The Canons of Culture (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Wile E. Coyote]

BTW, isn't it annoying when you compile your list and then discover that the author/artist actually hates the particular one of theirs that you like the best.

Paul Simon has admitted that he hates "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)".

Whoops, there goes No. 42 on my pop list. Of course, if I had any real knowledge, I might be able to explain why Paul was wrong.

[Mick Harper]

Shane McGowan's death prompts a consideration of the canon of Christmas songs. First, is there one? There are two. Carols and pop. The carols list is especially interesting because the 'old faves' are everyone's faves. If they tried foisting an unfamiliar one on us we wouldn't even recognise it was a carol. They do try to do this if it's some choir from some august institution that doesn't encourage audience participation. There is though a slight variation in the carol canon lists:

For the kiddies It always has Away in a manger which adults would find hard to bear or sing without them.
For the mob This has the basic faves like While shepherds watched and Good King Wenceslaus.
For the discerning These tend to be adapted folk songs involving wassailing and tree species. Anything wintry rather than Jesus-y.

Are pop Christmas ditties a similar mixed bag....?

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

You keep thinking quality comes into it. I like it too and not just because Ronnie fancied me madly. It's just not in the canon. Though I do not understand why you would think it is not a Christmas song. Are they a Finnish group singing about the problems of transportation outside the summer months?

[Mick Harper]

The canon of operas is quite well established -- there's about fifty in the standard repertoire -- but oddly the most important one, from a historical point of view, isn't in it. It all started with the 1848 overthrow of the French monarchy and the setting up of the Second Republic (under the poet Lamartine). Such giddy excitement was enough to spur the citizenry of Brussels, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, Venice et al et al to go in for a bit of regime change on their own account. C'était à la mode!

In Revolution Centre, the non-dreamy Left predictably ousted the poseurs of the National Assembly ('Universal suffrage? Make way for 'the people!') only to be shown the door just as predictably by the National Guard. What wasn't predictable was what came next. It had to be Left but it couldn't be too far Left. The leading opera singer of the day, Pauline Viardot, was commissioned to come up with an updated Marseillaise but more was needed. The Paris Opera was renamed the Théâtre Le République. But then closed because its clientele had fled in fear of their lives. Chopin decamped to London because there was no-one to pay him for piano lessons.

The new government was prevailed upon to get opera going again -- it is the mark of stability, n'est-ce pas? -- and all depended on the Théâtre Le République's reopening with the breathlessly anticipated Le Prophète, a grand opera in five acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. "It will draw the whole of Europe to Paris," announced the new Minister of the Interior handing out enough subsidies to get it staged. The theme of the opera -- the uprising of the Anabaptists in 1534 against the Prince-Bishop of Munster -- was felt to be particularly appropriate. Though perhaps also explains its absence from the standard repertoire.

The denouement later...

[Mick Harper]

No expense could be spared. Electricity was used for the first time in an opera to show a breathless new dawning. "It's not a painting, it is reality itself," gasped Gautier. The chorus appeared on roller skates. Meyerbeer added a section requiring a twenty-four piece brass band including eighteen of the newly invented saxe-horns, soon to be saxophones. The finale had heroes and heroines throwing themselves ecstatically into an electrically dazzling bonfire to rapturous acclaim. The curtain calls went long into the night.

And all witnessed by dignitaries from every corner of Europe. A large delegation from the National Assembly was in attendance. So was Berlioz. Chopin had returned. (Heine couldn't get a ticket!) Even Napoleon's nephew, Louis, had been prevailed upon to occupy the royal box for the grand opening. In three years Le Prophète had been performed in fifty cities starting with London where Dickens and Thackeray were at the first night. All thanks to the Second Republic which was here to stay, and no mistake.

Louis Napoleon overthrew it a couple of years later but that's opera for you. Always a villain entering stage right in the second act.

[Mick Harper]

A correspondent got in touch to point out a few errors. I won't say who it was but let's just say he's been pointing out my errors for as long as I can remember.

[Mick Harper]

I lost a Christmas game because nobody had heard of Eamonn Andrews. Although outraged at their ignorance, I had to reflect on the fact there is no agreed canon of 'presenters' so they just slip away. But that may be because there is no agreed definition of 'presenters'.

[Grant]

Such is inflation, Eamonn would now be known as a "broadcaster" like Phillip Schofield before he fell from grace

[Mick Harper]

No, no. Broadcaster is not only too generic, it is patently old fashioned. Personality, surely? Though that would run into the difficulty of being an ex-personality, in Philip's case. The hunt must go on. The real problem is that they are both stars and not-stars.

[Mick Harper]

A little puzzle for you. All George Orwell's books are part of the canon, even his early not very good ones. Coming Up For Air for instance is deemed worthy of being read out on R4, and I have been listening to it. I'm not saying it's bad, only that if it wasn't by George Orwell it wouldn't be on R4. That's not the puzzle.

The book is mostly set in a fictional town called Lower Binfield somewhere in the Thames Valley. Hang on, I said to myself, there is an actual Binfield in the Thames Valley, I know it fairly well myself and it bears no resemblance to Orwell's version. What's that all about? It can't be accidental, Orwell was brought up in the area, so he must be making some point or other. To add to the puzzle, the Wiki entry for Binfield lists its literary connections but not this one.

The protagonist -- one hesitates to say hero -- is called 'George' and the book is written in the first person. Yet he bears no resemblance to the real George Orwell so we're not talking about Gonzo before its time. I found it all a bit weird and faintly off-putting.

[Mick Harper]

A remarkable factoid learned today. John Denver, who had an extraordinary voice, was an exemplary songwriter and surely a shoe-in for various canons of popular music, only had one UK singles hit.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Presumably "Leaving on a Jet Plane"?

[Hatty]

The only Denver song I know is 'Annie's Song' so presumably that was his UK hit.

[Wile E. Coyote]

This is intriguing, as I would have thought "Take me home, country roads" must surely have been a hit also.