Careful where you point that thing
July 2010
With the UK government behaving like Sweeney Todd on a bender and suggesting that other governments ought to do the same, we got to thinking about - what else? - sharp objects and music. Not just knives, but scissors, razors, swords...heck, where you do stop?
Now this turned out to be surprisingly fertile territory. Take the hero of the Henze work El Cimarrón, for instance. Here was a runaway slave who eventually chose to live alone in the world, with nothing to defend himself with but an old machete. Or how about 'Knife Fight' from Piazzolla's cycle The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night? A passionate tango, indeed. As for swords, you can imagine how many of these appear in soundtracks - for example, Mark O'Connor's Surrender the Sword,
written for the TV series 'Liberty: The American Revolution', or Benjamin Britten's music for the six-part radio show 'The Sword in the Stone'?
Now that we've got the (wrecking) ball rolling, no doubt you can think of lots more music related to weaponry. So next time you hear the word 'cuts', don't just think 'reduced public services', 'endless hospital queues' or 'pay freezes'. Instead, close your eyes and think - what else? - think of the music.
|
