Mozart had a dad. Of course he did, we all do. It is one of the few certainties in this life, that we each have a father. The experience we have of him varies just a tad: from a loving, patient kind man who is always there, via various stages of impatience, occasional anger, neglect, […]
Category: LP
“Majella has a very bright future” declares the sleeve note on this LP. There are lots of quotes from the papers, too. “Majella will be a recording star of international fame,” says one. “Majella Brady is currently tipped to be Ireland’s top pop export for many years,” opines another. On it goes: “A new star […]
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The beauty and the sadness
On record covers, the great composers of classical music always look like solid members of the establishment. The cover design tends to emphasise this: lots of pillars, porcelain, baroque filigree, guys in powdered wigs. Unthreatening, respectable, venerated – and dull. Rubbish, all of it, and it so betrays both the musicians and the music. These […]
Ah, the Eighties. The decade when marketing and pop music really hopped into bed, good and proper. “We are living in a material world,” declaimed Madonna. “Greed is good”, said Gordon Gecko, who didn’t actually exist though there were many like him. Margaret Thatcher did exist, and ran a country, and she said “There is […]
Now here’s an album which my inner folk purist can enjoy, free of guilt. It was recorded by the Chieftains, heavyweights of the Celtic revival from the 1960s on, master instrumentalists of traditional Irish folk. The only stain on its purity is that it was not actually manufactured in Dublin – this is an Australian […]
A few years ago, my eldest daughter came down with chicken pox. I was primary carer at the time, and so needed to come up with creative ways to entertain and distract a bright and precocious child who itched all over and couldn’t play with other kids. So, we took up stamp collecting. I bought […]
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A western, and sad
We did not have a television at home when I was a boy. This was the 1970s, when TVs had become pretty much universal in Australia, but my Mum and Dad did not approve of this trend. Although I didn’t like it at the time I am grateful for their non-conformity now. Much of my […]
A little while ago I wrote about the Pizza Principle: do not judge the music of a country by the pizza named after it. The principle applies most obviously to Hawaii, where tourist clichés obscure a rich musical tradition. Discovering the wonderful steel guitar playing of Sol Ho’opi’i inspired me to be more open minded […]
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Converting me into a bullet
Richard Harris is now chiefly famous for two things: singing the mysterious, melancholy song “MacArthur Park”, which was a huge hit in the late 1960s, and playing the role of Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films. He was not especially good as Dumbledore, though in fairness he was in poor health. His singing […]
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What it says on the tin
In all of music, is there a more romantic instrument than the cello? Rhetorical question. ‘Course not. If you want to hook someone on classical music, take them to see a good cellist play. Or even just play a recording, and you could do worse than this, one of the most demanding cello pieces ever […]
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