Like the bagpipes,
the harmonica is an instrument about
which music-lover tends to have extreme
feelings. There are those who cover
their ears and run screaming from the
room ... and there are those who feel
a warm and sympathetic glow in their
hearts when they hear its homely, intensely
personal, slightly plaintive song upon
the wind. If Charlie Chaplin’s "Little
Tramp" had been musically inclined,
I think he would have carried a harmonica
in his pocket ...
Of course, I’m not
describing one of those cheap dime-store
toys that produce tones so tinny and
grating they’ll fry your earwax. I’m
thinking about a well-crafted, skilfully-tuned
instrument that fully deserves the appellation
"mouth organ", an expressive,
metal-reed instrument capable of rich
chromatic effects and considerable dynamic
range. A "symphonic" harmonica,
as it were.
I first got turned-on
to these instruments when I chanced
upon an album entitled "Harmonica
Rhapsody", by Jerry Murad and the
Harmonicats, issued by Columbia in the
early Sixties. I picked it up for a
pittance in a cut-out bin – expecting
something schlocky and Lawrence Welkian.
I was amazed at the trio’s energetic,
virtuosic renditions of the Danse
Macabre, the Polovtsian Dances
and a transcription of "Anitra’s
Dance" from the Peer Gynt Suite
that was, all things considered, every
bit as haunting and soulful as the orchestral
version. The LP quickly became on of
my favorite "classical party records".
Whenever I had a fellow classical buff
over for a listening session, I derived
considerable glee from putting the record
on un-announced, cranking up the volume,
and watching his jaw drop at the first
crunchy, room-shaking blast of Liszt’s
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. As
I recall, however, very few visitors
asked to hear the entire album…
What’s the appeal of
the harmonica (for those of us not allergic
to the instrument’s basic sound)? Well,
for me, it’s the chordal richness, the
poignancy of its legatos, the firecracker
snap of its staccatos, and the possibilities
it affords for highly personal phrasing
... plus the fact that I can tuck one
in my backpack and mindlessly improvise
whilst communing with nature on the
banks of a beautiful little river that
flows next to my favorite camping site
in the Virginia mountains. I’m strictly
a rank amateur (read: hopelessly inept),
but there’s nobody around to complain,
and the squirrels, woodpeckers, and
ground hogs don’t seem to mind my aleatoric
bleats, blats, and atonal melodic noodling.
"Serious"
harmonica players have been few, but
all were stellar showmen: Larry Adler,
John Sebastian, Tommy Reilly, Jerry
Murad, and…um….er… Well, anyway, you
can certainly add James Hughes to the
list. His technique is dazzling, his
intonation is laser-beam accurate, and
his expressive range is equal to the
maximum his chosen instrument is capable
of delivering. I would certainly love
to hear him cut loose on the concertos
by Vaughan Williams, Gordon Jacob, Villa-Lobos
and Alan Hovhaness.
Until he records those
concert-hall works, however, we can
enjoy this grab-bag recital of compositions
and arrangements by Paul Lewis, a TV
composer with an impressive list of
credits on his resumé: Lady
Killers, Arthur of the Britons, The
Prisoner of Zenda and the immensely
popular children’s show Woof!
According to the program notes, Mr.
Lewis is gravitating toward more ambitious
concert works, but he’s evidently doing
so cautiously, because the most substantive
work in this collection, is the 11:22
Serenata..
As for the contents
as a whole ... let me take a deep breath
before trying to prioritize the 20 bands
on this generously-filled CD. The producers
seem to have chosen what-goes-where
by one of three methods: 1) drawing
numbers out of a hat; 2) throwing darts,
blindfolded, at a wall full of scores;
or, 3) applying a John-Cage-ian strategy
of casting the I-Ching.
Boldly imposing order
on randomness, let me deal first with
the Serenata, for harmonica and
harp. No date is given for the piece,
but it was written for the redoubtable
Tommy Reilly and harpist Skaila Kanga.
In form, it’s a relaxed A-B-A kind-of
rhapsody, comprising a lively zingara
(Yeah, I had to look it up, too), framed
by a pair of andantes.
The music is lushly,
if generically, romantic, thoroughly
enjoyable, and five minutes after you’ve
heard it you cannot remember a single
minute of it.
A Shropshire Garland
(12 minutes and change) offers more
variety in its five movements (insofar
as hay-nonnie-nonnie folk tunes can).
The material derives from Cecil
Sharpe’s landmark World-War-One-era
compilation of Somerset folk songs.
I adore this kind of music, but I couldn’t
suppress an occasional giggle at the
Monty-Python-esque place names ("Regimental
March of the Yeoman from Upshot-on-the-Downswing"
kind of thing). Clueless Yank that I
am, I can’t quite visualize the distinctive
characteristics of a "Muchelney
Ham", not can I imagine why such
a creature would have cause to "lament"
(Well, maybe at the end of its bucolic
life…).
Mr. Lewis is a prolific
works-for-a-living composer (I applaud
him; I’m the same kind of writer and
it’s a gruelling way to earn your keep!),
so several cuts on the disc are derived
from commercial gigs. There’s the signature
theme from The Secret World of Polly
Flint (a series that didn’t make
it to this side of the Pond), three
minutes’ worth of the music from Seal
Morning (which if memory serves
did get shown over here but probably
didn’t export very well; Mr. Lewis describes
it as "haunting", and I’ll
be generous enough to grant him that
adjective, but just reading the saccharine
synopsis drilled several new cavities
in my teeth). On the other hand, The
Benny Hill Waltz tickled the hell
out of me. Yes,
the sledgehammer "wit", whoopee-cushion
gags, and the uncountable Big Boob skits
were geared to the sensibilities of
a randy 13-year-old, but for some reason
I enjoyed the show hugely (a confession
that tells you more about me than I
ought to reveal). Sorry to expend so
many words on a 2:16 snippet, but Mr.
Lewis’s slightly daft score really does,
um, rise to the occasion.
And so it goes throughout
the entire program: from music to accompany
a "Little Whiskas" cat food
commercial to sincerely felt arrangements
of hauntingly evocative traditional
ballads, the juxtapositions are surreal,
almost Ivesian. But against all logic,
the program somehow works. You
certainly won’t listen to this stuff
with the rapt concentration you’d devote
to a Bruckner adagio but it’s
a dandy background CD to slap on while
you’re brewing the morning coffee (Okay,
TEA!), frying some bacon, or waiting
for that handful of aspirin to moderate
last night’s hangover. It is what it
is, and you don’t have to sit
in front of your speakers with furrowed
brow to appreciate Mr. Lewis’s talent.
The music is unpretentious, never less
than skilfully written, and deserves
a modest place in the grand tradition
of British "Light Music".
William R. Trotter
The Delamere String Quartet (James Davis and Arnold
Goodger, violins; Nicola Akeloyd, viola; Sylvia
Knussen, cello) 
