Posted on 02/10/2019 3:59:04 PM PST by Twotone
Michel Legrand died a fortnight ago, of sepsis after contracting a pulmonary infection. He was 86, which is a grand age, but he was very active and had a full concert schedule booked for the spring. So one resents somewhat, as I mentioned re Albert Finney yesterday, the randomness of fatal affliction in otherwise healthy old men. Sometimes with the advancing years a writer starts to sound written out - as if everything he has to say has already been said. Legrand didn't sound like that to me. My pal Jessica Martin was in his last show, Marguerite, in the West End a few years back, with a story by Boublil & Schönberg (of Les Misérables) and lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, and Michel's music was better than 95 per cent of the alternatives playing London that season. Round about the same time Jess and I made a record of one of Legrand's hits from the early Seventies, "Sweet Gingerbread Man", mainly 'cause I felt not enough fellows sing it these days.
Michel's father, Raymond Legrand, was a pupil of Fauré who became a moderately successful conductor, accompanying Maurice Chevalier, Georges Guétary and the like. For a man with so quintessentially French a name as Michel Legrand - or "Big Mike," as a mutual friend used to call him - Big Mike was, in fact, half-Armenian on his mother's side. A couple of years after Michel's birth in 1932, Raymond abandoned the wife and kids, and spent the next decade or so consorting with other women and indeed the Vichy regime.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Sinfonia Concertante by W. A. Mozart, 2nd Movement.
His father, Raymond Legrand was the student of Gabriel Faure’! I’m impressed. Monseiur Faure’ is best known to me by Two compositons: A...The Pavane in F Sharp Minor, Opus 50.
I only know of it because in the 1980’s a TV station would sign off at 2AM with that song.
They would show a pair of Swans gliding on a pool in the dusk. At the end of the song, the swans were both asleep, heads tucked under their feathered wings.
I never forgot that peaceful promenade into Dreamland.
B. Requiem Opus 48; Introit and Kyrie.
I heard this done acapella and sung by a Boy’s Choir.
Hauntingly beautiful!
Yes, he links to it in the column.
Profound article...
thank you for sharing this.
For some strange reason I also like Harrison's.
Hate his politics, but Sting is a good interpreter of songs.
Vocals: James Ingram & Patti Austin
’The Music Never Ends’ (1982)
https://bit.ly/2GhD3WR
More like Mozart. Same key, same chord pattern and almost the same melody.
Mozart: Sinfonia concertante in E-flat for Violin and Viola, 2nd movement
James Ingram just passed a few days ago.
Composers: Alan & Marilyn Bergman And Michel Legrand
Vocals: James Ingram & Patti Austin
The Music Never Ends (1982)
Maureen McGovern has recorded several Legrand songs as well. Underrated singer, IMHO.
(apology on the double post)
Composer: Michel Legrand
What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life (1972 Demo Recording)
LOL, she did a great cover of "Respect".
The song came from "The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart," the 1969 film that introduced Don Johnson to the world.
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