So I tell
you with a heart bursting with charity that somebody named Justin Bieber came to
town and what happened? The island went nuts. Well, the female half of the
island. OK—female and young.
I know this
because the New Day,
our local paper, told me so.
And they also stated
that Bieber had requested an escort to the airport; apparently, he feared his
fans, and from the clips I saw on YouTube, it’s easy to see why. To be young, female, Latin, in full
rapture, and surrounded by thousands just like you—right, I’d be calling the
Feds, too.
I owed it,
I thought, to my readers to listen to some Bieber and so I zipped over to YouTube and listened to “One Less Lonely Girl,”
which is to music as bubblegum is to food. Bieber sings fairly well, makes some
mildly simian gestures and then, at the end, places a gaudy crown or tiara on
the head of a teenage girl—the poor girl is almost catatonic in shock.
Right—then
I headed over to Wikipedia
to get the dope on Bieber, who is 19 years old and made 55 million bucks last
year. Or maybe it wasn’t—but it was some ridiculous sum. Oh, and apparently he
offended people by writing in the Anne Frank guestbook
that Anne was a great girl, and he hoped she would have been a “belieber”—yes,
computer, that’s what they call themselves—if she were around today.
Wikipedia also filled me in on how Bieber got
discovered. Here,
for any 13-year olds reading, is how it’s done:
While
searching for videos of a different singer, Scooter
Braun, a former
marketing executive of So So Def,
clicked on one of Bieber's 2007 videos by accident. Impressed, Braun tracked
down the theater Bieber was performing in, located Bieber's school, and finally
contacted Mallette, who was reluctant because of Braun's Jewish religion; she
remembered praying, "God, I gave him to you. You could send me a Christian
man, a Christian label!... you don’t want this Jewish kid to be Justin’s man,
do you?"[19] However, after praying
with her church elders and receiving their encouragement, she permitted Braun
to fly Bieber, then 13,[10] to Atlanta, Georgia, to
record demo tapes.[19] A week after
arriving, Bieber sang for R&B singer/songwriter Usher.[28]
OK—got that
taken care of!
I can tell
you this without the usual rant of the classical musician—who made five dollars
three days ago, when a stranger overhearing me play whipped out his wallet,
bless him!—because I know the story of Louis
George Maurice Adolphe Roche Albert Abel Antonio Alexandre Noë Jean Lucien
Daniel Eugène Joseph-le-brun Joseph-Barême Thomas Thomas Thomas-Thomas Pierre
Arbon Pierre-Maurel Barthélemi Artus Alphonse Bertrand Dieudonné Emanuel Josué
Vincent Luc Michel Jules-de-la-plane Jules-Bazin Julio César Jullien.
Why the 36
names? Well, he had 36 godfathers, all drawn from the Sisteron Philharmonic. So
with that baggage, it was natural to go to the conservatory at Paris, at which,
sadly, he didn’t excel. Instead, he engaged in “light” music, and that was
enough to sink him. He fled Paris to avoid his creditors—always a good reason
to be on the road—and went to London, where he formed a good orchestra.
And he was
a huge success—the audiences loved him. Why? Because he was a showman; here,
let someone
else describe it….
His orchestra
played at a series of summer concerts (called Concerts d’été). Later he conducted a series of winter
concerts (Concerts d’hiver).
Although he was a good conductor he was a great showman. He would make a big
show of putting on his white gloves
which were given to him on a silver plate. He used a special baton (conductor’s stick)
which had jewels
in it when he conducted Beethoven.
He wore a white waistcoat
and enormous wrist bands, and he had a huge moustache and long, black hair. He would throw
himself around when conducting and finish by sinking into a velvet chair. The audience
loved it, especially when he added military bands to his orchestra. He used to
conduct facing the audience. He conducted concerts in the London theatres and
parks (promenade
concerts).
Jullien’s
programmes included works by the great composers, e.g. Beethoven and Mozart, but they were
always mixed with light music: dances, quadrilles, marches, etc. He often
added lots of extra instruments to the great classics, e.g. when he conducted Beethoven’s
Fifth Symphony he added four ophicleides,
a saxophone and side drums.
Well, that
detail—“he used to conduct facing the audience”—does tell it all, doesn’t it?
And one of
his quadrilles, as I remember it, featured an enormous structure, which—guess
what?—was set on fire. Yes, on fire. And then what happened? Of course, the
firemen rushed in and put out the blaze and audiences went nuts.
Well, I
can’t have made this up because there is in fact the following photo:
There is,
however, absolutely nothing of Louis Antoine Jullien on YouTube, nor is there much information about him
on the Internet. He died broke in Paris in 1860, but was still remembered two
decades later. W. S.
Gilbert mentioned him in Patience as “Jullien, the eminent musico,” in
1881.
So if, like
me, you’re going about your business and saying, “who’s Justin Bieber?” when he
stumbles into your path, relax. Take a deep breath. You’re not behind the
times.
You’re
ahead of them!
