Intermezzo

Jane Birkin au Cadogan Hall

Jane Birkin - Cadogan Hall, 31 January 2013

Many singers pay homage to Serge Gainsbourg. Some even drop a song or two of his into their sets. But Jane Birkin remains the only one prepared to dedicate a whole show to his work. Of course it helps that several of the songs she sings were written specially for her. But how his musical heritage will be preserved once she hangs up her dancing shoes is a matter for contemplation.  She herself says, "The poets do not die if one carries their words". Surely and sadly the converse is true as well.

Natalie Dessay goes pop

 

Natalie Dessay has said au revoir to JDF. Temporarily anyway. Her latest musical partner is the legendary composer and pianist Michel Legrand.

Last Tuesday they recorded some of Legrand's music together in a TV studio. The results will be broadcast in June on the occasional French TV show Tandem, the concept of which is to bring together two artists from different generations and backgrounds. Natalie isn't the first opera singer to appear - another recent pairing was Roberto Alagna and Jane Birkin (continue reading on the next page for the grisly video evidence).

Natalie's pop singing is a pleasant surprise. She doesn't make the mistake of applying a full-powered operatic soprano to Legrand's music (like certain nameless crossover catastrophes) - instead she sings in a sweet, unforced natural voice.

Check it out! - rehearsal videos over the page ..................

Jane Birkin - still charmante after all these years

Jane Birkin - Barbican, 21 February 2009

Only Jane Birkin could dress like David Brent and get away with it. Yes, even an ill-fitting waistcoat and skew-whiff tie seem effortlessly cool if they're paired with artlessly rolled shirt sleeves, casually draped braces and an adorably rumpled pixie cut.

The eternal waif and holder of the Gainsbourg flame wasn't sure whether to speak English or French to the Barbican audience, so she ended up with a bit of each. After forty years in Paris, her French is no longer the muddled gab that inspired Serge Gainsbourg's Pas Long Feu. Yet her English remains anachronistically Celia Johnson-proper.

The songs were mostly French, and mostly Serge's - Ford Mustang, Ex-Fan des Sixties, and Sous le Soleil Exactement started as she meant to go on. That tiny, tremulous voice should by rights be a passé ex-novelty, but it still sounds fresh after forty years, encompassing humour and tenderness and wistful longing. The classical solemnity of the four piece band - piano, cello, double bass and acoustic guitar - benefitted some songs more than others.

For Yesterday Yes a Day, she abandoned the stage and wandered amongst her adoring audience toting a microphone in one hand and a lightbulb-budded umbrella in the other. A magical inspiration that converted any remaining doubters.

There was a little - just a little - politics with Jane's own song Aung San Suu Kyi. And interleaved between the Gainsbourgs were Beth Gibbons's Strange Melody, Tom Waits's Alice and a few whimsical self-penned numbers from her latest album, Enfants d'Hiver. But as ever it was the Gainsbourg that everyone wanted most. As she launched into Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais, it seemed the evening was about to end, but, no, she managed Les P'tits Papiers and a couple more before leaving.

  

 

 

 

 

Serge Gainsbourg takes over Cite de la Musique

In October, a major exhibition dedicated to the life and work of Serge Gainsbourg opens at the Musée de la musique in Paris.

It's accompanied by a series of concerts and films, starting on 22 and 23 October with a reconstruction of Histoire de Melody Nelson by Jean-Claude Vannier, who arranged the original score. Various guest singers (including the legendary Brigitte Fontaine) will perform the songs.

There's also a rare screening of the quintessential '60's groovy pop musical Anna on 26 October. 

The exhibition runs until March 2009. The permanent exhibits will meanwhile be closed for renovation.

Valse de Melody from Histoire de Melody Nelson:

5 bis Rue de Verneuil