November's Greetings

Hi, All,

After almost 2 months (June and July) of checking without any new posting, I thought our blog had been abandoned. So, I was surprised to see the good stuffs posted by Mark Lin and Mark Yang.

Mark Lin's posting about "the last rose of summer" really struck the core in me. I happen to consider this song the most beautiful folk song of them all. I have collected quite a few recordings. The best (again in my opinion) was sung by Leontyne Price in Flotow's version. Two years ago, in a Dublin pub, with Guinness of course, I asked our tour guide to sing it, but he declined. Then, when we were at a B&B in a small Irish town, the 75 years old keeper did granted my request and sang it wonderfully. She used to a choir singer in younger days. A few years back, my family was celebrating my birthday at a restaurant where there were a keyboard player and a fiddler performing. Right after we finished our entrees, the fiddler came to our table and played this song for me. Needless to say, I was quite moved. It turned out my daughter had asked them to. I have listened to so many recordings and performances from profesionals down to school kids, and I have not heard a single bad one. I guess the song is so good that no matter how you sing or play it, it just comes out nice. As far as I know, Flotow was the only composer adapting the whole folk song into his work, unlike Puccini and others. Some critics had said that "The last rose of summer" made the opera Martha, not the opera made the song. I think there are more people who know this song than people who know Flotow and Martha. By the way, I don't think Puccini did a good job with oriental materials; both Turandot and Madam Butterfly are not that great except the two famous arias that are more Italian. Actually, I feel Puccini demeaned Chinese and Japanese in those operas.

Other follow up coming.