Skip to main content

Sinfonietta

Of all the long novels I've managed to finish, 1Q84 might be the one I enjoyed the least. Despite that, I am much obliged to Murakami for his prominent mention of Leos Janáček's 'Sinfonietta' in the book's opening pages. Until reading about it there, I'd hitherto failed to pay due attention to the piece. Supposedly, Janáček intended the music to express "contemporary free man, his spiritual beauty and joy, his strength, courage and determination to fight for victory," but, for me, its bold and slightly off-kilter fanfares conjure up a sense of otherwordliness in tune with the themes of Murakami's novel, so the novelist's referencing it there didn't strike me as gratuitious. Janáček, however, does much more with his twenty-odd minutes of music than Murakami manages with 900+ pages of prose.

I have it in a 1971 recording from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa. It's paired with an older performance of the same composer's 'Taras Bulba' by a different orchestra & conductor, on a 1980 re-issue put out by the budget 'Classics for Pleasure' label. Presumably the image on the cover is meant to illustrate Taras Bulba, rather than anything relating to the 'Sinfonietta'. There will doubtless be stronger performances of it out there than Ozawa's with the CSO, but I find this one perfectly satisfactory. 

Janáček's story is one of the great examples of success late in life. Having toiled away in provincial obscurity for decades, he belatedly found fame & acclaim in 1916, when in his early 60s, thereafter producing a flurry of idiosyncratic masterpieces in his final twelve years. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All Wrapped Up

Here's another of the compilation cassettes I bought this summer, having taken home a Denon twin-deck hi-fi cassette player from the local charity shop. All Wrapped Up is a 1983 compilation of singles by The Undertones, with Side One filled with A-sides, and B-sides on Side Two. A cassette must be the least desirable medium for such an arrangement, with a long rewind required if one just wants to hear the hits repeatedly. The Undertones were unapologetically provincial and anti-fashionable, with their songs sharply-written slices of life that pointedly avoided any mention of politics, or of the then-continuing violence in their native Derry. My favourite tracks are the obvious choices: 'Teenage Kicks', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'Here Comes the Summer', 'My Perfect Cousin' & 'Wednesday Week'. Their later singles showed increased sophistication but lack the some of the straightforward charm of their earlier work. The B-sides, not unexpectedly, are mo
Post a Comment
Read more

In Heat

Having acquired the soubriquet "the walrus of love", Barry White thereafter became something of a figure of fun, something that misled me (and presumably others) into disregarding his music. Only within the last few years have I begun to pay it more attention. After picking up a copy of his '74 album Can't Get Enough last summer, which I loved, I sought out some of the music by his protegés Love Unlimited. From a Discogs seller I ordered well-used copies of Under the Influence of... ('73) and In Heat ('74) for only £6.25. The only unappealing thing about In Heat is its awful title. The songs and the singing are strong; the arrangements rich & warmly enveloping. As one would expect from White, the thematic focus is firmly fixed on amatory matters. The opening number 'Move Me No Mountain' (the only one on the record not written by White) offers a refreshing rebuttal to the kind of lyrical hyperbole in songs like 'Ain't No Mountain High E
Post a Comment
Read more

Bananas Are Not Created Equal

I knew Jay Berliner's name from his contributions to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and Charles Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady , so when I saw this curiously-titled LP at the local charity shop I was intrigued, and bought it even though I had no idea what kind of music it might contain. This was after the days when one could still buy records there for a pound apiece, but I don't think I paid more than a fiver for it. The music turned out to be an all-instrumental blend of funk, soul & jazz. Berliner's virtuoso lead guitar is only one of many attractions here. The band of first-rate session musicians behind him are all uniformly excellent too, and, crucially, sound like they're having a blast. Cornell Dupree's supporting guitar work, while less showy than Berliner's, is beautifully-judged, and the rhythm section is terrific. Arranger/conductor Wade Marcus was no slouch either, judging from the way everything comes together. Two of the funk
Post a Comment
Read more