I am not sure if this little essay will mean anything to those who are not "d"un certain age," but it just might. The subject is rather sad, at least nostalgic: the passage of time, the passage of something inside us--and soon, everything--the passage of us. This came to me in a very direct, and emotional way when I heard, last night, a performance of Balfe's (once) famous aria, "I Dreamt that I Dwelt in Marble Halls," from his (once) famous opera, "Bohemian Girl," which had its debut in London in 1843. This particular performance was from a movie of--who would have guessed it? Laurel and Hardy. Not one of their best, "Bohemian Girl" was made in 1936, and follows the plot of the opera with some zany inserts. (This indicates how popular the song was as late as 1936. Laurel and Hardy made another opera adaption, Fra Diavolo, based on an opera by Auber--who, like, Balfe, is forgotten today.)
It is a very personal song for me. My grandmother, Ella Dorsett, died in 1944, the year before I was born. I know liitle more than three things about her: she was very, very poor; she was very, very obese; and Balfe's aria was her very favorite piece of music in the world. She was simple, and uneducated--how did she get to know an aria from an English opera written a century previous to hers? I think I know. When I was young, there was an abandoned theatre two blocks away from me--who could imagine a theatre ever being in the outskirts of my very working-class home town, Jersey City? But there it was. I was a bit of a "gamin" in those days--I was about ten at the time when we and a few other street kids used to break into the building and explore it. This was my very first view of a stage, albeit a stage in ruins. I remember staring at it, fascinated. Later, I knew enough about history to realize that this was a stage that had been used in the vaudeville days, probably from early in the century to the 1940s, I'm not sure. I have no doubt that Balfe's song was performed on that stage and all over the country during that period, it was that popular. (It was a hit among the so-called "low brows" and "high brows"--an example of the latter is a mention of it in Joyce's "The Dubliners.") My grandmother probably first heard it in a music hall in Hoboken, where she was born. My father worked in a music hall in Hoboken when he was a teenager, so he probably heard it there too.
I don't know if I love or hate the song--yes, I do, my feeling is more close to love. It is a very catchy tune, one that can easily become what Germans call an "Ohrwurn," that is, an earworm, something that has the ability to bore into the brain and repeat itself over and over again. This music can drive you crazy! It is unabashedly sentimental, over the top enough to invite parody--and I did indeed sing to myself a parody of this song when I was a young teenager. ("...I could boast of a highly incestral name; but the thing, you dodos, which pleased me most, was that you drove my mother insane, that you drove that poor shady old lady insane...etc." My friend Brian--where is he now after half a century?-- invented an even racier version, as teenagers will. Spike Jones would have had fun with this music.) It is a song that is both beautiful and ridiculous, and that is precisely the point. It is not great enough to transcend the times when it was written and the century of popularity that followed. It is, we must admit, kitschy. That's precisely why I find it so very moving; it sometimes can, like it did last night, move me to tears.(I don't have the best ear, but, after hearing it last night, I went directly to the piano and got everything right. It is that simple.)
Have you ever read Guy de Maupassant's short story, "The Minuet?" That and Sherwood Anderson's "The Egg" are among my very favorites. In the French story, the narrator watches an elderly couple dance a minuet. They were darlings of the French court once, a court that long since ceased to exist. They are old, decrepit, and their movements are now clumsy. Their dance, the minuet, has been completely out of fashion for decades. The people of Maupassant's day laughed at it. Inside the old folks are still living in the ancien regime; inside they still might feel some of the glory of those days--but they are a wreck of what they once were. They evoke pity. Suddenly the narrator sees what time does to us: the once strong building decays, collapses; the rubble is removed and absolutely nothing is left. The narrator is deeply moved by this old couple; traces of great beauty still remain. The narrator states that he has been a soldier and has seen young men die horrifically; yet, nothing has filled him with such terror as this poignant dance. He sees in a flash what is going to happen to him, to all of us.
"I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marle Halls," evokes such feelings in me. I was born just after this song became a curiosity, after being a major hit for over a century. As I wrote, part of me still finds this music beautiful; no doubt anyone born after me--at least those who are musically discriminating, including the other part of me--finds the song ridiculous.
Bach was forgotten. The next generation abandoned counterpoint and found his works crabbed and stuffy. When Mendelssohn reintroduced him to the larger public, around the time Balfe wrote his opera, Bach's star rose in the cultural heavens and has remained one of first magnitude ever since. The problem with Balfe is that the music is charming, but far from immortal.
Balfe was extremely popular in his day, especially in England, France and Italy. These days he is just about completely forgotten.
Much of what is beloved by a generation does not stand the test of time. (And, of course, some things that do stand the test of time were ignored by the generation in which they arose.) I realize that much of what formed me in the 1940s and 1950s is passing away forever. All right I'll say it: the young do not understand.And perhaps they shouldn't. Most of us think we are somehow precious, but, like the song, we are does not transcend our time. What we think is important might be deemed by the next generation to be quite kitschy and maudlin. We will be completely forgotten. Those of us who are old are dancing that tragic--and tragically comical--minuet, and will very soon be nothing but dust.
But let's not go too far with the tragedy, Thomas. You, like many people of your generation, are active to a degree that was unthinkable during Balfe's time. You dance, you play music, write poems and take delight in your lovely wife, son, family and friends. You've made it, Mr. Lucky! Lucky! Lucky!! Doomed nevertheless.
Addendum: A review of the recording of this song available on YouTube. Joan Sutherland's is the best. Yes, she is one of the past century's divas, but not always one of my favorites. Sometimes her approach strikes me as a bit too "warbly"--too precious. And her Italian diction was so consonant-less that I found it difficult to understand--I always make it a point to understand the words of operas. Here, her extraordinary technique and phrasing is amazing, even breathtaking. A marvelous performance! Jessye Norman, larger than life, always reminds me of a great African queen, even a deity. She does not embellish the second stanza of the song, as Joan Sutherland effectively does. All in all, this is a rather too self-conscious performance, even though her voice is exquisite. A singer named Sissel, unfamiliar to me, gives a folksy rendition, accompanied by some updating chords that Balfe never wrote. This is quite proper, since this melody was popular with both classical and non-classical music fans. It is sweet. Sutherland's rendition is by far the best musically, but I find the version by someone named Sumi Jo the most moving in the sense of the subject of my essay. She is someone in her fifties--and looks it-- dressed as someone in her twenties or thirties. Her voice is sweet and expressive too. Her version is the most evocative of that poor old couple dancing the minuet.
And, as another addendum, here is a recording of me playing this beautiful song on the piano:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or4PgO6MtII
It is a very personal song for me. My grandmother, Ella Dorsett, died in 1944, the year before I was born. I know liitle more than three things about her: she was very, very poor; she was very, very obese; and Balfe's aria was her very favorite piece of music in the world. She was simple, and uneducated--how did she get to know an aria from an English opera written a century previous to hers? I think I know. When I was young, there was an abandoned theatre two blocks away from me--who could imagine a theatre ever being in the outskirts of my very working-class home town, Jersey City? But there it was. I was a bit of a "gamin" in those days--I was about ten at the time when we and a few other street kids used to break into the building and explore it. This was my very first view of a stage, albeit a stage in ruins. I remember staring at it, fascinated. Later, I knew enough about history to realize that this was a stage that had been used in the vaudeville days, probably from early in the century to the 1940s, I'm not sure. I have no doubt that Balfe's song was performed on that stage and all over the country during that period, it was that popular. (It was a hit among the so-called "low brows" and "high brows"--an example of the latter is a mention of it in Joyce's "The Dubliners.") My grandmother probably first heard it in a music hall in Hoboken, where she was born. My father worked in a music hall in Hoboken when he was a teenager, so he probably heard it there too.
I don't know if I love or hate the song--yes, I do, my feeling is more close to love. It is a very catchy tune, one that can easily become what Germans call an "Ohrwurn," that is, an earworm, something that has the ability to bore into the brain and repeat itself over and over again. This music can drive you crazy! It is unabashedly sentimental, over the top enough to invite parody--and I did indeed sing to myself a parody of this song when I was a young teenager. ("...I could boast of a highly incestral name; but the thing, you dodos, which pleased me most, was that you drove my mother insane, that you drove that poor shady old lady insane...etc." My friend Brian--where is he now after half a century?-- invented an even racier version, as teenagers will. Spike Jones would have had fun with this music.) It is a song that is both beautiful and ridiculous, and that is precisely the point. It is not great enough to transcend the times when it was written and the century of popularity that followed. It is, we must admit, kitschy. That's precisely why I find it so very moving; it sometimes can, like it did last night, move me to tears.(I don't have the best ear, but, after hearing it last night, I went directly to the piano and got everything right. It is that simple.)
Have you ever read Guy de Maupassant's short story, "The Minuet?" That and Sherwood Anderson's "The Egg" are among my very favorites. In the French story, the narrator watches an elderly couple dance a minuet. They were darlings of the French court once, a court that long since ceased to exist. They are old, decrepit, and their movements are now clumsy. Their dance, the minuet, has been completely out of fashion for decades. The people of Maupassant's day laughed at it. Inside the old folks are still living in the ancien regime; inside they still might feel some of the glory of those days--but they are a wreck of what they once were. They evoke pity. Suddenly the narrator sees what time does to us: the once strong building decays, collapses; the rubble is removed and absolutely nothing is left. The narrator is deeply moved by this old couple; traces of great beauty still remain. The narrator states that he has been a soldier and has seen young men die horrifically; yet, nothing has filled him with such terror as this poignant dance. He sees in a flash what is going to happen to him, to all of us.
"I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marle Halls," evokes such feelings in me. I was born just after this song became a curiosity, after being a major hit for over a century. As I wrote, part of me still finds this music beautiful; no doubt anyone born after me--at least those who are musically discriminating, including the other part of me--finds the song ridiculous.
Bach was forgotten. The next generation abandoned counterpoint and found his works crabbed and stuffy. When Mendelssohn reintroduced him to the larger public, around the time Balfe wrote his opera, Bach's star rose in the cultural heavens and has remained one of first magnitude ever since. The problem with Balfe is that the music is charming, but far from immortal.
Balfe was extremely popular in his day, especially in England, France and Italy. These days he is just about completely forgotten.
Much of what is beloved by a generation does not stand the test of time. (And, of course, some things that do stand the test of time were ignored by the generation in which they arose.) I realize that much of what formed me in the 1940s and 1950s is passing away forever. All right I'll say it: the young do not understand.And perhaps they shouldn't. Most of us think we are somehow precious, but, like the song, we are does not transcend our time. What we think is important might be deemed by the next generation to be quite kitschy and maudlin. We will be completely forgotten. Those of us who are old are dancing that tragic--and tragically comical--minuet, and will very soon be nothing but dust.
But let's not go too far with the tragedy, Thomas. You, like many people of your generation, are active to a degree that was unthinkable during Balfe's time. You dance, you play music, write poems and take delight in your lovely wife, son, family and friends. You've made it, Mr. Lucky! Lucky! Lucky!! Doomed nevertheless.
Addendum: A review of the recording of this song available on YouTube. Joan Sutherland's is the best. Yes, she is one of the past century's divas, but not always one of my favorites. Sometimes her approach strikes me as a bit too "warbly"--too precious. And her Italian diction was so consonant-less that I found it difficult to understand--I always make it a point to understand the words of operas. Here, her extraordinary technique and phrasing is amazing, even breathtaking. A marvelous performance! Jessye Norman, larger than life, always reminds me of a great African queen, even a deity. She does not embellish the second stanza of the song, as Joan Sutherland effectively does. All in all, this is a rather too self-conscious performance, even though her voice is exquisite. A singer named Sissel, unfamiliar to me, gives a folksy rendition, accompanied by some updating chords that Balfe never wrote. This is quite proper, since this melody was popular with both classical and non-classical music fans. It is sweet. Sutherland's rendition is by far the best musically, but I find the version by someone named Sumi Jo the most moving in the sense of the subject of my essay. She is someone in her fifties--and looks it-- dressed as someone in her twenties or thirties. Her voice is sweet and expressive too. Her version is the most evocative of that poor old couple dancing the minuet.
And, as another addendum, here is a recording of me playing this beautiful song on the piano:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or4PgO6MtII
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