Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

GOT ANY GOSSEC?

F

rancois Joseph Gossec was a Walloon - what a lovely word: Waaaaalllloooonnnnn. Lovely. And even nicer when spoken like you are winding down. To be precise, Gossec was a Walloon who moved away from Antwerp, where he was a boy soprano, and went to work in France. If you were 'the Music Business' in 1763, then he was 'our man in Paris', developing, in his own special way, his symphonies, his string quartets, and all manner of other stuff. In fact, he was the first real symphony man in France, and he wrote hundreds and hundreds of different and, at the time, important works. But now? Well, now he's remembered pretty much for one work. It's not a symphony, sadly, considering that he was a bit of a pioneer in this area; it's not a string quartet. It's a piddly little piece of flute music called Tam-bourin, the favourite of novice flautists the world over, because it's not too hard and it makes them sound like James Galway for just a few minutes, instead of the soundtrack to the Clangers.

It's a tough one, this. What can you do about the fact that numerous composers have written masses and masses of great work - or at least, totally pleasant work - and yet for some reason, history has chosen, in some instances, to remember them for only one work in particular. They're often called 'one-hit wonders', but this isn't quite fair. A one-hit wonder is literally that - someone who wrote or sang one hit, and then couldn't repeat the success. As we mentioned before, Joe Dolce 'What'sa-matter-you, HEY', Renee and Renato, those guys who sang that bloody awful 'Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs'. But the classical guys, well, they did write lots of other hits. It's just that cruel fate has decided that the others won't get a look in. Having said that, at least they get one piece remembered, I guess. There are those who wrote some of the most popular pieces of their day, only to be totally erased from the history books. People like Paisiello, for example, who was massive when he was alive. Now? Well, lucky to get a rare aria included as a filler track on the latest Cecilia Bartoli album.

It's 1764. Here is the news. Buildings are going up like there's no tomorrow. Just finished last year in Paris was La Madeleine, and, this year, Adam's finest, Kenwood House in Hampstead - lovely tea rooms. Talking of all things London, the chattering classes are all abuzz about the latest wheeze - house numbers. Anyone who's anyone has got one, and, indeed, many people who aren't anyone have one too. And what a good idea they are. I mean, London has had post boxes for 120 years, now, and the 'penny post' system for over eighty years, so why not house numbers?

Actually, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. Why did they have post boxes forty years before they had the penny post? What did they have to collect in the post boxes? Just imagine, forty years of unlocking post boxes - 'Oh, empty again… that's odd.' Still. Mine is not to reason why. Anyway, they've got house numbers now, so somewhere to stick their penny post, as it were. Next year, too, they even get pavements, so the guy delivering the mail looks more like a postman and less like Swampy the Eco-Warrior. But I digress a little. Over in America, they are just coming to grips with the taxes on the colonies and it's not looking good, if you ask me. As Foghorn Leghorn might have said, 'There's troub - ah say, there's trouble a-brewin', boy, and it's git - ah say, it's gitting worse bah the cotton pickin' minute.' Sorry. I'm OK now.