In a less than golden youth as red-ribboned choirboy and dangerous church organist, I developed an unquenchable thirst for ... requiems and passions. My religious or spiritual -- whatever... -- outlook on life has since seen a radical overhaul, but I'll never forget the Easter that I discovered Bach's St Matthew Passion conducted by Otto Klemperer in a magnificently spacious 1962 recording by Walter Legge. I've heard many another performance, and I know a few of today's purists who've tried to sell me on Philippe Herreweghe's account. It's wonderful, but for me Klemperer's remains the most magistral of all recordings.
Losing my simple Christian beliefs never stopped me buying such music, including far more recent brushes with the faith, such as Arvo Pärt's Passio and Gyorgy Ligeti's Requiem. Like many people, I discovered Ligeti via Kubrick's '2001'. That could well have been the spark that fired me up into several happy years as a reviewer of "contemporary" musics, among things I did for the Beeb. I also still have a very soft spot for David Fanshawe's 'African Sanctus'.
The woman who played a decisive part in my coming to Paris at all introduced me to Rossini's 'Stabat Mater', where I'd be hard pressed to choose between Carlo Maria Giulini and Semyon Bychkov and the fabulous Cecilia Bartoli. Ghyslaine also forever opened my ears to Gustav Mahler as performed by Bruno Walter and some recordings of the late Beethoven quartets which were ... hmm, even more sublime than sex.
A flurry of CD-buying this week has steered clear of that range, though, and included the soundtracks from two of my top 10 movies: Luc Besson's 'The Fifth Element', which merits a 'worship page' from one fellow fan and all kinds of "collectables" at SciFi Flicks; and 'The Barber of Siberia' by Nikita Mikhalkov, "clearly a composer's dream." But there had to be a touch of passion too: I was delighted to be re-united with Jethro Tull's 'A Passion Play', a find at Virgin on the Champs-Elysées (for once cheaper than it's selling at Amazon). Also snatched off the shelf was 'Ana José Nacho' by Mecano. At last! Marianne scarcely remembered that 'Hijo De La Luna' was one of her "cradle songs", but she did...
2:57:24 PM link
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