive intelligence before being hooked and reeled in.

I'd better stop before I start sounding like a line from 'Bach to Bach', curse them!

PM to follow

  Yes, Ron, and the frequent references to "Honest Iago" throughout the play.   I had a long standing dialogue with John Fernald about the need to play this aspect of the man with total conviction as there was ample scope for duplicity in the soliliquies.     JF was Principal at RADA and always asserted that he hated my interpretation of Iago at my entrance audition and it was my Lopakhin in "The Cherry Orchard" which swung the Board.   Ironically, I did play Lopakhin, later, but was never offered Iago.

           "A sad tale's best for winter"   

At the moment, I'm listening to this concert again on WDR 3:

http://www.wdr.de/radio/wdr3/sendung.phtml?sendung=Internationale%20Musikfestspiele&termineid=377569&objektart=Sendung

The sound quality is much better than on Radio 3.