One Summer in Majorca

Geoff Page

Someone swaps you onto "Hold" and hits you with the Chopin, the C Sharp Minor Waltz, I think,

and brings you close to tears. The first phrase throws the image up of Chopin and George Sand

on a balcony with palms alone together in Majorca and staring at the sea.

"At night, guitars," he writes a first, "and songs for hours on end."

The future hangs there in the notes, the rushing forward on the beat, the slipping back like surf.

The intervals suffused with light are thinned out on the phone as if the sound of their creation

beside that balcony with palms had never quite decayed away but still arrives

through time and space… though cracking at the edges. The truth, researched,

is less poetic. George Sand has her kids on hand, Maurice and Solange.

The locals think the lovers godless and charge them double price. TB gets them chased from town.

And houses prove a hassle too: the first translates as "House of Winds", the second one has mouldy walls,

this charterhouse abandoned in the hills. It's not the summer of romance but winter all the way.

"I can only go on coughing, and waiting for the spring.' The place they rent at Valldemosa

is threatening collapse around them; the rooms fill up with smoke. And yet George writes her novel here

and he resolves while spitting blood his first two dozen preludes.

It's still there with the phone on "Hold" and just the seasons changed: Chopin and

George Sand together arm in arm in evening light one summer in Majorca.

As a reminder of the stellar song-writing talents of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, here’s Burt with Dione Warwick, sashaying through a few of their compositions - Walk On By, I Say A Little Prayer, Do You Know The Way To San Jose.

Poetry to music...

Burt Bacharach at the piano: Bridgewater Hall; August, 2014.

You should buy this because it’s glorious.

Listen/purchase: Shadow by Adam LeBlanc

Today's Flickr photo with the most hits: this fine statue of Liszt. He's on show at the Hungarian National Opera in Budapest. I didn't see Brahms 😉

Sondheim's died, so I'm breaking the posting rules.

He's my photo of the opening stage set from the National Theatre production of Follies. I attended November 20th, 2017.

Lord knows at least he was there. And he's here. He's still here.

Respect.

To recall Michel Legrand, who died today - this glorious track, performed by Alison Moyet. Chapeau bas!

The Windmills of your Mind

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind! Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind! Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said? Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand? Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong? When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair! Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel As the images unwind, like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind!