Mahler Fourth Symphony - Heavenly Life Janette Miller

Mahler used the childish song 'Heavenly Life' - 'Das himmlische Leben' as the last movement of his fourth symphony. In fact the fourth symphony is built around a single song, "Das himmlische Leben" on texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn). 

I love Mahler! It was not easy to get to know Mahler. When I was young in the 1950's Mahler was not on the musical menu. Hard to believe now in 2016!  LP records were expensive and not in my price range. On the whole I earned 10/6d a performance, my parents earned about £3 per week and an LP could cost £3 each!

Britten, who did a lot to  introduce Mahler to UK told me to listen to Mahler but other than giving me a ticket to one concert did little more to help me. It is hard to appreciate Mahler on one hearing so it was not until a trip to Zimbabwe when I stayed with a musical accountant that my Mahler education began. He could afford records.  I fell immediately in love with second movement of the Second Symphony  and Mahler in general especially his Wunderhorn Songs. They suit my voice and my sense of irony.

A friend sent me a midi of the last movement of the Mahler Fourth and I thought why not! I have never considered myself a concert artist but this  symphonic movement is perfect for me mainly because it is a child's view of heaven and I have a retained my natural voice. I resisted training to become a hooter as it was just not me. I am supposedly well past my normal sell by date but I still can sing! I sing with my whole body as a dancer dances. I have the ability to sing in tune, bang in the middle of a note and that helps. I love singing and why not?

This ironic symphony tells of a view of heaven seen through the eyes of ordinary beings who find themselves in a world which is not quite as expected. Nice but uncomfortable if one is unused to it and it fact for most inmates a bit, dare one say boring, if you don't like eating and singing hymns.

My cast are the delightful animals at Auckland Zoo who performed beautifully if a bit unpredictably. They are in a heaven which is perhaps not appreciated by all. They are all well fed, well looked after but.....!

Again the midi was just a piano version so I had the pleasure of orchestrating it in Garageband, this is such fun. The tempos are a la Leonard Bernstein, who has a delightful version on YouTube. Then I had the joy of learning to sing it. It is set either to high or too low so I have had to compromise. One or two nasty entrances. It seems both Mahler and Britten like the soprano to come in a beat late to the orchestra. Sounds as if you have missed your entrance but that's life. I can see the anxious soprano looking up at Mr Bernstein at that moment.

Then, the animals. Because of copyrights I have to own everything. Never filmed animals before. Takes time, five months to get just eight usable minutes but in the meantime easy colour correction of video has taken vast steps forward and the results are beautiful especially the flamingos who are truly heavenly birds. My personal favourites are the spider monkeys who are sensual and balletic. They live on an island where no human sets foot. In real life they are afraid of water and the ground and never set foot on it. But in heaven you can and they do. They have a freedom of intimacy that is a joy to behold as they embrace each other. No guilt of Adam & Eve for them.

Lastly the bit I like best the video editing where one gets to play God. One could never finish but there comes a moment when one must and publish to the world, a world that on the whole is not interested but I already have had one LIKE  and it wasn't from me! That made my day. 

Olivia Coleman & How to Steal The Night Manager

The Night Manager - BBC's spy mini series based on John le Carré's famous novel starring two of the most sort after actors, Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie in the parts of their lives. There they are in the publicity shot and for 5 of the 6 episodes they spar in a most engaging way to be the winner. There is the beautiful love interest and the not so beautiful male love interest, both of whom are prominently featured and then there is the pregnant woman at the back, a woman of little importance and really as Olivia Colman the  actress puts it "What on earth is she doing there?"

The short answer is stealing the show for it is not Laurie or Hiddleston that walk off with the honours in The Night Manager, although they try but the woman who is spoiling the photo!

Every so often in an actor's life the author gives them a gift of a part that is a scene stealer and Olivia Coleman has been given one of these and to her credit she steals The Night Manager beautifully.  Yes she is there from the start but you don't seem to notice her much. She is dowdy, pregnant and very down to earth, she almost gets lost while the two hunks deliver some glorious scenes and the BBC provides glorious scenery.

But is the gripping the throat what on earth is going to happen as one waits for the expected showdown between the male lead that it is Ms Coleman who steps in almost at the last moment and delivers an unforgettable performance leaving the two men and everyone else with a feeling that they have been cheated. She steals the episode and the series, game set and match.

And Olivia Coleman does it so well too and she and the writers deserve an Oscar. She won't get one as she is British but she deserves one. Olivia Coleman knows how to scene steal. On Graham Norton's show she wiped the floor with the other guests one of which was Sir David Attenborough and again Hugh Laurie and deliciously out witted Graham Norton too. It is her understated appearance and her carefully studied naivety that is so disarming.

A famous actor, I think it was John Mills,  said it is not how many lines you had it was where you had them, preferably at the end of the piece. His example was Ibsen's Wild Duck where a doctor arrives right at the end and in 13 lines steals the show. Everyone else killing themselves all evening and the doctor in the last two minutes is the one the audience  remembers. Some parts are scene stealers. Shakespeare had to kill off Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet because he was in danger of eclipsing the lovers.

So Hats Off to Olivia Coleman. That is why she is in the photo and has third billing. If it the character had not been changed to a woman and played by a man as it could have been, say Hugh Laurie, it would have had top billing but she doesn't  get the billing she deserves but should!

Olivia is now tipped to become James Bond and as her famous last line now puts it:

She deserves it!

The April Fool's Answer to the Problem of SkyPath

1st April- April Fools Day when one is allowed to be naughty for a few hours and have a joke. Being English I decided to be naughty and have fun with the vexed problem of SkyPath, the cycling and pedestrian hang on which seems to be the only answer to letting cyclists and pedestrians cross the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The problem is with the present design of SkyPath is it just won't work, great concept but no safe landing area at Northcote Point. 50 sq Meters for over 13,347 people a day is sadly not enough added to the fact that in my opinion SkyPath is a 1.2 kilometer cage death trap.

Today the Auckland Town Planners, The Mayor, Auckland Transport and the New Zealand Transport Authority have decided the car has got to go and we all have to get on our bikes. All over Auckland car lanes are being removed and replaced by cycle lanes. Vast sums are being spent to de car our city so very tongue in check I wrote an April Fool Comment as follows.

At a meeting with NZTA last night to discuss SeaPath one of the representatives told me that NZTA were actually planning a trial of cycling and walking on the bridge to see if the amount of cycle traffic will justify the expense. As it is now usual to remove car lanes it is easy to close the first two lanes on the west side of the Bridge and give them to the cyclists and pedestrians. Access is simple via Stafford Road and Curran Street. With two lanes available safety is assured. The plan is to run it for three months starting in July. What a simple solution for everyone and it will get cars off the road and you and I on our bikes. Good for AT.

One has to craft an April Fool carefully. It has to have that air of verisimilitude that gives it that tang of reality. I had been at a meeting to discuss the multi million dollar SeaPath that is supposed to take the pressure off Northcote Point which is to be inundated with 20,000 cyclists each weekend with nowhere to put them so my comment had a plausible twinge to it. I only have a select few friends on FB so it was not widely seen. I should have done it the night before for our local rag. but hey its fun and NZ doesn't really do fun that often.

Then later it hit me. This is the complete answer to every one's prayers answer. Close first two lanes facing westward to cars and give them to the cyclists and pedestrians. It is so easy as the access and exits roads are already there, easy access both ends with the Westhaven  end  cycle and  running straight into the city. Perfect.

No construction, No SkyPath hardly any expense, fewer cars, Happy cyclists, two lanes, safe as houses and free!

Letters one would like to have sent Janette Miller

Letters one should never send

We all do it! We have a bad experience with a friend. The friend prevents you having a Pythian Shot - the last word - so the next best thing is to go home and dash of one of those satisfying  missiles where you tell your friend exactly what you think of them and then in a fit of triumph you post it or in many cases don't.

If you do the results can be calamitous for these florid words how ever brilliantly written can never be taken back but worst of all even if not sent, if you wrote them on your computer they can be recovered and used against you if your target person feels the target can gain by it. This happened to Monica Lewinsky, the naive, ill used and really abused girl by her powerful lover, press and the world because virtually everything you delete on a computer can be restored if enough money and time is spent for the recovery to be worthwhile. 

Like Marcel Proust, who was the master of writing this type of letter to his friends, I regret to say I do this too. Proust used to write wonderful letters to his friends who all loved him but in private he was putting them into his book in the way he really saw them. This book A La Recherche du Temps Perdu is really Proust's unsent letters to his friends. Proust's pen is devastating in its accuracy. The most damaging parts of the book were published after Proust's death. Naturally the friends were shocked and there is nothing any of them could do about it.

I do take the precaution of writing my unsent letters on paper that can and is destroyed and I  usually never send them anyway, that way there is no lasting record of my unfortunate outpourings for unlike Proust on the whole I have no wish to leave a bitter legacy. There are one or two exceptions and it all depends on who dies first as to the outcome but if you have crossed me in a particularly vicious manner from which you benefitted you might be in for a surprise after my death. There are only two people on this list so far.

If a draft of my epistle is on my computer it can be read by anyone at any time. You might not like it but it is not too bad.

Sometimes one is forced to do the unthinkable and send the letter. No amount of procrastination can put off the moment after one realises that it must be sent. There is one up here on my blog where a long loved tree of great age was in danger of being cut down for a car park. I had to send it, three pages of plea and my neighbour, bless her saw how much I cared and the tree is still there. Problem is now it is rather big and needs a trim and I can hardly complain can I?

Sadly a couple of years later probably eggd on by her family she cut it down. I was devastated. It looks awful without it and without the shade of the tree sitting out in the sun is unpleasant. I still miss the tree but have made it up wiht my neighbour. Her family still find it difficult to talk to me as my oringanl letter still hurts. They did it and now feel guilty.

As you can probably guess I am in the process of writing such a letter. The first draft even on computer is too strong. My second three days later is much better and will do the trick by making me feel better in a more civilised way. It is final but leaves the way open for a dignified acceptance if we should ever meet again. One does meet unfriended friends again in real life regretfully

In FB one can just unfriend. It is such a dignified way to do it. I cull constantly. I do not allow any sort of proselytizing or major politics on my personal FB page. The FB friends that do this I visit. I tell them that my FB page is for friends and friends do not want to be preached at. This works well. If I get too many Jesus loves you after three you are out.  I still like you but not on my FB page.

It does take a lot to provoke me into doing any of this. If I do it means I am serious but in the meantime I personally let of steam by writing letters on paper that I never send. 

Philomena The Film The Book and Amazon.com

From Amazon.com to Janette Miller Your review could not be posted.  Thanks for submitting a customer review on Amazon. Your review could not be posted to the website in its current form. While we appreciate your time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines:http://www.amazon.com/review-guidelines Here is the rejected review

Philomena the book - The other side of the story. I came to this book via the film of the same name which I had enjoyed. I often seem to see the film first and the read the book. I expected more of the same as the reviews of the film did admit to dramatic license and having experienced Irish Catholic nuns for myself I was curious to know more. The book is very very different from the film. Perhaps the name and the first section  in the convent is all they have in common. From then on the film is about Philomena  and the book is about her son Michael. From the moment he leaves the convent the  book is about him. In the film this amazing man hardly gets a look in. I suppose  because he was gay and the book is quite frank about his choice of lifestyle. Not   shocking for most of us but enough to make film distributors anxious. The film  would have been better if it were more like the book. The film was hard on Micheal's partner who in the film is depicted as an unhelpful  man and deservedly hard on the RC church which behaved in the way it usually does.  The book by contrast hardly dwells on Philomena herself, the USA visit never took  place, and is far more truthful about the whole discovery process which I preferred.  Truth is always stronger than fiction. I did enjoy it. I suppose for most of us convent educated girls reading this is a form  of masochism as we relive our school days with horrible nuns and creepy priests  which we can recognise only too well. The good thing is that if you have seen the film  you actually see the convent and surroundings so ones imagination does not have  to work so hard. What a pity the film did not have the courage to do it this way.

We encourage you to revise your review and submit it again. A few common issues to keep in mind:  Your review should focus on specific features of the product and your  experience with it. Feedback on the seller or your shipment experience  should be provided at www.amazon.com/feedback. We do not allow profane or obscene content. This applies to adult products too. Advertisements, promotional material or repeated posts that make the same  point excessively are considered spam. Please do not include URLs external to Amazon or personally identifiable content in your review. Here is my accepted Amazon review: This is a very difficult book to review because of its topic. My first review  was rejected by Amazon because I mentioned this topic. So I will just have to say I enjoyed it. It was different from the film because the focus was on the child not the mother. The child and mother are both amazing. I was astonished that my first review was rejected. It should not have  been rejected but it was. My last review was useful and I encouraged you to read it book I still do so. This shows what happens when Belief Systems are in control.

Janette Miller's project for 2016 - My Winter Journey

Janette Miller's Winter Journey

2016

Based on the Die Winterreise song cycle by Franz Schubert

In life, everyone should have a project. I go from project to project and if one ends, even if I don't want it to, I start another maybe in a completely different field or maybe sometimes more of the same. I can get tunnel vision which is a good thing as I get things done and cut out distractions. Not so easy now I am older as living takes a lot of my time. Seeing the house does not fall down, the garden gets done takes time.

In 2015 I had to do an upgrade on my technical skills. In 2015 the technology made a big leap and it took me months to catch up. I had to upgrade my website janette-miller.com to Muse from Dreamweaver and this was a challenge as Muse is still a very new platform but oh what you can do with it. It took me the last three months of 2015 to do it. Huge job but tis done. I have an ulterior motive in doing this as it is the basis for My Winter Journey. 

Ever since  I first heard Die Winterreise at Aldeburgh I knew I one day would have a go at this. Britten and Pears loved Lieder or Songs as Peter would pontificate when making me feel awfully small. Peter was so good at this. Peter always said he was afraid of this cycle and it could only be sung in maturity which of course is a lot of rubbish as the story is about a young rejected suitor and the devastation of unrequited love which the young lover gets over. However I did not know this then and I thought, wrongly, at the age of 16 with nil German, that it was about an old man approaching death and I think half the audience did too and still do if they cannot speak German. Certainly, a lot of elderly men sing it!

As Peter  Pears made clear, a young girl could sing some Lieder but Winterreise was off the menu for me as it was a man's cycle so I never bothered with it until....ah! that little word until...until my husband died. We had been working on Die Winterreise at the time and The Organ Grinder the last song in the cycle was the last song we ever sang together. The hardest song I have ever recorded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptOVMp2dDiU

Years later I discovered iMove2 and put up an appreciation  for Miles using this song and I again let it go because although we had recorded the whole cycle some of it was just not up to standard as we had done it so quickly and I could not afford to pay an accompanist or pay for transposing the songs into more suitable keys for me.

But then came Garageband and all changed. I could write out my accompaniments and sing again. I recorded Die Schone Mullerin and then I thought about Die Winterreise. Why not?

Well, there is a hundred reason Why Not? All of them good but I have not been an L'Enfant terrible all my life for nothing and quite frankly I do not see why men should have all the good songs and young maidens encounter unrequited love too. Winterreise is not an old man's song. It is a young person's cycle. and luckily my voice sounds quite young.

There are 24 songs in all and each song can be taken as an individual item. I have been working on the complete cycle all my life. The first was On the River  with my first DVD movie camera. I had a friend's daughter for Norway staying with me and she kindly let me film her just before Miles died in 2001. You can see her in the trail above.

I have joined it all together but and it is almost roughed out and if I die before I have finished the world can get a rough idea. Styles and technical formats and styles change too and I have allowed for those. I have also altered the running order of the last 12 songs. Shock Horror! But no one knows what order these are supposed to be in, not even Schubert because like me, Schubert did not encounter them in order. Anyone can see that the order after the first 12 songs is wrong so I have put them in the order I think they should be.

2016's project is about to start. I need a website so that I can let anyone know who is interested where I am at, I need to finish the 25 songs, yes - there is one extra, which may come as a surprise to purists but this is my personal journey and I can do what I like. At 73 I can do what I like and I do hope you will come along with me. I know that my friends on FB find it hard to watch and much prefer my garden when it comes to the Like button but I do live in hope that one day they will enjoy it too.

Gchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrUIVvo5FGc

Maestro Kurt Masur and David Lichine as their singers and dancers remember them

Conductor Kurt Masur 1927-2015

Today on Facebook I heard of the death of Kurt Masur. He worked in New York for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra but I had never heard of him. My omission. The famous singer who had alerted me to his death had written these words which immediately struck a chord.

 You screamed at me in front of a full dress rehearsal audience (to be fair, I screamed back at you..), you grabbed my arm during a performance, you flat out fired me, and you made me madder than hell sometimes.

..and I have learned so very much from having had the privilege of working with you.

RIP Maestro.

This was my first introduction to this famous man and the above singer was obviously not alone for then followed a list of singers that he had yelled at, one was as young as 12!

He yelled at me too...guess I'm in good company!

It was always out of the want of perfection for the music. Not generally to be a jerk... We know who those guys are.

A great conductor, and it now seems yelled at the wrong people now and then. He I suppose is forgivable. He made a great career, if only by reviving the NYPhil.

He yelled at Daisy Eagan, and she was 12! Still, he made some amazing music and lived an important life. Rip.

This was the first thing these singers remembered about this conductor not that he was a brilliant musician but that he had yelled and humiliated them in public. In this position it is impossible for an artist to yell back. It is sad to think that this conductor will be remembered in this way and I feel sure when he yelled at, as it appears quite a number of artists he never gave a thought that one day his yelling would be made public.

Conductors, directors and choreographers did this in his day. They considered themselves Gods and above reproach. How many careers have they ruined? Being yelled at in public is totally devastating and many lose confidence as a result from which they never recover.

My Bete Noire was the choreographer David Lichine who had been one of Diaghilev's young men and was employed for the first Nutcracker by London's Festival Ballet. As a choreographer he was a success and in fact I have never seen a finer version but as a person he was cruel and horrible so horrible that when a book was written to celebrate this production it was even mentioned that many of the children thought Uncle David was too hard on them! Understatement he was Mr. Lichine, we curtsied to him, we curtsied to everyone and he was a tyrant.

He dismissed dancers without a thought. I only got my part because three others before me were summarily dismissed. If we put a foot wrong we were out. To begin I managed but it all went wrong for me when I discovered just how thoughtless  and cruel this man could be.

It was at the dress parade and the press had been invited for publicity. The wardrobe at our school had only managed to make 3 costumes. The designs were by Benois and my design was ghastly. A huge green and white spotted monstrosity with a heavy Broderie Anglaise collar. It was hideous. Lichine didn't like it either and as I stood there he started to scream at everyone. I was terrified. I was only 14 and had know idea what was happening. You can see the offending dress in the right corner.

Then Lichine walked up to me and in front of the cast management and press ripped the dress to shreds with me in it. By the time he had finished I was virtually naked and clutching the remains to cover my modesty. Pre pubescent girls with no bras are very touchy. Yes it wasn't my fault and the dress was horrible but this I realised later was his way of getting the dress remade and it was remade by my mother on dress rehearsal day but this was another story.

However at a photo call that afternoon I still had to wear the dress as there were no others and they needed three. The poor photographer had to disguise that my dress was in shreds and the photos are very awkwardly posed. My face just pokes into one. From that moment the man scared me as I knew then he had no feeling for anyone. Just himself.

All remained well for me until the public dress rehearsal with Princess Margaret in front. In the middle of the prologue for Act II, Kingdom of Sweets, I got my second public humiliation and I could do nothing about it. We all had to lick an enormous lollipop. I was dead centre, kneeling down with my back to the audience, I had to lick the lollipop and turn around and smile. This was fine in rehearsal room as it was flat and where ever the prop landed  I could turn around and smile and even on the run throughs there was just enough room for me on the stage to do this.

At the Royal Festival Hall we had no footlights. There was just a white line to show the edge of the stage and one had to be careful as there was a long drop onto the orchestra. On this dress rehearsal everyone was nervous and somehow the lollipop was place too far downstage and there was not room for me. I was dangerously near being pushed over onto the orchestra. I was scared stiff and I failed to look around when I should.

Lichene yelled at me! Turn around girl, I want to see your face! The whole audience gasped as at ballets one hardly expects such a vocal performance. I was clinging on for life and the orchestra pit was dangerously close so I could not oblige although I felt like standing up and screaming at him so I got a second blast. By this time the music had moved on and I scrambled to safety but I felt awful. I had been screamed at in public. It was humiliating.

If this had happened in rehearsal I should have been out and in fact I think he wanted me out but my mother had made my costume and was busy helping with the other wardrobe disaster that had occurred and while I might not have been missed my mother would have been missed. Needless to say I just wanted the floor to open up and swallow me and really I lost my performance confidence that night.

A few days later this man arrived in our dressing room to autograph our programmes. We all lined up. He never said a word or looked at anyone till it got to me and then he did. He started to sign and then he looked at me and gave me a look of exasperation. He was going to say something like You ruined my Nutcracker by not turning around  but he thought better of it. Obviously I had made some sort of impression, I do this, and I feel sure he remembered me but why did he do it?

Why did the man pick on me? Why did he chose to belittle me in front of a whole audience. It was such a tiny point. Did he want me to fall into the orchestra pit? I was doing my best.

Artists never forget these types of reprimands and it appears many have not forgotten Maestro Kurt Masur outbursts.  I don't think any of us really forgive either. We don't make  errors deliberately. Things go wrong that are beyond our control. We do not deserve to be screamed at in public.

I feel sure Masur and Lichine would be surprised that their outbursts of bullying would be remembered so many years later and form part of their legacy. They both deserve it.