Cold Genius
December 30, 2018 3:20 PM Subscribe
"What Power art thou, Who from below, Hast made me rise, Unwillingly and slow..." (playlist.) "The Frost Scene" from Act 3 of Henry Purcell's 1691 semi-opera King Arthur, or The British Worthy, performed here as a comedy by the French ensemble Le Concert Spirituel. Also called the "Cold Genius Scene", it's probably best known for the "Cold Song," which was reintroduced to modern audiences by Klaus Nomi's haunting rendition.
Klaus Nomi: Watch the Final, Brilliant Performance of a Dying Man
The "Cold Song" was reintroduced again to modern audiences, this time indirectly, when its ostinato was borrowed by contemporary composer Michael Nyman for his funeral march-like piece "Memorial," which was dedicated to the memory of the fans killed in the Heysel Stadium disaster in May 1985. The piece later became integral to the soundtrack of Peter Greenway's film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, which modeled parts of the film on the composition.
Klaus Nomi: Watch the Final, Brilliant Performance of a Dying Man
The "Cold Song" was reintroduced again to modern audiences, this time indirectly, when its ostinato was borrowed by contemporary composer Michael Nyman for his funeral march-like piece "Memorial," which was dedicated to the memory of the fans killed in the Heysel Stadium disaster in May 1985. The piece later became integral to the soundtrack of Peter Greenway's film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, which modeled parts of the film on the composition.
Best version I overheard on the radio: Bass soloist, wayy slow tempo, stutter sounded kinda like he was coughing, very creepy. No idea who the singer was. Also, that chord progression is something.
posted by ovvl at 4:16 PM on December 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by ovvl at 4:16 PM on December 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
My personal favorite is Andreas Scholl's rendition.
posted by homunculus at 4:27 PM on December 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by homunculus at 4:27 PM on December 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
More on Nomi: Klaus Nomi: Cold Genius
posted by homunculus at 4:30 PM on December 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by homunculus at 4:30 PM on December 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
Hey, is anyone is still in contact with scody, could you let her know about this post? She once commented that she deeply adores the Cold Song.
posted by homunculus at 4:34 PM on December 30, 2018
posted by homunculus at 4:34 PM on December 30, 2018
I haven't watched that performance in a long time. Thank you so much for this FPP.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:58 PM on December 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:58 PM on December 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is not a brag (rather the opposite), but the way I read this post was:
"blah blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah, KLAUS NOMI."
posted by BigBrooklyn at 5:10 PM on December 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
"blah blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah, KLAUS NOMI."
posted by BigBrooklyn at 5:10 PM on December 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
The idea for this post came from the bowels of my brain: almost every morning I wake up with a song playing in my head, and this morning it was "Memorial." It struck me as a perfect selection for the penultimate day of the year: think of it as funeral march for 2018.
posted by homunculus at 6:06 PM on December 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 6:06 PM on December 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
I went to a semi-staged performance of King Arthur by The Academy of Ancient Music, and the they bucketed through Cold Song, as if they wanted to get it over with - it's remarkable the range of tempi it's subject to.
King Arthur is an extraordinarily random piece, by the way. Not only does it not have a plot, really, I'm not even sure that it has a bullet list of vague intentions. Fun if you like Purcell, though, and I do.
Nyman also did reconstructions of Purcell for Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract (in fact that's where I first encountered all of them). Chasing Sheep Is Best Left to Shepherds is also based on a bit of King Arthur.
For me, Sheep had an ad before it for The Favourite, which suggests that Google's algorithms are sharper than I thought.
posted by Grangousier at 2:25 AM on December 31, 2018 [3 favorites]
King Arthur is an extraordinarily random piece, by the way. Not only does it not have a plot, really, I'm not even sure that it has a bullet list of vague intentions. Fun if you like Purcell, though, and I do.
Nyman also did reconstructions of Purcell for Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract (in fact that's where I first encountered all of them). Chasing Sheep Is Best Left to Shepherds is also based on a bit of King Arthur.
For me, Sheep had an ad before it for The Favourite, which suggests that Google's algorithms are sharper than I thought.
posted by Grangousier at 2:25 AM on December 31, 2018 [3 favorites]
The bit of King Arthur which Nyman appropriated - it's the prelude to Act III, Scene 2 - has also been used by the Pet Shop Boys in the excellent Love Is A Bourgeois Concept. I had a protracted argument with a pal over whether the PSBs were referencing Nyman (as he said) or Purcell (as I said), which was satisfactorily resolved when I found an interview with Neil Tennant where he talked of using the Purcell score in the studio. This handily forestalls any question of rights, so perhaps he would say that, but still I Was Right and let that be well noted. Hah.
My love for Purcell grows with the years, and I am vexed that he died so young. It's pleasing that he seems to be becoming more popular again.
posted by Devonian at 5:45 AM on December 31, 2018 [4 favorites]
My love for Purcell grows with the years, and I am vexed that he died so young. It's pleasing that he seems to be becoming more popular again.
posted by Devonian at 5:45 AM on December 31, 2018 [4 favorites]
Oh. I'm not sure I really want to get into an argument, but... that's definitely based on Sheep rather than King Arthur - the original - as per this performance - is staccato and halting, whereas Nyman holds the long notes for whole bar and it just rocks along. There's also other parts of his arrangement (for example the four-to-the-floor bass guitar and piano left hand) either included wholesale or given electro pop alternatives. Tennant was probably using the score for the notes, but the arrangement is based on the Nyman one.
I encountered Nyman and Purcell at the same time, and spent a while before the internet seeking out the originals that he used for The Draughtsman's Contract - now listed on the Wikipedia page for the soundtrack - my particular favourite being the way The Garden Is Becoming a Robe Room is based on Here the Deities Approve and A New Ground in E Minor.
posted by Grangousier at 9:00 AM on December 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
I encountered Nyman and Purcell at the same time, and spent a while before the internet seeking out the originals that he used for The Draughtsman's Contract - now listed on the Wikipedia page for the soundtrack - my particular favourite being the way The Garden Is Becoming a Robe Room is based on Here the Deities Approve and A New Ground in E Minor.
posted by Grangousier at 9:00 AM on December 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
> this morning it was "Memorial." It struck me as a perfect selection for the penultimate day of the year: think of it as funeral march for 2018.
@rupertg: "Heavily seconded - this Purcell-quoting piece of Nyman as the funeral march for 2018. May the year be long dead, and may 2019 see compassion, sanity and a desire for progress re-enter our lives."
posted by homunculus at 9:36 AM on December 31, 2018
@rupertg: "Heavily seconded - this Purcell-quoting piece of Nyman as the funeral march for 2018. May the year be long dead, and may 2019 see compassion, sanity and a desire for progress re-enter our lives."
posted by homunculus at 9:36 AM on December 31, 2018
All the love for Purcell is warming the cockles of the cockles of my heart. "Fairest Isle" (also from King Arthur) used to be my standard audition piece, and I'm a huge fan in general.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:22 PM on December 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:22 PM on December 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
that's definitely based on Sheep rather than King Arthur
Of course it is. You don't think I let facts get in the way, do you?
All the love for Purcell is warming the cockles of the cockles of my heart. "Fairest Isle" (also from King Arthur) used to be my standard audition piece, and I'm a huge fan in general.
I had one of the most enjoyable evenings of the decade a few years back when a few musicians from the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment put on a Purcell In The Pub gig in a boozer near Kings Cross. Purcell is so robust and capable of working in so many ways. and has a sheer liveliness and self-confidence that is utterly beguiling. The Frost Scene and things like Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary are wildly inventive, yet from the same pen as Dido's Lament, one of the most pellucidly beautiful songs in any canon and a high point not approached again for two hundred years, until Elgar's Cello Concerto breathed some of the same air.
And those are just the famous bits. So much more, once you've got your ear in.
posted by Devonian at 10:21 AM on January 1, 2019 [3 favorites]
Of course it is. You don't think I let facts get in the way, do you?
All the love for Purcell is warming the cockles of the cockles of my heart. "Fairest Isle" (also from King Arthur) used to be my standard audition piece, and I'm a huge fan in general.
I had one of the most enjoyable evenings of the decade a few years back when a few musicians from the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment put on a Purcell In The Pub gig in a boozer near Kings Cross. Purcell is so robust and capable of working in so many ways. and has a sheer liveliness and self-confidence that is utterly beguiling. The Frost Scene and things like Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary are wildly inventive, yet from the same pen as Dido's Lament, one of the most pellucidly beautiful songs in any canon and a high point not approached again for two hundred years, until Elgar's Cello Concerto breathed some of the same air.
And those are just the famous bits. So much more, once you've got your ear in.
posted by Devonian at 10:21 AM on January 1, 2019 [3 favorites]
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Cold Song is a heartbreaking piece, more so given the lonely death that he endured. A haunting loss of a uniquely different being.
The 2004 film Nomi Song is very much worth a watch. My 8 year old daughter is a huge fan too now, so perhaps he lives on.
Thanks for this post.
posted by RandomInconsistencies at 3:41 PM on December 30, 2018 [4 favorites]