This blog is being written by a someone that is very tired and we'll leave it there. About 6 weeks ago I received the original 1981 London cast and the 1998 Brodway cast recordings of the Sound of Music from amazon. I needed them because I have a clip from the Tonys of the 98 cast and it opens with the nuns firing out a piece of music that gets deleted from the film. The Tony clip turns out to be a bit of a catastrophe but by fuck the first 20 seconds are sensational. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYDTY84wjpM It goes pear shaped at 29. Anyway I knew this was just a small part of a bigger piece that I'd heard on the Petula Clark 1981 london cast. And on the tape of the 1950s Mary Martin Broadway recording. I needed that bit of music. I've been looking for 5 years for the Petula Clarke and it's just been put on CD. So I got both. It was freaky when I got them. They're like pieces of a jigsaw. They fit together perfectly. Where one song is missing on the 98 it's on the 81. A shitty track on one disc is perfect on the other. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trqFRa4b35M This is such a lovely song from the 1st act of the London show. My interpretation is that the reverend mother is telling Maria "You need to get a cock up you".
I want to get the Mary Martin version from the 50s. She had the original idea and got the show written. For years I've bemoaned that Mary Martin never got enough credit for her role in creating the Sound of Music. What I didn't know what that she was married to the guy who produced it on Broadway. In the end she made 8 million from the SOM. Who the fuck needs recognition when you've got 8 million dollars? Mary Martin is Larry Hagmans' mum. So when god opens a window somewhere he slams a door.
After listening to these versions for a few weeks I've started to get to know the deleted stuff better. "No Way To Stop" is a classic cheerful Rodgers and Hammerstein number in the vein of Happy Talk and Whistle a Happy Tune but it's about the rise of facism in Europe. That is so trippy. Elsa and Max are responsible for Hitler and WW11 simply because of their attitude. There's two scenes in the movie where George confronts Max but the show squarely puts the blame on Max and Elsas' apathy for the greatest disater of the 20th century. I want to see some film version where Elsas' songs have been reinstated. She's alien in the movie. In the movie there's us and them. Us; sing. Them; don't sing.
What I want is a nice big concert version lots of horns huge choir and all the songs plus the overture and entr act. Every note in a new concert version. The stage show opens with the Nuns song. Prelludium: Dixit Dominus/ Morning Hymn/Alleluia before Maria does her spin on the mountain. I started thinking how this piece was working metaphorically. I think the while show is loaded with goddess symbols, pagan subtext and double intendres. Back to the opening sequence. It sounds like a 2.20 minute Rodgers and Hammerstin Passion of the christ. The death and ascension in less than 3 minutes. This has nothing to do with the deleted sex scene.
As I was saying the main reason I ordered these two discs was the piece of music that's not in the film on the Broadway version it's called Wedding Processional/Canticle on the UK it's called Maria, Wedding Sequence. On youtube the clips with the music are referred to as something in latin about dominos and confeti. This piece of music is proceeded by the captains proposal. The song Something Good. Their confession of love. So I'm listening to these two bits of music and it occurs to me that this is the soundtrack to the captain having sex with Maria. I thought I've had too much to smoke so I kept listing. Two complete sessions of titilation two screaming orgasms and one post orgasm haze in the middle. And it's from the captains POV. This is what's happening in his head. And it is worship. She's the goddess and he's worshipping the daylights out of her. The whole sequence is a metaphor for the captain and Maria gettin it on. Julie Andrews' body language does a complete 180 after the wedding scene. Every movement, even her posture is different after the honey moon. Everything's slowed right down. Robert Wise was a frickin genius. Some of this canticle/wedding/sequence/processional is in the film but not enough to show Rodgers and Hammersteins' intent. I've worshipped Julie Andrews spinning around on top of that hill since I was born and I think I will till the day I die. Maria is the pinnacle of R&Hs' pagan heroines.
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