Mendelssohn, symphony no. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 “Scottish”.
Moulin Rouge. I quite liked this film. It’s essentially a film musical, with frequent interruptions for songs. (See also Woody Allen’s enjoyable Everyone says I love you for another recent example of the genre.) Somewhat unusually, the songs are all existing, relatively modern pop-songs, and rather incongruous because the movie is set at the turn of the 20th century. Surprisingly, this works well and is part of the movie’s charm. However, I felt the finished product wasn’t totally sure about whether it wanted to be a farcical comedy or a tragedy. Tragedies often include comic elements (Shakespeare’s tragedies exemplify this), but Moulin Rouge didn’t succeed in putting the two things together. I’m not sure, but maybe the comedy was too farcical (the remake of Madonna’s Like a virgin was hilarious but also completely ridiculous), or maybe there was just too much of it. The music was very good, particularly the remake of Roxanne, though Ewen Macgregor doesn’t have much of a singing voice.
Just a month or two ago, in my review of Portrait of the artist as a young man, I provided a link to a web-site all about Joyce that seems to have subsequently disappeared. (It has apparently fallen off the Domain Name Service.) So, just in case you’re desperate for more Joyciana, here’s another site, written by someone who also maintains their own weblog.
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