Your Tatler’s favorite TV show is What’s My Line from the 1950s. Not only are the panelists witty and urbane, they are just plain brilliant in the way they discern what a contestant does for a living, often with only the scantiest evidence. Another segment of the show featured “Mystery Guests,” in which the panelists, wearing blindfolds, were charged with determining who that guest was.
The Mystery Guests comprised some of the most illustrious figures in the US; in the arts, business, sports, and politics. Still, it was a real surprise in one episode to see Bishop Fulton J Sheen walking onto the sound stage. His eminence acquitted himself well, but the most riotous moments belonged to panelist Arlene Francis, as you will see in this video.
I was fortunate enough to hear the great man play twice, the first time at a fund raiser for the Musicians Pension Fund in Philharmonic Hall in New York, with George Szell conducting the New York Philharmonic. They played Mozart K. 466, the Piano Concerto in D Minor, my favorite.
The second time was near the end of Rubinstein’s life, a solo concert at Symphony Hall in Boston. It was a common belief at the time Rubinstein lacked the depth and chops to play late-Beethoven (as far as I know, he never recorded them. Thus it was a bit of a surprise to see Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 111, the last, on the program. The piece is murderously difficult, but the old man (he was nearing 90) played it with such aplomb I still hear in my head a half-century later.
Here the master plays the B-Flat Minor Scherzo by his beloved Chopin. Enjoy.
A stunning video from 2021 of the recording session that resulted in the release below. Such sounds as I’ve never before, it’s a fine complement with the Morales Requiem for Philip II, posted earlier. Josquin de Prez is regarded by many music scholars as the greatest composer of the Renaissance. Watch and listen to gleen why.
Translated: Overture to the Flying Dutchman as Sight-read by a Bad Spa Orchestra at 7 in the Morning by the Well.
Playing as bad as they can.
Two amusing things happening here.
Paul Hindemith wrote this as a comic work, which its title makes clear. Yet observe the audience. None of them even cracks a grin, which suggests they are either tone-deaf or, more charitably, not aware the piece is a send-up, and are doing their best to maintain straight faces as a virtuoso ensemble plays like a bunch of amateurs.
There’s something infectious about these beautifully crafted compositions. While there are certainly jazz idioms throughout, your Tatler’s ears tell him Schoenfield’s oeuvres are more a hybrid of classical and jazz; jazzy compositions using classical forms and nomenclature, i.e, presto, andante, etc. There is also an element of what might be called “controlled chaos,” evoking Spike Jones.
Perhaps though, it’s wiser to pay no mind to the Tatler’s slightly preposterous jargon above and just throw this on the ol’ digital Victrola, sit back and enjoy it.
Not really, Mr von Hoffman has been dead these six years, and is no longer well known, but he was most certainly well known 50 years ago when he got into huge trouble for his utterances on CBS Television over the collapsing presidency of Richard Nixon during the height, or depths, of the Watergate scandal. He was fired for them.
Von Hoffman, a leftist, but a very funny one, on a segment of CBS’s 60 Minutes program called “Point/Counterpoint,” which your Tatler saw, likened the soon-to-be-former President Nixon to a “dead mouse on the kitchen floor.”
But that’s not all he said. Read the rest and keep in mind our current president. Ask yourself if the words below might just apply to him and his administration.
“The question is who is going to pick [the mouse] up by the tail and drop it in the trash. At this point it makes no difference whether he resigns, thereby depositing himself in a sanitary container, or whether Congress scoops him up in the dustpan of impeachment. But as an urgent national health measure, we’ve got to get that decomposing political corpse out of the White House.”
With thanks to Reason Magazine for the complete quote.
Why hello, are you still checking into this moribund blog? Your Tatler is tickled pink there are a precious few still interested in it. Grateful thanks to you few. Your reward for such loyalty is, for what it’s worth, this blog’s revival, but taking a slightly different editorial tack.
Critical essays on the mess that is our Holy Catholic Church shall continue, but with less frequency (to dwell on it is too dispiriting, pun intended) and more attention devoted to interesting musical finds and reviews. Also, of course, there will be pieces on the unseaworthy and poorly managed Biden ship of state, with its hopelessly incompetent crew, and its inevitable sinking or foundering on the shoals of the Trump campaign.
For now however, here is news of a marvelous musical discovery, made only today.
Note: the brief description of this recording is adapted from an email sent to a priest friend.
Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500-1553): Officium defunctorum Missa pro Defunctis (1544)
Archiv Production 457 597-2
A wonderful discovery: a disc from your Tatler’s increasingly unplayed CD collection (it’s almost entirely hi-res streaming these days, Qobuz being the server of choice, it having the deepest classical catalog (which includes the recording being reported on here) and the best sound.
Your Tatler has no idea where or how the disc made it into his collection, but suspects he saw it in a Taos thrift shop and bought it (probably for 50 cents), because it looked interesting. He then promptly forgot about it.
[Correction: the CD, it turns out, was a gift years ago from the distinguished “ecclesiastical historian manque,” as he likes to refer to himself, William J. Tighe. The Tatler regrets the error and warmly thanks his historian friend of many years.]
It turned up–how else–when looking for something else. Curiosity peaked, as the composer was unknown to your Tatler, he played it. What a glorious and beautiful surprise, it’s quite unlike the many musical settings of the Requiem Mass your Tatler has heard or chanted in. The recording was made in 1998 and appears to be the only one made of the work. The recording also has something rarely heard* in most recordings of the Requiem Mass, the inclusion of the Mass in its entirety: the ordinary and propers of course, plus every word intoned or chanted, prayers, scripture readings, everything but the homily, if there was one.
The advantage of this inclusiveness is that anyone who has yet to experience a celebration of the Latin Mass, can, in the recording, get an idea of its mystical beauty and, we hope, appreciate the great tragedy of it being dropped after so many centuries of its celebration. This recording is a must have then, not only for the serious music lover, but Latin Mass enthusiasts, as well.
Addendum: for those interested in learning a little more about Christóbal de Morales and his Requem, the following brief piece found on a Barcelona website should prove helpful.
*The only other recording known to your Tatler, who had a hand in its re-release, is the Requiem Mass with Mozart’s music, celebrated in Boston following the assassination of President Kennedy. Heavy with history and tragedy, it is a monumental recording. Be aware though, it was recorded in difficult conditions, the packed Holy Cross Cathedral, so the sound quality is only barely adequate. Cuts were made as well, but it is an important and historical document.
THE TAOS TATLER. 