Our Playlist column features music curated by our faculty, students, and staff and focusing on an interesting idea or theme. In this column, School of Music staff member Laurie shares music inspired by life in a vintage blue cottage.
The Blue Cottage
Life at the Blue Cottage follows a pace from another time. My husband Don and I listen to music using vintage technology, a stereo system with a turntable and big speakers. We also enjoy radio, read books in print and receive the newspaper, delivered daily into our cast iron mailbox.
The garden is lovely to watch throughout the seasons. Chickadees in May, carefully hopping from wind vane to hanging basket, and to the bird house where they make their nests. Mason bees buzzing in and out of the bee box, and bumble bees flitting about pollinating the yard, doing the ground work for abundant summer blooms & veggies.
It’s a wonderful place to be stuck. At home with music.
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The soundtrack to our days in the cottage has developed a natural rhythm, though somewhat different now that I’m working from home. It should not have been a surprise to learn that on normal days when I would be driving to work in the early mornings, Don would be eating his breakfast with the stereo speakers cranked up, blasting something like Steely Dan’s “Goucho.”
“Goucho” by Steely Dan
These days, the volume is turned down a little for the early morning. Beethoven, Sibelius, and Shostakovich symphonies are in heavy rotation, as is Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Some days it’s the Beatles. Today it is Sibelius’s Symphony No. 3.
Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52 by Jean Sibelius — Performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
On a rainy afternoon, I love listening to this beautiful slow movement from Bach’s Italian Concerto, performed by renowned pianist Angela Hewitt.
It was such a delight having Hewitt perform an all-Bach piano recital in Barnett Hall and give masterclasses to our students this past February, as a Dal Grauer Memorial Lecturer. A special perk to my job was driving this brilliant artist, and wonderful person, to and from rehearsals and the airport. One amazing tip she shared was her use of essential oils: put a few drops of rosemary oil on a tissue, inhale its vapours before going onstage. It provides mental clarity and helps her perform The Art of the Fugue. Of course I went out and bought some the next day!
Italian Concerto in F, BWV 971 by J. S. Bach — Performed by Angela Hewitt, piano
Working from home has had its advantages. The fresh air from the forest wafting through the window, the verdant scenery. In the late afternoon the sound of Ry Cooder will play from downstairs, a cue that Don is in the kitchen. The house is about to smell delicious and soon it will be time to shut the computer off.
“Mambo sinuendo” by Ry Cooder and Manuel Galban
Nowadays it’s warm enough to have dinner in the garden, and there is always music to accompany the feast. The contemporary Irish/American group The Gloaming is usually present.
We first discovered The Gloaming when they were playing a show at the Chan Centre in 2014. Though we knew they played Irish traditional music, we were completely unprepared for the places they would take us that night. The new grooves and sounds sprouting from inherited roots and modern experiences of the Irish and multi-continent members were magic. Ancient texts, haunting vocal delivery, unexpected piano ostinato figures and jazzy tonalities, layered with traditional folk string instruments. At intermission we bought all their recordings.
Fáinleog (Wanderer) by the Gloaming
On the weekends, a Sunday morning might begin early with the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble as inspiration for our afternoon adventures:
Festmusik der Stadt Wien, Op.84, AV134 for brass and timpani by the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble — Short fanfare arr. Geoffrey Emerson
Sunday afternoons we go to brass band rehearsal then meet up with friends at the local pub. With COVID-19 there are no rehearsals, no performances, no gatherings at the pub. The May long weekend usually has the best outdoor gig of the year: the Vancouver All British Field Meet at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens.
There, our lively tunes would waft over the expansive, lush green lawns covered by classic British cars in neat rows, sectioned by make (yes there are Aston Martins and Lotuses). Music used in the movie Brassed Off, about an English Colliery Band in the mid 1980s, is a staple of our outdoor concerts as are many marches, a James Bond medley, and other music that has children dancing in front of the band.
“March” from The Great Escape by Elmer Bernstein — Performed by The Grimethorpe Colliery UK Coal Band
7:00 pm – Time to celebrate and acknowledge the heroes of our time: the healthcare workers! We’re out every night making noise with the neighbours. We take turns on our horns (Don, cornet; Laurie, baritone), playing tunes like Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, On the Street Where You Live, On the Sunny Side of the Street and What a Wonderful World.
Sometimes it’s improvised fanfares with friends nearby who have trumpets and hunting horns.
“What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong
My favourite soundtrack for puttering about the house (a.k.a. chores) is fiddle music. Fiddle player Martin Hayes and guitarist Dennis Cahill are to me, the core of The Gloaming. They’ve been playing together for a very long time. Not long after seeing The Gloaming in concert, a friend unexpectedly gifted me the Hayes / Cahill CD, Welcome Here Again. It’s an album of traditional fiddle tunes done as only Martin Hayes can do. I love his slides, turns and other ornamentations that bubble out of his fingers so effortlessly. Listening often sends me away from my chores to grab my fiddle and figure out what he’s doing with these seemingly simple tunes. Yet you find that there is no way to notate what these traditional masters are doing, and you have to learn by listening. Over and over again, letting it all sink into your psyche and soul.
The Clare Reel by Martin Hayes, fiddle & Dennis Cahill, guitar
There is something very soothing about watching vinyl spin. The act of flipping the disc and placing the needle, the odd pop and crackle. And the deep spatial dimension of the sound.
A current favourite on the turntable in the evenings is Kate Bush’s album Aerial. A great partner when doing jigsaw puzzles, which we’ve done a lot of since mid-March. On this album, the birds are talking to me, reminding me of the chickadees that were flitting about talking to us in the garden not so long ago. It makes me smile. By coincidence, I just finished a puzzle with birds and butterflies.
“A Sky of Honey” by Kate Bush
To wrap things up, something completely new relating directly to where we find ourselves today. Little Chamber Music Society has started a fantastic project called Isolation Commissions to support musicians in our community, getting them to produce music that responds to, or reflects upon, our time in isolation. We recently commissioned one featuring Jeremy Berkman, who plays Lament for a Lost Car. It is pure multi-layered brilliance and I can’t stop listening to it as I imagine him cycling round and round taking one step at a time, always moving forward. (Thank you again Jeremy!). Hope you all enjoy it too. Thanks for listening . . .
Lament for A Lost Car by Jeremy Berkman, trombone
Laurie is a UBC Music alumnus (BMus’1988), a staff member since 1999, and a lover of music since forever. Don too is a UBC Music alumnus (BMus’1978).
