The Wolds Inn is situated in the village of Huggate which claims to be the highest settlement in the Yorkshire Wolds, though at only 170 metres above sea level this is hardly East Yorkshire’s answer to Kathmandu. Nevertheless, Huggate undoubtedly is a lovely spot, peaceful and serene. Situated on both the Wolds Way and the Way of the Roses, it is also an ideal stop for walkers and cyclists seeking refreshments.
Cedric and I had the pleasure of visiting the Wolds Inn recently in August whilst half-way through a little cycle ride I had devised. I consider it to be one the finest pubs in the East Riding. Its exterior is rather pretty in an understated sort of a way with red titles, whitewashed walls and a delightfully old-fashioned pub sign. The interior is equally pleasing to the eye, traditional and cosy – exactly what you want in a village pub. Most importantly, the drink and grub ain’t half bad either.
I think there were about three real ales on the bar the day we visited. I had a pint of Sleck Dust, a refreshing session ale by the Great Newsome brewery. This was chosen for me as owing to my rather slow and steady pace on two wheels, I was quite a few minutes behind Cedric by the time he arrived at t’pub and ordered. I think they had another Great Newsome beer on that day: Frothingham Best, a delightful best bitter. Incidentally, this terrific little brewery, based due east of Hull, appears to be gradually taking over East Yorkshire and frankly I am all for it!
When it came time to order our mains, Cedric opted for the dish that has deservedly earned British cooking such a disastrous reputation worldwide: bangers and mash. It boggles my mind to think why but then he has always been a fairly inscrutable fellow. I, on the other hand, judiciously selected the steak and ale pie with chips for my main. The pastry was excellent. Chef Cedric tells me it was a little softer in places, indicating the pastry had not quite been cooked through evenly. I am sure he is right, but nevertheless it was a sterling effort for a country pub. The beef was excellent, locally sourced, tender and delicious.
All in all, this is a fantastic little pub in the heart of the Yorkshire Wolds, well worth visiting should you happen to be in the area.
I have been given the unenviable task of discussing ‘Casablanca’ today. I say unenviable, partly because I know practically zilch about films and therefore am woefully unsuited to the role of film reviewer, and partly because this film has often been ranked as one of the greatest, if not the greatest films, of all time. It is as if Cedric were to set about reviewing the footballing career of Diego Maradona.
I did not, however, shirk from the task this time. Despite my vast ignorance of the subject, I am keen to express some of my opinions. Occasionally, greatness can inspire greatness in others, and so taking some comfort in that thought, I have decided to plod on and see what I can come up with.
What makes this film so interesting to me is that it is not only set during World War II but also produced during World War II. It premiered in November 1942 in the middle of the conflict. That is almost three years, before well-known Austrian mad-man, Adolf Hitler, killed himself in a bunker in Berlin. Moreover, it is almost two years before the Normandy Landings. Hitler had of course by then made his two colossal blunders that would eventually cost Nazi Germany everything: the commencement of operation Barbarossa and the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22nd 1941, and the declaration of war on the U.S.A. on 11 December 1941, but it was still not yet clear that the allies would win. The tide was turning but the ship had not yet been sunk.
Theatrical release poster, 1942
So, audiences would have received this film at a time of great uncertainty, searching for hope. I do not wish to get into the plot too much, partly so as to avoid “spoilers” and also partly because on a few points I am confused myself. To lay down the bare essentials however the film “Casablanca” is unsurprisingly set in the town of Casablanca, in French Morocco. The location is significant on two counts. Firstly, at the time, refugees from across occupied Europe were using Casablanca as a staging post from which to travel to Lisbon and thence to the U.S.A. and freedom. Secondly, we are in French Morocco, a colony of a country who had surrendered to Nazi might.
I do think the film is at least in part an exercise in propaganda. This is not to say it is bad art. Far from it. The beauty is that it can be viewed simultaneously as a very personal story too. This is after all a tale about the overcoming of cynicism, about doomed love and about self-sacrifice. The main characters the disillusioned Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, and the beautiful Ilsa Lund, played by Ingrid Bergman are three-dimensional, living people. The basic plot is simple: Rick Blaine must choose between his love for Ilsa or the safe passage of both her and her husband, resistance leader Victor Laszlo to the new world via Lisbon. It is a moving tale of love and love’s heartache and could just as easily have been set in any place and at any time.
But the choice was a contemporary setting and the reason is clear. Everything at the time was to be directed towards the war effort. Film-making like any other industry was expected to support the cause. The film, then, is propaganda as well. Propaganda about the U.S.A, the land to which all the refugees in the film are fleeing, where all their hopes are pinned. Propaganda about the importance of the war effort over private interests. Propaganda about the allied world, where jazz can be heard, where black people and other ethnic minorities are visible (think of the wonderful character of Sam), and where good humour is in ready supply.
Dooley Wilson as Sam
It is of course also propaganda directed towards the peoples of occupied Europe, and above all to occupied France. At no point is that made clearer than in the brilliant scene at Rick’s bar where the customers singing the Marseillaise outcompete the German soldiers’ stale nationalistic anthem. The Marseillaise is of course not just an anthem of the French people, but also an anthem of the French Revolution, and therefore a song for all men, all free men that is.
I suppose what was conspicuous to me as a Brit watching, was the absence of my fellow countrymen from all this. But of course, that is not quite true. The character of Captain Louis Renault, though technically French in the story, is played by an English actor (Claude Rains) who makes no attempt to assume a French accent. Though the character does illustrate some French attributes, his wit is undeniably the wit of an Englishman, just as Rick’s humour is inseparable from the streets of New York. All the main western allies therefore find some role in this film.
Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault
The humour is as brilliant as the romance is heart-wrenching. This really is a film that can make you both laugh and weep. The screenplay is inspired. There are so many classic lines, it is hard not to gasp in astonishment at times. The wit is essential. At this time people needed humour more than ever. They needed to laugh at the enemy, they needed to laugh at the situation, in some ways all they had left was their courage and their good humour. For they had to go on fighting. Go on Fighting for the world that this film in some ways stands for, the world of dissidents, the world of freedom and jazz, a world in which individual “human life was” not “cheap”.
The world they fought for survived and like a phoenix was reborn from the ashes of World War II taking on new life. I am not especially left-wing, but I do sincerely believe in the liberalism that this film encapsulates. Just as much in fact as those claiming to be the Victor Laszlos of today. In some ways in recent decades we have felt this liberal world order slip from our grasps ever so slightly. At times this has been because the liberal order has become corrupt and complacent, and therefore from time to time there has been justification for it receiving flack. Still, we must not to allow it to be lost completely. By watching ‘Casablanca’ we can remind ourselves that it is worth fighting for.
Note: I have made references throughout this blog to timings for certain highlighted moments (e.g 0:03 of track 1) – this is in relation to a recording of the work I will provide a link to below (follow along should you so desire).
On the 30th December 1884 , in the world-famous Leipzig Gewandhaus, the premier of Anton Bruckner’s 7th symphony was received with rapturous applause. At the age of 60 Bruckner had now experienced his first taste of success with an audience. But why had it taken so long for this modest but industrious Upper Austrian to find favour with the public? One reason was simply that Bruckner had started surprisingly late in life to compose large-scale works, he had not approached the genre of the symphony until near the end of his fourth decade on this earth. The other perhaps more important facet was that he had found himself, quite by accident, at the fore of central Europe’s raging musical conflict between the supporters of Johannes Brahms and the supporters of Richard Wagner. At first glance, the tremendously modest Bruckner, who had little to no literary interests would seem an unlikely member of the Wagnerian camp, but nonetheless, that was the group he had found himself pigeonholed into. In fairness, Bruckner had gained a deep appreciation for Wagner’s music since the early 1860s and was known to have practically worshipped the older composer. What made Bruckner more offensive to the other side, though, was that he had had the temerity to compose abstract symphonies, and what’s more to compose them in Vienna, where Brahms, and perhaps more importantly the critic Eduard Hanlick resided and reigned supreme. Brahms had derided Bruckner’s symphonies as musical ‘Boa constrictors’, but Hanslick was the more abusive, orchestrating venomous attacks in the Viennese press. It goes without saying that the conservative orchestras and audiences of Vienna were by no means receptive to Bruckner’s symphonies which were both long and in their mind lacking proper rigour.
Painting of Anton Bruckner
The audience that heard Bruckner’s 7th symphony for the first time in Leipzig, however, was far more open to this music, and Bruckner had at last found a talented and sympathetic interpreter in the conductor Arthur Nikisch. It was a captivating success from the first bars onward. As with most of Bruckner’s symphonies, the opening is presented with utmost mystery, as a long arching and searching theme takes its course over tremolo strings. This theme had apparently come to Bruckner in a dream, in which his mentor from his Linz days, Ignaz Dorn, had played the melody on a viola promising the composer that it would bring him ‘success’. One of the main characteristics of this theme is that it modulates from the home key (or tonic), e major, to the dominant, b major. This is in part what give it its searching quality. It also sets up what is essentially the slow drama of the entire movement, the takeover of b major from the tonic and the painstaking process whereby the home key reasserts its position. In a truly ground-breaking manner, Bruckner will delay this resolution until the coda.
Pictured here the much younger Arthur Nikisch
The first theme slips back to the tonic, for a restatement which again modulates to the dominant (1:22 of track 1). The second subject which starts in b major, wanders through several keys, generating a strong sense of forward movement (2:46 of track 1). It is important to bear in mind that although Bruckner’s music has a tendency to be slow, and interpretations have a tendency to be even slower, there is still often a feeling of steady forward propulsion. The music builds to a climax resolving on the key of b minor (a dark and solemn key). A theme with a new rhythm now begins in b minor, passing through several keys til it leads to a fanfare and the music dies away softly in b major (5:51 – 7:44 of track 1). This comprises effectively the exposition (the section in which the themes are first presented), and now it is time for the development. Bruckner inverts many of the movement’s themes for this section (this means the ascending intervals of the melody become descending intervals and vice versa), presenting for example, a beautiful inversion of the second subject played cantabile by the cellos (9:16 of track 1). A crisis point is reached in which the inverted version of the opening theme is presented menacingly in c minor (11:18 of track 1). Effectively any strict recapitulation in which the opening material is presented securely in the tonic, has now been severely undermined by this outburst so near the end of the development.
A traditional recapitulation was not in fact what Bruckner had in mind at all. Although, we do eventually hear the main theme in e major, and although this is felt by the listener as the home-key, it is far from a secure and solid resolution (13:06 of track 1). Again the theme modulates to b minor, which leads to what is the greatest crisis in the movement, as the music floats into dark and mysterious harmonies, beautifully orchestrated (14:13 of track 1). Bruckner’s wandering second subject again reaches a climax, but this time we arrive with the new rhythmic theme in g major, not the dominant, which provides the impetus to bring about the long-delayed resolution of this movement as the key of b has lost its pre-eminence (16:58 of track 1). Again the music passes through several keys, before it settles down for what is without a doubt one of the greatest codas in the entire symphonic repertoire. On a pedal point (a technique originating in organ music) in the bass over which the rest of the orchestra plays wandering harmonies, the music rises to a crescendo (18:25 of track 1 onward). The music gradually resolves to e major for what is, at last, the resolution we have been looking for throughout the entire movement, accompanied by glorious fanfares in the brass.
Anton Bruckner at the organ (he was best known as an organist for much of his career)
The second movement is marked adagio. Bruckner’s adagios are often seen as being at the heart of his symphonies, and this is especially true here. The seventh’s adagio is probably one of the greatest slow movements of any symphony, let alone any Bruckner symphony. It begins in the relative minor to the home key, C-sharp minor (a key hitherto not touched upon), and with a theme of sombre feeling (first heard at 0:01 of track 2). Apparently Bruckner was inspired to compose this theme because he realised that Wagner was not far from his dying day. Wagner was in fact to die during the period in which Bruckner composed the symphony. The movement’s structure is a set of variations upon two themes. The second which begins in f-sharp (first heard at 4:57 of track 2), has been described beautifully by Bruckner expert and conductor Georg Tinter as:
something which transcends ordinary sorts of feelings. You can’t even say ‘Is it jolly?’ ‘Is it sad?’ ‘Is it that?’ ‘Is it that?’. You can’t say that with a late Beethoven tune either. It is above these things
The adagio utilises 4 Wagner tubas, an instrument designed to be used in Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Half way through the movement during the first recurrence of the first theme, the music reaches a climax in g major, which prepares the audience for the movement’s most important moment later on. That in turn is reached following a long crescendo, which climaxes in C-major accompanied by one of music’s most famous cymbal clashes, supported by a triangle (19:15 of track 2). This was apparently suggested as an addition by Nikisch, a change Bruckner agreed to. In the manuscript this addition is marked as invalid, but not in Bruckner’s writing. The fact that a similar passage is accompanied by a cymbal clash in the adagio of the 8th symphony suggests that Bruckner did want to retain this part for percussion in the 7th contrary to the manuscript’s direction. Some performances will include this use of percussion, others not. After this climax the music dies away and ends in funeral character.
Richard Wagner
The third movement scherzo is based on a driving dance theme in A minor with an octave leap (first heard at 0:02 of track 3), while the contrasting trio section has a slower tempo (3:25 of track 3). The latter is full of beautiful orchestration in the brass and woodwinds. Overall, this movement is the perfect foil for the immensely moving and sombre second movement. The finale is an odd mixture of the sublime and the light-hearted, it begins with a theme of jaunty character which has some resemblance to the opening movement’s first theme, and which is again accompanied by tremolo strings (0:01 of track 4). The second subject of the finale is a more serious chorale theme (1:00 of track 4), while the third subject takes up a more menacing mood in the minor mode (2:56 of track 4). In the recapitulation, the themes are presented in reverse order (just one of the factors that make this movement difficult to define in terms of form)! The coda features the jaunty theme alongside the opening theme of the symphony, climaxing with an E-major chord ablaze with glory (10:49 of track 4 onward)!
With this ending, Bruckner had capped off a work which would bring him fame and renown for the first time in his compositional career. In one of the great ironies of music history, the timid, shy, and deeply conservative catholic composer, with an awed reverence for music of the past, would become the new poster-child for progressive modern music. Anton Bruckner, the peasant from upper Austria, had secured his place in the great pantheon of German music, a position from which not even Hanslick could dislodge him. In some ways it is not exactly surprising that it was the 7th symphony that brought him this recognition, its lyrical and moving themes continue to have charms for audiences to this day. The long-delayed resolutions and slowly built climaxes contained within will forever deserve our special attention, representative as they are of that most Brucknerian quality: his sacred patience.
By Nicholas Jenkins
Here is the recording upon which the timings are based, you are more than welcome to choose your own performance but please note the timings could be very different if you do:
Note: I have made references throughout this blog to timings for certain highlighted moments (e.g 0:03 of track 1) – this is in relation to a recording of the work I will provide a link to below (follow along should you so desire).
Places can store up memories for us, which when we return come flooding back to us. The region situated along the banks of the Rhine must have been just such a place for the composer Johannes Brahms. It was there in October 1853 that he first made the acquaintance of Robert and Clara Schumann at their Düsseldorf home. Robert who was deeply impressed by the young man’s music, would soon lionise Brahms in a famous article that championed him as the next great composer in German music. But sadly things did not remain rosy for long. In February 1854 Robert would throw himself off a bridge into the Rhine in a desperate suicide attempt. As a result he was committed to an asylum and would die there just two years later in 1856. Meanwhile, Brahms and Clara would find themselves falling hopelessly in love as they comforted each other in the wake of this tragedy. Even so, following Robert’s funeral, Brahms fled the scene and left the newly widowed Clara to tend to her young family alone. Ultimately, marriage scared Brahms who would become a perennial bachelor, he must have also felt conflicted because of his friendship with Robert.*
Picture from let to right: Clara Schumann, a young Johannes Brahms, and Robert Schumann
When Brahms returned to the banks of the Rhine to stay at Wiesbaden nearly 30 years later, after celebrating his 50th birthday, it is easy to imagine these difficult and painful memories would once again be brought to the fore of his mind. There, over just a matter of three months, he would complete his third symphony, a work of consummate formal brilliance, yet also an intensely personal work. The symphony would begin with a kind of musical motto with resonance for Brahms and his circle. Musical mottoes (used to represent people) were common at that time, Brahms’ friend and fellow bachelor Joseph Joachim, for example, had the motto of the notes F – A – E (Frei Aber Einsam – free but lonely – in other words single but lonely). Indeed, Brahms, Robert Schumann, and Albert Dietrich had each composed a movement on the basis of this motto for what would become the F-A-E violin sonata dedicated to Joachim. Brahms, being the able ironist that he was, took Joachim’s personal motto and created his own: F-A-F (Frei Aber Froh – free but happy). It is with this motto (albeit with the A moved a semi-tone lower to A flat, creating a minor interval) that the symphony would begin (0:02 – 0:08 of track 1).
This motto is of immense significance for the symphony, it will recur throughout the movement in many different guises, and will serve as the germinating idea for many of the themes of this symphony. Its first recurrence follows immediately as it forms the bass line underneath which the first theme proper is built (listen out for it in the double basses and brass). The first theme, in fact, begins on the third note of the motto and so a close connection is established from the beginning (0:08 – 0:30 of track 1). The theme itself has a striking resemblance to a phrase from the middle of the first movement of Robert Schumann’s famous Rhenish (or Rheinische) symphony composed as a tribute to the Rhine and the Rhineland region (7:40 – 7:48 of Schumann track). Strictly, speaking Schumann’s theme is a varied version of his movement’s main theme, but Brahms seems to have cottoned onto this version and used it in his symphony, adding to it a passionate weight. By doing so he was referencing Schumann and the memory of his departed friend in this work which had already begun with the Brahms’ own personal motto. The theme switches from major to minor from measure to measure, a technique learnt from Franz Schubert, which creates ambiguity and tension in the music.
Picture of the Rhine valley
First movement of Robert Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony in E-Flat major
The second theme, which is in A-flat major (1:24 of track 1 onward), follows a transition in which the orchestra is pared down, so that when we arrive at this theme it almost has a chamber music feel. It sounds like the sort of rustic melody Brahms might have heard while conversing with friends in one of the many cafes of Vienna. Brahms does elaborate and develop this simple theme in the exposition but notice the extraordinary way he transforms the melody in the development section, now in the minor and taking on a far darker character (6:32 of track 1 onward). The drama of this part is enhanced by a transitional section, which takes us from the repeat of the exposition to the development, filled with syncopated rhythms typical of Brahms’ music (5:47 -6:31 of track 1). Just before the recapitulation we are provided with a broad almost elegaic version of the opening motto by the solo horn reflecting the oft-spoken autumnal feel of this symphony (7:26 -7:37 of track 1). Following the recapitulation, the music gently subsides to a quiet peaceful conclusion in the coda. We hear at the end of the movement the opening motto followed by the first theme, now combined as if they were one theme.
The second movement begins with another simple folk melody in the clarinet with the orchestra providing an accompaniment (0:01 of track 2 onward). Listen out for how the clarinet and orchestra each hint at the opening Frei Aber Froh motto. Clara described this part of the symphony as a “pure idyll” in a letter to Brahms. The second theme has a greater intensity and melancholy about it, suggesting as always with Brahms, that not all is mere bliss, and it leads to a rather mysterious chromatic passage (2:25 – 3:40 of track 2). The recapitulation follows on from the development so seamlessly that is easy for the likes of me to miss it (4:58 of track 2). In this revised sonata form movement, the first theme is heard again in the recapitulation (as is the chromatic passage) but not the second. This theme will in fact be kept back for later. Once again the movement ends quietly and mysteriously.
It had become common since Beethoven for the third movement of a symphony to be a scherzo, that is a quick and sometimes jocund movement of dance music in 3/4 time. This style of movement did not suit Brahms’ temperament, and after composing works such as the piano quintet in F minor (which has a marvellous scherzo), he favoured movements he termed intermezzi which were generally slower and more contemplative in character. Although this third movement only has as description the tempo marking ‘Poco Allegretto’, it has strong a resemblance to movements from other works termed intermezzi. The opening melody is one of the most beautiful in all of music and should be brought up immediately whenever any swine tries to claim Brahms was not a gifted melodist. A favourite passage of mine is when the solo horn takes up the melody (3:39 of track 3 onward). The horn or Waldhorn was intimately associated in German culture with the forest and therefore with mystery and Romanticism. Throughout, this movement there emanates a supremely autumnal atmosphere. For the third time in this symphony there is a quiet conclusion.
Caspar David Friedrich – the Evening (a typical example of German Romantic Painting)
The finale begins with an opening theme which is heard first in the Phrygian mode before its accompaniment reveals it to be in F minor (0:01 – 0:31 of track 4). This theme leads to a return of the second subject from the second movement but now in the form of a brooding chorale, or hymn-tune (0:32 of track 4 onward). The return of the movement’s opening theme in tumultuous fashion follows which leads to a transition to the second subject heard in the cellos and horns (0:55 – 1:29 of track 4). This second heroic theme in the major acts as a contrast to the rest of the movement’s material which for the most part is dark and intense (1:30 of track 4 onward). Indeed, it is soon followed by a new dramatic theme which returns the movement to its predominantly storm-filled character (1:57 of track 4 onward). The opening theme comes back once again this time quietly in the woodwinds for the start of what forms the development section of this modified sonata form movement (2:54 of track 4 onward). As the opening theme grows quieter, the chorale theme returns in an eruption of sound, which is followed by a recap of the other themes including the heroic second theme and the dramatic third theme (3:59 of track 4 onward). The movement’s coda begins with the opening melody which slowly unwinds and modulates to F major (6:36 of track 4 onward). Throughout, in the mystical quality of its orchestration, this coda reminds me of the Forest Murmurs from Wagner’s Siegfried (6:36 – 9:08 of track 4). The opening Frei-Aber-Froh musical motto is heard several times once again, followed by the chorale theme which has now become broad and majestic. Afterwards, the Frei-Aber-Froh motif is combined with the opening theme from this movement. Finally, the impassioned Rhine theme derived from Schumann returns now far less intense and in a mesmerising fashion with shimmering strings, concluding the symphony pianissimo.
How ultimately are we to make sense of this work? One view is that this is Brahms at his most formally terse and concise. It is the briefest of his symphonies, with each movement being the same length, and each being closely interrelated thematically. Another valid view, is that this is Brahms at his most personal, referencing himself in the opening musical motto and his mentor Robert Schumann in the first movement’s opening theme. Then, there is the fact that each movement ends quietly, which was totally unique for the time. I began this blog with a discussion of the dramatic events which had moulded Brahms’ early manhood and which took place almost thirty years before the composition of the symphony. Those memories must surely have been on his mind when he wrote this symphony at Wiesbaden, with the Rhine so nearby. One possible speculative interpretation is to view in the final peaceful resolution of this work a kind of personal resolution for Brahms, a putting away of memories that had haunted him since he first left the Rhineland. Whatever the case may be, the manner with which the finale ends is exceptional and highly moving. Leonard Bernstein spoke of this ending as ‘magically healing’ and a moment of ‘sweet resolution and repose’. Indeed, in the mystical manner with which this symphony concludes I am reminded of these famous lines by Prospero from Shakespeare’s The Tempest:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Written by Nicholas Jenkins
Here is the recording upon which the timings are based, you are more than welcome to choose your own performance but please note the timings could be very different if you do:
Footnotes
* Brahms and Clara would, nevertheless, continue a passionate friendship over a long period of regular correspondence.
Once again I have the tremendous honour of contributing to the prestigious ‘Album Of The Month’ category here on Cedric’s blog. You may recall from my post of May last year, I chose to discuss ‘Fives Leaves Left’, Nick Drake’s debut album, which was my ‘gateway drug’ to what can in the broadest sense be defined as ‘pop’ music. If that album was the ‘gateway drug’ then I suppose the one I am about to discuss today represents a slightly stronger intoxicant and a further step for me towards appreciating a wider variety of music. John Martyn was a friend and early supporter of Drake and his music, as well as a fellow recording artist on the Island label. It was through this connection with Drake that I discovered Martyn and his music and came to appreciate this album. So without much further ado, on with the review.
The year Martyn came to record this astonishing album was 1973. Following a period in which he had released successive albums with then wife Beverley Martyn, his last album had been a solo effort. That album, ‘Bless the Weather’, had also marked the beginning of his collaboration with legendary upright bass player Danny Thompson. Thompson would move on to play a pivotal role in the album under discussion today.
“If John Martyn had been the only person I had ever done music with, it would have satisfied all of my musical ambition” – Danny Thompson
High praise indeed from Thompson (who recorded and performed with the likes of Roy Orbison, Pentangle, Nick Drake, Richard Thompson, the list goes on…), and it reflects the immensely fruitful musical relationship the two must have had. This close connection can be heard throughout this album, and it was through such a strong, intuitive relationship that some truly inspired music was created. We already glimpse this in the opening title track, where Thompson’s bass is simply sumptuous and fits perfectly with Martyn’s cool, somewhat slurred, but deeply-felt vocals and his percussive acoustic guitar playing. Notice Thompson’s mesmerising use of glissandi in this song and throughout the album. Also featured on this song are Tristan Fey on vibes and Tony Coe on Saxophone who weaves in and out, providing a jazz-like feel to the track.
Danny Thompson
‘Solid Air’ was written by Martyn about his friend Drake and the latter’s struggles with depression, which the song movingly equates with the difficulties of living life through solid air. A particularly touching line occurs midway through the song in which Martyn confesses that:
I love you
And I can be your friend
I can follow you anywhere
Even through solid air
Elsewhere in the album there is some wonderfully poetic use of language. Above all in the opening track from side two, ‘Go Down Easy’, in which Martyn invokes his lover to:
Curl around me
Like a fern in the spring
The manner with which this track opens is superb, first we hear an improvisatory passage from Thompson on the upright bass, followed by Martyn’s guitar and finally his falsetto voice, all drawing the listener in for this hypnotic number. The way Martyn vocalises certain words in the song, for example ‘eeeeasy’, provides for a deeply sensual feel. It is the perfect way to press the reset button musically after we had ended side one with Martyn’s dark and psychedelic cover of Skip James’ ‘The Devil Got My Woman’ (titled on the album ‘I’d Rather Be That Devil’). For that track Martyn makes frequent use of reverb and echoplex. The trippy closing section is fairly astonishing and no doubt even more impactful if one chooses to make use of some of the substances Martyn was particularly fond of.
Some of the best tracks on this album are more warm and folky, such as ‘May You Never’. This became a staple in Martyn’s live performances, and you can hear why, it has to be one of the greatest invocations of friendship ever put to music. The track must have caught the attention of Eric Clapton who later recorded a cover of it in his 1977 album ‘Showhand’. The third track on the album ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ starts off in a similarly simple, low-key mood, before it drops into a groove, and a fender-rhodes joins the instrumentation followed eventually by the use of multi-layered vocals. That track follows on from ‘Over the Hill’ which has unmistakably bluegrass feel to it. The song features Richard Thompson, of Fairport Convention fame, strumming away on mandolin. Apparently ‘the hill’ referred to in the song is the West Hill in Hastings which Martyn had to walk over to get to his home from the station.
John Martyn
Cedric has improved my appreciation for the importance of track sequencing in albums, and I think Martyn does an exemplary job of this throughout the album. At times there are great contrasts, for example, the choice of following the hard-edged ‘Dreams by the Sea’ with the much softer ‘May You Never’. Other times the tracks seem to follow on from one another with great ease, for example the manner in which ‘The Man in the Station’ carries on from ‘May You Never’. Overall, I think this a superb album, with elements of folk, jazz, and blues combined effortlessly to create a greater whole. I am sure the somewhat rough and ready, down to earth Martyn would probably have thought I was a pretentious tw*t, but regardless I have gained such a lot of enjoyment from this record that it would have been unthinkably crass of me not to have paid tribute to it. I hope you will gain the same pleasure from this superb album as I have done.
Painting of Anton Bruckner
Pictured here the much younger Arthur Nikisch
Anton Bruckner at the organ (he was best known as an organist for much of his career)
Richard Wagner
Danny Thompson