
For me, though, the most attractive of these unsolicited discs takes me right back to my childhood and has had me reminiscing at length to anyone who will listen about Michael Hurd, whom I had the great good fortune to know quite well. When the monthly package came from Naxos, sitting on top was a disc devoted to Hurd's Pop Cantatas (8.572505) with a cover image reproducing the front cover of the score of Jonah-Man Jazz. We sang that at school on more than one occasion, and I loved it. It's probably well over 40 years since I last heard it, although as with all catchy tunes I've never gone long without one of its melodies springing unbidden to mind, but to hear the gloriously vibrant voices of Ronald Corp's superb New London Children's Choir romp their way through such matchless numbers as "Jonah, Jonah, listen to me" and "I need a boat, man", took me right back to my school days (I could almost smell again my nasty ink-stained woollen blazer which always seemed to be damp, feel the wind rattling around my knees exposed between those horrible grey shorts and those shin-strangling socks, and relive those rebellious feelings towards that loathed cap burnt, along with everyone else's, on the last day in the fifth form). Although he wrote it for another school in 1966, Hurd lived close by ours and often would come along and attend our rehearsals. I was enchanted by a man who could not only make us all feel a million dollars with music so well written for amateurs that it never failed to sound good, but also knew so much about music, communicated his enthusiasm for it so well, and had all the time in the world for nerdy schoolboys anxious to pick his brains on their pet subject. When I bumped into him in a Hampshire country pub some years later he was just the same and, much to my immense pride, even remembered me. In subsequent years we even worked professionally side by side in preparing scripts. His death in 2006 upset me mostly because it seemed to pass almost unnoticed by the musical community. Now, at last, his music is being celebrated on disc.
What Hurd was able to achieve through the medium of the pop cantata was twofold; to create music which was easy to perform but highly effective to listen to, and to retell stories in such a way that they became indelibly implanted in one's memory. Take the seemingly mundane text of his Captain Coram's Kids. I knew of the Foundling Hospital – Handel's involvement effectively immortalised it – but Hurd's piece, while simply setting to music a potted history of the place, somehow implants it so firmly into the memory through the tunes which accompany each episode. I hadn't heard previously the hugely amusing Rooster Rag – effectively a moral tale for chickens and foxes – or the retelling of the story of the Prodigal Son – Prodigal –but both deserve frequent airings.
As I travel around and hear misguided school choirs attempt to emulate the morally degenerate and musically inept role-models foist on them by TV talent shows, I despair that the use of collective singing as a source of wholesome fun through good-quality and original music is being denied today's children. If this Naxos disc brings the work of a great musical educator and communicator to the attention of choir directors and music teachers, it will have done more good to the musical development of society than a thousand highly-polished recordings of core repertoire.
No comments:
Post a Comment