Sharleen Spiteri is a beautiful woman. Conceptions of female beauty have changed dramatically since the 1990s. Few mainstream female pop-stars nowadays would have the imagination and pluck to dress in a way that doesn’t emphasize her sexuality.
Texas sang you can say what you want
The opening piece of the evening was Morrow from Gattaca (re-used as a ‘theme’ in the film Atonement). Mistaking the track for Departure, within minutes tears were streaming down my face.
wendy: I first fell in love with Nyman’s music in 1983 when I saw the Draughtsman contract
mumsie: I remember, you’ve been playing Nyman’s music to me ever since
As we talk I realise how each time I purchased a Michael Nyman album I would bring it to mum and dads then play it to mumsie, insisting that she listened. I remember her continuing to do the laundry, prepare dinner, vacuum the house, never seeming to take time out to focus on just listening.
Now, watching the Bournmouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) perform pieces that I’d only previously heard. I noticed new things; how the lead Violin spoke to the lead Viola in Trysting fields, how the voices of different instruments came from different places. Listneing to music in the car, the instruments seem to be disembodied, the have no place to come from.
After the tuba’s and french horns had made some floor rocking contributions to ‘a watery death’:
mumsie: he does like his brass
wendy: which one is the Cor anglais?
mumsie: next to the Oboe’s, the tall thing that loops to the floor and back
wendy: woodwind?
mumsie: yes
Mumsie was pleased to recognise all the pieces. The closing scheduled piece, Memorial, was Nyman’s tribute to the victims of the 1985 Heysel stadium disaster. They decided to add a lightweight encore before letting us loose on the watery night streets of Bristol. Mum was pleased, evidently the BSO don’t normally do encores.
Michael Nyman wrote ‘Departure‘
after putting on the kettle for my morning cup of tea, much as I always do, I turned the TV on to the BBC Breakfast news, much as I always do. The words below are approximate just the gist because I don’t remember the details:
My attention is grabbed, Indeed Lady Diana’s death was memorable for me:
8am Sunday morning, tent taken down and packed in the boot of the car, tired and sad, I started driving from the Yorkshire Dales to Portsmouth via London with only a radio for company. All the BBC radio channels played a short loop of music and provided no other news than a regular announcement of Lady Diana’s death. After a couple of hours, hoping the loop would stop, I turned the radio off and drove through the mist and rain accompanied only by the noise of my own sad thoughts. The BBC TV followed a similar format:
With no intended disrespect, I suspect that I’ll forget all the uniqueness of the moment that I head Michael Jackson had died.
