As I said, I always enjoy watching the Tattoo, but in the show I saw tonight, nothing stood out as a reason to watch the show again, or to buy the DVD when it comes out. Well, that was until I came to the part of the show that you can see in the video below. I loved it. It’s a suite based on music from the movie How To Train Your Dragon. The Tattoo shown on ABC TV was the English narration version. I couldn’t find the English narration version of the suite YouTube, so here is the BBC Alba version – narrated in Gaelic:

In the past year many of my posts have been about classical music, so perhaps it’s time I told you that one of my favourite music ensembles is the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. What prompted me to mention it is that the band is coming to Australiu early this year.

Live Dates

03 Mar 2012 – Perth – Perth Festival
05 Mar 2012 – Melbourne – Melbourne Recital Hall
07 Mar 2012 – Sydney – City Recital Hall – Angel Place
09 Mar 2012 – Adelaide – WOMADelaide

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra website is here.   It has details of where to buy tickets and make bookings.  I don’t think I’ve seen a website like it before, where you can scroll so far to the right, as well as down, from the home position.

I first came across their music a few years ago, after my retirement in November 2002, while waiting in the reception area for my doctor at Southbank Medical Centre (Melbourne).   I was about 10 minutes early that day, so it gave me time to read one of the magazines.  There was music playing, but I took no notice of it.  Well, not for a while.  But it began to grow on me so much that I asked my doctor about it, and he told me it was the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.  I don’t remember now which album it was, but I bought it as soon as I could – the first of many of their albums I’ve bought.

This post is not the first time that I’ve featured the music of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.  My main home page at jthonlinecom has a brief article in the left sidebar about the Elders/Fosters Art Collection and a link to a slideshow.  The first two tracks in the background music of the slideshow are two of my favourite Penguin Cafe compositions.

Here is one of their most famous compositions:

And here is the same music in full, without interruption.  As always, click on the X to remove the advert.  If anyone understands the very end of the video with the dog), please tell me.

The following video is from the Melbourne Recital Centre page advertising the concert on 5 March this year.

http://www.melbournerecital.com.au/whatson/buytix?perfid=3543 

Here is a much clearer video of a different performance of the same music.   Unfortunately the beginning is a bit clipped and the visual in the final 45 seconds is impaired by rolling credits.

Well, I might know that the Penguin Cafe Orchestra is coming to Australia in early March, but I didn’t know that Fleet Foxes (see my post of 1 November 2011) performed in Melbourne last Friday night.  Here’s the review from The Age today:

Palais Theatre, January 6

****

THERE are times when listening to Seattle sextet Fleet Foxes it’s hard to believe founding member and frontman Robin Pecknold is just 25, his bandmates about the same. Together they create music reminiscent of the best harmonies from the ’60s and ’70s, with musicianship that experienced folk/rock bands many years older would dream of creating.

Pecknold and guitarist Skye Skjelset first met in high school and the band was gradually pulled together over several years, resulting so far in a stellar EP and two acclaimed albums, including last year’s Helplessness Blues.

Opening songs The Plains/Bitter Dancer, Mykonos and English House were greeted enthusiastically with Pecknold and those well-honed harmonies starring early. Morgan Henderson switches from upright bass to flute to guitar and fiddle with ease. In between songs, drummer Josh Tillman was the only one to break in with light-hearted observations; Pecknold was a picture of concentration, tuning his guitar, adjusting his amp, always readying himself.

Blue Spotted Tail with just Pecknold on stage was among the highlights before the band returned to complete the near-two-hour performance with Grown Ocean and Helplessness Blues.

I found a video on YouTube that has a longer and more detailed version of the above promotion.  It has extracts from some of the different types of music in the collection.  I suspect that some people who say they don’t have an interest in classical music might find there is far more to enjoy in this collection than they would expect.  You only have to watch TV talent shows such as Idol (now dropped in Australia), X-Factor and Australia’s Got Talent, or any of the overseas versions, to see that audiences who would probably say they don’t like opera, give standing ovations to anyone who sings an operatic aria well.  One of the most popular arias in these TV shows is Nessun Dorma from the opera Turandot by Puccini.  The Decca boxed set has 3 versions of the aria.  One is in the Turandot opera highlights CD (Pavarotti and Sutherland), and the other two are in Carreras Domingo Pavarotti in Concert recorded in Rome on 7 July 1990.  This recording of The Three Tenors is not the same as The 3 Tenors in Concert recorded in 1994 which is spectacular in its own right.

Here is the longer video, in non-HD soft focus, with a more detailed sampling of music in the collection:

The first CD in the boxed set is The Three Cornered Hat by Manuel De Falla, with Ernest Ansermet conducting L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.  Bear in mind that the boxed set is a limited edition, and many of the CDs in the collection may no longer be otherwise available, which makes the set even more desirable.  The first album in the collection is available from iTunes for A$16.99.  You can also buy this album from Amazon .com for prices ranging from $34.99 to $249.99 for a used CD, as can be seen below.

Here is the first track from the above CD, the first in the collection.  There are 14 tracks and only two feature the singer – Teresa Berganza.  The first track is one of them.  Note the quality of the sound if you have good audio card and stereo speaker system as part of your computer.   If you don’t have one a good computer stereo system, you are missing out, and should treat yourself, if you enjoy music, games or video or movies on your computer.   A good system doesn’t have to be built into your computer – they can be connected by Firewire or USB.   An external audio interface and stereo speaker system with sub-woofer will work with your current and future computers.

The Three Cornered Hat – Introduction

(Don’t forget the volume control on the left.)

If you’d like to find out more about the boxed set, I strongly recommend you visit Decca’s own website, which describes The Decca Sound collection as follows:

The Decca Sound – a unique celebration of artistic achievement and technical excellence

Throughout its 80 year history Decca has always remained focused on a single aim — to capture great performances by legendary artists in the highest possible fidelity.

“The Decca Sound” is a deluxe limited edition of 50 CDs of legendary classical recordings in some of the best sound quality ever committed to disc. The inspired collaborations of great artists, gifted producers and dedicated engineers have resulted in a treasure trove of award-winning and critically acclaimed recordings. This special edition brings together a truly representative selection of these legendary performances for the first time.

Click here for the Decca website and relevant page.  The page lists all the 50 CDs and the tracks on them. In most cases you can click on the arrow to hear an extract from each track.  In all cases you can click on the name of the track to get details about the track – the music, the performers, when and where it was recorded and by whom, and when it was first released.

One of my delights in exploring the collection was to find that CD #48 is a CD I’ve previewed many times on iTunes, but have been unable to find anywhere to buy as a CD.  It’s the highlight of an opera by Puccini, not often performed or recorded.  I have the full opera on order from Presto Classical.  La Fanciulla del West – an opera by Puccini set in the gold rush days of California.

Here is the final aria of the opera.  I include it because I think the singing and music is sublime, but also because it reminds me of some other Puccini operas, such as Tosca and Turandot, and in parts even the final scene of Aida by Verdi.  What do you think?  The English name of the opera is Girl of the Golden West.

Here below is track 7 in the highlights of La Fanciulla del West from the boxed set – Quello che tacete.   This opera by Puccini was commissioned by, and first performed at, the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 10 December 1910 with Enrico Caruso singing.  Listen very carefully and you might pick up hints of part of a song you may have heard before in a famous musical and movie made of it.  When the countdown timer reaches the 30 seconds to go mark, the phrase in question becomes clear.  Do you recognise the musical with a similar phrase?   If so, please make a comment.  Or make a comment if you recognise the phrase but can’t put your finger on where you’ve heard it before.  I think it’s a sublime phrase.

The Decca Soundboxed set is available online from Amazon and Presto Classical, and is currently available at many of the good record stores, such as Discurio and Readings in Melbourne.  I imagine the same would apply in other cities.  The current price in Australia is about A$139.  The Amazon.com price is US$123.17 plus shipping.  The Presto Classical price is currently A$159.50 plus A$4.15 postage.   When I bought my set back in October the price at Presto was A$131.76 plus $4.15 postage.  All of these prices are a bargain for a set of 50 high quality CDs which Presto Classical describes as:

A limited-edition 50-CD set of legendary recordings celebrating the world-renowned DECCA sound.

Classic-status pioneering stereo recordings from the past 55 years and starring a galaxy of internationally-acclaimed artistic talent.

Each CD is presented in a sleeve with original cover art.

Where an original release may have been of short duration due to limitations of the LP a bonus work featuring the same artists has been added.

A 200-page booklet documents the development of stereo recording as it developed in the 1950s through to modern digital recordings; there is an article on Decca artists and repertory with particular reference to the artists featured in the set.

Full recording information on each disc is included and there are numerous photographs.

If the idea of a 50 CD boxed set of classics seems too overwhelming, you could try The Decca Sound highlights set which sells for about A$25.  It’s great value.  For the price of one CD you get 5 CDs.  You can audition it in iTunes, but don’t buy the set for the iTunes price of A$53.99.  You can buy it from Readings or other record shops or Amazon or Presto for about $25.  This set is a good introduction to the full boxed set.  Even if you eventually buy the 50 CD boxed set, the highlights set would still be useful as an introduction to many of the CDs and music in the full set which you might otherwise never get around to playing.  It’s a worthy compilation in its own right.

Update:  1 February 2012

Almost two weeks ago I noticed that iTunes sells the The Decca Sound (50 CDs) as well as the Highlights set of 5 CDs.  The price of the Highlights set remains at A$53.99 for the 5 CDs.  Based on that price, one might expect that the iTunes price for the whole collection of 50 CDs could be A$539.90 – but it’s not.  It’s A$14.99 for the whole collection.  Mind you, the 50 CD collection is treated as one album, and as a result the tracks are not in the order of the individual CDs and are sometimes scattered and even if the tracks for an album are together, they might not be in order.  Still, you can’t argue with A$14.99 for 817 tracks, and the search facilities and sorting by columns features in iTunes are a help.

By the way, the price might be small, but the collection isn’t.  It’s about 7.1 GB according to my iTunes folder before and after downloading the “album.”

Every year when Christmas approaches I select Christmas cards to send to my friends and loved ones. I take time to select cards I like, but when I come to write in them I always feel that my message is inadequate, my writing scrappy, and I’ve generally made a mess of it and ruined my good intentions.

However, if I’m spared, I might find it easier next year to express my thoughts better. You see, this year, when the Christmas card from Jim and Anne arrived, I found that Anne had enclosed a poem called The Christmas Book.   I found it inspirational.

By the way, Jim and I have been friends since the day we both started at Mt Gambier Infant School in 1943.  And I was there the night that Jim met Anne at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Adelaide.  I suspect it was love at first sight.  They’ve now been married for over 50 years, God bless them.

I had hoped to include here the poem that Anne enclosed with their Christmas card.   But I’m not a good enough typist to copy-type the poem.  So I did a Google search for it, and found a number of variations of the poem, none of them the same as the one Anne sent.   A basic variation was that the poem from Anne used “we”, meaning her and Jim, whereas the variations I found on the web used “I”, which is more appropriate for single people such as myself.

The following is one of the variations of the poem that I found on the web, with a few changes of my own based on the poem from Anne.

A Christmas Poem

I have a list of folks I know, all written in a book
And every year when Christmas comes, I go and take a look,
And that is when I realize that these names are all a part,
Not of the book they’re written in, but really of my heart.

For each name stands for someone who has touched my life sometime,
And in the meeting they’ve become the rhythm in each rhyme
And while it sounds fantastic for me to make this claim,
My life is so much better than it was before you came.

And while you may not be aware of any special link
Just meeting you has changed my life a lot more than you think
For once I’ve met somebody, the years cannot erase
The memory of a pleasant word or of a friendly face.

So never think my Christmas cards are just a mere routine
Of names upon a Christmas list, forgotten in between,
For when I send a Christmas card that is addressed to you,
It is because you’re on the list that I’m indebted to.

For I am but a total of the many folks I’ve met,
And you happen to be one of those I prefer not to forget
And whether I have known you for many years or few,
In some ways you have a part in shaping things I do.

And every year when Christmas comes, I realize anew,
The best gifts life can offer is knowing folks like you.
And may the spirit of Christmas that forever endures
Leave its richest blessings in the hearts of you and yours.

Merry Christmas to all my friends and visitors to this site !!

Wishing you the best Christmas ever with joyfulness and happiness in 2012 !!

The featured image for this post is the CD cover of the new CD by Fiona Joy Hawkins called Christmas Joy.   The album is about the Christmas season, and features some traditional carols, such as Jingle Bells.  But her version, played on the 102 key Stuart & Sons grand piano, is unique.  You can listen to it later down this post.   For now, here is a short version of Flight of the Snowbird.

Here is the full piece, from the CD:

Flight of The Snowbird  

In the next piece Fiona Joy Hawkins plays her own very Australian arrangement of Jingle Bells.  It features two instruments made in Australia.  The first is the Stuart & Sons piano.  The second?  No need to tell you what it is, as you’ll recognise it yourself.  It fits with the Australian outback scenery in the video above.

Jingle Bells  

Finally, the title song of the album.  This piece shows off the spectacular sound of the Stuart & Sons piano

Christmas Joy  

Part of the story is to tell you how I discovered this recording.  Only 10 days ago on Saturday, 10th December, I received an email from Wayne Stuart, the piano maker.  He mentioned three CDs in the email, of which Christmas Joy was one.  He wrote:

2011 Grammy Nomination for Best Category in Composition Arrangement Engineering and Producer of the year

Fiona Joy Hawkin’s latest album “Christmas Joy” is a beautiful combination of music for the Christmas season. Co-produced with Grammy Award winner Corin Nelsen and acting production advisor Will Ackerman of Imaginary Road Recordings. Hawkins performs on a Stuart piano, backed by an impressive array of musicians and singers: Philip Aaberg, Will Ackerman, Heather Rankin, Charlie Bisharat, and Eugene Friesen. The eleven tracks include four originals and seven perennial Christmas favourites.

www.fionajoyhawkins.com.au

A Selection of Stuart & Sons Pianos from Wayne Stuart on Vimeo.

Coming back to Jingle Bells, apart from the piano and orchestration there is also something rather unusual about this arrangement of the carol.  I’d be interested to learn whether you spotted it, and if so, whether you noticed it when you first played the song, or whether, like me, you enjoyed the music so much that you didn’t notice it until you’d heard it many times.  To be honest, I only noticed it after publishing this post, while reviewing it online and listening very carefully.

The next video was taken by a passenger on the maiden voyage sailing from Southampton.   It’s a superb video that gives you a feel of what the experience would have been like to have been on the Queen Elizabeth when boarding and sailing.  The audio has two of my old favourites – starting with Crown Imperial and ending with Land of Hope and Glory.  The audio is punctuated with some ship and harbour sounds.

The next video was taken while the ship was anchored in Honolulu, Hawaii.  I don’t know who took the video, but whoever did certainly knew to shoot superb footage and edit it professionally.  However, apart from superb video footage, the reason I’m sharing this video is the superb background music – George  Gershwin’s Slaughter on 10th Avenue in full.  This would make a  perfect ending to this post, but there is more to come.

I am not a fan of cruise ships.  It’s the big ocean liners that interest me – Transatlantic liners – and the ships that used to travel between the UK and New York, or the UK and Australia in the days when everyone  (but the super rich) travelled overseas by ship.  Here is a video showing some great Transatlantic liners over the years.  Once again, I like the music.

With all the above videos about the Queen Elizabeth and other great liners, I’ve decided to show a beautiful photo tribute to the ship’s namesake – the Queen herself.  It was posted on YouTube by someone in Indonesia.  I love the opening music.  I wish I knew what it was.   It is then followed by a grand rendering of God Save the Queen.   I noted with great interest that quite a high number of the photos in the slideshow show the Queen dressed for a visit to an Islamic country.

Just think about that.   Indonesia is a vitally important nation to Australia, yet our relations over the years have not been all that good for many reasons.  Yet many of our citizens have  much in common.

The next video is a TV news report of the Queen’s 85th birthday on 21st April 2011.  Normally, the Queen’s actual birthday might not make the TV news, but this year it fell on Maundy Thursday, the Christian holy day before Good Friday.  The followiing quote is from Wikipedia.

The Maundy Thursday celebrations in the United Kingdom today involve the Monarch (since 1952, Queen Elizabeth II) offering “alms” to deserving senior citizens (one man and one woman for each year of the sovereign’s age). These coins, known as Maundy money or Royal Maundy, are distributed in red and white purses. This custom dates back to King Edward I. The red purse contains regular currency and is given in place of food and clothing. The white purse contains currency in the amount of one penny for each year of the Sovereign’s age. Since 1822, rather than ordinary money, the Sovereign gives out Maundy coins^[42], which are specially minted 1, 2, 3 and 4 penny pieces, and are legal tender. The service at which this takes place rotates around English and Welsh churches, though in 2008 it took place for the first time in Northern Ireland at Armagh Cathedral. Until the death of King James II, the Monarch would also wash the feet of the selected poor people. There is an old sketch, done from life, of Queen Elizabeth I washing people’s feet on Maundy Thursday.

 

Near the end of the video you can see the King’s Troop firing a royal salute in Green Park, near Hyde Park.  I saw this in my visit to London  in June 1993, during the Trooping of the Colour ceremony.

The King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery is a ceremonial unit of the British Army. It is a mounted unit and all of its soldiers are trained to drive a team of six horses that pull each of the six First World War-era 13-pounder state saluting guns. Its duties include the firing of Royal salutes in Hyde Park on both Royal Anniversaries andState Occasions, and providing a gun carriage and team of black horses for State and Military funerals.

The unit is most often seen providing gun salutes on state occasions in Hyde Park, and Green Park.

And finally, a beautiful rendition of the national anthem of the United Kingdom sung at the Royal Maundy Service at Westminster, on the Queen’s birthday on 21st April this year.