|
What a bitter bard thou art, Elvis.
Elvis Costello's new The Juliet Letters disc plunges to deep depths of dense despair, aching with empathy for playwright William Shakespeare's most tragic heroine.
Loosely written around a news bright about a professor in Verona who responds to correspondence addressed to "Juliet Capulet" (the fictitious dead lover of Romeo and Juliet), The Juliet Letters is largely composed of 17 imaginary missives set to elegant orchestral arrangements.
The collection brings an entirely new meaning to "classic Costello." Juliet doesn't simply reference the structure of classical composition; stripped of Costello's vocals, it's a lovely set of contemporary chamber works.
Costello allies himself here with The Brodsky Quartet, a string outfit out of London. The musicians — Michael Thomas, Ian Belton, Paul Cassidy and Jacqueline Thomas — participate in not only the performance, but also the scoring and letter-writing.
Costello wrote the 49-second dirge that ushers in the set, but the compositional duties are shared alike on the bulk of the other selections. A common love for wordplay runs throughout, and no attempt is made to prettify the hypothetical correspondence to compliment the music's regal framework.
The letters themselves range from love prose to suicide notes to junk mail, etched in stunning detail that is simultaneously ordinary and poetic.
When the disparate formats jibe, it's a richly detailed tapestry. "Jacksons, Monk and Rowe" draws a sophisticated parallel between childhood disappointment and adult disillusionment, while "Romeo's Seance" sympathetically examines a young man's inability to accept his lover's death, in lyrics she "dictates" from the other side.
On the chipper "Damnation's Cellar," which cheerfully tallies the luminaries best returned from the dead ("bring back Liberace or Ollie and Stan"), Costello mimics sometimes collaborator Paul McCartney at his most "When I'm 64"-ish.
It's the strangest juxtapositions that spur Costello's most bewitching poetry and theatrical moments. On the wicked "I Almost Had a Weakness," he casts himself as a suspicious, elderly aunt. "When I die, the cats and dogs will jump up and down, and you little swines will get nothing," Costello proclaims. "Though I almost had a weakness."
And the snarling, mock operatic "This Offer Is Unrepeatable" — an aggressive form of solicitation by mail — urges listeners to sign on the line "in blood" for an offer "guaranteed at a price that is almost unbeatable."
The Juliet Letters was recorded live in the studio, without overdubs, which makes Costello's unusually strong vocal performance all the more remarkable. Costello opted to record in analog, sacrificing clarity for warmth, and he gets handsome results.
Whether any of this will even slightly interest Costello's cynical, expectant following is entirely open to speculation.
| 
