Music We Never Hear

Well, it’s a pleasant problem for a Tuesday morning, and at whose feet do I lay it?

Anybody who has read the Isabel Dalhousie novels of the Scot Alexander McCall Smith will know—a very nice, well-off philosopher will toddle through her days, wondering about moral philosophy. Then an agreeable problem—usually of a criminal nature—will be presented to her. This, of course, she will solve.

Don’t know anything about moral philosophers, or their philosophizing? Neither do I, but an example presented itself just a moment ago, when for the zillionth time a representative from the Canadian Online Pharmacy—no hyperlink there because I’m not sure if that’s really the name, nor is it the point—to ask whether I would be interested in a special on a drug I once bought years ago. (Concerned readers, unfurl your brow: my health is fine, the pill was, shall we say, a stiffening agent.) I knew immediately—thanks to Ms. Dalhousie—what I had to do:

·      Inform him that I was fine

·      Ask him how he was

·      Assure him I was glad

·      Listen to the pitch, and then, at the first nanosecond of a pause…

·      …Thank him and tell him I wasn’t interested

Ms. Dalhousie might have gone further, since I felt that I had done all that was required, and abruptly hung up. But wait—shouldn’t I have gone through the appropriate farewells? Would I have treated my friends in so abrupt a manner?

But he wasn’t my friend, he was some poor guy from halfway around the world—in these days do we live, Dear Reader—having to scramble up a living calling strangers, most of whom would not have treated him as well as I did. So, pats on the back for Marc, right?

As anybody who has read the novels can tell you—it’s not the answer, it’s the question, since Ms. Dalhousie (and why, by the way, can’t I call her Isabel, or perhaps why aren’t I calling her Dr. Dalhousie? She’s fictional, dammit! But why should we accord more respect to the nonfictional than the fictional? Or is it because she’s a Scot, and presumably operating on a more formal plain than I? But if I have extended high honor of inviting her into my blog, shouldn’t she accede—do you see what I mean?)

The above is not sarcasm, not parody—but homage, tribute. Why? Because Alexander Smith knows something so wise that few have grasped it: some things we want to be predictable. Please do NOT under ANY circumstances provide me with pomegranate-flavored coffee, in that first horrible hour of the morning. And if Jamie—Dr. Dalhousie’s young, adorable, sweet husband and why am I using his Christian name—turns out in the next novel to be a transsexual serial killer? I’ll hope his first victim is Alexander McCall Smith.

Why go on about this? Because I have always felt a stab—OK, a pang, or maybe just a twinge—of guilt about embedding YouTube videos into my blog. Why? Well, if Joyce DiDonato goes to all the work of preparing and recording a ravishingly beautiful disc of bel canto arias, isn’t listening to it on YouTube a form of theft?

Sure, there’s an “embed code” right there—how else would a non-geek put it into his blog—but did YouTube ever run over to Ms. DiDonato (damn habit seems to be sticking) and ask her permission? And what if the multitude of readers in this international blog like the album, and download the programs that I know are rife out there, and then burn or grab or whatever-it-is the music for free? Am I colluding in a crime?

My answer, of course, is to say that if my mother were alive, the readership of this blog would increase to four. And when I hear something—like the “Drama Queens” disc that Dr. DiDonato (just remember, she got an honorary doctorate from Juilliard) recorded—what do I do? I go to Amazon—and let’s not, please, start in on that!—and honorably buy it. Is this jesuitry? Sure is, and I don’t give a hoot.

Now then, here’s where Ms. / Dr. Dalhousie would be shuddering in her corner, calling out for Grace, the housekeeper, to bring her a bracing cup of tea, or even scotch. Because today I don’t even want to listen to a YouTube clip, but rather…

…make one.

And ironically, it’s entirely YouTube’s fault that I’m in this predicament, since I had listen to one YouTube clip featuring Marta Casals Istomin speaking with the cellist Stephen Isserlis. And that’s when I found out about the Emmánuel Moór double cello concerto. So it was a finger flick away from hearing a performance, with piano reduction, of the work. And what a revelation! And it was two more clicks before Amazon decided to send me the real deal: not just two cellists and a pianist, but two cellist and an orchestra. The CD arrived two or three weeks ago, before it occurred to me to open it. And wow, what a revelation!

Confession—I don’t need all music to be on the level of the Bach B Minor Mass or Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue. In fact, it might not even be a good thing if every piece of music were at that level: would we appreciate Titian if there were no paintings on velvet of sobbing flower girls, their wilted flowers unsold at the end of the day? Wouldn’t so much beauty get monotonous?

So I’m happy to tell you that the Moór falls a bit short of the “monumental” category. What is it? Well, I’ve just re-listened to the first movement, and it’s lush, tuneful, and utterly gorgeous in spots.

I know, I know—Dr. Dalhousie is not going to let me upload it. But try this on: we worry about the artists and the performers and the recording companies, but doesn’t poor Emmanuel Moór deserve a little consideration, too? He wrote—OK not a masterpiece but a craftsmanspiece—and a craftmanspiece from the very top drawer. I imagine him up there, searching YouTube, discovering music infinitely lesser, and with infinitely more hits. The clip below—the only one that Dr. Dalhousie, very reluctantly, will permit me to post—has less than 500 hits.

Readers—click here to buy a CD of the work. Tell your friends about it, spread it on Facebook, rent billboards, consider self-immolation to protest the ignorance—well, if “remembrance” is “to be remembered, why can’t “ignorance…”—of this wonderful work.

Let’s stop that spinning in Emmánuel Moór’s grave!å