Culture

How Not To Sing The National Anthem

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

It finally happened. For the first time in over three thousand years, a British man actually won the Tour de France. This is exciting stuff, a sure sign of a British road cycling resurgence, perfectly timed in the run-up to the Olympic Games.

So who would be best to represent Britain by singing our National Anthem at the prize-giving ceremony? Go on, have a guess.

Whoever you just thought of, the answer is “no”. The correct answer (apparently) was Lesley Garrett. That’s L-e-s-l-e-y G-a-r-r-e-t-t.

I can’t seem to embed Telegraph videos in this blog (thanks, WordPress), but you can watch the performance for yourself here.

…

When Garrett abruptley switches key mid-warble, poor Bradley Wiggins looks like he wants to leap to his death from the winners podium, if only it were a little higher off the ground.

This was another opportunity to showcase the best of Britain. If (and I’ll never understand why you would do this, given the material the performer has to work with) you decide to go with an a capella, soprano rendering of “God Save The Queen”, at least pick from one of the many talented British sopranos that are out there. Instead, I find myself listening to someone who looks and sounds like an aging drag queen on a budget Mediterranean cruise ship. And then, a la Katherine Jenkins, they incorrectly labelled her an “opera singer”. Who made this casting decision, and how was it allowed to proceed unchallenged?

Rupert Christiansen, writing in The Telegraph, agrees with me:

What I would really like to know is who was responsible for selecting Miss Garrett for this delicate task. She is emphatically NOT an opera singer – apart from one operetta, she hasn’t sung a single role in an opera house since the turn of the millennium – but to the powers-that-be she depressingly appears to remain the publicly recognised face of British classical music (there’s Katherine Jenkins too now, of course, but in every artistic respect she’s even worse).

It enrages me that there are so many fabulously good and attractive young British sopranos out there – Elizabeth Llewellyn, Sophie Bevan and Lucy Crowe to name but three – who could have turned this cringe-making moment into a tear-jerking one.

Precisely.

And does this make me a classical music snob? No, I would have had to have been listening to a classical musician to be considered for that charge.

But at least she remembered the words, unlike a certain Christina Aguilera:

 

I hope she gave back her fee. Actually, I hope both of them refunded their artists fees. Double Fail.

Music For The Day

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

“Quiet City”, by Aaron Copland, 1941. A beautiful, haunting piece for english horn, trumpet and strings, but most remarkable for the beautiful, yearning, pure, melismatic trumpet solo which soars over the still, muted orchestral accompaniment.

 

My favourite recording of this piece is by the London Symphony Orchestra and their principal trumpet of the time, Howard Snell, conducted by the composer himself; but in this case the images of still, quiet cities in the accompanying YouTube video make this the version to share.

The original version, scored for trumpet, saxophone, clarinets and piano (written as music for a play but never used) can be found here.

Wishing everyone a peaceful and productive start to the new week.

A Side Of Moralising With My Chicken, Please

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

I love Chick-fil-A.

Their fried chicken is great, perfectly seasoned and cooked just right. The waffle fries are out of this world. So is the sweet tea. The dips are actually tasty, and worthy of having such awesome chicken dunked in them (the barbecue and honey mustard are particularly good). The staff are consistently the friendliest, most courteous, helpful staff you will ever encounter at a fast food restaurant. They employ someone to greet you with a warm welcome when you walk through the door, and they walk the restaurant topping up your soft drinks for free if they notice your cup is getting low (did you hear that, British restaurants? Free refills! Try offering them!).

In short, they are pretty much everything you could want in a fast food restaurant.

Which is why this story, reported by Politico, is so irritating. The article reads, in part:

The fervor over the restaurant’s politics began when Chick Fil A president Dan Cathy said earlier this week that Chick Fil A is “guilty as charged” in support of “the biblical definition of the family unit.”

It really annoys me when companies stumble into the news cycle in this way. Whether it is Target donating to a group that benefitted an anti-gay marriage candidate (even though it is fairly certain that they donated for reasons other than this), the CEO of Whole Foods penning an Op-Ed critical of President Obama’s health reforms, or now Chick-fil-A being dragged into the gay marriage debate, it is all quite unnecessary and seems to bring out the worst (and, incidentally, un-American) aspects of supporters and detractors alike.

Now the three examples above are not identical. In the case of Whole Foods, the CEO wrote his “ObamaCare alternative” op-ed in a personal guise, though coming out and writing a political op-ed piece contrary to the likely views of the vast majority of your customers is certainly not very wise. In the case of Target, they made a donation to a group that supported candidates who promoted pro-business policies that they agreed with, but failed to do their due diligence to ensure that none of the beneficiaries espoused any other, more controversial policies, which unfortunately one of them did.

But in the case of Chick-fil-A, the company president Dan Cathy specifically supported an anti-gay marriage policy, and deliberately included his company in his recent statements, rather than making a statement in a personal capacity. Firstly:

“…we’re inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage. And I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude that thinks we have the audacity to redefine what marriage is all about.”

And then:

“We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that … We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that.”
Without getting into the extent to which corporations really are and are not people, this is just not smart business. Some aspects of the Chick-fil-A corporate culture are very commendable – the fact thay they choose not to open their restaurants on Sundays so that staff have time to spend with their families and attend church if they are religious, for example, is refreshing in this day and age, and harms no one (except people with fried chicken cravings after sunday services).
Announcing that your company does not support marriage equality, on the other hand, while not actively harming anyone (because there is no discrimination at work, the company serves and treats all customers alike), is just plain irrelevant. Chick-fil-A, as a corporate “person”, is not harmed by any attempts to legalise marriage between two people of the same sex. Nor, for that matter, are any private heterosexual individuals, no matter what ludicrous claims they may make.
If a corporation exercises its supposed first amendment right to speak out against a policy that directly impacts its bottom line (such as tax policy or employee healthcare, a la Target or Whole Foods) this is perhaps understandable. But gay marriage? I would be very interested to hear an argument explaining how the legalisation of gay marriage would result in lower profits for Chick-fil-A. And until I hear a convincing one, I will be of the opinion that matters such as these are none of their business, and that they, and their CEO, would do well to keep quiet on the topic.
Why pick an unnecessary fight, alienate potential customers and generate bad headlines? It’s just bad business.

Music For The Day

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

Grieg Piano Sonata in E Minor, Op 7, second movement, performed by Glenn Gould:

 

Those final falling chords at the end of the movement (and the sense of stillness and reflection that they create) are rendered beautifully in this recording by Gould.

The whole sonata is well worth a listen.

Happy Friday, everyone.

Picking Your Battles

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

I remain relatively new to this whole blogging business, and am still very much learning the ropes.

And while I am largely making it up as I go along, what with posting pieces on the culture and politics of two different nations, interspersed with classical music excerpts, architectural musings and the odd cat picture, I do try to stick to a few strictures passed down from others that seem to have served them quite well – post regularly, engage with your readers, link selectively, and so on. This seems to be working fairly well, but there are some occasions when the pieces of advice I have read or received come into conflict with each other. For example:

1. Post something, anything, about every important story that comes up. That way, people will learn to keep coming to your blog out of habit, your readership will go up, etc. etc.

and

2. Focus on quality. Pick your battles, and only weigh in on those stories where you have strong and original opinions. Your posts will be better informed and more enjoyable to read, and your readership will go up, etc. etc.

This is tricky for me. I tend to have opinions about most things, and if I had unlimited hours I could certainly commit a lot more of these thoughts to this blog. But aside from the time constraints, I often feel that by the time I come to a story, others have already dissected and analysed it in a far superior way. There’s no point in parroting the words of someone who got there first, without having anything interesting to contribute. And that leaves the question of what to do with all of the articles that capture my attention and interest, but about which I have few original thoughts to add.

For example, George Miller, writing at adamsmith.org., has an excellent piece reminding us that the recent failures of the private security firm G4S (contracted to provide much of the security at the upcoming London Olympic Games) should not be viewed as an indictment of outsourcing, or of the private sector in general. It is concise, well-written and chimes entirely with my own beliefs, but I have nothing really to add to it.

And therefore in future, rather than constructing a throwaway, waste-of-time blog post about such articles, or ignoring them entirely on my blog, I have decided to offer a kind of “daily summary” at the end of each day, with a few select stories of interest and a line or two from me about why they are worth a read. Hopefully, once this has a chance to bed down and establish itself, it will become a popular feature of this site.

I would be interested to here in the comments section below from any readers who have any other suggestions, insights or advice that they could offer.

In the meantime, I am going to proceed as planned.