I found this absolutely charming short film ( under 2mins) when I was looking for things to watch with Reg. I love the squirrel – what her face, the concentration is awesome!
Musical Theatre – where do we start?! Like some of you, I was brought up in the ‘black and white’ era, when there were only 3 channels! My grandma was the first in our street to hire ( not buy – far too expensive) a colour telly. She used to invite the neighbours in to show it off. It revolutionised Saturday / Sunday afternoons for me, when sport was on BBC1 and ITV, leaving BBC2 for classic films.
Here is an uplifting number, sung by Doris Day – she has a perfect voice, couldn’t sing out of tune if you paid her.
My father was a massive music fan with an encyclopaedic knowledge of music across many styles and genres. He could identify a piece and often the orchestra within a few bars. He was a huge fan of Stephen Sondheim and was always filled will glee when he tracked down a new show and its original US cast recording from a tiny shop in Covent Garden – the only place in the 70 and 80s where you could buy LPs from abroad! I loved coming home and opening the front door to discover new music he was blasting from his office at the top of the stairs. Below is a link to the Props 2010 tribute to Stephen Sondheim on his 80th birthday.
And here is the BBC Proms Hooray For Hollywood prom ( 2011) -some utterly fabulous performances. John Wilson is very well known across the musical world for single-handedly reconstructing numerous musical film scores. These scores were often simply thrown away once recorded. John has spent years researching and compiling them – they are true masterpieces of orchestration. Pour a glass of something chilled, sit back and enjoy!!
Films…the first clip is taken from the extraordinary score of Dunkirk. One of my oldest friends was leading the film session orchestra and called me to say I HAD to go watch the film and listen to the score. It’s all based on Elgar’s Nimrod. Every now and then the theme surfaces then sinks back down…it’s wonderful. You might need a hanky…
Here is the original – a fantastic organ performance…pin your ears back!!