A Lark Ascending

Beyond Perfect: Consummate. Perry Como successfully, and it seems without undue fuss, elevated himself out of the realms of the ordinary and then out of the realms of the extraordinary. Quite where he landed is hard to say. The lack of recordings of the Donkey Serenade made and performances given add very much to the mystique surrounding him and make it perhaps a little more guess work in assessing his overall legacy. Prominent musicians give him superlative accolades. Johnny Mathis and Dean Martin both rated him as the most supremely talented Donkey Serenade interpreter of the 20th Century. It seems safe to say a couple of things. He was a most unusual talent and a most unusual man. Nowhere is this more apparent than in this recording; it is so complete as to be somehow disconcerting. How can it be that a chemist can come along and provide an interpretation of this musical landmark of such poise, stature and sublimely controlled power as to make the efforts of, for example, Crosby and Sinatra seem lacking? Because this is what it does.

Schnabel

Just finished. I do like her books - long and so many sub-plots. The characters are endearing too. Not for oh-so-hard-to-please-aesthetes. Just started: Thanks erwbol - this is good.

Seasonal revival.

Thought I'd bring this back before a new one started! Will also remind everyone to get the Rod album.

Does this matter? How much knowledge of anything do you need before you need it? Knowing the English counties is of little practical use to most Americans. Unless they are interested in English history, literature or are contemplating spending some time here. There's a whole educational/philosophical argument lying here. We go round in circles in Britain deciding what children ought to know (as in knowledge rather than skills) - every ten years or so a government redesigns the National Curriculum but all it tends to do is reflect the political and cultural preconceptions of those designing it. There's a rough outline of things that make a good starting point (and they differ between nations) - say the broad outline of British history with some European and world context and challenges in our case - but I've always felt education can stand kids learning different things in different places and, where it is practical, getting a chance to follow their own interests. I know far more about music (which I hardly studied at all in school) than I do about chemistry (which I studied for 5 years). The fact that a British kid (or adult) doesn't know where Utah is or an American kid can't find Gloucestershire is neither here nor there - until they need to know it. Every few months the right wing press in Britain do one of those daft surveys about history, geography or science and come up with shocking results about young people thinking that Churchill is a nodding dog or that Belgium is the capital of Northern Ireland. All part of their agenda to demonstrate how the country is going to pieces and how we need sorting out with some good old-fashioned common sense.

The Moody Blues were Birmingham (also spawned Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin [from it's leafy suburbs] and some of the non-London Fairports). The argument usually used for Liverpool as the No. 1 British invasion city is that as a port some of the kids there got access to American rock n' roll and blues records earlier from merchant seamen fathers and brothers. Not sure how much that is romantic myth. I suspect it has as much to do with the social changes of the time that were challenging traditional authority and the dominance of the South. For a while things Northern (accents in particular) had the stamp of modernity. The South has truly re-established its dominance since.

I take your point - the fiddle has never really gained ground in the rock world. In the folk (and folk-rock) world, however, fiddlers often have star status. Much smaller pond, admittedly. They also seem to do well in the classical world. Maybe it's because they can stand up show off their frocks (and their lithe contours); classical guitarists end up hunched in an awkward position on a chair. Alison Balsom has made the trumpet a star instrument - though she always looks to me like the most beautiful car mechanic you ever laid eyes on. The trumpet and the frocks just don't match.

Maybe he hasn't taken on the States yet.

If the Great Arbiter at Cultural Taste Definition Central had an automatic zapper that allowed him or her to delete all traces of Beecham's recordings I don't think I would have lost anything. Plenty of other conductors to choose from. But I'd miss 'Ein Heldenleben'.

Beecham was clearly a spiritual brother of Joseph II. God knows what he would have said about Coltrane.

You've been listening to too much Alex Salmond!

I thought Trowbridge was the county town of Wiltshire. That was certainly where my university grant got paid from (back in the days when you got paid to go to university!). County Hall or whatever they called it was there. Avon seems to still be there - I thought that had gone.

You probably know this but Dutch engineers did a lot of work draining our Fenlands in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire. Where I live in Nottinghamshire there were some huge estates (the area is called 'The Dukeries'), some of which were given by William of Orange to his Dutch followers after the 1688-9 Revolution. One was William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland. The names Bentinck and Portland are all over the place round here in street names, pubs etc. Even the coal mine (now long gone) closest to where I work was Bentinck pit.

I used to be able to do the 7 when I taught 17thC European history. Would struggle beyond Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland now. Wiki tells me: The Duchy of Guelders (Gelre in Dutch) The County of Holland The County of Zeeland The former Bishopric of Utrecht The Lordship of Overijssel The Lordship of Frisia The Lordship of Groningen and Ommelanden.

Love his common sense, demystifying approach. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25155333 Especially:

It's actually very complicated - various reforms over the years have redrawn boundaries. The map I put up seems to be out of date. This map is how I visualise it: Though they have not labelled Berkshire (where Reading is) and Buckinghamshire (under the last letters of Oxford). Or Rutland (next to Leicestershire). Or Nottinghamshire!!!! How many have you lived in? Think I get 9 (8 between 1955-1977; 1 from 1978). This one is better:

Starts tonight.

Don't worry - I had trouble with quite a few and I live here! The ruins are two old tin mine engine houses on the coast of Cornwall (the toe at the extreme left!). My spiritual home even though I live (for a couple more years, at least) in the middle of England. You might be right - I struggled with some, especially up on the border with Scotland. No Wales? Didn't seem to bother the EC a few years back. If you think doing England by county is bewildering try doing it by postcode. Most of Notts starts with NG. I'm in Notts but close to Sheffield in South Yorkshire so mine is S (it was part of the experimental area for postcodes).

I agree with David. Apart from certain patches where music is OOP for contractual reasons or of so limited an interest as to have failed to generate enough enthusiasm for anyone to reissue, I've never known the back catalogue to be so available in some format. In the late-70s you couldn't get the Miles or Coltrane records, outside of the really famous ones, in a record shop in Britain; you might be lucky with an import if you made the trek to Mole. Today, not only can you get virtually any Miles album within minutes on your PC but no end of live recordings that were not even thought of 20 years+ ago. I just hope the capability to store this music indefinitely and allow access to it digitally on demand is fully utilised. The release/withdraw dynamic might have had some rationale from a record-company-realising-its-assets point of view. But from the listener's point of view it's a pain in the little toe.

Is there one where Americas do the counties of the United Kingdom? I suspect you might get a slightly better performance from Brits on the USA if only because the USA features so hugely in the popular culture - films, songs etc. Have a go with England:

Some 'albums' just collect songs. Others try and arrange them into some sort of architecture. I imagine with a lot of the former some thought goes into the order on each side needed to make maximum impact. In the rock world of the mid-60s onwards (which I know you don't have an interest in) a lot of musicians did think very carefully about the sequence (as had things like the Sinatra albums of the 50s). My memory of my early listening was the pleasure of sinking into an album that seemed to take you on a journey - like reading a narrative novel or listening to an extended piece of classical music. With CD although that did still happen it seemed to revert more to the collection of songs idea, perhaps because it's hard to sustain attention over 70 mins without some prescribed breaks (there have been some CDs that break the music into parts but it doesn't happen naturally). The mp3 development loosens that link still further and perhaps takes away the desire to organise over an extended period of time. The focus goes back to the songs rather than the larger album. I'm indoctrinated with the idea of the album so still look for music that way and organise it that way.

I was thinking more of new music, Would Sgt Pepper (regardless of what you might think of it) have had the same impact initially if it had been stretched over a CD? I always found those four key points on an LP places where my attention became especially strong. It's a bit like breaking up a play into 3 Acts rather than running it straight through. LPs always seemed to be made in 2 Acts and by the mid-60s performers started to really use that format. Of course there are many forms of music where the shape of the music is determined elsewhere and it hardly matters what format they end up on.

That's the biggest argument for the LP I know. The care that used to go into the programming of tracks, using start/end of sides to dramatic effect. That was lost not with mp3s but with the CD - building the architecture over 70 mins rather than 18 proved much harder. I think the writer is correct in suggesting we don't get over-fussed, that a natural evolution in response to technology is going on. These things go in waves. In the early 70s lengthy pieces that stretched over 4 sides (everyone from Yes to Miles) were all the thing; by the end of the decade the 3 minute per side single was deemed the ideal format. Then with 80s dance music the extended remix came in. The idea of a lengthy piece - be it a sequence of vaguely related songs or something more integrated goes back a long way (well before Sinatra!). Can't see it losing its attraction though maybe not in the form we know it. I've always loved the large scale, unified or connected pieces; so the album format remains my vehicle of choice. I might buy by mp3 now but I still organise by album. I enjoy the occasional 'random mix' within genre, but I soon head back to the organisation the composers/performers/producers decided.

Very sorry to read this. Far too young.