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There can be ONLY ONE???...

Thanks for the Delius Art. An excellent choice if ‘there can be only one’.

Now, if we were to be restricted to just one piece, or ‘track’, on our desert island then that would be a whole different proposition again. Using the same approach (but blowing the shortlist out to ten, because you are making it very difficult):

1. Keith Jarrett, “Koln Concert”, track 1.

It has to figure, doesn’t it, that if you are content to have just that album for life, then at least one track would make your top eight? This track is the one which shows off Keith at his fleet-fingered finest, working both ends of the keys, whilst also capturing some of the grunting and moaning that is so integral to his immersion in his work.



2. k.d.lang, “Crying”, from the “Live” album.

‘The Big O’ effectively bequeathed this song to k.d.lang out of respect for her phenomenal voice. They performed it together before his death and it now features in most (all?) of her concerts as the much-anticipated crescendo.



She gives it her everything. It is amongst the very best that a female vocalist is capable of producing. Here it is, ‘unplugged’:



3. David Bowie, “Wild is the Wind” from “David Live at Tower Philadelphia”

Here we have to make do with a later rendition which doesn’t quite have the power, or the angst, of the Philadelphia concert version, but then that’s like saying that a green Bugatti doesn’t seem as powerful as a blue one… There did seem to be a bit more of the Brechtian/dystopian flavour in earlier versions though.



4. The Flower Duet from “Lakme” by Delibes.

Here performed by Dame Joan Sutherland and Jane Berbie under Richard Bonynge – selected for patriotic reasons!



5 “Una Furtiva Lagrima” performed by Enrico Caruso (flaws and all!).

This is a piece which has been performed by many tenors and many tenors are said to have had much better voices than Caruso. So?



6. Stanley Myer’s “Cavatina” performed by John Williams.

There is a deceptive simplicity in this piece, exaggerated by the seeming ease with which John Williams performs it. He performs more complex, technically perfect, classical pieces, but this is so much more ‘human’.



7. Adagio in G Minor by Albinoni.

Pick your own favourite version of this piece: see if you can find one with a major pipe organ featured. It must be an immense challenge to bring so many instruments together so languorously and yet so precisely.



8. “The Scent of Love” from the score to “The Piano” by Michael Nyman.

You could pick almost any track from almost any Michael Nyman album, the guy is that accomplished. He has worked on a few films, and his music can fairly be said to make all the difference. This track actually ‘speaks’. What is that almost discordant shift to a higher register called – is it ‘descant’? Whatever it is, there can never be too much of it. Listen to the rest of the album if you want a paradigm example of thematic cohesion.



Funny, isn’t it, how many times the piano features in a hitlist attuned to Western sensitivities?

9. “Feelin’ Bad Blues” from “Crossroads” by Ry Cooder.

You can’t build a list like this and not feature some great, modern guitar. Then what do you do? Kottke? Clapton? Stevie Ray Vaughan? Vai? Satriani? Beck? Baker (as in Chet)? Collins (as in Albert)? Bellew? As good as they all are, there’s something about the oeuvre of all of those guys that doesn’t hit the right note for a desert island. You’d want introspective; despondent; solitary; maudlin. That’s where Ry Cooder comes in. Here’s a guy who has made it his life mission to cover every genre imaginable on his stringed instruments. He’d also be a worthy candidate if you were looking for rock, blues, pop, Hawaiian, Cuban, Latin, protest, Depression, Chilean, Indian, folk – you name it. On the island, though, it’s blues – and it doesn’t get much bluer than this track.

www.youtube.com

10. “Hallelujah” by any of Leonard Cohen (can’t beat the original), k.d.lang (of course) or Jeff Buckley (a fine cover).

(See: ‘maudlin’, above). When you finally despair of ever being rescued from the island: sharpen the shell of a razor clam on the lava rocks, drink deeply of the fermented coconut hooch you have been distilling under the palm trees, eat half a dozen of the puffer fish that you have been saving for a moment such as this then listen to “Hallelujah” as you bleed out in a rock pool.







The single choice, Art? OK – just because you have been such a good sport, on this occasion it is Ry Cooder. There is so much wonderful music, however, that we could play this game for months. Next time, let’s get stranded on a desert archipelago and pick a different piece for each island in the group!

Cheers,
pplater.