Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle on a Keto diet. And I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Mercury Living Presence and Antal Dorati make magic of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, a ballet about, I suppose, cracking nuts. I, for one, have never seen the ballet so I don’t really know what the HELL it’s about but has there ever been a ballet with more famous tunes in it? I think I’ll take a chance on the Royal Ballet version because I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve seen from them and my favorite, Lauren Cuthbertson is the Sugar Plum Fairy. It gets raves everywhere. But that music is astoundingly great, and this recording is fantastic, in beautiful sound. I’ve been listening in iTunes to a lot of ballet music I’ve uploaded, including Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, one of my favorite ballet scores. I must say, I listened to several different accounts, all drawn from the three suites but quite differently presented. They’re all excellent but one stands out ahead of all of which I’ve heard, and that’s Mr. Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting the New York Philharmonic. It’s not as long as others, but it’s cherce and the playing of the NY Phil is spectacular, and the Columbia early stereo sound is breathtaking and astonishing and Mitropoulis gets every ounce of greatness out of it. I listened to Erich Leinsdorf longer presentation and it, too, is really great and in excellent sound and, for me, it’s better than the Charles Munch version. I also have it complete with a Russian band and conductor, but the sound on those Melodiya CDs cannot compare in any way to Columbia and RCA stereo in their golden years. Seek out the Mitropoulos – it’s worth every penny and has nice fillers, too. Well, there are two CDs that have it – one has it and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky in a fine performance conducted by Thomas Schippers, which is what I have. The other is a Great Performances CD that’s all Mitropoulos and I’m getting that one because I believe it was a new remastering and I want the best sounding version there is.
I also watched an interesting motion picture entitled Term of Trial. Here’s the comedy version of how I came to watch it. In writing that difficult set of liner notes, I went into the composer’s many other works and realized that I hadn’t realized he’d written a few film and TV scores. That made me curious, and I knew I had one of them on a Warner Archive DVD and I was pretty sure I’d watched it not too long ago, but then I began to doubt myself because I would have noticed this composer had done the score. And then, of course, I couldn’t find the damn DVD. But I knew I’d seen it at some point not that long ago. Anyway, today I finally got some patience and looked through a box of DVDs and after about fifteen minutes, there it was. So, that’s what I watched and after the first two minutes I knew I’d not only not watched it recently but that I’d never watched it. I have no idea why. It stars Laurence Olivier and Simone Signoret and introduces two new actors to the silver screen – Sarah Miles and Terence Stamp. It’s directed by Peter Glenville and I have to say I enjoyed it very much. I was very into these kinds of films back in 1963 when it opened here on January 30 and am surprised I didn’t see it, especially as it played my beloved Wiltern Theater. And the score was excellent. Sadly, the transfer isn’t excellent – it’s basically an ancient thing they had somewhere and it’s clearly from an open matte source as they’ve zoomed in the sides and then made it 1.85 which makes the framing at the top rather inept. I’d love to see a proper transfer of this, but I doubt that will ever happen. I also watched a bit of a film entitled Hopscotch, which I haven’t seen since it came out, but I only got fifteen minutes in, so I’ll finish that tonight.
Yesterday was a day, I think we can all agree on that. I got eight hours of sleep, answered e-mails, and we decided on day and time for the commentary, so that was good. Then food arrived, another chicken Caesar from Stanley’s and that was great, and I ate it all up. After that, I spent a good deal of time dealing with having to move all our stuff out of the warehouse to a U-Haul storage place in Northridge. I reserved three big units, which will basically cost what the warehouse cost. I have no idea how we’re getting the stuff there so that will have to be dealt with this week and the move would occur at the end of the month. Then I wrote the final set of liner notes, which ended up being pretty easy, so that was good and will enable us to announce two titles this week. After all that, I had a nice telephonic call with dear reader Jeanne, and then I watched Term of Trial and the bit of Hopscotch. I did a quick Gelson’s run and got some more eggs and ham, which will be one of today’s meals – the second will be a small salad with oil and vinegar for dressing, I think, unless I feel like bleu cheese for some reason. Once back home, I had about five tiny pieces of salami with three slices of provolone cheese as my snack – nothing too caloric and all Keto perfect. I also had a pickle, which has zero carbs, and a few almonds and that was that. Then I listened to The Nutcracker, the ballet about cracking nuts, and then listened to Schipper’s do Alexander Nevsky, which is a terrific performance in terrific sound.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll be having a conversation to finalize exactly what will be on the Blu-ray and we’ll lock that in so that there won’t be any surprises, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll eat ham and eggs, I’ll have more telephonic conversations and start making notes about what we’ll cover in the commentary tracks, I’ll eat a small salad of some sort, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same and I should see my galley pretty soon, I’m hoping, so I can approve that and get that on its merry way, I’ll hopefully arrange for the warehouse move and hopefully that won’t be too difficult, and I will need some VERY strong most excellent vibes and xylophones that everything works as it should toward the end of the week, so please send them. Then on Saturday at three we’ll be doing the Tonight’s the Night commentary and as long as the price is right, we’ll be doing commentary on all twelve episodes of Outside the Box.
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, have various and sundried telephonic conversations, hopefully pick up packages, eat ham and eggs, make notes, eat a small salad, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films of Laurence Olivier? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall dream of a Nutcracker cracking nuts.