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penal pleasures

penal pleasures
What fifteen of Patricia's friends would take to jail with them (along with a CD player and a mountain of batteries).
by patricia hammond | september 1999

Some of you may be familiar with a BBC radio programme called "Desert Island Discs," where celebrities are asked which five recordings they'd choose if marooned on a desert island. This show has been extremely successful in the UK and wherever people can get BBC Radio. But I've always thought it a shame that only famous people get asked about things; so many of their choices are unimaginitive or stupid.

So this month, rather than write anything, I thought I'd ask a bunch of friends (none of whom are famous, but all of whom are interesting) to imagine that they are, say, going to be locked up in a private cell at some penitentiary or other, and can only take five recordings with them.

I should mention that none of these people work at a CD store. You can ask THOSE people about their favorite discs any time. It's their job.

Some people I asked gave me a plain list. Some said a few things which I jotted down, and some wrote explanations. Enjoy!

1. DEREK (derekw@canada.com)

Gustav Mahler, Symphony no. 9 "The most tremendous piece of music I know. The only disc out of these five that I have no second thought on. This is Mahler's symphonic farewell to everything about life: pain and pleasure, suffering and joy, things human and universal. All these are leaving him. His ambivalent feelings about them are contained. And in the end the pulse of life fades into nothingness. I haven't found a fully-satisfying recording, but if I had to pack up tonight I would pick Maazel conducting the Vienna Philharmonic (Sony)."

Richard Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen "Fourteen hours of gods and goddesses, flying horses and dragons, giants and midgets fighting for a little ring should keep me amused for quite a while. And if not, I can always play the game of name-that-leitmotiv (Wagner's composition technique of assigning a musical motif to a character or an action). Solti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic (Decca), still the best after all these years."

J.S. Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier (Book I) "Like much of Bach's keyboard music, this set of 24 preludes and fugues is simple in scoring and complex in structure. The timelessness of its style gives renewed pleasure with repeated listenings. Bach, for me, means Gould (Sony)."

Richard Strauss, Also sprach Zarathustra + Death and Transfiguration "I don't actually think I will listen to much music in prison. I will probably do a lot of thinking. Soon after, turn as crazy as Zarathustra! But if not, I may become wise. And when released, I can preach to the world-- like Zarathustra did. But if both plans failed, I would grow old and die,in which case, the second piece will come right into use. Sinopoli conducts the New York Philharmonic (DG), fantastic playing and conducting."

Johann Strauss (family), Waltzes collection "They celebrate New Year's in prison, too, don't they? Whether they do or not, listening to this will bring back memories of those almost comical TV broadcasts of New Year's day concert. As long as it's Boskovsky leading the Vienna Philharmonic, any one of those collection discs will do -- they all sound the same anyway."

2. BOB

Bob said to me that he might not be able to stand having just five CDs with him as companions for the rest of his life. But he quickly arrived at the above solution. "This way I'd have something that goes beyond music. It would be the chance of a lifetime to really study these great works and compare and contrast the different approaches. That's the way you learn...to really get to know them; a very different thing from listening."

3. KERRY

"Of course being marooned and stuck with just five pieces of music would be no more pleasurable than being stuck inescapably with just five people. Rather than be driven mad by repeating ad degustam the same glittering shards of music, I would choose no music, and live with my memories of music heard, and make up my own music.

"But since Patricia insists....

"Bach towers over all musicians, everywhere, through all time; his music is the Valles Marineris of all depths, the Olympus Mons of all heights. Even a modestly imaginative performer can surprise you with Bach; his music is open to infinitely varied new interpretations, and no matter how familiar a work, it always sounds fresh. Listen to the Welltempered Clavier: you can hear not only the summation of all past music, but the prefiguration of all future music - Dufay, Palestrina, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Schonberg, Stravinsky, Bartok - can you hear Debussy in Book I/6? Shostakovich in II/16? It's all there. What else would you need?"

"(Though as a footnote I must say I think Bob's choice of just five different recordings of Bach's cello suites is perhaps a wiser path....)"

4. DAVID The Hugo Wolf Society Complete Recordings 1931-1938 (five discs)

This set, which I allude to in last month's column, is an interesting choice, and I managed to drag a couple of comments out of David, who didn't see my pen and scrap of paper as I jotted them down. I asked him what he liked about the performances, and he told me "It's almost cinematic. I can feel the tweed and smell the air of those times, as all the different people come in and record these songs and bring their different experiences to them. With all their little flaws, these singers are more real and thus speak to me." And why the songs of Hugo Wolf in particular? "I like Wolf's kinkiness and manic-depressive style, because it hints at things that can't be spoken of."

Then David supplied me with four other selections, in case the prison authorities would count the Wolf Society Edition as one.

5. DR. PAUL

6. KRISTA

7. JOHN

8. CHRIS

9. JIM:

10. MICHAEL M.:

Michael also said to me that with these selections he would at least have some Early Music, some Baroque, some Romantic, and some 20th century music...and this way, durihg his long stay in the slammer he could reconstruct music history from Dufay onward.

11. ROBERT

As Robert put it, this list covers all emotional contingencies...sitting in the filth of a cell, this music would remind him of how life can be on the outside. The elegance and refinement of the Ravel pieces, for instance.

Another interesting comment he made was that this music would wear well; operatic recordings, he said, would probably drive him insane over time. So there you have it. Twelve non-famous people who don't work at record stores, and what they'd choose to live with for the rest of their lives.

12. PETER

13. AILIA

14. JOSEPHINE

Jo says that a couple of these are because of associations. Concerning her Bach selection, she spoke of the late 20th century problem of choosing between the large, Romantic approach or the smaller, more incisive and coloristic approach to Bach's Choral works. (Or in other words, Authentic Performance Practise or Pre-Authentic) She wants Bach's Passions and the Mass to be big and weighty in texture, but also loves the brash sound of the original, baroque horns. And she likes the soloists in the "Authentic" recordings. But Klemperer and his Romanticism won out in the end.

15. RICHARD Dick said he could live with the last 5 Beethoven Quartets (played by the Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet), but that would be too easy. He pointed out that this list is not simply his favorite music, but favorites that are complex enough to not become boring.

Blomdahl's opera "Aniara" is about a stranded spaceship...Dick told me that if he were alone in jail, such an opera, capturing as it does such a vivid sense of futility, would make his situation seem not so bad.

Patricia is a classically trained mezzo who now lives and works in the UK. For more information about her, visit patriciahammond.com.
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