Years ago Dennis Pennis asked Steve Martin ‘How come you’re not funny anymore?’ A cruel thing to say, but I guess it hit a nerve with Martin as most of his greatest films were back in the 80s. At his peak he was in some truly great films. I defy anyone to come up with a film funnier than Trains, Planes and Automobiles. I was also a fan of Roxanne, his re-interpretation of the Cyrano de Bergerac story. It has some good one-liners in it.*
A fairly under-rated film he wrote and starred in was L.A. Story. In it he played a weatherman who is ‘spoken to’ by a freeway sign. Stay with me it makes sense in the story…. He falls in love with Sarah, but as someone** once nearly said “The path of true of true love doesn’t run smoothly”. Featuring Richard E Grant and a young Sarah Jessica Parker, it features a great cameo by Patrick Stewart who plays a particularly snooty restaurateur.
The film’s soundtrack featured the tracks from Enya – see my earlier post. At one point in the film the love of Martin’s life threatens to leave LA, he implores her not to, saying that if he could do he would whip up a storm to prevent her leaving. Cue a shot of her entering the plane whilst Martin sits mournfully at home staring out of the window. The aircraft rolls back from the stand whilst Enya’s track Exile plays; needless to say the weather deteriorates rapidly. I won’t spoil the ending for those who haven’t seen it yet (you’ve had 22 years, so don’t blame me!), but hey it’s a Hollywood film, how do you think it ends?
Exile is my second favourite song from Enya’s album Watermark. It is one that I learnt to play on the piano years ago. I promised a few posts ago that I would upload a few more videos of me playing piano, so here you are:
I dusted out the sheet music and ran through it once, the day before I filmed this; but then filmed it in one take and have posted up the resulting video, complete with a few little mistakes. On the whole I’m happy with it, and I hope you like it. If you do, and want the sheet music; the book’s ISBN number is 978-0711917712 therefore you can buy it from any good book/music shop. Or if you are less bothered than me about their unwillingness to pay tax, you can order it from the Amazon here.
On a musical theme, I see that Steve Martin has spent much of this century playing bluegrass music and is awarding a $50,000 prize to talented banjo players. So fair play to him!
* I was one of those geeky teenagers that threw film quotes into normal speech all the time.
** Yes I know it was Shakespeare who didn’t say that.
I don’t think that I have the aptitude for composition. I lack the musical knowledge and the technical ability to create my own music. Fortunately I don’t need to be able to, as there exists out there one man who seems to have made it his mission to create music for my soul: Ludovico Einaudi. There are obviously a lot of great dead composers out there, but their passing has rather curtailed output. The handy thing for me about Einaudi is that he just keeps on producing great track after great track. His latest album In a Time Lapse was released at the start of 2013. I follow him on twitter so I was lucky enough to see that he was performing a one-off concert stream live onto youtube from his home. If you missed it, he has since uploaded it:
This concert whetted my appetite for us going to see him live on the 13th April. We had been to two Einaudi concerts already, once for his Nightbook tour and then later a more intimate solo performance at Bristol’s St George’s Hall. So as soon as I saw he was touring again I booked tickets. I got us seats at the front left, a few rows back. Top Tip: the way that grand piano’s are hinged means that the performer is always on the left of stage.
Before I talk about the performance, a quick thing about the audience. At the Colston Hall any latecomers are held outside the auditorium until a break in the music, being let in whilst the applause is ongoing, which makes sense. The slight problem with this is that quite a few of Einaudi’s tunes start off quietly, and it takes a while for some to find their seats. So a number of peices were accompanied by a soundtrack of shuffling people and chairs. I’m always surprised how late people turn up to these things: the show started at 7:30 but there were still people coming 10 minutes before the interval. The other thing about the audience was that we had a few over-eager clappers. Any slight pause in the music, and someone would be jumping in assuming that he had finished the tune. It must be something that he has to plan for, not able to insert rests lest someone want to be the first to clap. I suppose at classical recitals this isn’t a problem because everyone already knows the music, but when you have a composer there playing his own work, that he likes to vary and add to the music, quite a few times Mr Clap-Happy got caught out. I always prefer to wait a good five seconds to ensure that they have actually finished and are not just pausing for artistic effect.
As for the actual show. It was stunning. The best that we ever have seen. The first half was dominated by the new album In a Time Lapse. It’s hard to say which of his albums I prefer, it’s a bit like being asked to name your favourite child*. But I have to say that I absolutely love every track. I could, and have, listen to the whole album on a loop. He had 11 band members on stage with him, many of them were multi-instrumentalists, one playing guitar, percussion and violin. Some people are just too talented! One of the cellists had an electric cello which was used to create some stunning effects, such as scratching his fists up and down the strings. It sounds weird but it really worked. Other times he sounded like he was playing a rock guitar. It added a great dimension to some of the more dramtic pieces.
For the start of the second half Ludovico came out on his own, and played a few of his back catalogue solo pieces. He likes to make each concert unique, so I was really pleased to hear him playing Nuvole Bianche. Which is a track that I love, but haven’t yet got the sheet music for. I hear that on the Sunday night at Birmgham he played I Giorni, which is the first Einaudi piece that I learnt. Another great thing about seeing a composer play his own music live is that he is free to mix it up a bit so he actually played little snippets of other tracks in amongst his set. After playing 4 solo tracks the rest of the musicians came back out and they played a mixture of some more from the new album and some of the ensemble pieces from Divenire and Nightbook. Some of which had been completely rearranged. They finished with Eros which he really hammered out at the finale.
Much foot stomping and clapping from us brought out a four song encore, which climaxed in a jamming session with the band members taking it in turns to solo, whilst the audience were encouraged to clap along to add rythym. I am not normally a clap-alonger. If an audience decides amonst itself to start clapping in time, I never join in. But since we were asked to by the man himself I did so till my hands were sore.
As I’ve already said it was my favourite of all his shows, bearing in mind that the other two were absolutely fantastic. I had a lump in my throat for a few of the tracks. I know that quite a few of the remaining shows are soldout but if you can find one with seats available you really should go. If need-be sell your least favourite child to fund it.
Needless to say I bought the sheet music to the new album whilst I was there. Although I’ll have to take it to the next concert to get it signed (like my other books are) as it didn’t look like he was signing that night. I’m not surprised, there were so many people there last time at the Colston Hall, he must have been sat there for hours getting through everyone.
A few weeks ago I caught a little of BBC Radio 2’s Friday Night is Music Night. The programme was a John Williams special. John Williams the composer, not John Williams the classical guitarist. The first time I knowingly came across his work was after seeing the Spielberg film Schindler’s List. Unwittingly I had already been a fan of his, given that I loved the music to Star Wars and Jaws. But it had never occurred to me look up who had composed these iconic tunes.
The music for Schindler’s list, however is a masterpiece in pathos. The haunting sound of the violin of the main theme is one of the most beautifully melancholic tunes composed for the movies, and fits perfectly with the film. I read that Williams asked the Jewish violinist Izak Perlman to play the lead, which I guess adds poignancy, given that Perlman’s parents were exiled from Poland in the 1930’s, and he was born only a few months after the end of the Second Wold War. Below is a piano arrangement.
Back to John Williams: I had not realized, until I heard this programme, how many film scores he had worked on. I tend to think of him only in connection with Spielberg, and it has to be said that the two have been very good for each other. But he has produced the scores for numerous other directors in his 81 years. He has also apparently written many concertos, orchestral and chamber pieces too.
Another favourite score that he wrote was for the 1981 Indiana Jones debut film The Raiders of the Lost Ark. I have written a few times about Great Piano Solos (The Black Book), which includes a selection of film scores transcribed for piano. Included in it is a great version of The Raiders March.
Raiders March
It makes for a great tune on the piano. It requires very little (if any) sustain peddle and really calls for you to belt it out. There are some interesting bars in it with reasonably tricky (for me) timing on page two. However because the tune is so well-known, (it has been used in all the subsequent films of the franchise), it is relatively easy to picture in your mind how it should sound.
If I had been more organized I would have written this post when the programme was still available to listen to on the BBC iplayer, but unfortunately have been very busy recently. I also haven’t had much time recently to perfect this piece so am not yet ready to post up a video of me playing it. I promise to do so when I get chance to practice it.