New York Times, January 31, 1993: Difference between revisions
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<center><h3> Elvis Costello laces punk with grand ambitions </h3></center> | <center><h3> Elvis Costello laces punk with grand{{nb}}ambitions </h3></center> | ||
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<center> Stephen Holden </center> | <center> Stephen Holden </center> | ||
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''The Juliet Letters'' is a suite of 20 songs — three of them instrumentals — that the 38-year-old Costello created collaboratively with the quartet, whose members are in their early 30's. Recorded like a classical chamber music album, without overdubs, the record is a fascinating study in aural contrasts that takes some getting used to. Against the ensemble's sumptuous playing, Costello's stringy voice, with its choked intonation and sarcastic undertone, sounds like the wrong instrument for the right record. | ''The Juliet Letters'' is a suite of 20 songs — three of them instrumentals — that the 38-year-old Costello created collaboratively with the quartet, whose members are in their early 30's. Recorded like a classical chamber music album, without overdubs, the record is a fascinating study in aural contrasts that takes some getting used to. Against the ensemble's sumptuous playing, Costello's stringy voice, with its choked intonation and sarcastic undertone, sounds like the wrong instrument for the right record. | ||
After the initial shock, however, the friction becomes more bracing than jarring. Even when Frank Sinatra recorded his 1957 album, | After the initial shock, however, the friction becomes more bracing than jarring. Even when Frank Sinatra recorded his 1957 album, ''Close to You'', with the Hollywood String Quartet, the disparity between his pop style and the classical setting seemed daring. Costello's singing could never approach Sinatra's full-bodied sensuality and rhythmic command. But his vocalizing of the score's angular melodies, some of which make unexpected, quasi-operatic leaps to the top of his register, remains mostly on pitch. And especially in his quieter moments, his adenoidal baritone, with its wide, quavering vibrato, communicates a pained intensity. | ||
The music, composed by Costello and members of the quartet, sustains a surprisingly felicitous blend of pop narrative and traditional string quartet texture, embracing echoes of composers from Schubert to Shostakovich, with occasional touches of the folksier side of | The music, composed by Costello and members of the quartet, sustains a surprisingly felicitous blend of pop narrative and traditional string quartet texture, embracing echoes of composers from Schubert to Shostakovich, with occasional touches of the folksier side of Bartók. The song structures are loose and open-ended, with several vignettes forgoing conventional song form. | ||
''The Juliet Letters'' is lyrically as well as musically audacious, since most of the songs are in the epistolary mode. The project was inspired, Costello has said, by a newspaper article about a Veronese teacher who began answering letters he was receiving that were addressed to a "Juliet Capulet." But while several songs are variations on ''Romeo and Juliet'', the 20 pieces don't try to make an overarching statement. | ''The Juliet Letters'' is lyrically as well as musically audacious, since most of the songs are in the epistolary mode. The project was inspired, Costello has said, by a newspaper article about a Veronese teacher who began answering letters he was receiving that were addressed to a "Juliet Capulet." But while several songs are variations on ''Romeo and Juliet'', the 20 pieces don't try to make an overarching statement. | ||
As usual with his albums, many of Costello's lyrics invent riddles and revel in tricky plot reverses. "The First to Leave," for instance, is about a posthumously discovered love letter by a writer who sends greetings from purgatory to a partner who does not believe in an afterlife. But even if there is no afterlife, the deceased concludes, "Don't grieve/ You see I had to be the first to leave." | As usual with his albums, many of Costello's lyrics invent riddles and revel in tricky plot reverses. "The First to Leave," for instance, is about a posthumously discovered love letter by a writer who sends greetings from purgatory to a partner who does not believe in an afterlife. But even if there is no afterlife, the deceased concludes, ''"Don't grieve/ You see I had to be the first to leave."'' | ||
In "Romeo's Seance," a bereft young lover tries to contact his beloved in a spiritualist ceremony and produces a poem to read to her. But it is only at the end that Romeo tells Juliet that the poem is one that she herself dictated recently from beyond the grave. | In "Romeo's Seance," a bereft young lover tries to contact his beloved in a spiritualist ceremony and produces a poem to read to her. But it is only at the end that Romeo tells Juliet that the poem is one that she herself dictated recently from beyond the grave. | ||
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''The Juliet Letters'' reinforces the impression that Costello is a mystery writer at heart: he would probably make a terrific author of whodunits. If they were anything like his songs, they would be elaborate stories with labyrinthine plots and many desperate characters getting tangled up in riddles as they try to explain themselves. | ''The Juliet Letters'' reinforces the impression that Costello is a mystery writer at heart: he would probably make a terrific author of whodunits. If they were anything like his songs, they would be elaborate stories with labyrinthine plots and many desperate characters getting tangled up in riddles as they try to explain themselves. | ||
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{{tags}}[[The Juliet Letters]] {{-}} [[The Brodsky Quartet]] {{-}} [[Warner Bros.]] {{-}} [[Frank Sinatra]] {{-}} [[Vanity Fair, November 2000#Franz Schubert|Schubert]] {{-}} [[Vanity Fair, November 2000#Dmitri Shostakovich|Shostakovich]] {{-}} [[Béla Bartók|Bartók]] {{-}} [[Verona]] {{-}} [[The First To Leave]] {{-}} [[Romeo's Seance]] {{-}} [[Taking My Life In Your Hands]] {{-}} [[Swine]] {{-}} [[This Offer Is Unrepeatable]] {{-}} [[Damnation's Cellar]] {{-}} [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] {{-}} [[Elvis Presley]] {{-}} [[Randy Newman]] {{-}} [[This Sad Burlesque]] {{-}} [[Why?]] {{-}} [[John Lennon]] {{-}} [[Stephen Holden]] | |||
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[[Stephen Holden]] reviews ''[[The Juliet Letters]]''. | [[Stephen Holden]] reviews ''[[The Juliet Letters]]''. | ||
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Revision as of 17:47, 30 August 2019
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