I love the picture above. I think of it as ‘beatnik with a bassoon’! I’m not sure exactly what instrument David Munrow is actually playing, in the photo. But the bassoon was one of the first things he learned, as a child, so it seems apt.
As this post will attest, I’m undergoing a mildly manic phase of digging deeper into David Munrow, the man and the music. And more…
I’ve posted on this topic before (here, for example). But I intend to make this post into a longer-term place to collect as much stuff on the subject as I can. Stuff like this.
This evening, as I battle the Black Eyed Dog myself, I googled ‘why David Munrow suicide?’. This came up; which, it turned out, was more about his life than his death.
It may seem morbid, but I do want to know more about the where, when, how, and why of his hanging himself, aged just 33, in – I think? – the beautiful Bucks village of Chesham Bois, back in ‘76.
Why? Well, partly because I feel that I partake of a similar manic depressive psyche. In researching this rather macabre topic I learned several things:
That he has a sister (an actress, still alive and working); that the date of his demise was 15th May. And that he had attempted suicide before, by drug overdose. What drugs? Prescription, or other? How/why?
But, whilst I’ll undoubtedly return to this sad theme another time, for now, at the time of commencing this post, I only have these two newly arrived double-CDs of his work:
I’ve been listening to these discs over the last few days. And I adore them. I was worried the top one – Instruments of the Middle Ages – might be too programmatic and educational to make good listening. How wrong I was! But I’ll save ‘reviewing’ any of these recordings for another time.
Meanwhile, my passion for further exploration of Munrow and the great variety of predominantly older – or ‘Early’ – music he helped make more widely known is leading me to collect more of his recorded legacy. I have just ordered these:
That still leaves loads more to explore. I think I read somewhere that in the mere decade of his recording car etc he released about 55 recordings! These include stuff such as the following (some of which are on CD, some vinyl, and some on both formats):
One thing one ought to remember is that Munrow’s recorded output was originally released on record.
I’m more in to collecting CDs, these days. I’d probably have preferred to stick with records. But, many moons ago, those cheeky smaller CDs more or less eclipsed the much bulkier vinyl. Only for us to then witness a more recent renaissance of records.
In terms of the bulk of my music collection, I’m stuck with CDs, format wise.
[pic]
I’m going to try and compile a list of Munrow’s recorded works, and see what formats they’re available in (this website should help me do that).
To give a few examples, here’s a series of mini galleries, contrasting some old vinyl versions with CDs that contain the same, or overlapping, content. The vinyl version is on the left, CD on the right:
Sometimes, as can be seen in the above comparison, a CD reissue will group different recordings together. I could equally well have made this comparison:
In both instances ye olde vinyl is far more attractively packaged. But I’ll have to put up with the visual aesthetic let-down. And console myself with a slight duplication of content; I already have this:
Or, in another and different combination, the first two, below, wind up together on CD, in the third (and visually much duller) incarnation:
It also turns out that some of the music on one of the CDs I’ve just ordered is also available separately on CD, for example in this edition:
The EMI version is vinyl, the Virgin Veritas is CD.
But let’s go back a bit… shown directly below is an album that touches on where all things Munrow started, kind of, for me. I say kind of, ‘cause I encountered The Hobbit music not on this funky old vinyl LP, but embedded in the CD version of the BBC radio adaptation
For now, in this first segment of what I hope will be a gradually growing post, I’ll sign off on this evening’s researches with some more ‘then and now’ comparisons:
For Courtly Love we can contrast two vinyl versions with a more recent CD re-issue.
That’s it for the first instalment of this post. I’ll return to augment it with more (such as stuff about Munrow’s radio and TV work), as and when I can.
THE NEXT DAY…
I have the above pictured version of The Hobbit. It’s an endearing interpretation of Tolkien’s mini-epic and more kid-oriented precursor to The Lord o’ The Rings.
Rather annoyingly, despite the extra CD of music, and echoing the same scenario with The BBC’s (?) adaption of TLOTR, the musical moments I like the most are not included on the CD!