Undated, but possibly
begun the same day as the previous letter. Consists of two aerogrammes, parts I
and II. Both are handwritten.
Dear Mum, (started the same day as the previous letter) I
started this off for some reason because I’d left something out and John
arrived with 2 friends and I’ve forgotten what it was. (Quarter of an hour
later) I’m now doing some more copying of James Robertson’s (incidentally he
got the C.B.E!!!) edition of the parts of Schicchi
˗ in other words his idea of those things that are better, or different to
Puccini’s! What I’d forgotten: recently, two of the students at the Centre
here got me to play through some songs that they’re performing at Australia
House. They’ve been composed by an Australian woman, and while, it seems to me,
the actual vocal parts are quite pleasant and would make good pop songs (in
fact I think she’d make a lot of
money that way!) the accompaniments are absurd! Her idea to make them modern ˗ and her idea of modernity is to
put quite wrong notes and harmonies all over the place which instead of making
them exciting as she no doubt intends only make them difficult for the singer
and make it appear that the accompanist is playing wrong chords! And yet these
are to be performed. It makes me scared of ever putting anything before the
public. Though I think at least that I have slightly more idea of what I want to do, and aim for that. [After all this pontificating, I fail to mention who the composer was.
Disappointing!]
Know thyself is never more applicable than in the creative or
entertainment business ˗ do what you can do and don’t try and be your
next-door-neighbour! Jeff said this once too ˗ that everyone is given a certain
talent and should know what that is
and use it to its fullest extent. His
father, he said, told him that no one is better than anyone else ˗ and it has
certainly given Jeff plenty of confidence! Jeff is definitely the most down-to-earth
tenor I’ve known, even though the
fact that he is a tenor weighs a
little against him (I’m very rude, I’m afraid), but he has his feet fairly
firmly on the ground, and says not so much what he thinks, but what he knows ˗
Hmm, what a curious ramble this is!
(Next day.) I’ve just stood thru a performance given by the Alwin Nikolais Dance Group,
at the old Sadlers Wells theatre. The music, or perhaps it should be, the
sound, consisted of electronic noises, some giving quite a definitive rhythm,
some seeming to do nothing but ramble. The opening piece was done by five
dancers (whether the dancers were men or women throughout made no difference,
except in one of the longer pieces) each holding two suction-like devices with
which they performed. During the whole evening no one specifically ‘danced,’
but intertwined. The next piece had
three dancers inside sack-like affairs, with no apparent opening, but made of
such a material that they went slack or expanded as the person moved about
inside. Then there was a solo, and then the entire group of ten tripped across
the stage holding two streamers each which were attached to the side they
entered from, and then performed in and around and on and under these
streamers, which were again sufficiently pliable to be sat on at one stage.
[Part II]
These first four items seemed purely of an entertaining
variety, but the second section of the programme consisted of a long piece
entitled, Tent and which consisted of
the group coming on with another of these pliable materials, this time a large
circular affair which had a hole in its centre big enough for all the dancers
to stand in at once. After some preliminaries, several balls with some sort of
attachments about a yard below them descended and somehow picked up certain
spots of the ‘tent’ so that it could be raised from the outside or the central
circle. And this was done without any apparent assistance from those on stage ˗
but the attachments were strong enough to allow the dancers to play and pull at
both the balls and the tent at different times. From then on the group seemed
to represent humanity and the tent some sort of constantly intervening
oppression which would overtake them and force them down and cause them to
change or start again.
(Next day ˗ the last lot was written in the train, so that’s
the reason for then handwriting being even more illegible than ever!) During
the course of the dance an eternal triangle, with a man and two women, kept
forming itself, but just as part of the detail of what else went on. I think it
would probably need a second viewing to really get a lot more from it. The last
ballet was a piece taken from an act of an apparently full-length ballet called
Vaudeville and had the entire group,
again, this time dressed in red and purple costumes and each with metal props
consisting of a two-legged affair joined in two places, or perhaps it was three
˗ once across the top and yes, I think, twice further down, like this. [Drawing of something with two uprights and
three cross pieces included.] These they used as gates, fences, doors,
beds, you name it! Finally they built a house with it, which in the course of a
‘storm’ (?) blew up! All through this piece they’d suddenly stop when the music
stopped, all prance (as only dancers can) to the front of the stage, and all talk at once to the audience. The whole
thing was quite hysterical!
There was one girl who was ‘different’ from everyone else ˗
she took bigger skips (?) and this upset all the others quite a lot. It was a very
funny and yet also a very disturbing piece, though perhaps not as much as the
middle ballet had been.
I’m just now reading a book on Verdi, by a man called Frank Walker, and
he has set out to clear up all the spurious facts surrounding Verdi’s life by
the use of lots and lots of letters. There’s very little about his music ˗ it
concentrates on the people involved. All the other biographies I’ve read have
been semi-fictional and bad. This one keeps on referring to them and saying, ‘Tut,
tut, tut’, ‘so and so’ always gets the facts wrong!! [This book was The Man Verdi, published 1963,by a man who’d spent his
career as a talent agent. It's no longer in print, but can be downloaded here in various formats.]
Love Mike.
