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Gateshead V-E Day 1945, Just for My Beloved Geordie, Conductor John Wilson

I found this on my x.com/cantara account. When I watch it I think of John and his people. I can see his face in theirs, and it makes me love him all the more.

That’s “Blue Skies” by Irving Berlin playing in the background.

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My 7th of January Birthday Treat: A Day of John Wilson, Conductor and No One Else

So John, when you finally get around to this posting, just know that I spent my latest birthday basking in the pure liquid joy of loving you.

Re current matters: I suspect you’ve been here when I read in my stats that some unique visitor has been poking around my more informational posts, you know, where I try to identify recorded music—classical and popular—as accurately and completely as possible. Oftentimes it’s the music you’ve just played or about to. That’s my ASCAP training and I’m grateful that it works to your benefit.

And as I’ve said before in so many words, Baby, I’m your slave. I’ll do anything for you except pick up your dry cleaning. Or give you a good review you don’t deserve.

I’m also stoked that you’ve finally followed the trail of bread crumbs I left years ago, starting with “Maria Ewing (1950-2022) Gives Richard Strauss’s Salome the Full Monty and Sings Bali Ha’i Exotically with The JWO, Just for My Beloved English Conductor, John Wilson”… You know, the trail that leads the Intrepid English Explorer deep into the Lair of the Exotic Jungle Goddess… You know, that one…

My love, if you’re looking for a naked picture of me, look right here on the front page of my art website, above my “77 Views of John Wilson” why don’t you. Don’t worry, they’re nice views.

As for that other stuff, that profound stuff, just keep it in your heart.

I expect to read more news of you soon. Love, Cantara

EVERYONE ELSE! Looking for music to download? Here’s the big page, although it doesn’t “formally roll out” till 14 February: “A Valentine’s Day Card Just for My Bonny English Conductor John Wilson, 2025“

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Bette Midler Rises Out of a Clamshell and Sings “Oklahoma!” with a Chorus of Filipinos, Just for My Bonny English Conductor John Wilson; Plus Eric and Austin Coates, Father and Son

From 2023: Here’s my favorite Hawaiian-born girl singer in her 1977 TV special being pulled from the sea by astonished islanders—mostly Filipino, look at them closely—to lead a rousing chorus, with hula gestures, in THE GREATEST SHOW TUNE ever written. You got that, my Geordie love? Or is that too “exotic” for you?

Bette Midler Ol' Red Hair is Back

Above: Audio of the entire 1977 TV special “Ol’Red Hair is Back”. And here’s the entire show on YouTube.

EXTRA!

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A Valentine’s Day Card Just for My Bonny English Conductor John Wilson, 2025

Assorted selections from (mostly) John’s other Proms with The John Wilson Orchestra, the Sinfonia of London, and the various BBC/RTE concert symphony orchestras:

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A Chocolate Kiss and a Shout-Out to My Beloved John Wilson, Conductor Regarding His Bedtime Reading On St Crispin’s Day, 2020

From October 2020: This past UK Daylight Savings weekend there was a sizeable rise in the number of visits to my blog, “I’ll Be Dead Before You Break My Heart”, and I attribute this directly to the kindness of some person/s in letting my beloved John Wilson know about that perfect screenshot of him at the Royal Academy of Music. Visitor #1 from the UK was particularly intriguing. Visitor #1 may have started clicking on my postings as early as Friday night, and was almost certainly the same person who came back for more the next night, Saturday, returning for three more hours on Sunday morning. What was most gratifying is that Visitor #1 actually seems to have taken the time to read my postings, especially my more thoughtful ones, the ones where I talk about John and his work in the Classical Repertoire. (Visitor #1 almost certainly was the one who also downloaded my memoir of the nutty Gyllenhaals, which was doubly gratifying.) Whether or not Visitor #1 is the #1 Reader I’ve yearned to capture for 2 1/2 years [now 6 1/2 yrs, ed.], I’m stoked, and I intend to go on writing, and writing better, for John’s sake—but also for The Old Man, Mamoulian’s sake, who once told me, “Love with style, but also with a little sadness for the suffering involved.”

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John Wilson, The John Wilson Orchestra, and That Beyond the Sea Soundtrack (Warners, 2004)

From 2021: About 15 or so years ago, I was somebody’s plus-one on an industry pass to go to a preview of the showbiz biopic Beyond the Sea, which was being shown in a really good theater with an above-average sound system. I wasn’t a particular fan of Bobby Darin or even of Kevin Spacey (for all that he is the definitive Jamie Tyrone of our generation and frankly I don’t care about anything else); actually I just wanted to find out how cheesy the production could get. Well honestly, it did start off pretty cheesily, every element that should’ve contributed some genuine worth—like, you know, the lead acting, the directing, design, (makeup! prosthesis!) etc—was utter bad-phony, not good-phony, bullcrap…and then they struck up the soundtrack orchestra…

Beyond the Sea Poster.jpgAbove Spacey: “Beyond the Sea” as only my beloved John could do it.

If I could’ve exclaimed “Holy mackerel!” out loud the moment that gorgeous snap hit my ears I would’ve exclaimed it out loud, but you don’t do that at an industry screening, so I exclaimed it in my mind. I hadn’t heard a commitment like that coming from a track orchestra in a very long time. This was no session, no pick-up crew, this was one tight unit, and they were hitting the musical values like nobody’s business. I vowed to remember the name of this bright new conductor-arranger—which of course I promptly forgot (There are a lot of John Wilsons in the world, as Anthony Burgess would be the first to tell you) and didn’t remember again until last May. Recorded by my darling and his O for the Warner Bros film at Pinewood Studios, 2003. A 2006 Grammy nominee in the Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media category (composers Charles Trenet-Jack Lawrence, arranger Dick Behrke, producer Phil Ramone). Available on Rhino Records, that notorious niche label, and I really must find out who at Warners moved it to that catalog.

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My Brilliant John Wilson Reveals One of His Sweetest Conducting Secrets; Plus John’s Two Carousel Overtures, A Hidden Paul McCartney Song to My Love—and the Bells of Notre Dame de Paris Ring Out Once Again

Above: Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s suite “Scheherazade” conducted by John Wilson and played by the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra. YT video here.

Look at the look on that girl’s face. She’s watching the conductor for cues and he’s smiling at her, giving her the cue to remember that her solo’s coming up in a few measures, and she’s smiling back in assent. The conductor is my beloved John, who gives love to his orchestras like I’ve never seen done before, not with conductors I’ve worked with and I’m guessing not even Bernstein, and I’ve seen Bernstein conduct youth orchestras.

My God, do you wonder why I’m so much in love with this man?

Regarding John’s two Carousel Waltzes:

And just today, 09 November 2024, five years after the fire, the bells of Notre Dame de Paris rang again, with a very special message for Marianists like me.

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My Beloved English Conductor John Wilson’s Concert Schedule, 13 Oct 2024 – 29 Jun 2025 Including His Tour of Rodgers & Hammerstein Just for the Limeys

What did I tell you? I had to piece this schedule from emails from The Glasshouse and the Sinfonia of London.

[JOHN’S PAST AND PRESENT CONCERT SCHEDULES]

WHAT YOU’LL HEAR
A message from John Wilson

The centrepiece of our concert is Rachmaninov’s rarely heard First Symphony. Why it’s rarely heard is a mystery to me, I’d even say it’s the greatest of his three symphonies. It’s a work of tremendous emotional power and drama and I’m telling everyone I know about this because I want them to come and hear it. Sinfonia of London have recorded the Second Symphony and we’ve played quite a lot of Rachmaninov over the past few years, I feel like it’s become part of our DNA.

Kenneth Hesketh is a great friend of mine, we were at college together, and he’s the most marvellous composer. I love his music. PatterSongs, a short piece to open the concert, is taken from his opera The Overcoat and has all the qualities I associate with Ken’s music. It’s mercurial, dazzling, brilliantly orchestrated, quirky and the perfect way to open the concert.

The great cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition when he was 16 years old, playing Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. We’re thrilled he’s invited us to play the Second Cello Concerto on this tour, it’s a real masterpiece, the kind of pure music that gets under your skin. Once you’ve heard it, it’s a difficult piece of music to leave.

This is an evening of really great music, some of which is rarely played, and it’s a real thrill for me to be performing it with Sinfonia of London. I hope to see you there.

Tue 13 Oct 2024 16:00
Bristol Beacon
Bristol, UK
Sinfonia of London
Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)

  • Kenneth Hesketh: PatterSongs
  • Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 2
  • Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No 1

___

Tue 15 Oct 2024 19:30
Barbican Hall
London, UK
Sinfonia of London
Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)

  • Kenneth Hesketh: PatterSongs
  • Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 2
  • Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No 1

___

Fri 18 Oct 2024 19:30
The Glasshouse
Gateshead, UK
Sinfonia of London
Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)

  • Kenneth Hesketh: PatterSongs
  • Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 2
  • Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No 1

___

Sat 19 Oct 2024 19:30
Royal Concert Hall
Nottingham, UK
Sinfonia of London
Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)

  • Kenneth Hesketh: PatterSongs
  • Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 2
  • Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No 1

___

Wed 13 Nov 2024 20:00
Philharmonie de Paris
Paris, France
Orchestre de Paris

___

Thu 14 Nov 2024 20:00
Philharmonie de Paris
Paris, France
Orchestre de Paris

___

Sun 05 Jan 2025 17:00
Konserthuset
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra
Julian Ovenden (dishy vocalist)

___

Wed 14 Feb 2025 19:30
Royal Academy of Music
London, UK
RAM Symphony Orchestra
Adriana Bec (violin)

  • Peter Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D, Op 35
  • Sergei Prokofiev: Suite from Romeo and Juliet

To John: …My love is deep / The more I give to thee / The more I have / For both are infinite…

___

Sat 29 Mar 2025 19:30
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Manchester, UK
Jonathan Scott (organ)
Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano)

___

And here starts John’s concert tour of his famous pop classics, in which he gets to butcher my dear old boss Mamoulian’s Okla-freakin-homa! all over again.

Prepare to be enchanted as John Wilson and Sinfonia of London bring the timeless music of Rodgers & Hammerstein to life in a spectacular concert featuring beloved songs from some of the greatest musicals of all time including South Pacific, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma! Carousel and The King and I. Audiences will be treated to classic hits such as ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning’, ‘People Will Say We’re In Love’ ‘Some Enchanted Evening’, ‘Younger Than Springtime’ and more!!!

18 Jun 2025 18:15
Brighton Dome Concert Hall
Brighton and Hove, UK
Sinfonia of London
Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)

19 Jun 2024 18:30
Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts
Poole, UK
Sinfonia of London
Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)

21 Jun 2025 19:00
Royal Concert Hall
Nottingham, UK
Sinfonia of London
Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)

22 Jun 2025 19:30
The Bridgewater Hall
Manchester, UK
Sinfonia of London
Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)

23 Jun 2025 19:00
Bristol Beacon
Bristol, UK
Sinfonia of London
Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)

24 Jun 2025 19:30
The Anvil
Basingstoke, UK
Sinfonia of London
Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)

26 Jun 2025 19:30
The Royal Albert Hall
London, UK
Sinfonia of London
Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)

27 Jun 2025 19:00
Symphony Hall
Birmingham, UK
Sinfonia of London
Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)

28 Jun 2025 19:00
Royal Concert Hall
Glasgow, UK
Sinfonia of London
Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)

29 Jun 2025 19:30
The Glasshouse International Centre for Music
Gateshead, UK
Sinfonia of London
Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)

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My Beloved John Wilson Conducts the RAMSO In Rimsky-Korsavkov’s “Scheherazade” 9 February 2024

Above: Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s suite “Scheherazade” conducted by John Wilson and played by the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra. They’re all exemplary; that first violin is fantastic. YT video here.

[more later..]

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John Wilson’s Recording of the Complete Score of Carousel, Due Out 13 September 2024 from Chandos: Dalisay R&H, Robert Russell Bennett

There are three books I am 99 percent sure my beloved John has in his library: The Joy of Music by Leonard Bernstein; Apple of My Eye by Helene Hanff; and Instrumentally Speaking by Robert Russell Bennett, orchestrator of the music of Richard Rodgers. Bennett was the primary orchestrator for the following Rodgers & Hammerstein stage musicals, all now part of the foundation of modern American musical theater:

…which pretty much makes him the true architect of “The Broadway Sound”. The sonic lines of his work can still be heard in every screen enhancement and stage revival of these classics, no matter how offbeat or “reimagined” the productions—listen to Daniel Kluger’s clever but correct re-orchestration of the title song for 2019 Broadway’s Oklahoma!

As you probably know, faithful readers, John previously recorded Oklahoma! a couple years ago and won some sort of award for it…so of course it was only a matter of time before he got on to R&H’s second classic score. Whether this means that the powers-that-be intend for my bonny to conduct the entire R&H+Bennett catalog I do not know. Personally, since he’s already batting 3 for 3 when it comes to his performance repertoire and my old boss Rouben Mamoulian‘s classic stage productions, I’d love to hear his complete George Gershwin opera, Porgy and Bess.

Actually, what I’d REALLY love, John, is a new recording of a work that even Richard Rodgers himself admitted was 10 percent Rodgers and 90 percent Robert Russell Bennett—Victory at Sea! Oh, I’d sooo love to hear you do something with this:

EXTRA! Some tunes from Carousel covered elsewhere on this blog:

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The Silent Musician by Mark Wigglesworth, Richard Wagner, Cosmic Sex, and My Beloved Conductor John Wilson

From 2021: In an earlier post I mentioned that, since May a couple years ago, I’ve been reading books by orchestra conductors on conducting, in order to better glimpse into the unfamiliar heart and mind of my beloved John Wilson. That classic tome written by Richard Wagner was far out, of course, and going back to some of Leonard Bernstein‘s early writings was deeply nostalgic.

But it was my treatment of a book my bonny conductor had on his public Facebook Likes list that done me in—a thin, and thinly humorous, volume written by a coeval of John’s who let out his dirigental insecurities in a tirade of snark that I answered in kind in a long, 4-star Amazon review that I thought was hilarious, which it was, although apparently only to me. I did this to get John’s attention. I got it. John did not like what I wrote. Hence, he learned how to spell my name ab-so-lute-ly correctly.

Now, Mark Wigglesworth has a 30-year career conducting a number of the great operas and a number of the great symphony cycles, to much acclaim. If there is one thing that John’s friend’s book made evident, in its perverted way, it’s the importance of a conductor being holistically grounded, and Wigglesworth is, as we used to say in the 70s, a grounded guy. Not surprising for someone who has Alan Watts on his bookshelf; and since the English-born psychedelic Zen guru of San Francisco is one of my guiding lights too, it was a deep pleasure to read The Silent Musician, Wigglesworth’s musings on his inner/outer artistic journey as a conductor. Wigglesworth, from Sussex, is an acclaimed interpreter of Gustav Mahler as well as Wagner, two creative heavyweights who positively require those who would approach their work to have had a fair look first into their own personal psychological-spiritual makeup. Consider Daniel Barenboim—one artist on the world stage I respect the hell out of—and his own moral / philosophical / logistical grapplings with the Architect of Bayreuth (download his “Wagner and Ideology” here) and let me just say, if Barenboim figured it out I’m satisfied).

Speaking of Wagner, a few years ago Wigglesworth conducted the overture to a Wagner opera I’ll bet you’ve never heard of: Das Liebesverbot, or, The Ban on Love. I only know about this one because I took the mandatory survey course at music school at the university and never ran into it again till now. So this is the first and only thing I’ve ever heard from this opera:

Overture to Das Liebesverbot (1836)
Richard Wagner
Mark Wigglesworth, conductor
BBC Orchestra Wales

Or will ever hear, ever again. Just a bit…Mediterranean, wouldn’t you say?

But what amazes me more is the libretto, because Wagner—get this—chose for his source material the scuzziest, meanest sex comedy ever written, which is, of course, Measure by Measure by William Shakespeare. Yes, at the end hypocrisy is vanquished and everyone gets laid, but eeeeuuwww…

Now, think on the twenty-three year psychological-spiritual journey from Das Liebesverbot to this:

“Mild und leise” from Tristan and Isolde (1859)
Richard Wagner
Daniel Barenboim, conductor
Waltraud Meier, soprano
Beyreuth, 1995

I’m sorry, but when I hear that tune I want to see John’s dear face.

The rest of you, behold Hedy Lamarr and Aribert Mog in Ecstasy (Elektafilm, 1933).

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John Wilson and Orchestra at the Royal Albert and Holly Does Hollywood in Body Double, Written and Directed by Brian De Palma (Columbia, 1984)

From 2021: The flick Holly Does Hollywood is fictional, of course, a fictional movie in the world of a real movie called Body Double, which was conceived and executed by the man who in an ideal world would be king of Hollywood, Brian De Palma.

De Palma’s affectionately knowing, utterly non-patronizing visit to pornland is a bit of a fantasy, of course. No flick I ever did or saw had a budget big enough to afford a mirror ball, let alone an MGM-size dance floor (though Damiano’s later movies came close). But scale aside, De Palma understood the thing that kept nearly all of us, cast and crew, jazzed while we were being pushed to get out product, and that is: When you are making a porn movie, you are making a movie.

Now, every so often I’d remember this. I’d be in the middle of a take, and like a klieg wash switching on I’d suddenly become very aware of everything around me: the lights, the mikes, the crew, the director, the luxuriously gorgeous surroundings (half my films were done in those sumptuous private homes in Marin County), the smooth-skinned, sweet-smelling people touching me, the amused audience (most of the homeowners would hang around watching us film)—and the realization would thrill me so perceptibly I would be open to the moment and I’d like to think it showed up in my performance.

Which is the same jazzed-up open-to-the-momentness I thought I saw in John Wilson one evening when I was trawling online for classic show tunes and stumbled onto my bonny in a 2012 BBC-TV clip, commanding the podium in the middle of the Royal Albert, surrounded by an orchestra of eighty and an audience of 6,000, conducting a hot piece of Jule Styne and shimmying like a brazen hussy. And when I say shimmying like a brazen hussy, understand: I’m the brazen hussy he was shimmying like. I fell in love with him on sight—just like the songs and movies go, an arrow went straight to my heart—because I recognized him. I got his number, so to speak.

Brian De PalmaAbove Melanie Griffith and Craig Wasson: The Liverpool group Frankie Goes to Hollywood, who made their initial splash in 1984 (dig it) with the best stroke song ever written, “Relax”. Of course it was banned by the BBC.

And so for over three years I’ve been following my Tyneside lad’s career and person, not as a fan, really, but as an…interested party. So you know I’m going to sit up and take notice like I did when John, conducting in 2019 possibly the last John Wilson Orchestra concert ever at the Royal Albert for the BBC Proms, looked deadly serious, almost toothache-grim, at first when he commanded the stage. Especially when you compare him to that cocky whippersnapper who took the podium back in 2011…

I don’t mean to read a lot into this, maybe he did start out with a migraine or a toothache. More probably, I think he’s thinking differently (that is, more “seriously”) about things nowadays. Eight years have passed between those two appearances, after all, and I’m sure he’s gone through a number of internal changes during that time and made some interesting decisions which we will all, in time, learn about. It would be a sad thing if it’s John himself who thinks it now “unseemly” for him to shimmy in public anymore (I’m not the only one to have noticed his gorgeous limey shimmy), but it would be a sadder thing if John might be taking the nudge-nudge hints and advice of others to heart.

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John Wilson Conducts the Sinfonia of London, Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra in Richard Strauss’s “Metamorphosen” and Gives Me a Perfect Screenshot, 23 October 2020

I don’t know what I did to please the gods but on one October morning in 2020, somehow, I took a perfect screenshot of John conducting, while watching the (UK time) 7:30pm performance of the Royal Academy of Music (Finzi, Strauss). “Metamorphosen” is from his new album on Chandos.

Screening Room, SF 1979

It’s John’s “I mean business” look that keeps me going. Above: John conducting the Sinfonia of London in Strauss’s “Metamorphosen” (Chandos, 2022)

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Two Amanuenses: Frederick Delius’s Eric Fenby and Mister Grumble’s Cantara; Plus John Wilson Conducts the Sinfonia of London in Delius’s “Late Swallows”

It’s a funny coincidence, but the first—the very first—music article I wrote was for the University Chorus’s newsletter, a review of Ken Russell’s 1968 film, A Song of Summer. It just happened to have been on TV that month, May 1972, the month we were performing Frederick Delius’s 1916 Sea-Drift (available here on YouTube with accompanying score) and seemed like a natural to talk about…

frederick_delius_and_eric_fenby_by_simonawing_dgxg0vx-350tAbove: “Late Swallows” , the 3rd movement from Frederick Delius’s String Quartet in E minor, originally published in 1916 and re-arranged by Eric Fenby. My beloved John Wilson conducts his Sinfonia of London (Chandos)

[more later—my blind baby angel Mister Grumble‘s dictating his latest work to me, tentatively called The Last Bohemia; meanwhile amuse yourselves with his first here available in pdf, a comic novel of aliens, hippies, FBI agents, and cheap beer, Tales From the Last Resort…or this novella, Quality Time, about a day in the life of a young San Francisco heartbreaker…as for me, right now I’m re-reading Delius, As I Knew Him by Eric Fenby (G Bell & Sons, 1936)]

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