Music in my Life

 I have two blogs already which feature my life in music: 

http://julianewtonlifestory.blogspot.com/p/music.html under the subheading Music and Films

and Julia's Lifetime Playlist, http://juliaslifeplaylist.blogspot.com/

Thursday 16 August 2018, favourite songstresses

This week it was reported that singer Aretha Franklin was very ill after having suffered from pancreatic cancer. Sad to hear. She had to cancel a concert tour. I love her songs especially  Say a Little Prayer - here it is on You Tube: Say a Little Prayer. Laura loves it too. It's great to sing along in the car.
This afternoon I just read that she died. Very sad now.

Last night we also watched a BBC4 program recording of a program featuring Dusty Springfield, who died in 1999 of cancer. She also has a great voice. Here's Dusty singing Son of a Preacher Man: Son of a Preacher Man.

We have tickets to see Dionne Warwick at the Royal Albert Hall in September. I hope she sings Walk on By amongst other great songs.  Here you go: Walk on By.

Thursday 2 August 2018, Christine's chansons

My friend Christine Federspiel celebrated her 60th birthday last November 30th by performing at the Zurich Volkshaus. I wrote a review of her show afterwards.

Here's an extract from the review:

'Stylish songstress

The program consisted of big band standards and swing numbers from the 18-strong Pepe Lienhard outfit interspersed with vocal classics in the style of Hollywood, Piaf and Christine’s own inimitable style. Thanks to help from her dresser and stylist Susann Melzer, Christine graced the stage in three glittery dresses in gold, red and black, together with a number of suitable props. Her voice was on strong form tonight as she managed to avoid all the seasonal coughs and colds plaguing some audience members. She never put a foot, or a note, wrong. And Christine’s formidable language skills once again stood her in good stead as she performed Mack the Knife, Petite Fleur and Big Spender with equal grace and ease. The Zurich-based band accompanied Christine with appropriately subtle and supportive brass sounds, enhanced by solos on clarinet, saxophone and piano.'

Now her husband Urs has posted some of her songs from that show on YouTube. I just got round to listening to her version of Autumn Leaves today. She looks and sounds great.
Autumn Leaves sung by Christine F

Monday 9 July - Favourite composers and artists

I have some favourite composers and and performers on CD. We often listen to them on Sunday mornings or when there's nothing on TV. Yesterday I listened to a CD of Faure - the Requiem is a very popular work and I have sung it at least twice, with the Hitchin Thespians and at school. On the CD they also have the Pavane with choir and orchestra which is lovely. And I like his suite Pelleas et Melisande, in particular the Sicilienne movement. Here's a link to it on You Tube: Sicilienne by Faure.

Another favourite piece of mine is Ravel's Bolero, which was made famous by the skaters Torvill and Dean who won gold in 1984 at Sarajevo. And another French composer I love is Debussy. We have a whole set of his CDs. Here's a nice version of his Clair de Lune: Clair de Lune

Recently we watched a program on BBC4 of Nigel Kennedy performing on violin and piano with an orchestra, the Kennedy Band, at an open air festival. He was performing pieces by Bach and Gershwin amongst others, and he turned out to be an accomplished pianist as well as a genius on his trademark violin. We have several CDs of him performing violin concertos. Apparently he's on tour at the moment and is even coming to Gstaad in Switzerland. Here's a link to his tour: Nigel Kennedy tour 2018.

BBC4 is great for showing musical items such as the recent Summer Night Concert from Vienna, conducted by Valery Gergiev at Schoenbrunn Palace. The New Year's Day concert from Vienna is also great although more traditional. The only issue I have with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is the lack of women - usually limited to a flute player and a harpist.

I'm also looking forward to the Proms on BBC TV. The new series starts with a televised performance of the First Night of the Proms on Sunday 15 July. We don't have any tickets this year. Here are all the dates: Proms 2018 program

Other favourite composers of mine include Shostakovich, Sibelius, Tchaikowsky, Borodin. I also like listening to Bach and Beethoven.

We often attend concerts in Zurich at the Tonhalle or recently at the Tonhalle Maag while the old building is being renovated. The Tonhalle Orchestra tends to favour classical composers such as Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler. Now we have got tickets to hear a new young cello player from England, the winner of the Young Musician of the Year 2017, Sheku Kanneh-Mason. He's coming to Zurich in December.

Before that we also have tickets for another great concert venue, the KKL in Luzern. It's a very good venue with great acoustics and a good view all round. In August we are going to see and hear pianist Lang Lang, who had to cancel a concert last year. Let's hope his hands are on good form again now.

Easter Monday 2018, Montreux Jazz memories

Today we visited an exhibition about the Montreux Jazz Festival at the Landesmuseum in Zurich. It was great - featuring posters, souvenirs and memories from the first 50 years of the festival which started in 1967. The best exhibit was a big screen cinema featuring colour videos of some of the great jazz legends performing - including Marvin Gaye, Van Morrison, Etta James, Miles Davis, BB King, Deep Purple and Santana. We could have sat there for much longer!

At the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2016

See this link: Montreux Jazz exhibition at the Landesmuseum

Richard and I attended the Montreux festival in July 2016, when we saw Al Jarreau. It was a great weekend, and we also enjoyed all the bands performing out of doors along the lakeside.

Sunday 1 April 2018, using Spotify

I have started to create some playlists on Spotify. I made a list of groups I liked from the 60s and 70s, and set up two playlists on my new Samsung 9 phone. They are good to play in the bath. I looked through my old copy of the book British Hit Singles for ideas.

Recently we watched a BBC4 feature about the old TV program The Old Grey Whistle Test, which brought back some memories. Now I keep singing 'I am the One and Only' by Chesney Hawkes. There are often old live music recordings and retrospectives played on BBC 4 on Saturday evenings. My nephew Joe is a fan. He's a very good guitarist.

I also tried creating a jazz playlist but that wasn't so successful. My favourite artist of all time is Ella Fitzgerald and I have lots of her CDs but I didn't find many of her songs on Spotify. It also has the annoying habit of interrupting with ads in German. I'm not paying a subscription for it. But here's Ella singing Cole Porter's Night and Day - what a great combination. To go straight to the song, click on the link. Ignore the ad.

Whenever there's a question about pop music on Pointless (essential viewing for us), we don't know any songs or bands from the 1990s and 2000s, when we moved to Switzerland. We don't listen to the radio here as it's full of annoying jingles in Swiss German. And now we tend to listen to more classical music and go to orchestral concerts in Zurich.

Friday 28 April 2017, the early years

This morning I'm starting my new blog, a history of music that has featured in my life. I hope to find examples of some of the memorable pieces as well. I made two pages of notes to help jog my memory.

My earliest memories of music came from the radio. We used to listen to Children's Favourites and Two-Way Family Favourites, which both played requests of popular music. My Dad also had a collection of 78 records, including songs by Paul Robeson, Peter Dawson and Kathleen Ferrier. We had an old wind-up gramophone made by HMV. It had a picture of a dog listening to a loudspeaker inside the lid. I used to like hearing Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody which got faster and faster. I spun round until I got dizzy. Dad used to sing My Curly-Headed Baby and Roll Up Your Blankets to me in the bath. Here's Paul Robson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S4rmXXsqQ0

I also liked the theme tune from The Archers, and Listen With Mother on the radio.