Flanders and Swann

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The British duo "Flanders and Swann" consisted of the actor and singer Michael Flanders (1922-1975) and the composer, pianist and linguist Donald Swann (1923-1994), who wrote and performed couplets and musical parodies from 1948 to 1967 . Her perennial two-man revues At the Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat (1956–1967) were recorded live along with several studio-based albums.

Musical partnership

Flanders and Swann were both students at Westminster School (where they performed the revue Go To It in July and August 1940 ) and Christ Church College , Oxford , but went different ways during World War II . A chance meeting in 1948 established their musical partnership - Flanders wrote the lyrics and Swann composed the music. Her songs were then performed by the singers Ian Wallace and Joyce Grenfell , well-known at the time .

In December 1956, the artists rented the New Lindsey Theater in Notting Hill and performed their own two-man revue for the first time on New Year's Eve 1956, entitled At the Drop of a Hat . Accompanied by Swann at the piano, Flanders sang a selection of the songs they had written and made the comical transitions between the pieces. Since Flanders suffered from poliomyelitis (polio) in 1943 , both actors remained seated throughout the show: Flanders in a wheelchair and Swann on his piano stool. The revue was successful and was relocated to the Fortune Theater for two years the following month before the two toured the UK , US , Canada and Switzerland .

In 1963 the second revue, At the Drop of Another Hat, was ready and performed in combination with the first revue in Great Britain, Australia , New Zealand , Hong Kong and Canada; the USA tour ended at the Booth Theater on Broadway . On April 9, 1967, the last joint live show was performed, ten days later it was recorded for television in the studio.

Over a period of 11 years Flanders and Swann gave almost 2,000 live performances. Even if their mutual artistic partnership ended in 1967, the two remained friends and collaborated on occasional projects.

Performances

year place
1956 New Lindsey Theater, Notting Hill
1957-59 Fortune Theater (suspended for a month due to pneumonia at Flanders)
1959 Edinburgh Festival "At the Drop of a Kilt"
1959-60 Golden Theater, New York
1960-61 12-city tour through the USA and Toronto
1961 Switzerland
1962 9-city tour of Great Britain and Toronto
1963 9 cities tour of the UK
1963 Haymarket Theater
1964 4 cities tour of Australia, 5 of New Zealand, plus Hong Kong
1965 3 City Tour of Great Britain
1965 Globe Theater
1966 9-city tour through the USA and Toronto
1966-67 new York

Songs by Flanders and Swann

Typical of Flanders and Swann's songs are wit, mild satire, complex rhyme schemes and catchy refrains. Flanders said in At the Drop of Another Hat “The purpose of satire, it has been rightly said, is to strip off the veneer of comforting illusion and cozy half-truth. And our job, as I see it, is to put it back again. ” (It is correctly said that the purpose of satire is to remove the veil of soothing illusion and comfortable half-truths. Our job is - like me see it - restore this.)

In total, they put together over 100 couplets , the following selection gives an impression of the range:

  • "All Gall" - a political satire based on the long career of Charles de Gaulle . When the play was first performed, de Gaulle had just blocked Britain's first application to join the EEC (the forerunner organization of the EU).
  • “Bedstead Men” - an ironic explanation of why old rusty bed frames can be found in pools and lakes everywhere in England.
  • "First and Second Law" - probably the only couplet ever written about thermodynamics .
  • "The Gasman Cometh" - A song with the realization that an activity is never finished without creating a new one - here in the form that a new branch of trade always has to repair the damage caused by the previous one.
  • "The Hippopotamus " - one of the most popular songs by Flanders and Swann, especially due to the catchy refrain ("Mud, mud, glorious mud")
  • "The Gnu " - alludes to the differences between the spelling and pronunciation of words in English; one of a series of "animal songs" (e.g. "The Warthog " and "The Armadillo ").
  • "Ill Wind" - Flanders tells the slightly shortened version of Mozart's last movement of the Horn Concerto in E flat major (KV 495) the story of the loss of his own horn.
  • “In The Desert” ( Верблюды , lit. = “ Camels ”) - a “traditionally Russian” song that Donald Swann will perform once for a change. The text is translated into English by Swann after every line and is highly repetitive, which - to the increasing frustration of Michael Flanders - makes the translation practically unnecessary.
  • "Madeira M'Dear" - a couplet about a seduction scene with complex puns and triple stuff .
  • "Misalliance" - a political allusion based on a love story between a honeysuckle (a honeysuckle ) and bindweed (a winch ).
  • “The Reluctant Cannibal” - a discussion between father and son about the cultural acceptance of cannibalism .
  • "A Song of Patriotic Prejudice" - a not particularly serious song about the virtues of the English over Welsh, Scots, Irish and others.
  • “A Song of Reproduction” - satire about the then very current mania of placing and wiring your own hi-fi equipment. “Raise the ceiling four feet, move the fireplace from that wall to that wall, you'll still only get the stereophonic effect if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard.” ( Raise the ceiling by 1.2 m, relocate the chimney from this to that wall, and you still only get the stereophonic effect if you sit in this closet.)
  • "To Kokoraki" ( Το Κοκοράκι , The Cockerel ) - a song by Swann in New Greek and in style equivalent to "Old MacDonald's Farm", where a new animal sound is added to each line. The supposedly annoyed Flanders remarks, “We must have it in full some night. Alternated with The Ring Cycle " . (We have to do the full version for one evening. Alternating with the Ring of the Nibelung .)
  • "A Transport of Delight" - is about the red double-decker buses and their drivers that are typical of London ; the unimaginably high price of one pound per trip, which was still satirical at the time, has now been exceeded.
  • "20 Tons of TNT" - a song about thermonuclear weapons .
  • “The Wompom” - the story of a fictional plant and the unimaginable possibilities it offers for industry.

Songs from At the Drop of a Hat

At the Drop of a Hat was recorded twice - as a long-playing record in 1957 and live as part of the last performance at the Fortune Theater on May 2, 1959. The second recording has been available on CD since 1991.

  • A Transport of Delight - 5:53
  • Song of Reproduction - 7:06
  • The Gnu Song - 3:26
  • Design for Living - 3:52
  • Je Suis Le Ténébreux - 2:27
  • Songs for Our Time ( Philological Waltz / Satellite Moon / A Happy Song ) - 4:16
  • A Song for the Weather - 2:05
  • The Reluctant Cannibal - 3:55
  • Greensleeves (monologue) - 7:51
  • Misalliance - 3:55
  • To Kokoraki - 5:05
  • Madeira M'Dear - 3:52
  • Too Many Cookers - 3:12
  • Vanessa - 3:55
  • Tried by the Center Court (monologue) - 3:45
  • The Youth of the Heart - 4:17
  • The Hippopotamus Song - 3:12

Songs from At the Drop of Another Hat

Recorded during a performance at the Haymarket Theater , London, in 1963.

  • The Gas Man Cometh - 6:44
  • Sounding brass
  • Los Olividados (monologue) - 6:38
  • In the Desert - 3:45
  • Ill wind - 5:01
  • First and Second Law - 2:56
  • All Gaulle - 3:53
  • Horoscope - 1:10
  • Friendly Duet - 2:20
  • Bedstead Men - 3:16
  • By Air (monologue) - 6:17
  • Slow Train - 5:26
  • A Song of Patriotic Prejudice - 2:51
  • Built-Up Area (monologue) - 3:22
  • In the Bath - 2:34
  • Sea Fever - 3:55
  • Hippo Encore - 1:16

Songs from The Bestiary of Flanders & Swann

Studio shot without an audience

  • The Warthog (The Hog Beneath the Skin) - 4:14
  • The Sea Horse - 1:31
  • The Chameleon - 1:01
  • The Whale (Mopy Dick) - 3:29
  • The Sloth - 3:14
  • The Rhinoceros - 2:36
  • Twosome: Kang & Jag - 2:04
  • Dead Ducks - 0:41
  • The Elephant - 2:40
  • The Armadillo - 3:52
  • The Spider - 2:21
  • Threesome: Duck Billed Platypus / The Humming Bird / The Portuguese Man-O'-War - 1:05
  • The Wild Boar - 2:23
  • The Ostrich - 2:56
  • The Wompom - 5:52

Songs from Tried by the Center Court

15 songs that were part of the stage shows at some point (recorded in 1977). Seven of them were included on the 'Bestiary' CD (as The Extiary ) in order to achieve a full running time.

  • Twice Shy - 4:12
  • Commonwealth Fair (a parody of Widecombe Fair ) - 4:06
  • P ** P * B **** B ** D ****** - 6:20
  • Paris - 4:05
  • A little night music Chachacha - 0:31
  • The Hundred song - 1:09
  • Food for Thought - 3:55
  • Bed - 3:19

Songs from And Then We Wrote

A 1974 BBC Radio production.

  • Introduction
  • In The D'Oyly Cart
  • Prehistoric Complaint
  • The album
  • There's A Hole In My Budget
  • Seven Ages Of Woman
  • Fragments
  • Pillar To Post
  • Guide to Britten
  • Excelsior
  • Rain On The Plage
  • Last Of The Line
  • Rockall
  • The Lord Chamberlain's Regulations

Songs from single records

These are the only two songs with an extended orchestra. They are also included in The Extiary .

  • Side A: 20 Tons of TNT - 2:30
  • Side B: The War of 14-18 - 2:15

Monologues

Flanders kept bringing monologues between the pieces, which served as - sometimes very lengthy - transitions:

  • “By Air” - about the then emerging travel for the general public by plane. "On the way to the airport you pass the sign 'Beware of low flying air planes'. Not much you can do about it. Except to take your hat off. ”(On the way to the airport, you pass the sign saying 'Warning low flying planes'. There isn't much you can do about it.
  • "Greensleeves" - about the genesis of the famous English song Greensleeves . A version with notes and explanations of the allusions can be found here .
  • "Los Olividados" - based on the prejudice of the small population from small Andorra, Flanders describes the festival of olivadados, a modification of the bullfight in which the bull is replaced by an olive. The title is a reference to Los Olvidados , a 1950 film by director Luis Buñuel .
  • “Built-up Area” - a prehistoric resident of Salisbury complains about the new buildings: Stonehenge .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Donald Swann Website
  2. ↑ Michael Flanders and Donald Swann . Ian Kitching. August 13, 1995. Retrieved April 17, 2009.
  3. ↑ Written Specially for the New York tour and recorded in New York
  4. ^ Translation of the satirical song by Georges Brassens

Web links