Like us all, I often find a tune going through my head, not
consciously stimulated by listening to a recent disc or watching a TV
programme, but coming from somewhere deep in the recesses of my memory,
suddenly released I know not why.
In the last few days two particular tunes have washed over
me – The Three Bells (often known as The Jimmy Brown Song) a popular English
language hit in 1951, the version I know being sung by the French group Les Compagnons de la Chanson. It is a
French 1940s song and there is an early recording with Edith Piaf and the
aforesaid Compagnons, only later being translated into English and the name Jimmy
Brown being introduced. It describes the bells being rung for the birth,
marriage and death of Jimmy Brown. My mother liked the song and bought the
record; the tune is memorable, the lyrics sentimental and the Gallic “boom, booms”
of the Compagnons stick in the memory. Quite why I even remember it now totally
escapes me. Maybe my third bell is looming! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M7Wh_lbpt4
The second tune is of much higher quality, but its sudden emergence in
my head is equally mysterious. It is the lovely chorale Sleepers Awake
by J S Bach
(from his cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140). Our accomplished
school organist liked to play it as an introit, but that was at least 54 years
ago, and I do not have a recording; it goes to show that great music is
literally irrepressible, once heard it stays with you for ever.
Bach is so tuneful, he is always
certain to jump out of my sub-conscious making me hum Sheep may safely graze
or Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring
in some involuntary reflex action.
This recollection of past music and the impact a musical phrase can
make is exhaustively explored in Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past
where page after (tedious) page is devoted to “the little phrase” from the andante
in the fictional Vinteuil’s Sonata.
I know I am philistine for not adoring Proust, but by goodness I tried, only
giving up after reading 7 of the 11 volumes! So I never found out how the plot
actually unfolded, but since nothing much happened in the first 7 volumes I
guess I did not miss much.
Under certain stimuli, I will readily burst into song, but that is more
consciously done. On re-entering Scotland after a time away I will easily drop
into my Harry Lauder
selection or fill the air with a positively excruciating White Heather Club medley.
Give me a wide berth on such maudlin occasions!
Nearer to the real thing is my joyful song on arriving in my cherished
summer house in Samos. There is only one popular Samos song, Samiotisa (The
Lady from Samos), to which the locals dance with Hellenic abandon. Nana
Mouskouri, the opticians’ goddess, trilled this number perfectly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyep7s42gX4
I plan to be in Samos for the Orthodox Easter this year,
which is lavishly celebrated. I recall years ago BBC Radio’s Two-Way Family Favourites occasionally
playing part of the soaring and rapturous Easter
Liturgy sung by the Russian Orthodox Choir
in Paris, but sadly I have forgotten how it went.
Yet Samos has a real
claim to musical fame. It was here that Pythagoras developed his notion of
Harmony, described so eloquently by Dr
Jacob Bronowski in episode 5 of his TV series The Ascent of Man, entitled The Music of the Spheres. Pythagoras had
discovered that musical notes were in exact ratios to each other after
experimenting with differing lengths of vibrating strings. Pythagoras went on,
among many other things, to teach that Man should also live in Harmony with the
Universe.
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| Dr Bronowski explains Pythagoras and Music on Samos |
SMD
3.04.14
Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2014
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