ONE HUMANITY .... ONE JUSTICE.

I sat on the sofa late last night just before heading off to bed, idly flicking through the TV programmes we had recorded on the Sky Box. A Mark Knopfler concert caught my attention from the list. Now Mr Knopfler, and his band, Dire Straits have been one of my three favourite bands through most of my adult life. I’ve got all of their CDs, and have seen them in concert several times. He is one of the greatest guitar players ever, as well as writing some of the most distinctive and evocative pop songs I know.

Private Investigations, Tobacco Road, Tunnel of Love, Romeo and Juliet, Walk of Life, Money for Nothing – what a collection, two of which are in my all time favourite Top ten Songs.

The concert was recorded recently in Basel in Switzerland, and, I have to say, was a bit of a disappointment to me. Too laid back, no passion, and too many new songs, which didn’t seem to mean that much.

Now it must be a real pain if you are a singer/songwriter, when you play your latest set of songs, and get polite applause, only to see the difference when you bring back one of the Oldies, which the audience has really come to hear. You must feel a sense of utter frustration, standing up there thinking “Listen to this one, you miserable lot. I’ve just written it and This is Me. Here and Now. Those old songs have gone. They’re the past, and I’m sick of singing them.”

Of course the audience doesn’t think like this, and so goes mad when the Old Songs make their appearance. And so it was here. “Brothers in Arms” with its deceptively gentle introduction floated into existence, and the audience changed from polite applause to Full Attention.

I have to say that, to these ears, Knopfler’s rendition of the song was not that great. It was so laid back, it was untrue. This is a serious song, with an important message, and a gentle feeling to it does it no favours at all. Knopfler had his 60th Birthday 3 days ago (Happy Birthday, Mark!), and you have to wonder whether, like all performers, whether he will ever recapture the power and passion he had when he was younger. Maybe it’s me, because I’m not getting any younger, or maybe it’s him, because he’s got less to say today than he had 20 years ago. Probably a bit of both. I just don’t know.

But just listening to him, my mind flashed back over 20 years. Nelson Mandela was still in jail, and the pop world had got together in London to pay their own tribute to this remarkable man. It took place in front of 75,000 people on 11th June 1988 at Wembley in London, and was the most political pop concert ever staged up to that time. The aim was to raise the world’s awareness of Mandela’s plight, and to put pressure on South Africa to release him, which they did 18 months later.

The concert included many of the more politically aware pop singers, with Peter Gabriel, Sting, Simple Minds, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, and – Dire Straits.

Dire Straits were last to perform, and their 45 minute set was the work of genius. I’ve never seen or heard them play better than that night.

It was filmed very atmospherically and movingly and I still watch it with great affection and admiration. Two of the songs on it, Romeo and Juliet and Brothers in Arms will live in my mind for ever. It is this performance of Brothers in Arms which lasted some 9 minutes, and had Knopfler at the peak of his powers which jumped into my mind last night, in comparison to the one which he gave on the TV recording. I’ve dug it out on YouTube, so you can watch it. The atmosphere that night was electric, and you can get that feeling coming across even though the video is not of the best quality. You can feel the power, feeling and conviction pulsing through Knopfler’s body and pouring out through his hands as his fingers played the guitar. He’s literally in another world, and it brings me up in goose bumps every time I hear it.

Such a simple song. Simple words, hardly any clever chord sequences, just a pure, straightforward message put over so poetically and powerfully. Perhaps that’s the key to such great pieces of music.

Off goes my mind again. Devotees of this blog (please tell me there is one out there!!) will know of my love of “The West Wing”. One of the best series television has ever produced. Each series ends with a cliff-hanger, and the one in Series 2 is an absolute blinder. I won’t give the game away if you’ve not seen it, but the last few minutes are simply TV drama at its very best.

And guess what music they choose to use for the closing action. Mark Knopfler singing “Brothers in Arms”. It is as good a mix of drama and music as you will ever find, in film or anywhere else.

The shots of Bartlet striding through the West Wing to the critical Press Conference, the Storm, Charlie taking his coat off to match the President, the shot of the perfectly and very theatrically lit Negro janitor cleaning the Cathedral up after the President to the line in the song “… There’s so many different worlds …” (Don’t even try to tell me that wasn’t deliberate), the way Martin Sheen puts his hands in his pockets (flashback to the younger Mrs Landingham), Leo’s whispered “Watch this …”, and CJ’s deliberately ignored “Front Row on Your right” aside as Bartlet strides past her. And just look at the last shot, with Bartlet framed against the Union Flag. Wow.

It’s pure Wagner with leitmotivs galore and allusions threaded through it all.

And to end it all, the bastards who produced the show cutting you off 1 second before you hear Bartlet’s reply to the question that’s set all this up over the last dozen or so episodes, so you’ve got to wait 6 months to find out how he replied. Thank God for the Box Set DVDs.

To my simple mind, 5 minutes of the most utterly perfect drama I’ve ever seen. Every time I watch it, I get a lump in my throat. And playing in the background – Brothers in Arms. Whoever chose that song for that moment will go to heaven.

Perfect.

Tags:

west wing,
dire straits,
mark knopfler

BACH - WITH BITE! - AND LOVE IN THE AIR

Many pieces of music only exist in one form – the First recording is the Last recording as well. Just think of the Rolling Stones “Satisfaction”. I’m not a pop-geek, but I’ve never heard another version (other than live Stones’ Concert versions) of that song.

The first five notes “De De, De De Deeh” are simply “IT”. In my humble opinion, Keith Richards would have gained immortality if those were the only five notes he ever wrote. To realise the power of that simple intro, have you ever measured the time it takes for a dance floor to fill completely when the DJ plays them? It’s measured in milliseconds.

But other pieces of music don’t work like that. I have been thinking about this after scribbling down some thoughts earlier today about Jacqueline Du Pre, and her playing of the Elgar Concerto.

Classical Music, far more than most Pop Music, almost lives on the interpretation. The music exists as the written score but it is only relatively recently that we know how the composer thought the music should be played. We had to wait until the likes of people like Rachmaninov and Elgar actually recorded their own works, to hear what they wanted the music to sound like. And even then, we may not have been hearing it at its best.

There is a simple view that, once the music exists, the maximisation of its performance impact usually lies in the hands of someone else. And, as is the way of things, people have for the length of recording history, taken several shots at recording a piece of music. This is all bound up with the issue that was bugging me about the Du Pre Elgar Concerto. Her version, brilliant though it is, is not the only way it can be played, and we must all keep an open mind on this.

Other pieces of music, where there is not so dominant a recording, often have twenty or thirty recordings available, and it is simply up to the listener to decide which is the best. There are many occasions where you have to choose between several versions, made at differing times in one interpreter’s life. At least this means that there is no one “Best” version of a piece.

Take an example. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I have four versions of this, one by Angela Hewitt (Brilliant!), another by Jacques Loussier (Curate’s Eggish), and two by Glenn Gould.

The Glenn Gould versions are the ones I want to refer to here. He made Version 1 in 1955, as a 23 year old. As a virtuoso piece, he brings Bach into the Twentieth Century with an amazing display of pianistic fireworks, which, being only nine the time of its release I was not aware, set the music world alight at the outstanding virtuosity of the performance.

As a person, Gould was an utterly outstanding pianist and a real eccentric, to boot. A Canadian, he recorded about 80 different pieces, but soon in his career, he gave up live performance, and only met his public via the recording studio. He had an absolutely individual take on whatever he played, and he was one of those rare artists whom, I suspect, you either revered or hated. His Beethoven Sonatas, I have to say, are a taste I have not yet acquired, but you simply cannot ignore the man. He thought the music through from his own ruthlessly logical point of view – if you liked it, then Great, if you didn’t well, you didn’t. His Bach however is out of the top of the Top Drawer.

GLENN GOULD PLAYING BACH - LOOK FOR THE DOG!

Note - The You Tube snippet above can be activated by clicking on the centre button, waiting for "Loading" to complete then pressing on the "Play" symbol in the bottom left hand corner.

If you want to hear and see Glenn Gould playing the 1981 Goldberg Variations, go to Google Video, search for Glenn Gould, and click on the 47 minute version of the Goldberg Variations - it's about the third one down. Quite amazing!

Although he hardly ever re-recorded anything, he made an exception with the Goldberg Variations, and in 1981, he went back into the recording studios, and did them again. Sadly, elliptically, and rather spookily, just after he recorded them again, he died.

To say the two versions were “Chalk and Cheese” hardly does the chalk or the cheese justice. The differences are immense. The first Aria takes almost twice as long in the 1981 version as the 1955 recording. The second one treats Bach as a human being, in places almost as a Romantic, whereas the first is almost fiendishly mechanical in its approach. Strangely, the later version seems to take far longer than the original, but, when you take out the beginning and ending Arias, and the 13 or so repeats which Gould observes in the 1981 version and not in the 1955 version, it actually takes a broadly similar overall time. What does come across in the 1981 recording is the Homogeneity of the work. The earlier one sounds like 30 almost unrelated variations – the latter version Seems all of a One.

There is a 3 disc set issued by Sony which contains both versions remastered, as well as a very revealing interview with Gould explaining why he felt the need to change his interpretation so radically. Quite enthralling, and if you ever want to understand why people change their views about a piece of music over time, just listen to that interview.

As I am sure you will realise, I think the 1981 version is streets ahead of the original 1955 version, but the point I’m trying to make here is that nothing is fixed in musical interpretation. Its very ephemeral nature is one of its most endearing features.

Even in Pop Music, you can see similarities. I happen to think Mark Knopfler is a truly gifted song writer and guitarist. He wrote a simple 3-minute song called “Romeo and Juliet”, released on an LP (Yes, it’s that old!) called “Making Movies”. Later on, particularly in his live performances, he built that song into the set, but, by the time he played these concerts, it had been totally changed from a 3 minute, bounce-along pop song, to a 12 minute long, slowly, wistfully and hauntingly performed work, which was so, so much more appropriate to the sentiments he was singing about. It had mood, presence, atmosphere, and to me became a great song when performed like that. Same lyrics, Same melody, but Lordy, Lordy, what a difference in impact.

DIRE STRAITS - ROMEO AND JULIET - THE LONG VERSION

By the way, the brilliant Saxophone solo is by Chris White - it lasts almost as long as the original song on "Making Movies"!

In the end, it doesn’t matter what I think. My opinion only matters to me, and it’s up to you to decide if you agree with what I’m saying. All I would suggest is you listen to both sets of “Before and After” recordings, and come to your own conclusions.

Then, the simple message behind the whole of this piece is to keep an open mind about how a piece of music sounds, however many times you hear it – you may even get to like the way The Sex Pistols sing “My Way”!

Tags:

bach,
glenn gould,
gould,dire straits,
mark knopfler,
romeo and juliet,
best pianist,
best pop music,
best pop song