The Aardvark Blog

Richard Strauss, Rodrigo on Building a Library, Valentine's Day, Peter Reynolds Musicologist, Art of France
18/02/2017

Driving in this morning I was delighted to hear the opening movement of Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony - a piece that I had not heard for many years. In my youth one of my friends was very keen on Strauss and would play me his music when I visited him. Yet in more recent years the revelations of what a truly unpleasant man Strauss was, has impacted on my wish to hear his music. The same is true of Heidegger's philosophy which at one time I revered.

Yet perhaps in this most divisive of times we need to once again attempt to separate the work from the artist - excepting where the subject matter is so intertwined with the artist's lacuna that the two are inseparable. Let us deny ourselves Strauss no more. The music is so sublime, that it is hard to believe that the man himself was not redeemable.

Also on Record review was a very good summary of recordings of the Guitar Concerto, but as usual by the point that 'Building a Library' was really getting going I had to stop to get on with opening up the bookshop.

Last Saturday's Valentine's Day Event was somewhat muted by the truly foul weather which did not let up until closing time. This resulted in fewer numbers, but those people who came certainly enjoyed themselves and many thanks to all those who helped to make the event such a success. Trevor Davies and Dane , Mita from Silverfish Jewellery, the wonderful Sarah Rogers ( whose chocolates we have been munching ever since), and above all the wonderful John Challis and his wife Carol. John and Carol have spent the last two decades restoring the house and garden in which they live, and the results are celebrated in John's latest book 'Wigmore Abbey'. It would be hard to find two more interesting people, or two people who are more fascinated with history. Having them at Aardvark was a treat both for us and the customers who talked to them.

I was very sorry to learn yesterday of the death of our customer the noted musician and musicologist Peter Reynolds. Peter died last autumn and I am ashamed to say that I had missed the obituaries of him in the Guardian and the Times. The composer of the world's shortest opera, he was a stallwart of Welsh musical life. For his obit visit https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/nov/09/peter-reynolds-obituary.

Finally I cannot end this blog without reporting on the great curate's egg that was Andrew Graham-Dixon's 'The Art of France'. Following his wonderful series on Scandinavian art I had high hopes, but this had more holes in it than a string vest. Whilst it seems inconcievable that any-one attempting a general survey of the art of France would omit all mention of Gericault and Van Gogh ( not to mention Soutine, Ernst, Masson and all the surrealists other than Dalie and Magritte, Derain, Bonnard,  Vuillard, the Barbizon group, the list is nearly endless), nor that he dismissed French art since the second world war so imperiously ( no mention therefore of Dubuffet, Balthus, Cesar, Christo, Sainte Phalle, Guy de Bord etc, and only a dismissive reference to Yves Klein and Pierre Soulages), but that he entirely failed to understand the centrality of decorative arts in France's artistic life. Any-one who has stood in front of the magisterial 'Apocalypse Tapestry' in Angers cannot accept that there was no native art before the late sixteenth century. And that is without talking about the 'Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries', and the factories of Sevres, the furniture of Boulle, and the twentieth century works of Jean Lurcat.

I am afraid that the blame lies with the BBC who provided such a narrow canvas on which AGD could express himself. But if that was the case he himself should have abandoned any pretensions to offer a general survey and opted instead for a more selective personal appreciation. The comments he did make on Gauguin, Degas, Picasso, Monet and above all Cezanne were as insightful as ever. But to cite Delacroix only as an influence on Picasso - that is downright shoddy work.