Bewitched, enchanted, and downright seduced

Yes, this is about music again, a topic I can't help returning to. And this is one of those fugitive pieces, remembered quite vividly from my childhood: one that wriggled away and escaped. I think it was the title that popped into my head yesterday, in the tiniest bubble possible, but  at first I got it wrong: I thought maybe it was The Amazing Flutist, and I couldn't remember the composer's name.

It took a while. Then when I finally I winkled it out, The Incredible Flutist by Walter Piston, I realized that what we had listened to all those years ago was not even our record. I believe it belonged to my brother, who for some reason toted it home with him when he came back from university. I'd be maybe 10, he'd be maybe 20.

 

How often did we listen to it? Twice? If that. But if you take the time to listen to this, you'll see why at least parts of it lingered on in my memory. And yes, if you are at all familiar with Stravinsky's Petrushka, you'll likely notice that this is very much in the same mold.

Yet, in place of the frenetic near-delirium of Stravinsky's work, there is an innocence, even a purity in this suite: and some of it is just eye-fillingly beautiful, takes me aback. I don't know all of the story (for this is just a reduction of a full-length ballet score, one that was very rarely performed for some reason), but I can guess that the Flutist was a sort of enchanted/enchanting Pied Piper figure who attracted women rather than rats.

 

These folk tales often have an underlay of eroticism in them. If you look up the literal meaning of enchant, it means to gain power over someone by casting a verbal spell, an incantation. If you look at words like cantor, it's obvious we're in the realm of sacred (or profane) song. This seems to be implying (or shouting!) that music can be an extremely powerful means of seduction.

Let's not get into Justin Bieber or Mario Lanza or whoever happens to be the heart-throb of the day. Music hath charms, whether sung or piped or fluted. I once knew a man - an incredible man - who played a flute (and a saxophone and a piano and a clarinet and a -) who enchanted me for five years, without his ever knowing it.

So enchantment can even be involuntary. On his side, or her side, or both.

Celestial passions

Lord, how I love these old contraptions! They are musical time machines transporting us back to a simpler, more ingenuous time. This baby must have been a high-status piece of equipment in the Victorian era, like the stereos of the 1960s (when you invited your neighbor over and turned the amplifier up to 11). It amazes me how pristine the sound quality is: I don't think this instrument could be reproduced today to sound any better.

Bestial passions

Since music is something I swim in like a fish in the ocean, YouTube has been a huge blessing for me. I can dip in, bail after a few seconds if I don't like a piece, and saturate myself with the ones I do love, over and over again. Not only that, but the more analytical side of my listening mind can revel in comparisons of the same piece.

I've been getting into Afternoon of a Faun by Debussy, a piece which is almost embarrassingly erotic and which caused quite a stir when it debuted in Paris for portraying "bestial" passions. Which it did. One incensed audience member even walked out, going straight over to his mistress's chambers where he fucked the living daylights out of her.

I was thinking about fauns, erotic music, Debussy and the flute. Then I found a rapturous version of Debussy's Reverie by an ensemble which was unknown to me before. Trio del Garda has a web site, but no CDs, not that I can find. You can download quite a few YouTube videos, but the quality isn't very good. This surprises me: musicians have such cut-glass, noticing-your-watch-tick-across-the-room hearing that you'd think they would not allow even a hint of sound distortion, not to mention all those audience heads that seem to indicate amateur video. Are they really so strapped that they allow this inferior product to represent their work? I didn't post the Reverie, but only because the soundtrack is so full of offputting distortion.

But I had to post something of theirs, so I chose an unusual arrangement of a familiar, favorite piece (the Intermezzo from Cavalliera Rusticana by Mascagni: remember Raging Bull?), usually played by lush orchestra with orgasmic organ in the background. I noticed the flautist first, of course, since he is obviously the lead instrument in this ensemble.  I am very very picky about woodwinds, having grown up with wind players all around me, flute, oboe, clarinet (which my brother insists isn't really a musical instrument but a sort of pacifier for Middle School band students).

The best-known, like Galway, don't always fall on my ear in the best way. Galway had a very syrupy vibrato and a tendency to push the high note until it sharped. Jean-Pierre Rampal was the genius of his time, and I was privileged to hear him in concert many years ago. Defying the limits of the instrument, his tone was fat and lush and even sensuous. Surely he somehow expanded the resonant frequency of an instrument that can be excruciatingly thin, even sour. It was a fat shiny pelt of a sound, a musical mink coat that you could run your fingers through. No one has equalled it since.

But this guy, well, he has something going for him. He has a pronounced vibrato, in fact if there were any more it would be too much. But he uses it so beautifully. His high range has great purity and precision, so the end of the phrase needs something to soften and "voluptu-ize" it (and yes, I know that's not a word, but it's Friday and I feel like making stuff up). In short, I like him. I am CRAZY about chamber work that is very pared down, not so much string quartets as things like flute, bassoon and harp. Harp is sublime in ensemble, but completely wretched on its own. The only solo harpist I have ever really enjoyed is Harpo Marx, and only because he played jazz on it.

The first video I posted today is of the same piece (the Mascagni Intermezzo), played on a vintage Regina 17" upright music box with an automatic changer. I've posted this one before, but I think it's time for an encore. It's very beautiful, with an otherworldly quality in the decay of the notes, a dreaminess. Though it's played with precision (rubato seems out of reach for such things), it never sounds mechanical. And it's absolutely in tune, which most of these things aren't. What I love best is the changing mechanism, no doubt deemed a marvel of its time: you didn't even have to get up! How those thin discs avoided becoming unplayably warped is beyond me. I especially love how the disc disappears at the end, falling in a blur like some musical guillotine.

DAY OF THE DEAD: Peer Gynt versus the Trolls!

You might have heard this piece before - in fact, I'd be surprised if you haven't, because it has been ripped off for a thousand scary movie scores.

It's from Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg, one of those staple classical works that I had forced down my throat as a child. But did you ever stop to think what the chorus was saying?

And why they were saying it?

And who they were?

Those questions will be partially answered by this transcript, cut and pasted from the YouTube video. It's in Danish, but the captions might help you figure it out:

(The troll-courtiers): Slagt ham! Kristenmands søn har dåret
Dovregubbens veneste mø!
Slagt ham!
Slagt ham!
(a troll-imp): Må jeg skjære ham i fingeren?
(another troll-imp): Må jeg rive ham i håret?
(a troll-maiden): Hu, hej, lad mig bide ham i låret!
(a troll-witch with a ladle): Skal han lages til sod og sø?
(another troll-witch, with a butcher knife): Skal han steges på spid eller brunes i gryde?
(the Mountain King): Isvand i blodet!

In case you're curious as to what all those little buggers are saying, I dug out my old multiple-CD set of Peer Gynt, complete with dialogue in about 20 languages, that I never listen to because I don't know WTF is going on.

CHORUS OF TROLLS

Kill him! The Christian's son has deceived the fairest daughter of our ruler!

A YOUNG TROLL: Let me cut off his fingers!

CHORUS OF TROLLS: Kill him!

ANOTHER YOUNG TROLL: Let me tear out his hair!

CHORUS OF TROLLS: Kill him!

A TROLL MAIDEN: Oooo-ah! Let me bite his bottom!

CHORUS OF TROLLS: Kill him!

A TROLL WITCH: (with a ladle) Shall he be boiled to a broth in brine?

CHORUS OF TROLLS: Kill him!

ANOTHER WITCH: (with a cleaver) Spitted and roasted? Or stewed in a cauldron?

CHORUS OF TROLLS: Kill him!

THE OLD MAN:  Keep cool now - ice-cool!

Lovely.

Today is All Saints' Day, also known as Day of the Dead (which is movie-title-ready, as far as I am concerned). It follows closely on the heels of All Hallows Eve, also known as Halloween. Many cultures go a little batty on this day, lighting zillions of candles (at the least) and parading around in scary skeleton-costumes. It's also revered by the Catholics, whose strange rituals have been superimposed over traditions that were far more ancient and primitive. (Yuletide, anyone?)

Frida Kahlo, the brilliant but strange Mexican artist, made much of this macabre festival in her paintings. We don't do much on the Day of the Dead except pick up shattered pumpkin pieces and candy wrappers, relieved it's all over for another year. I do wonder, however, why it is that little Mexican children eat sugar skulls on this day. Did they somehow set a fashion, eventually taken over by Sour Patch Kids and neon Gummi worms?

I couldn't think of better music to celebrate this spooky day than the Chorus of Trolls from Peer Gynt (better known as In the Hall of the Mountain King). I always feel like I'm walking around in Ikea when I hear this. I thought "hej" was supposed to be a friendly greeting.

 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

    It took me years to write, will you take a look

Order The Glass Character from:

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Barnes & Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-glass-character-margaret-gunning/1117863913?ean=9781927068885

Thistledown Press

http://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/genre/Fiction/the_glass_character_p580.cfm

Chapters/Indigo
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Bewitching: Caitlin turns 9

 

 

The child who changed my life:

 

magic door to first grandmotherhood,

 

the gingerbread lady in the woods

 

come home to herself at last

 

 

 

 

Only minutes old, all pink and gold

 

I held my breath

 

and watched her intrepid arrival

 

 

 

 

 

Born October 31,

 

and all her attendants costumed

 

as if attending some great medieval ball

 

 

 

 

A magic little football passed from hand to hand

 

Her birth announced on the radio

 

during a Canucks game!

 

Already unique in many ways.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy girl in pink, with her Faux-hawk. . .

 

 

 

 

Cinnamon heart-child. . .

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrate!

 

 

 

 

Caitlin by the shore

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little mermaid

 

 

 

 

Sweet girl in red

 

 

 

 

 

 

Down in Mexico, with Bo Derek braids

 

 

 

 

Halloween birthday, 2011

 

 

 

 

Have a Joyous 9^th Birthday, Caitlin

. . . and Happy Halloween!

 

Squick-Fest: weird and creepy Halloween gifs

Everybody's talkin' at me. . .

Speechless

    

           "Did you run out of kleenex again, Morgus?"

"No, Master. I'm trying to solve the crossword puzzle with my nose."

(Do you think they know I'm gay?)

"I dropped my flute down the sewer. Again."

A strange medieval dance called the Playing Card Shuffle.

The horror couple of all time:

Elsa Lanchester as Bride of Frankenstein and

Charles Laughton as Quasimodo,

who first uttered these immortal words:

"Hand over the Sour Patch Kids, or I'll egg your windows!"

 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Scariest Halloween video EVER!

If you've ever seen Disney's Fantasia, the first one I mean, these figures will be strangely familiar to you. Disney ripped off the whole Night on Bald Mountain segment from Murnau's 1926 silent classic, Faust (even that big devil-guy with the wings). These skeletal horses are a million times scarier than anything Disney ever copied:  I defy you to turn out all the lights, and put it on full-screen.

Preferably on Halloween night.

I have a strange history with this clip. Years and years ago, probably in the early '80s, my husband and I were visiting Edmonton with the kids. We did this periodically to avoid suffocating in the small town we lived in. When we arrived at the hotel, somebody put the TV on, and I swear THIS came on, the hideous horsemen. The music that went with it was very, very strange, not like this prancing dignified orchestral stuff. It was just about as hideous as the animation and went backwards as much as forwards. Then the whole thing just sort of stopped and went back to MTV or whatever it was. I have no idea who had taken this footage and played with it like that, and over the years I began to wonder if I had imagined the whole thing. (I drank quite a bit in those days.)

Then a lot more time went by. Probably eight or so years ago, a strange documentary came on TV. It was in French with an English voice-over and I haven't been able to find it since, though I think I found a reference to it on IMDB. The movie was all about "influences" on Walt Disney's animation: in other words, how much he stole, and where he stole it from.

At a certaint point the French narrator began to go on and on about Fantasia, and in particular Night on Bald Mountain. Then they showed the clip of the skeletal horses, the horsemen from hell - and I realized with a shock, that was IT, that was the clip that made my insides quiver all those years ago!

So I had something to go on, a title at least: Murnau's Faust. This was before YouTube however, so I had to squirrel away the information. Then for a while there was no mention of it on YouTube. No one had pirated it yet.

If you go away for a while, then come back, you'll almost always find what you want. Here it is, in all its hideous glory. Fun! Fun! October 31!

EWWWWW, look at his face! (or, Polka for Oskar Homolka)

Not quite Halloween yet, but I just can't wait. This is one of my fave movie moments. It's in one of those cheapie William Castle horror films, in which he comes on-screen at the beginning and rhapsodizes about his own movie and how petrifying it is. Supposedly the audience was allowed to vote on the ending, thumbs-up or thumbs-down, deciding the fate of poor Mr. Lockjaw. Only one ending was filmed, so this was obviously just a typical Castle piece of theatre.

 

 

I shouldn't give it all away, but the essence of this macabre little tale is that Mr. Sardonicus unearths his father's rotting corpse to steal a winning lottery ticket out of his moth-eaten old pocket. The horror of seeing his father grinning away like Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera causes him to develop a hideous, intractible facial paralysis. In fact he personifies that old Wet Willie classic,  Keep On Smilin':

Well you say you got the blues,
Got holes in both of your shoes,
Feelin' alone and confused,
You got to keep on smilin', keep on smilin'

Yeah, you're about to go insane,
Cause your woman's playing games
And she says that you're to blame,
You got to keep on smilin', keep on smilin'

At least they got that insane part right.

William Castle is notorious for sensational special effects, not in his movies but in the theatres in which they were shown.  In fact, he was known to wire  some of the seats  (though not every seat, so the electrocuted people would think they were going crazy). I don't think he invented Smell-O-Rama however. Mr. Sardonicus is plain creepy and I remember watching it late at night in the '60s with my brother. Good thing he was there. When Mr. S's deathly grimace was finally revealed, I remember we both went "ohhhhhhh" in a groaning kind of way, then laughed ourselves silly. Later Arthur referred to Mr. S. and his "winning smile".

I posted this one at least once before, but hey, it's worth a repeat at this festive time of year. Halloween is a huge business now (what with all the vampire/zombie/other supernaturally-themed movies that are popular as never before), though when my kids were young there were all sorts of solemn newspaper editorials that predicted Halloween would soon be phased out for being too old-fashioned and too dangerous (razor blades in apples, etc., which turned out to be an urban myth). I think everyone assumed it was true. What a weird custom anyway, putting on costumes and running all over the neighborhood in the dark. When you think about it, which no one does because people generally don't think, it's a big waste of time for a bagful of neon Gummi Worms.

But it's one of the few remnants we have left of ancient rituals in which people scare the giblets out of each other. Why not bring back human sacrifice while we're at it? But then you don't get candy.

This is one of those rare YouTube videos which is actually in the public domain and therefore can be watched whole. I've posted the link below. I don't know how they do this exactly, because everyone says YouTube has a 10-minute bandwidth limit or something. Maybe time stretches to include this bizarre little tale.

Oh, and - as Krull, the sinister squint-eyed "assistant", we have the incomparable Oskar Homolka. A scarier man never existed on film. I promised I'd never mention Oscar Levant again, but I lied: I'm still making my way through the labyrinthine ways of his bizarre mind (speaking of horror) in his bio A Talent for Genius.  Levant was a gifted composer with a penchant for whimsy who wrote a piece called Overture 1912, a. k. a. Polka for Oskar Homolka.

Not everyone has a polka named after him. In fact, I can't think of anyone else.

Watch it here - but don't come alone!

(A big P. S.! I just found out, while digging around for info about Mr. Sardonicus, that William Castle was - incredibly - the producer behind Rosemary's Baby, another viscerally creepy classic. About a year ago I tried to find trailers, clips, ANYTHING about the movie on YouTube and came up completely empty. It squicked me out because after the one time I saw it in about 1970, it never came on TV again. I mean never, because I am sure with my relentless bloodhound's nose I would have sniffed it out. It's simply never shown, and I don't know why. I also don't know why the one time it was on TV was so close to the release date.

But there it was, gone.

I finally had to scare up a used DVD. One of the great horror classics of all time wasn't in print any more. I watched it and had that same gut-squirming feeling I remembered from 1970, which did not become full-blown until "the reveal" - another genuinely terrifying moment in horror movies - which is not a reveal at all, but a reaction. Mia Farrow does it all with her face.

I've never seen anything like it, before or since, and though there are now a few YouTube tidbits from the movie, I can't find this scene. When your sweet little newborn baby turns out to be the spawn of Satan, it's apparently just a little but upsetting. The whole disappearance thing is just weird. Castle, the P. T. Barnum of horror, kept claiming there was a Rosemary's Baby curse, that everyone connected with the film dropped dead or something (not true, although Mia had that thing with Woody and John Cassavetes became a falling-down drunk).

But why hasn't it been on TV, and why can't I find anything else on it? Rights or something? It's the inverse of sex: everybody talks about it but nobody has it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=6QLZoV40Ez0&feature=endscreen