From July 2023: I write in order to have a place in which to report on three things—connection, association, and context. Otherwise I’d just talk to God, and She knows these things already.
If you passed him on the street you wouldn’t look twice. He doesn’t have the most scintillating intellect, either… But his qualities as a musician have stirred and inspired me and sometimes when he conducts I feel so close to him I can almost smell his hair. This Sunday he’s going to be conducting Rach’s Piano 2 and I’m going to go to pieces.
Find the entire film BRIEF ENCOUNTER on my YT channel here
And if Eileen Joyce’s rendition isn’t enough for you, here’re two from Anna Fedorova at the Concertgebouw:
From Jeremy Paxman’s 1998 The English: A Portrait of a People:
Take David Lean’s 1945 tale of forbidden love, Brief Encounter. The couple meet in the tearoom of a railway station, where she is waiting for the steam train home after a day’s shopping. A speck of coal dirt gets caught in her eye and, without a word of introduction, the gallant local doctor steps forward and removes it. The following eighty minutes of this beautifully written movie depict their deepening love and guilt each feels about it. …
As Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto comes and goes in the background, their affair unfolds, measured out in cups of tea in the waiting room of Milford station. … Being English, Celia Johnson feels no animosity towards her husband, whom she considers “kindly and unemotional”. Trevor Howard, equally trapped in a dry marriage, also expresses no hostility towards his wife and children. But the two of them are in the force of a passion they can hardly control. “We must be sensible,” is the constant refrain. “If we control ourselves, there’s still time.” In the end, despite all the protestations of undying devotion, the romance remains unconsummated…
What does this most popular of English films tell us about the English?
- “The Story So Far, with Conductor John Wilson”
- “The Story So Far; Or, Conductor John Wilson—His Limits”
- “Cantara Christopher Gives Her Beloved Conductor John Wilson Crib Notes on Todd Field’s Screen Masterpiece, Tár: Love, Teshuvah, and Filipinos Will Save Western Music”
FULL DRESS // A gifted mesmerist—a sinister composer—a naive young conductor from the north…inspired by an episode from the life of Rachmaninoff // DOWNLOAD FREE BOOK POSTER
"I'll Be Dead Before You Break My Heart" 
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