Tony Palmer's Film of At The Haunted End Of The Day, (review)

Bonnie E. Fleming

Notes, Volume 66, Number 3, March 2010, pp. 638-639 (Review)

Published by Music Library Association DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/not.0.0311

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/376407

[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] 638 Notes, March 2010 technique may be going but the passion operetta style. Nestroy’s text narrates the and vocal beauty are still there. Included story but with numerous jokes about with the DVD is a CD of excerpts from a Wagner and his “music of the future” (and 1938 performance of Siegfried in Buenos how it will ruin your voice) as well as turn- Aires. The sound quality ranges from poor ing Venus into a barmaid in a seedy wine to acceptable, but it is an invaluable docu- cellar. Most of the humor depends on ment of Lorenz at his peak in collaboration knowledge of the original opera and an ap- with conductor Erich Kleiber and other no- preciation for Viennese accents and di- table Wagnerians of the era. alects, and as such it is more limited in its Jumping from the sublime to the ridicu- appeal than Offenbach’s parodies or the lous, we have a rare opportunity to see a comedy routines of Anna Russell. parody of Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser In 2008, the Vienna Volksoper presented which was written in 1857, just two years af- this piece as a one man show performed by ter the first performance of the opera in actor Robert Meyer, who is currently the di- Vienna. The playwright Johann Nestroy was rector of the company and a noted Nestroy a major figure in the history of Viennese expert. Accompanied by an ensemble of vi- theater, but his work is barely remembered olins, guitar, and accordion, Meyer plays elsewhere except as the source for the and sings all the roles with great relish and musical Hello Dolly (by way of Thornton is extremely droll, but much of this gets lost Wilder). Writer, director, singer, and actor, in the translation and will appeal mainly to Nestroy was a celebrated satirist and poked those who know Vienna and its people inti- fun at many of his contemporaries. This mately, or with a special interest in musical parody of Tannhäuser was written in collab- parody. oration with Carl Binder, a forgotten com- poser whose work consists largely of such parodies. The score quotes Wagner but is John Holland made up mostly of songs and dances in the Chicago Public Library

Tony Palmer’s Film of At The Haunted End Of The Day, William Walton. DVD. Simon Rattle / Philharmonia Orchestra, Elgar Howarth / Grime- thorpe Colliery Band, Simon Preston / Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford, Goldsmith Choral Union, Highgate Choral Society Los Para - guayos. Directed by Tony Palmer. Featuring , , Iona Brown, Ralph Kirshbaum, Yvonne Kenny, John Shirley- Quirk, Carmen de Sautoy. UK: Voiceprint, 2008. TP-DVD113. $19.99.

Sir William Walton seems to have stum- “Belshazzar’s Feast,” and the breathtakingly bled upon composing quite by accident. mesmerizing, unbelievably poignant aria He was a chorister at Christ Church “At the Haunted End of the Day” from Cathedral, Oxford and wanted some way to Walton’s opera, Troilus and Cressida, as well distinguish himself so that he would be al- as many more works that musically illus- lowed to stay on in Oxford after his voice trate the entire span of the composer’s broke. Unable to play any of the instru- distinguished career form the backbone of ments well, Walton felt that perhaps com- the film. position would be the only way he could Director Tony Palmer tells the story of avoid being sent back to his family, and so Walton’s life in ninety-nine minutes orga- he gave it a try. This visually beautiful DVD nized into fourteen segments that are pre- was originally a film first broadcast in 1981 sented in roughly chronological order. The on Easter Sunday at in early years are depicted in a series of flash- London. The film is a deserving winner of backs reenacted with Walton and other the Prix Italia and provides stunning im- close relatives and life-long friends telling ages of Sir William’s estate on Ischia in the the story as the actors move through the Bay of Naples. Superb performances of story. The viewer gets a real sense of the works such as “Drop, drop, slow tears,” bleakness of Walton’s home life and the fact Video Reviews 639 that much of what happened in the com- notes that he feels that his film is about poser’s subsequent life was a direct result of “what we feel as human beings ‘at the his efforts never to return to the place of haunted end of the day.’” his birth. Cameos by Walton’s engagingly Walton’s music throughout the video is entertaining Argentinian-born wife, presented so that the extraordinary power Susana, and friends such as Julian Bream and emotional intensity inherent in the and Lawrence Olivier provide interesting composer’s works is highlighted through insight into Walton’s personality. Old news- superlative performance segments. Most of reels and newspaper clippings alternate in the works presented are heard in entirety quick succession with scenes from the myr- and the overall impression to the viewer is iad of propaganda films and British and that the film, like the music and the life it Hollywood movies that Walton wrote scores documents, is nothing less than a true a for tell the fascinating story of what the masterpiece and that the world should be composer did to “make himself useful” unutterably grateful that young William during and just following World War II. Walton decided it was necessary to give Walton mentions during an interview seg- composition a try. ment near the end of the film that he was looking forward to death, and less than two years after the film’s premiere, in 1983, Bonnie E. Fleming Walton died. Palmer mentions in the liner Kent State University

“O Thou Transcendent,” The Life of . DVD. Directed by Tony Palmer. UK: Voiceprint Records, 2008. TPDVD106. $19.99.

In the opening moments of Tony loved the composer’s music as a “vice” be- Palmer’s “O Thou Transcendent,” the film’s fore his recent scholarly rehabilitation. A central point, and a calling card of contem- number of others could be mentioned, porary scholarship on the composer, is in- from to Tony Benn, Michael troduced. The radio announcer for Classic Kennedy to Ursula Vaughan Williams, the FM informs his audience that Vaughan composer’s second wife, but despite the Williams’s The Lark Ascending has landed, by real interest generated by individual inter- popular vote, the number one spot in the views, none is ever allowed to dismantle the station’s classical “Hall of Fame.” The back- argument. Palmer’s control over the mate- ground is established: that Vaughan rial is very strong; contradiction is almost Williams is widely understood—sometimes entirely absent. His vision of history, or at loved, sometimes loathed for it—as the least of films about musical history, seems greatest representative, even as a symbol, of to hinge on the idea that the truth is sub- a comfortable, slightly saccharine English versive, but that all the people most closely pastoralism. Palmer spends much of the connected to a situation share a grasp of rest of the film seeking to convince us that that subversive truth. this understanding is poorly or partially in- Related to this idea of the subversive na- formed at best, and that any fair assessment ture of truth is Palmer’s tendency to insist of the composer’s life and music will reveal on correlations between music and image. instead his remarkable depth, range, rele- Montages accompany most lengthy ex- vance, and humanity. cerpts of Vaughan Williams’s music. For One of the film’s strengths, and one of some excerpts, the montage seems inno- the ways Palmer supports the central point, cent enough: The Lark Ascending alternates is found in the variety and quality of inter- between images of the solo violinist, backlit views. Imogen Holst talks about Vaughan by light pouring through stained glass, and Williams’s long and fruitful friendship with shots of the English countryside. Here the her father, Gustav; Michael Tippett, sound- images confirm in a simplistic way a general ing a recurring motif, admits that “through understanding of the appeal of the piece [Vaughan Williams] we were made free”; and also of the parochialism detractors Mark-Anthony Turnage confesses to having of Vaughan Williams find in his music.