A fine line for perfect Glen
QUESTION What instruments are used in the magical fade-out of the Glen Campbell song Wichita Lineman?
THOUGH the country music star Glen Campbell had bigger hits, including the number one Rhinestone Cowboy, no song has stood the test of time or packed more of an emotional punch than his renowned rendition of Jimmy Webb’s Wichita Lineman.
Webb was inspired to write the song in 1968 while driving through his native Oklahoma. He noticed the endless telephone poles, occasionally with a lone figure atop fixing the lines, the picture of loneliness.
The record is a threeminute masterpiece. On paper, it’s just two verses, each composed of two rhymed couplets. Webb considered it unfinished. However, Campbell completed it with a majestic guitar solo as a phantom verse.
Showing off his huge Gulbransen electric church organ to Campbell one afternoon, Webb observed that the keyboard’s unique sound evoked the noise of signals passing through the telephone wires.
Campbell was so taken with this that he had the one-ton instrument shipped to the recording studio at the Capitol building in Hollywood.
Webb played the three repeating notes that fade Wichita Lineman. Producer Al De Lory orchestrated the high-pitched, ethereal violins used to reproduce the wind blowing across telephone wires.
Campbell’s mournful guitar solo was played on a Danelectro, a sixstring, solid body electric bass guitar he borrowed from accomplished bass player Carol Kaye who was a member of the famous Wrecking Crew session band.
L. Wiseman, Bradford, W. Yorks.
QUESTION Why is the phrase Dundee United used as an insult in Africa?
DUNDEE United has been used as a term of abuse meaning fool or idiot by Nigerians for almost half a century.
But we only became aware of this when the phrase featured in a 2010 BBC documentary about life in Lagos. In the 1980s, the phrase was used in an advertisement on Nigerian TV.
It dates to a disastrous 1972 tour of West Africa by Scottish team Dundee United FC. The team had an excellent reputation and were expected to display their sills in exhibition matches against amateur sides. Things did not go according to plan.
Dundee started the tour with a draw and a 1-0 win before losing their next match 2-0 in front of 35,000 people, drawing another game and then ending with a 4-1 hammering by local team
Stationery Stores. The soccerloving Nigerians were dismayed. Excuses were made: Dundee United had travelled to Africa after a long season at home and had played five games in 16 days in hot weather.
But the mood of the Nigerians was not helped when he visiting players complained of stomach bugs, humidity and traffic jams and said they had seen vultures and hyenas in the airport.
From then on in Nigeria, Dundee United became a term of reproach for someone considered to be a loser. The expression has become so much a part of everyday language there that many people who use it are totally unaware Dundee United is a soccer club. Ian MacDonald, Billericay, Essex.
QUESTION For a country with a strong musical heritage, why is Ireland under-represented in the classical canon?
FURTHER to the previous answer, while it is true that Ireland has not developed a classical music tradition to compare with that in many other European countries, we do possess a surprising number of noteworthy composers and performers in this field.
One of the chief problems is that we rarely get to hear many of the composers performed live.
Since early in the 20th Century, modern composers of any nationality have found it difficult to compete for inclusion on concert, operatic and recital programmes against the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms etc. Any regular attendee at Dublin’s National Concert Hall can’t have failed to notice a drop in attendance when an unfamiliar name is on the programme. Indeed it is not uncommon to see people arrive or leave at the interval to avoid hearing the work of an unfamiliar name.
Regrettably this is especially so when the composer is Irish. We as the audience need to encourage promoters by not shying away from the unfamiliar.
In addition to the composers mentioned in the previous answer, there are a number of others well worthy of inclusion. John Field (1782-1837), who was born in Golden Lane, Dublin, is an obvious candidate, being in his time both a composer and pianist of renown in Europe, and these days throughout the world.
Recordings of his complete seven piano concertos are currently available by no less than four separate artists, two of who are Irish.
Field, like Chopin, wrote almost exclusively for the piano and is credited with having invented the nocturne, later taken up and made famous by the Polish composer.
Foremost, and a personal favourite in the Irish symphonic field, John Kinsella (born in Dublin in 1932), whose most recent 11th Symphony was premiered in 2019, has composed modern while very approachable works, most of which are available on CD.
If you are up for a challenge, the widely regarded Tipperary-born Frank Corcoran (born in 1944), writes in a very avant garde style and is the first Irish composer to have a symphony premiered in Vienna. A J Potter (1918-80), born in Belfast, wrote many attractive works notably his fine Sinfonia ‘De Profundis’.
If opera is your thing, there’s Dubliner Michael William Balfe (1808-70), Waterford-born William Vincent Wallace (1812-65) and, one of the most eminent operatic composers worldwide today, the highly original Gerald Barry, born in Clarecastle, Co. Clare in 1952.
In recent years, Barry’s works have been performed at the BBC Proms and in many of the world’s great opera houses.
It would be remiss not to also include accomplished composers like Howard Ferguson, Seán Ó Riada, John F Larchet, Frederick May and John Buckley.
While it is true that many (but not by any means all) of our best talents trained abroad, we have managed to produce a substantial pantheon of which we can be proud. Given the disadvantages they had to overcome in a small nation lacking a strong classical tradition, perhaps we do punch somewhat above our weight.
Bill Delaney, Ballymore Eustace, Co. Kildare
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