Well, dear readers, it’s the day after Christmas and all through the house, the BK is sitting and ready to grouse. This, of course, is not true, there shall be no grousing in these here notes because grousing is not the Christmas way. So, instead I’m not stirring because I am sitting here like so much fish whilst listening to the amazingly amazing symphonies of Kurt Atterberg. I discovered Mr. Atterberg’s music in the 1970s on LP, bought many CDs when they appeared, but here we have all the symphonies in one five-CD set from the wonderful label CPO, beautifully performed in great sound. These are just fantastic – tuneful, moving, Nordic in the best sense of Nordic, all different in tone, and I’m just loving listening to them. I’m not sure I ever actually got around to a couple of these discs, but if I did it was ages ago when I first got this. You can find him on the Tube of You if you’d like hear some. I love the second and fifth a whole lot – the fifth is playing as I type these here notes. I also discovered to my chagrin that all my old Puccini opera CDs have gone bad – Tosca, La Boheme, and a couple of others, all on Decca and all bought in the late 1980s. Guess I’ll have to replace them. Throughout the day, I also listened to Korngold’s wondrous opera Das Wunder der Heliane, part of the Decca Entartete series and conducted by John Mauceri, but this one actually sounds pretty good, isn’t too distant and washy. And last night, before going to bed, I found on the Tube of You an entire performance (clearly from VHS) of the English National Opera production of Street Scene. So, I watched quite a bit of it and it’s a meat and potatoes production that lets the material speak for itself. I gather it’s mostly this cast that’s on the JAY CD, which I found a very cheap copy of, so I’ll hear it, although I’m no fan of that label. I do know that Caroline O’Connor, who’s in the video, is not on the recording – it’s Catherine Zeta-Jones of all people. But I thought the cast was mostly very strong and musically it’s very good – the JAY recording has Carl Davis conducting, rather than the man who actually conducted the show, which is James Holmes, who also conducted the German DVD I watched and enjoyed. It’s got lackluster staging and the choreography is not more than decent – boy would I love to get my mitts on this and do it up right. Both the Rose and Anna are excellent, and the Frank doesn’t play it quite so melodramatically brutish as the other two Franks I’ve seen, and that’s kind of helpful, actually. But I’m totally and completely obsessed with the music and every time I hear it, I love it more. I get giddy when they launch into Tied Up in a Ribbon and Wrapped in a Bow, a gloriously glorious tuneful ditty right up there with the best of the tuneful ditties. Lonely House is fantastic, Somehow I Never Could Believe is hauntingly beautiful, and I love the throwaway song Anna sings to her son. But it’s all great all the time. So, that was the listening part of the day and evening.
Yesterday didn’t much seem like Christmas to the likes of me, I must say. I did get eight hours of sleep, answered a few e-mails, had a nice texting volley with the Darling Daughter, shaved so I wouldn’t look like a Jew Christmas derelict, then I girded my loins and went to the motor car and thankfully it started right up. I took a nice drive, stopped at the bank and put in a couple of teeny-tiny residual checks in the ATM, then came home – I think I drove for about forty minutes. I didn’t see a single restaurant that was open, save for McDonald’s. And I was quite surprised to see Ralph’s was open and the parking lot was really full, which I found odd on Christmas Day. But driving was fun because the streets were basically empty.
Once back home, I ate the rest of the tuna pasta salad (I was going to bring it to the Havertys, but they told me they had way too much food there. It was very good, I had the last small piece of the cherry loaf and a piece of the Bundt cake and that was it for food. I then made a few more notes on the new book and actually wrote the first five pages, which I felt really good about (not the content, just the doing) – now when I actually begin on January 1, I’ll already be into the book, which is what I like. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a Blu and Ray of a Jaromir Weinberger comic opera or operetta – not sure which category it would fall under – called Fruhlingssturme (Spring Storms), a three-act affair of roughly two-hours-and-twenty-minutes duration, which is a bit long for this kind of thing. It was a production of Komische Oper in Germany, the same company that did that wild production of the Oscar Straus Cleopatra operetta – same director and choreographer here, so I knew at least it would be fun on some level. Act One plods along setting up all the plot points and characters and the director and choreographer do their best to enliven things, but it’s mostly just plot and somewhat hard to follow even with the subtitles. Act Two is better and there’s some fun stuff in it and then Act Three takes it home and for the first time we do get some big yocks. There are a couple of moments when the director, who clearly loves burlesque, goes a little too far for the laugh and gets into crass territory, but mostly it’s fun. The set is kind of weird, but it works for the director. Costumes are fantastic, too. And then there’s Mr. Weinberger’s music and while it’s not Schwanda, it’s very attractive, tuneful, and fun – several catchy melodies and a killer ballad in act three. The Blu-ray quality is great, as is the sound. I’m happy to have seen it and seen it to be happy.
After that, I began the Atterberg symphonies and the rest you know and you know the rest, not necessarily in that order.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, which won’t be much, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages (there are about seven things that have been sitting in various hubs around the country for over two weeks now – it’s outrageous), I’ll eat – thinking about those really tasty Gelson’s enchilada things again, although they have other stuff like that that also looked good – and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow will be more of the same, Monday I have a brief visit at some point, then we head into the last of 2020 and I, for one, say hoo and ray and begone to one of the oddest and most disturbing years I’ve ever seen. Of course, we’ll sweep away the old and welcome in the New Year right here at haineshisway.com with our annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Bash, and I do hope you’ll all be here to ring in 2021.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, hopefully pick up way overdue packages, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What fun things did you get for Christmas? I’ll start – other than the Darling Daughter’s gift box, zip, nada, squat – well, not completely true – Robert Yacko gave me a gift certificate for Vitello’s – they still do take out, so I’ll have a nice meal from there very soon, like this coming week. And I gave myself a few CDs, obviously. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have survived a lonely Christmas.