Back in time for Christmas

 

Last year, when Gordon and I spent Christmas with a couple of our dear friends, we made a solemn promise to each other that in the future, the only Christmas gift that we are allowed to give each other must be something edible. We decided that much of our money was wasted on the merest trifles that one does not really need. The best gifts in life come free; lying on the grass in the summer, walking on the sandy beach while listening to the sound of the ocean, the unconditional love of a pet, the scent of gardenia flowers at dawn, the beauty of sunrise or sunset, etc…perfect poetic pleasures in life that do not penetrate us with the most lofty sense of materialism.

A hamper basket for Gordon

So, I made up a delicious and personalised hamper as my Christmas gift for Gordon. It contains his favourite treats; a tin of hot chocolate, English Breakfast Tea, a jar of honey, marmalade, shortbread biscuits,  Milk and Dark Chocolate Truffles, and so on.

I confess that there was absolutely no stress in acquiring each small item for this hamper and pack them into in an elegant order inside the dark willow storage basket. It has been sitting on my sofa, beautifully presented with a tied red ribbon for a week. But I feel that something else is missing in the basket among all the treats. The joys of giving food as a present are a different kind but none the less delightful. First of all, one must know the person really well if one is giving him or her food as a gift. One must aware of what their likes and dislikes are.

This morning I realised that one thing that is missing in my hamper for Gordon is Soul Food. Here, I should like to make it clear that when I say soul food, I do not mean the cuisine traditionally associated with the southern United States. What I meant by Soul Food is a kind of feast that can be consumed by either sight or sound. So, I went to the junk shop outside of the city this afternoon and searched for something that can add to my hamper.

 

I have been to this junk shop several times before. One really need to spend days to find out the extensive collection or repository of treasures or junks (isn’t there a saying – one man’s junk is another man’s treasure?). The entire collection – some of which are slightly more superior in quality than others – is housed in several ramshackle warehouses and you are free to wander around and browse as long as you wish. One thing is for sure – there is no shortage of surprises when you are inside this magpie’s nest. All one needs is a pair of keen eyes to pick out any glittering cast-off objects that once had so much meanings and sentiments but now, without their owners, they mean nothing other than inanimate objects. They look like little orphans being abandoned in the orphanage.

 

Going into these warehouses brings me a certain form of sadness as well as delight (mainly from the thrill of hunting). At the same time, looking at these objects from the dusty shelves, I feel transported to another bygone era, as though these objects are symbols and keys to unlock and liberate us from the prison cell of the present and guide us back gently towards a calmer and more reassuring place by opening the doors of the past.  Proust’s masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) is a tale that has the most beautiful and magnificent reconciliation between past and present:

“… with reawakening sensibilities, memory also reawakened, he had begun to ponder over the elements of his old faith, and blend them with his new impressions, till he recovered a consciousness of unity between his past and present.”

(Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured, p. 145)

I walked up and down the aisles in the warehouse to find the inspiration for Gordon. Finally, I stopped at the corner of an aisle where there were hundreds and hundreds of records, some were on the shelves and others were kept inside the box.

 

Music means a great deal to Gordon. It is his way of finding refuge and solace when he is relaxing and reading. It is also a form of consolation at a time when he feels he would not sacrifice a single moment's pleasure by cultivating thoughts related to exalted subjects which do not provide the answers to some of the very serious questions that life asks us. His passion is mainly classical music. Lately, he told me how much he adored the voice of German soprano, Tiana Lemnitz singing Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder. I looked for this forgotten singer in one of the boxes that has been marked as “Classical – Vocal” among the classical music piles. During my cursory inspection on the various record boxes, I was lucky enough to discover her record titled “The Art of Tiana Lemnitz” that contains three LP records.

The Art Of Tiana Lemnitz (3 LP Records Box Set) found in the junk shop. I bought it as a gift for Gordon.

I ought to point out that as much as Gordon admires her voice tremendously, he does not agree with her politics. In the book “Singers of the Century”, the musicologist, John Barry Steane criticised her as follows:

“Lemnitz by all accounts remained an unrepentant devotee of the Third Reich to the end of her days. I never think that we should judge a person, let alone an artist, by such abhorred but uprooted facts; but I do find it a paradox, and a painful one, that the woman with the angelic voice should have been, as seems all too likely, the taunter of the virtually exiled and vulnerably older Lehmann when they were thrown together in the intimacies of Rosenkavalier’s first Act in 1938.”  

(Singers of the century, John B. Steane, p. 194)

Mahler’s The Song of the Earth - A Brand New LP record - This is the second record I bought in the junk shop for Gordon. I found it in the same box as Tiana Lemnitz's record. Who knows they both came from the same owner? Gordon loves the voice of Nan Merriman. 

 

In addition to Tiana Lemnitz’s record, I was fortunate to find another interesting record, Mahler’s The Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde) inside the vault, so to speak. I was absolutely amazed to find that this record is a brand new and it is still sealed in its original cellophane package which has never been opened. The music is incredibly beautiful but this particular record is performed by Nan Merriman and Ernst Häfliger. The conductor is not Eugen Jochum on this record but rather, Eduard Van Beinum, a highly gifted Dutch conductor, famous for his musical and stylistic competence as well as his sensitive touch and precision.

It would be a perfect way to end the evening after Christmas dinner by listening to these two records that I bought for Gordon from the junk shop on the gramophone player at home like this contented gentleman here in the picture. (Image credit: Mad Dogs & Englishmen)

I felt that my afternoon spending time in the warehouse, wandering and looking through the objects, languishing under the layers of dusts, from the bygone era was not altogether a wasted journey. I came home with two very special, unusual records for Gordon. I sincerely hope that he would be pleased with them. It would be a perfect way to end the evening after our Christmas dinner by listening to these two records together. It is my ideal form of entertainment. After all, as one famous writer puts it: “By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of man's souls…" (John Galsworthy)