music

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Plaistow, October 28

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It’s time for another classic silent movie! On Tuesday, October 28, at 6 PM, I’ll accompany the 1923 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame at the Plaistow, NH Library. Nearly half the available spaces have already been reserved, so be sure to sign up in advance. The film, based on Victor Hugo’s novel Notre-Dame de Paris, highlights Lon Chaney’s makeup skills and his ability to win empathy for a deformed-looking character.

Hugo’s novel has been adapted many times for film. There were at least four before the Lon Chaney film. Charles Laughton, Anthony Quinn, and Anthony Hopkins are among the actors who have played Quasimodo. Disney turned it into a cartoon and compounded the blasphemy with a sequel where Quasimodo and Esmeralda are still alive. The 1923 version is widely considered one of the best adaptations.

Just by the way, I’ve noticed that the emailed version of these posts delivers the text only to the “More” marker and gives no clue that it’s incomplete. From now on, I’ll add an indicator that there’s more to the post, like this:

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A week in Germany

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On Wednesday I returned from an eight-day trip to Germany, one day longer than planned. I was nervous about leaving and re-entering the US, and if I’d known when I made my reservations how fast things would get worse, I might have changed my mind. The US border has long been a Fourth Amendment-free zone, but now it’s First Amendment-free as well. Fortunately, I seem too obscure to bother with.

Delayed flights have become common. The closest airport to my destination was Hannover, which is relatively small, so I had to change flights both ways within Germany. In retrospect, I should have found a direct flight to a major city and taken the train the rest of the way. Trains are also horrible for delays, but there’s almost always a next one the same day if you miss a connection. If there’s an ICE train (Inter-City Express, no relation to the US gang) to your destination, it will get you there quickly without airport annoyances. Fortunately, there were no problems with changing planes in Munich.
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Tom Lehrer and Georg Kreisler

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Tom Lehrer’s satirical songs are familiar to many of you, I’m sure. Not many of you will have heard of another satirical songwriter, Georg Kreisler, if only because he wrote in German. If you’re American and have heard of him, it’s probably because of the striking similarities between two of his songs and two of Lehrer’s. Let’s take a look at them.
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“A Trip to the Moon” is now available on YouTube

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This morning I saw that my video of Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) is no longer blocked on YouTube. Its status now says “Visibility restrictions are lifted until the dispute is resolved.” That means it could disappear again.

Again, the is the complete version, with a celebration at the end, and the accompaniment is my original, improvised music. I did a better job this time than in my earlier public performances.
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Tom Lehrer as composer 3

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A couple of days ago I was saddened but not surprised to learn that Tom Lehrer had died. He was 97 years old, after all. He remarked many years ago that “It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year,” but he went on to surpass the lifespans of nearly every well-known writer of music. Irving Berlin and Elliott Carter broke the century mark, but that’s about it. His songwriting career was only a short interlude in a long academic career, but his fans know nearly all of his thirty or so songs.

The lyrics of those songs are widely quoted and discussed, but not as much is said about his music. He set his satirical lyrics to tunes that are inventive, catchy, and full of solid musicianship. I’d like to say a few things about that music, to restore a bit of balance.
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