The composer on stage

[french frank]

Interesting overview article by Michael Billington on plays about composers:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/sep/20/brian-cox-bach-theatre-the-score

[AuntDaisy]

Thanks French Frank*, that was an interesting read.

The radio version of David Pownall's "Music to Murder By" is one of my favourites, that nice Mr Heseltine & Gesualdo's ghost.

Pownall's "Cadenza" / Stradella, "In Praise of Evil" / Monteverdi, "Master Class" / Prokofiev & Shostakovich, the two Elgar plays (Third & Rondo) - are all excellent as well, strong radio casts helps.

John Purser's "Carver" is another favourite - Tom Fleming as Robert Carver with the Taverner Consort & Andrew Parrott.

There was also James Runcie's "The Great Passion" with Simon Rusell Beale as Bach.

BTW, Nigel Deacon has a list of Composer Radio plays

* I've often meant to ask, are capital letters appropriate? Or, are there shades of e e cummings?



"Master Class" from the Grauniad's obituary.

[smittims]

Interesting indeed. I'd add Visconti's bringing in Wagner (wonderfully played by Trevor Howard) in his film about Ludwig II of Bavaria.

My only fear about these plays is that they will contain inaccuracies or distortions which give one a misleading impresssion of a composer. I recall one TV play about Elgar (played by James Fox) ,which had him falling in love with, and being rejected by, Jelly D'Aranyi, using words Osbert Sitwell wrote twenty years later. This made me wince. I do feel that when one is writing about real people one should stick to facts.

[AuntDaisy]

Interesting indeed. I'd add Visconti's bringing in Wagner (wonderfully played by Trevor Howard) in his film about Ludwig II of Bavaria.

My only fear about these plays is that they will contain inaccuracies or distortions which give one a misleading impresssion of a composer. I recall one TV play about Elgar (played by James Fox) ,which had him falling in love with, and being rejected by, Jelly D'Aranyi, using words Osbert Sitwell wrote twenty years later. This made me wince. I do feel that when one is writing about real people one should stick to facts.

Very good point.
However, Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus" might not be such an interesting play if he'd stuck to facts.
Pushkin's "Mozart & Salieri" is a tad, how can I put it, dull. Paul Scofield & Simon Callow (as S & M) did both plays on Radio 3.
There's also a World Service "Amadeus" with Alec McCowen & Alex Jennings - excellent, although slightly abridged.

Was the Elgar play "Elgar's Tenth Muse"?
Robert Powell in Ken Russell's "Mahler" was spot on

Thanks for the "Ludwig" recommendation, I'll keep an eye out for it.

[french frank]

Thanks to both for the added info. I suppose we should be grateful - and not a little surprised - to see classical music taking centre stage so often in one theatre of dreams.

Thanks French Frank*, that was an interesting read.


* I've often meant to ask, are capital letters appropriate? Or, are there shades of e e cummings?

No, it was just me being a bit Gen Z

[AuntDaisy]

Thanks to both for the added info. I suppose we should be grateful - and not a little surprised - to see classical music taking centre stage in one theatre of dreams

Yes, lots to be grateful for. David Pownall was always an inventive playwright & is much missed.
I'm looking forward to photos of Brian Cox's suitably extravagant wig.
(He's already played Bach in the BBC's "The Cantor of St Thomas's" - with Michael Gough in the IMDB wiggy photo.)

No, it was just me being a bit Gen Z

[Belgrove]

I’m surprised that Michael Billington, a critic whom I admire, did not mention Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art. This was a meta play about a play about a fictional encounter between Auden and Britten, around the time when Auden was teaching in Oxford and Britten was composing Death in Venice. Despite being fictional, it brings both characters into sharp and contrasting focus, and illuminates their respective arts and where they interact through lively, and often very funny dialogue. That’s much more interesting than portraying ‘facts’; good works of art reveal truths, even if the events didn’t actually happen. It’s a much better play than Amadeus or Bach & Sons in my opinion.

[gurnemanz]

I’m surprised that Michael Billington, a critic whom I admire, did not mention Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art. This was a meta play about a play about a fictional encounter between Auden and Britten, around the time when Auden was teaching in Oxford and Britten was composing Death in Venice. Despite being fictional, it brings both characters into sharp and contrasting focus, and illuminates their respective arts and where they interact through lively, and often very funny dialogue. That’s much more interesting than portraying ‘facts’; good works of art reveal truths, even if the events didn’t actually happen. It’s a much better play than Amadeus or Bach & Sons in my opinion.

Thanks to FF for the Billington article.

It would have been interesting to see Michael Gambon who was originally going to play Auden kin Habit of Art. Richard Griffiths did a terrific job, as indeed he had done in History Boys. The latter is the Bennett play which Billington includes in his book, 101 Greatest Plays. His Forty Years On was one of the first plays I ever saw in the West End in the 60s and the only time I saw Gielgud on the stage.

We have booked for and are greatly looking forward to Brian Cox as Bach in The Score at Bath Theatre Royal in October - where we also saw Ronald Harwood's Taking Sides about Wilhelm Furtwangler's denazification experiences, which Billington also mentions.

The point about good works of art revealing truths rather than portraying facts came up this very morning on Melvyn Bragg's 1000th In Our Time in a discussion about Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001qmkx

[smittims]

Thanks: some good points there, and I too had forgotten The Habit of Art , which I enjoyed without feeling quite comfortable . I don't think anyone would mistake it for intended documentary though , unlike The Tenth Muse, where I felt that danger. Maybe I'm a little over-sensitive about Elgar: I still can't make my mind up about the Elgar Payne Symphony, and I wince , or groan, when I hear it decribed as a 'completion'.

Confusing truth with fact is, I think, a twentieth-century fault , and I think that's why (at the risk of digressing) so many people misinterpret the Bible.