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  Peter Reavy 2:44 pm on January 13, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  New William Eggleston photos 

  New Eggleston photos.

  Considering he is the Guardian’s art critic, Adrian Searle’s accompanying piece is poor:

  I think some people photograph things the better to see what they look like. Photographs crop and contain reality, but they are as much about ­focus as the things they represent. Look, say Eggleston’s photographs, just look. Juergen Teller recently told me that he was with Eggleston ­somewhere, sitting on a bench, and the American photographer just raised his camera and shot a picture of a nearby rubbish bin. Teller, who had pretty much the same camera and was sitting at Eggleston’s side, cheekily took a picture of the same subject. Eggleston’s picture was great, Teller told me, his own picture somehow lifeless and ordinary.

  The first sentence is an unabashed steal from the oft-quoted Garry Winogrand: “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.”

  And perhaps Juergen Teller did tell Adrian Searle that story about William Eggleston, but then Teller tells the exact anecdote in Alan Yentob’s BBC documentary (Imagine: The Colourful Mr Eggleston) which went out late last year. Maybe Searle didn’t watch it, or maybe he thinks his readers didn’t.

   

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  Peter Reavy 10:13 am on July 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

  When the cabbage is served 

  I heard part of Desert Island Discs with Professor Hugh Pennington. He seems to have great taste in music. I really liked an old Hungarian tune he picked, called When the cabbage is served.

  Kirsty Young may have made fun of it, but Ivor Cutler said that this sort of music made him drunk with happiness. It makes me feel the same way.

  The CD is available. The name to remember is Zoltán Kallós:

  Since the 1960s Zoltan Kallos has been researching and recording the traditional music and folklore of the multi-ethnic villages in Transylvania – a region where Romanian and Hungarian culture is mixed. His work has helped to preserve the musical heritage of these people and with these CD releases we can now have a taste of the best of these musical traditions.

  Born in Válaszút (Kolozs country, in Transylvania) in 1926, Zoltán Kallós follows in the tradition of Bartok and Kodaly researching and collecting folk music from within the region known as the Carpathian Basin.

   
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  Peter Reavy 4:22 pm on May 6, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

  

   
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  Peter Reavy 2:54 pm on May 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

  Flannelled fools 

  Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls

  With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.

  from RUDYARD KIPLING: The Islanders.

   

  I looked this Kipling poem up since Stephen Fry mentions it in passing, in his letter to himself at 16, a hit article on the Guardian’s web-site.

  The phrase was used as the title of a novel which Fry liked as a teenager. I looked it up on Amazon. It deals with a school teacher who has a mysteriously strong admiration for one of his pupils.

  I also learn that Kipling’s poem created a fuss at the time. He wanted National Service as he was correctly scared of a resurgent Germany. Have never read any Kipling, mean to, but even this poem seems a bit long.

  Never mind flannels, “The Muddied Oafs” would make a great title for a football book.

   
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  Peter Reavy 2:24 pm on May 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

  Tracklisting of DG’s complete Messiaen edition.

   
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  Peter Reavy 2:05 pm on May 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

  Did some Spring cleaning of this blog 

  Trying out a different theme as well, although the way it doesn’t let me quickly add a subject line is a bit weird.

   
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  Peter Reavy 3:36 pm on February 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

  Haydn Symphony No. 13 

  Radio 3 have been playing their way through all of Haydn’s symphonies, 2 a week, since the start of the year. Thanks to the iPlayer I have been able to listen to them as long as I remember to do it in less than 7 days.

  Today they had his 13th symphony played by the Bolzano Haydn Orchestra. The presenter said it was the conductor’s only Haydn recording, an LP that had never been reissued. He was a pupil of Respighi named Antonio Pedrotti. Not very surprising that I had not heard of it.

  This morning I got an email from the Gramophone magazine promoting their new website, which claims to be a complete archive that goes back to 1923. It looks great. Anyway, this afternoon I searched for “Pedrotti Haydn” and immediately found my way to this review of the exact LP from when it was released in 1967. Hard not to be impressed.

  Peter Reavy, and artstage are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    artstage 3:45 pm on April 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    This was no coincident at all!? Ofcourse I like the 13th, but my absolute favorite is the 16th (and the 1st movement of the 35th, and …..). Especially the Cello solo in the 2nd movement, the “Andante…”
    Seems that you got the Haydn-virus by radio?

    Maybe you’ll enjoy a visit on my Haydn-anniversary-blog: http://haydn2009.wordpress.com

    greetings from “Haydn-land” (Eisenstadt, Austria);-)

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    Peter Reavy 3:57 pm on April 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Taking a look at your blog now. I’m very pleased I was paid a visit by someone from someone from Eisenstadt and must listen to the 16th again. Thanks for the comment.

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  Peter Reavy 3:50 pm on October 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

  Les deux Renés 

  Thanks to Wikipedia, I’ve learned that René Clair (film director, 11 November 1898 – 15 March 1981) and René Char (poet, June 14, 1907 – February 19, 1988) were different people. I thought they were one person, like Jean Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963).

   
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  Peter Reavy 1:25 pm on October 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

  A leaf 

  

  … that was on my sunroof today.

   
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  Peter Reavy 4:14 pm on June 26, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

  Schoenbergian role models 

  I was just rereading an old Norman Lebrecht post entitled Why We’re Still Afraid of Schoenberg. It contains much useful info, but also the following statement:

  His role models were Moses and Napoleon; he wrote an opera on one, an ode to the other.

  Leaving Moses aside, Lebrecht must never have heard Schoenberg’s Ode To Napoleon. It is a setting of a poem by Byron which satirically attacks the Corsican.