Word: sing
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Their terrain is the fresh green land scape of ancient pastoral, replete with somber mountains, gloomy caves, anthropomorphic rivers. They sing not of ordinary men, but of lovers, amoebae, angels, village rustics, swans, emperors, unicorns. And their music is an eerie compound of British and U.S. folk traditions. Indian ragas, rock, calypso, blues, even nursery songs...
They compose their own songs, sing them in soft, burred voices, and ac company themselves on a bewildering array of instruments: guitars, whistles, sitars, ouds, organs, harmonicas, violins and gimbris. At a time when the music scene reverberates with cacophony and aggression, they expound gentleness, lyricism and fantasy. As they put it in one of their songs, Ducks on a Pond, they sing "a magic word, speak of hopes with thoughts absurd...
Then there are the songs. "The Parish Boy's Progress" has nothing to sing about, but that has not stopped Composer-Lyricist Lionel Bart. Starveling orphans chant about Food, Glorious Food. Oliver asks Where Is Love? Fagin warbles, "Can a fellow be a villain all his life?" Well done? Indeed. Appropriate? In doubt. Putting trust in sounds and forms, Bart has obscured the message of "that great Christian," as Dostoevsky once called Dickens. The "demd horrid grind" is gone. In its place is solid, canny entertainment. Purists and sociologists will object as loudly as Christmas audiences will applaud...
...close quarters of the Leverett old library that attests to a happy collaboration. If that doesn't prove Heckschet's worth, watch him as The Girl's Father--a part he had to take over a few days ago. He doesn't look old enough, he can't quite sing, but his intricate vaudeville routines are delightful...
...Circus--Not among the Marx Brothers best, but still funnier than anything else around, save their "Night at the Opera." Before this movie is over, Margaret Dumont is shot out of a cannon, and Groucho gets to sing an Arlen-Harburg number about a tattooed lady. At the SYMPHONY II, Huntington at Mass...