Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much French fish, listening to musique by a French composer from France, namely Henri Rabaud, yet another unsung but excellent French composer from France. On one of the early Mitropoulos CDs is a piece by this person Rabaud and I found it really terrific – at times even very Bernard Herrmann-like. Very melodic, this musique is. Of course, I immediately looked him up on the Google and found he was well known at during his lifetime but is virtually unknown today – and so it goes. The piece on the Mitropoulos CD is his most famous – La Procession Nocturne. I went directly to the Tube of You and grabbed every orchestra piece there – which sadly wasn’t very much. His second symphony, a suite from The Merchant of Venice, Eglogue – Poeme for Orchestra, and Divertissement on Russian Songs. So far, I’ve listened to the second symphony (no recording of the first, sadly) and it’s wonderful and filled with melodic melody, the Eglogue, another lovely piece, the Divertissement, also terrific, and now The Merchant of Venice suite, which I’m really enjoying. He also has an opera called Marouf that’s on YouTube and I’ll grab that next. Earlier, I watched a documentary on film music entitled Score. It’s perfectly fine and I know many of the talking heads in it. There’s a little too much “now” for my taste – and listening to the “now” people pontificate about stuff that’s more sound design than music that does what film music should do, which is illuminate the story and characters was, for me, not of interest at all. But we had two Newmans – David and Thomas – and they know what they’re talking about (Randy had one tiny line). At least they mentioned Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, Alex North, Jerry Goldsmith, and, of course, John Williams, and a nod to Max Steiner. But nary a word for Elmer Bernstein, Hugo Friedhofer, one minor mention of Mancini – and no examples of Alfred Newman film music, one example for Goldsmith (Planet of the Apes), one for Alex North, two for Herrmann – but we sure get plenty of Mission: Impossible 40 or whatever volume it was, and a couple of others I’ve never even heard of. Mr. Williams gets the most attention. It’s somewhat perfunctory but I still enjoyed it.
Yesterday was okay. Had a bit of a rough night but still got eight hours of sleep. The handyman came and put a new shower head on – the old one was leaking – so, I’ll use the new one as soon as I finish writing these here notes, I paid some bills, I had a burger and a few onion rings for food (tried a jernt called The Habit – it was okay, nothing more), chose a few songs, had some telephonic conversations, got a few orders, which was good, as these bills I paid weren’t pretty to look at, and then I watched the film music thing, after which I made about four ounces of noodles with butter and cheese – I hope I don’t come to regret that, but I hadn’t eaten since one.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll keep choosing songs or perhaps the songs will choose me, I’ll check to see if there’s any mail at the mail place, I’ll eat, I may Zoom with David Wechter, about this final round of his addressing notes I didn’t really care about. And I wasn’t thrilled with any of it, frankly – it’s the sledgehammering for the reader that I object to, and it’s the turning this into something that could have been written by anyone and I just don’t want to do it, so I think if we’re to address the small changes he’s making we’re gonna have to come up with another way of doing it. I’ll prep for tomorrow’s shoot, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I’ll be up by ten, maybe earlier, then Cindy and Karen get here at eleven and we head over the hill to record Cindy’s song. Once that’s done, then we head downtown to a little jernt to film the song. We’ll eat something afterwards, then we’ll come back here and I’m hoping Cindy will do the phone call stuff so we can be done with everything. If not, we’re gonna have to set a firm date in the next few days to do it, but it will be so much easier if she does it here where I can set it all up for her. Saturday, we have a meeting for the Elmer Bernstein concert, Sunday is a ME day, then next week is prepping and then rehearsing the Bernstein concert as well as finishing up choosing songs.
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, choose more songs, see if there’s mail at the mail place, eat, Zoom, and then watch, listen, and relax. Of film music today, which composers do you like and which do you not like? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have a brand spanking new shower head. Small pleasures.