Haines Logo Text
Column Archive
October 23, 2016:

THE DAY OF THE LIVING LIVING

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I am happy to inform you that I, BK, actually got ten hours of glorious sleep and boy did I need it. It was like night of the living dead around these here parts, but I felt ever so much better after arising at noon-fifteen – it was like day of the living living around these here parts. Other than that, I had the kind of day and evening I wanted to – doing nothing other than what pleased me. The first thing that pleased me was answering e-mails and, more importantly, printing out orders. I put some more music on iTunes and had quite the time listening to all the recorded versions of Randall Thompson’s Second Symphony, one of my all-time favorite pieces of music and yet another in the long line of great second symphonies. I know I was hard on the Leonard Bernstein version in yesterday’s notes, but after hearing the lousy-sounding Bay Cities transfer of a lousy sounding LP release, after hearing the terrible Koch recording, after hearing a pretty good recording by Neeme Jarvi and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, I am of the feeling that the Bernstein, despite a couple of things I’m not fond of, is by far the best. The Jarvi is smoother, more symphonic, but the Bernstein has the energy and is more lighthearted, capturing the flavor of Thompson’s magnificent writing. Since I was on a Thompson kick, I tried to listen to the Koch recording of his third symphony, but so lousy is the distant sound, and so uninteresting is the conductor’s reading of it, I had to shut it off.

Instead, on You Tube I found a live radio broadcast from the late 1940s taken from a scratchy mono transcription disc – and with all its imperfections, the music suddenly had passion and heft and it was great to hear it. I also found an early 1970s radio broadcast of his first symphony conducted by Gunther Schuller and I quite liked that, too – the ONLY recording of it is, unfortunately, on Koch. I have it and will try to see if it’s any better. I also want to pull out the other Bay Cities Randall Thompson discs – choral music and a string quartet. He is shamefully neglected here, but interestingly has been rediscovered in the UK by the BBC Orchestra – that performance is, I think, also on You Tube and I think I’ll give it a try. So, if you want to hear an amazing piece of American symphonic writing, I cannot recommend this highly enough. The Bernstein recording can be had VERY cheaply, like under five bucks. You can thank me later.

From there, I decided to move from American music to my other favorite, English music from the twentieth century. I’ve done all the Vaughan-Williams stuff, so I began reacquainting myself with my other favorites. In the 1970s, there was a label called Lyrita that was my favorite for English classical music – I had every Lyrita release. Happily, in the 1990s they began releasing them on CD and I do believe I have all that they issued. Finding them in the closet is difficult – I should have pulled them out when I was organizing but alas I did not. But I was able to get to a few of them by the likes of Richard Rodney Bennett, Grace Williams, William Wordsworth, all the Edward Rubbra CDs, and several Holst CDs. I began with Grace Williams, just because female classical composers are so few and far between. I really like her music and it was fun to hear it again, since I haven’t listened to it since the CDs first came out. She’s not as lyrical as some English composers, in fact some of her writing is quite muscular, but there are the pastoral bits every now and then, and she was a very talented woman. I will have to dig in and pull out all the William Alwyn, Malcolm Arnold, Bax, and Elgar CDs, too, and any other of the Lyrita series I come across.

Then I had a chili, cheese, and onion omelet and an English muffin, then came home and listened to more music. I did a two-and-a-half mile jog and then finally sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Comanche Station, a Randolph Scott western directed by Budd Boetticher, one of a series of terrific movies they teamed on. I haven’t seen it since it came out on DVD back in 2008. Back then I wrote: I really like these films a lot – they’re spare, simple, basic, and, best of all, short. Comanche Station runs a crisp seventy-four minutes. Randolph Scott always plays a loner in these scripts written by Mr. Burt Kennedy, and he’s always a noble person deep down, even though that might not be readily apparent initially. The camerawork is always terrific, and the only place Comanche Station really fails is the hodge-podge of a musical score, mostly by Heinz Roemheld (uncredited here, but much of the Comanche Station music is from Ride Lonesome, another Boetticher/Scott Columbia film). One wishes that the Columbia house composer would have done these films – Mr. George Duning.

This Blu-ray is from Germany and it seems to me the transfer is the one created eight years ago for the DVD release. That transfer was excellent for a DVD release and for that time, but on Blu-ray it doesn’t quite cut the mustard or the ketchup – the detail is lacking and it’s just never sharp enough. I hope Sony revisits all these Scott/Boetticher westerns.

Then I watched the first thirty minutes of the omnibus film Cat’s Eye, written by Stephen King. I’m not sure I’ve ever even heard of the movie, but I took a chance on it. It’s directed by Cujo director Lewis Teague. I watched the first story and it was pretty entertaining, so I’m looking forward to the rest. The film was made in 1985 and features Drew Barrymore, James Woods, and lots of other folks. The opening is pretty droll, actually, as we meet the titular cat who weaves throughout the stories – the cat is chased by – wait for it – Cujo, is almost hit by Christine the killer car, and then we see James Woods watching a movie on TV – The Dead Zone. Hoping the final two stories are fun, too.

Then I took a quick sojourn to Gelson’s to get some chicken and the Wacky Noodles ingredients, since that’s what I feel like eating today.

Today, I shall hopefully arise after another good night’s beauty sleep, I’ll try to have a relaxing day, I’ll eat, jog, pick up a package that actually arrived yesterday, and listen to music, as well as finish Cat’s Eye.

Tomorrow I have a work session for the Kritzerland show, Tuesday is a production meeting for The Brain and the rest of the week is meetings and meals, Brain work, and a work session or two. And I really need some most potent excellent vibes and xylophones for a miracle or five and no irritants – I really must get through the next two weeks without irritants.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must for example, arise, relax, eat, listen to music, watch stuff, jog, pick up a package, and relax more. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have gotten a good night’s sleep so that it’s like the night of the living living around these here parts.

Search BK's Notes Archive:
 
© 2001 - 2024 by Bruce Kimmel. All Rights Reserved