Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders

Subject: UK Mudcatters Please Help
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Apr 17 - 08:21 PM

Michael Flanders' verses about the atrocity of manufacturing Foie Gras, a poem he titled "Gluttony,"
have been set to music by Joseph Horowitz
recorded in live performance including veteran pianist / accompanist Graham Johnson
and included in a BBC podcast of Private Passions
featuring Stephanie Flanders, Michael Flanders' younger daughter.

Here in the US, I cannot play back that recording. I can't even succeed in my attempts to download it.
I don't know if anybody else outside the UK can do so.

Would you please, UK Mudcatters, advise:

if you know "Gluttony" already?
if you have access to the BBC podcast that I haven't got?

Many thanks.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Apr 17 - 09:26 PM

The podcast is available for download only in the UK, but you can play at least part of the song in the US here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c2lwy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 18 Apr 17 - 10:40 PM

Or....you could use one of the dozens of free proxy servers that will temporarily "spoof" your IP as being part of the BBC service area.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Do not feel guilty... for the medicum of minutes involved...I have left an abundance of un-reclaimed VAT chrages that ill more than cover your bill. The credit's paid, in advance.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Apr 17 - 02:44 AM

Lead us not into temptation, Garg.... [grin]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: DaveRo
Date: 19 Apr 17 - 03:42 AM

Joe Offer wrote: ...you can play at least part of the song in the US here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c2lwy

The download itself only includes the last minute of the song - the last verse I think.

Interesting piece; shades of Brecht-Weill. (It's at 31'30")

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: DaveRo
Date: 19 Apr 17 - 03:43 AM

Correction: 21'30"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: Felipa
Date: 19 Apr 17 - 06:46 AM

I agree that foie gras production is atrocious. I'd also like to see the lyrics.

radio programme with Michael Flanders' daughter http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c2lwy

other foie gras poems
http://cooksdelight.co.uk/blog/2015/08/foie-gras-9/
https://allpoetry.com/poem/12192628-Foie-gras-by-Tiadora-Anderson
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/foie-gras-faux-pas/
https://allpoetry.com/poem/5907915-Foie-Gras-and-an-under-4-by-LeanneBridgewater
http://cooksdelight.co.uk/blog/2015/01/foie-gras-aint-no-star/
http://cooksdelight.co.uk/blog/2015/01/royalty/
(and more - http://cooksdelight.co.uk/blog/category/foie-gras/ )

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Apr 17 - 06:36 PM

Think I will let somebody else dig this particular ditch.

Many thanks for everyone's attention to the question.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: DaveRo
Date: 20 Apr 17 - 03:28 AM

That extract was a "specially recorded performance of an early Flanders song 'Gluttony', commissioned by the 1974 Cheltenham Festival" (ref) (I thought that is a horse-racing event.) If was included on Archive_Hour in 2007, though again probably as an extract. That programme is no longer available, but might be repeated one day.

There might be a single taped copy of this performance. There's another fragment of the song here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 20 Apr 17 - 05:14 AM

k'
I don't know if you can get it on audioboom?

https://audioboom.com/posts/5546997-stephanie-flanders

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Apr 17 - 03:17 PM

The lyrics? Anybody?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 03:26 PM

"Sorry, your browser doesn't support...."
grrrrrrrrr.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 06:53 PM

OK
Here is the end of the song, i.e. the bit in the iplayer, as I hear it, about one minute long
It is in that posh opera type voice when they sound like they are trying to enunciate but actually it is somewhat indecipherable. So I'm only confident(95%) in the bold text.


foie gras, ha, ha.
In the back streets of hell
sat the brath Brasserie
Belshazzar,
Belshazzar
where my lord and his guests
at all hours you may see
by the bar
Yes there they are
stretched out on hot toast racks
basted with grease
while ganders make snacks
of their livers obese
and the mother geese gobbled
and moreyed in grease
Ha Ha Ha [this sounds like French] fo mavoir
(inaudible) encore(inaudible)
[English]So it's 'bon appétit'
and service for free
at the bar
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Foie gras!!!

Sung by the baritone Richard Jackson
Pianist Graham Johnson

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: DaveRo
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 01:50 AM

The earlier bit:

... up food as it comes through the doors
for the licking of chops and the champing of jaws
and foie gras, pâté,
foie gras, foie gras
then a(?) geese up in Strasburg we all have to thank
a ?, César
who stand with their feet firmly nailed to a plank
hélas! hélas!
while rosy-cheeked village girls cram them with corn
at noon and at midnight, at sunset and dawn
till they get the cirrhosis from which there is born
foie gras, foie gras, foie gras

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 12:52 PM

Google informed me that
Paris actually has a Brasserie Balthasar.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 08:05 PM

"Oh, and thanks, Freddy & Dave, for going to the trouble of transcribing the lyrics you were able to decipher.
I owe you one.
GUEST,keberoxu"

;-)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 08:41 PM

mother, may I?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 26 Apr 17 - 05:33 AM

Thanks k'

I had to look that up. :) More education from mudcat.

thread.cfm?threadid=161956

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Apr 17 - 06:13 PM

thank you FreddyHeadey and DaveRo
now we know

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: DaveRo
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 01:33 AM

I think there is at least one more verse; the one I transcribed doesn't sound like the first.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Jun 21 - 01:51 PM

... I owe you one.

Firstly, there is now a YouTube track,
with a studio recording by soprano Susanna Fairbairn,
which was not there four years ago.
The whole song is on this track,
I still have trouble understanding every syllable of every word.

But at least it's out in the open, the recording is,
where anyone can try to make sense of it.

To my ears:
DaveRo's post actually overlaps
Verse Two and Verse Three, with parts of each.
I found Verse One a real challenge to comprehend,
no shortage of French words in it.

AARRGH
I tried making a link to it, and the link refuses to work !!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Jun 21 - 01:56 PM

. . . how about this, since I can't give it to you that way:


Verse Two of "Foie Gras (Gluttony)"


The maître d'hôtel has the eye of an eagle:
Maladroit! Maladroit!
He inspects every dish before giving a regal
Ça va, ça va.
The guests are assembled, and greet with applause
Each mountain of food as it comes through the doors
With the licking of chops and the champing of jaws:
FOIE GRAS FOIE GRAS ...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Jun 21 - 02:20 PM

In the finale with the last verse, I make out one line:


"... and the more the geese gobble, the more they increase!"

And one of the French phrases which then follows
is positively
"Ça irá!"


As to Verse Three:
"geese up in Strasbourg we all have to thank
Ne c'est pas? C'est ça,
who stand with their feet ... "   


... the repetition of listening like this is wearing.
I'll come back later,
anyone else care to have a go --
just google Susanna Fairbairn and Foie Gras. Good luck.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Jun 21 - 08:48 PM

Here is some info about the music and composition,
never mind the lyrics for a moment.

The Cheltenham Festival, in 1974, was the occasion on which
this song was part of a more ambitious program[me].
Here is the context:

The King's Singers wanted to premiere new pieces in an homage to
The Seven Deadly Sins.
A different composer got the commission for each sin!

So, Joseph Horovitz ended up with the deadly sin of Gluttony;
and the account goes that, in keeping with the scale of the festival,
Horovitz composed Gluttony in two parts.
I can't discover anything about Part One of Horovitz's Gluttony.

Michael Flanders's poem "Gluttony" became Part Two,
retitled "Foie Gras" by Horovitz.

The recording I have cited previously, with Susanna Fairbairn,
is a solo-voice-and-piano arrangement;
so too, the recording I never could manage to listen to,
cited by FreddyHeadey and DaveRo,
is a solo-voice-and-piano performance.


But it seems that the original version of this musical settings
was for a six-part men's chorus with no accompaniment!
(King's Singers are:
two countertenors, tenor, two baritones, bass.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Gluttony(Foie Gras)' Michael Flanders
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Jun 21 - 09:12 PM

This is all I can presently manage of
Verse One -- and it's the end of the verse.


The company   ??   is coming to dine
So lay out the linen the silver the wine
Gigantic terrines of obscenely divine
FOIE GRAS   FOIE GRAS   FOIE GRAS


If I take a lot of time in between
listenings of this recording,
then it makes me less queasy ...
no offense intended to the recording!