Vanity Fair, November 2002

ROCKING AROUND THE CLOCK by Elvis Costello The perfect music for five A.M. jitters, nine A.M. bustle, two P.M. contemplation, eight P.M. assignations? The author presents a 24-hour soundtrack - Mary J. Blige, Haydn, Björk, Van Morrison, Hank Williams Sr. - that can only improve your day. What wakes you up at 5 A.M.? Toothache? Heartbreak? Or the nervous rush that comes from too much wine the previous evening? You can tell yourself it is still "night" in the hour after four. Once five strikes it is indisputably "morning". What sound will soothe as the sharp light floods past the ill-fitting curtains of your hired room? You need fine gauze for the senses. Outside, the last taxis with exhausted revelers skulk home as newspaper trucks sling piles that lie in doorways. Play Joao Gilberto's "Aguas de Marco" (Polygram), a song that has no need to raise its voice. It's either this or John McCormack's Songs Of My Heart: Popular Songs and Irish Ballads (Angel) at a low volume. The circuit of the vanity clock commences. It's just another parlour (or boudoir) game; in the words of Errol Flynn, this is only "for fun and sport". 6 A.M. A time of brief respite, before telephones and televisions assault us, and we may be still and patient enough for Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli sung by the Westminster Cathedral Choir (Hyperion). It was once thought that this work saved music in a time when dogmatic cardinals wanted to forbid the use of polyphony. Scholarship does a disservice to our imaginations by illustrating a more mundane reality. Listening to "Kyrie", you can believe that it would have been persuasive. Voices are raised in praise. Perhaps it is enough to believe that they believe, but if that feels hypocritical, then you could always turn to Monteverdi's "Lamento d'Arianna" performed by the Deller Consort (Vanguard). It speaks of another kind of love and sorrow. 7 A.M. There is a need for order and purpose to the day. Haydn symphonies are ideal at this hour. Concise and with an absence of bombast, they sharpen your wits with a wit of their own.Don't expect this from the slick machine of the modern orchestra. The period group is what you need, with the buzz and clang of the arcane bells, reeds, and bows. There are many recordings, but Volume 2 of the Haydn Symphonies Series, by the Academy Of Ancient Music (L'Oiseau-Lyre), directed by Christopher Hogwood, is a good place to begin. As the murmur of news seeps unbiden through the walls and windows, you may prefer the prophecy of the opening measures of the Mozart String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465", often subtitled "Dissonant", performed by Le Quatuor Talich (Calliope), or turn to the piano for "On An Overgrown Path" played by Andr‡s Schiff on the album Leos Janácek: A Recollection (ECM), or Brahms's autumnal intermezzos "Opuses 117 and 118", performed by Radu Lupu (Decca). 8 A.M. The day is picking up pace. Mingus is playing loud in the kitchen, something is boiling. It's Blues & Roots (Rhino), or the excellent Thirteen Pictures: The Charles Mingus Anthology (Rhino). Hit the repeat function on "Jump Monk". Like the motor of a city, the rattle of an overhead railway, blood coursing back to the heart, air propelled through the pipes of an old hotel. There is a hoarse voice rising to a shout with the force of life. What else would work at this hour? The rock-steady beat of Tighten Up: Trojan Reggae Classics 1968-1974 (Trojan) or "Expecting To Fly" from Neil Young's great, reissued compilation, Decade (Reprise). This page is incomplete.