Category Archive: MUSIC
The Pearl Fishers
Image from Antonio Bonamore from Zuccarelli's 1886 set design
(by Georges Bizet) (Met, March 2016) Time to fess up: I love The Pearl Fishers – unlike that other Brahmin-inspired piece, Lakmé, it does not cloy; it is not kitsch. It is a lovely piece, with pretty music, a good tight love-triangle plot and whilst there are not many polyphonic moments (apart from the famous piece, Au fond du temple saint, where the two fishermen declare their totally, okay – not totally – counterfeit affection), there are great declamatory solos and tremendous choral parts. I’ve loved it ever since I snapped up a cheap box of records of the production by Theatre National de…
Continue Reading →All by Myself
Songs in Our Heart # 3 All by Myself (Eric Carmen) (Written by Eric Carmen; released December 1975) [Ah, Memories…]
Continue Reading →African Reggae
Songs in Our Heart # 2 African Reggae (Nina Hagen) (Written by Reinhold Heil, Bernhard Potschka and Nina Hagen; released 1979) [Best pop yodeling ever.]*
Continue Reading →Molly: The Real Thing
Not dead yet
Channel 7 followed up its two-part drama Molly (reviewed here) with a short, oddly premature obituary-feel documentary about Ian “Molly” Meldrum the following week. Molly’s brother Brian tells us that Molly loved music from day one. He moved in with Ronnie Burns’ family when his just wouldn’t do, he was a journalist at GO SET magazine, then on the television music shows The go Show, Kommotion (1966). Uptight (1968) and Happening 1971. Again, like Vivienne Westwood, Ian Meldrum was a young person with nothing but passion and a lot of nerve who blazed a trail through a wood that no-one…
Continue Reading →Our “Great Classics: Carter & Wagner” Review in ASO eNotes
It takes something special to get folks in Adelaide to stand
In their latest electronic newspaper, our friends at the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra linked to our review of a recent function held by our friends the Richard Wagner Society of SA and a concert under the auspices of the ASO’s new Principal Conductor Nicholas Carter. Scroll down!
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