second inaugural

[calimac]

I already watched the real inaugural yesterday on YouTube, so why should I watch this one? For the speeches and the music, I guess.

Obama's speech was an uplifting recitation of the liberal creed - we help people in order to lift them up and make life better for everyone, ourselves included - with only one serious clang, where he said that the purpose of schools and colleges is to train workers. Ugh, ack.

The Inaugural Poet said "crescendoing". Is there even such a word?

And was that an allusion to the Newtown shootings? My!

The music: That choral arrangement of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was one of the most hideous things I have ever heard. The woman who sang "My Country Tis of Thee" was not much better. James Taylor, who is a lot balder than in the last time I saw a photo of him, maybe forty years ago, turned "America the Beautiful" into a James Taylor song, no surprise. Unfortunately it's not a James Taylor song, is it? The credit of the event has to go to Beyonce, whoever that might be, for demonstrating what a tasteful alteration of "The Star-Spangled Banner" sounds like. The figurations and elaborations she added to the melody were always at the song's service and never got in its way. I was pleased.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I understand the urge to flinch at "crescendo" as a verb, but really, in general, any English content word can equally well be a noun, a verb, or an adjective. The main exceptions are old short Germanic words where you often have a noun and a verb with the same (or similar) consonant skeleton(s), but difference vowels: loan and lend, sale and sell, song and sing, food and feed, and so on. And even there contemporary English is often sloppy: People are just about as likely to say "loan me your phone" as "lend me your phone," except in traditional idioms such as "lend a hand."

Did Beyoncé do all four verses, or cut short after the first?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

At the very least, it's inelegant. An inaugural poet should do better.

If anybody ever sings more than the first verse of "The Star-Spangled Banner" on an occasion I describe, I will be sure to mention it. I doubt many people notice that the first verse is in the form of a question which, if you don't continue, never gets answered. Also, it is difficult to resist hearing that verse come to a crashing and final conclusion without feeling the urge to shout out, "Play ball!"

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

As "crescendo" is a verb in itself (it means growing louder), to add an -ing to it is ridiculous. I cringe every time I read that something "reached a crescendo." I think they mean a climax. You can crescendo from extremely soft to very soft. I once wrote to someone who misused the word in this way and he replied that his dictionary defined it as he had used it so it was correct.

You can tell the musicians from the non-musicians.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

My inner curmudgeon is never very far inside when it comes to a national anthem. I think adding any flourishes to any national anthem when sung in its own country is inappropriate. A national anthem sung in the company of its nationals should not be a performance; it's a communitarian exercise, and anything that makes the community feel as though they shouldn't participate is bad and wrong. It may even be Bad and Wrong Wrong Wrong.

The role of a professional singer when it comes to a national anthem, particularly on the occasion of a national ceremony, is to lead the assembled multitude in singing that anthem together. What professional and amateur soloists have been doing instead for many years now has been to perform "The Star-Spangled Banner" as a difficult solo, which discourages some people from joining in and encourages others to glare at those who sing along. The song becomes a distancing device rather than a joining ritual.

The time to perform a national anthem rather than sing it is in concert in some country other than its own, or in a recording studio.

Next: Kate tells everyone to take off those hats. And hey! None of that hand on the heart stuff! This is a song, not an oath.

[(Anonymous)]

So Beyonce is, as Tolkien once said, "just an 'Ava Gardner' to you"!

It is being widely rumored that she lip-synced the national anthem (paging Yo-Yo Ma), but it doesn't sound that way to me.

"My Country Tis of Thee" was sung (or not) by Kelly Clarkson, who was the first winner of the American Idol television contest in 2002, and is, depending on how one measures, the most successful alumni of that show (the other contender is country singer Carrie Underwood, who has sold more albums but fewer singles; Underwood also has won more Grammy awards). I'm not a big fan, but she's capable of better.

Speaking of inaugural music, I watched the parade specifically to see the Boston Crusaders Drum & Bugle Corps, whose medley of patriotic tunes unfortunately was too short for the distance they had to cover, since it ended just as they reached the presidential viewing stand, with most of what they played in the previous minute shown on TV covered up by the announcer. I found them slightly off their game, perhaps due to limited rehearsal time (they're a summer ensemble, whose members are dispersed across the country during the rest of the year); though they finished nicely, they're capable of better, too. The Crusaders were very strong in competition last summer playing selections from Respighi.

-MTD/neb

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

To answer your question, pretty much. I was vaguely aware there was a celebrity by that moniker, but I couldn't have told you anything about her, and I certainly wouldn't have recognized her if Robert Graves or anyone else had introduced us.

Learning that Clarkson is an American Idol alumna relieves my concern of not having heard even her name before. I only hear of American Idol alumni if they're mentioned in the "Luann" comic strip.

James Taylor, at least, I knew, though I hadn't given him a thought in decades, and indeed was surprised that he's still around. Had I been asked, out of the blue, "Whatever became of the singer/songwriter James Taylor?" I would have said, "Didn't he die in a plane crash in the early 70s?" A little research reveals that the person I would have been thinking of was Jim Croce, which leads to the realization that I had never previously been consciously aware that "Fire and Rain" and "Time in a Bottle" were not by the same guy.