Philip Larkin, The Sunday Sessions CD (Faber)
It might have seemed a few years ago that the Larkin legacy was being too deeply mined; the barrel scraped a bit too thoroughly. For a writer who was frugal in his lifetime in publishing his poetry and reluctant to read or reveal himself too much in public, it did seem that two biographies and the publication of work that might not have been given his approval was overly intrusive. On the other hand, when I did finally read Trouble at Willow Gables, the collection of very early attempts at fiction, and the Early Poems and Juvenilia appeared, it had to be admitted that there was plenty to enjoy in them.
The recordings on this CD appear now because they were only quite recently discovered, on a shelf in a garage. They double the number of available Larkin recordings and so are an important addition to the poet’s work. They are not private letters, they are genuine performances of many of his major poems, and so they are necessary and welcome and nobody can suggest that Faber are trading on the name by releasing sub-standard material after the fact.
In many ways it is only ever satisfactory to hear the poet themselves reading poems out loud. Actors are often too actorly and other readers might find inflections and stresses in the lines that the poet might not but, even if the poet isn’t a great reader, it is always much more interesting to hear their own account in their own voice and through their own personality.
Larkin probably isn’t in the same league as Ted Hughes, Tony Harrison or the inestimable live performer, Paul Durcan, as a reader. His poems are probably intended for the page but an intrinsic part of poetry must be its sound and so hearing Larkin perform them adds a great deal to these pieces. Certainly, there is a melancholy feeling to much of his delivery (as there obviously is in the poems) but he attempts more expression and liveliness than one might expect. He sounds quite posh by 2009 standards but he was at Oxford in the 1940’s and didn’t regard himself as posh at all. He is reserved and dignified, even aloof, but makes deliberate efforts to dramatize, and in For Sidney Bechet or Church Going for example, we appreciate the effort even if he can’t quite bring it off. Listening to the poems pass easily by without having to read them from the page, one is stuck by the jokiness and slightly awkward humour that informs the generally forlorn lyricism, the cartoon-style perception of a social world that he wasn’t entirely comfortable in and the dry wit with which he fended off a world that his best poetry successfully transcends.
So, he was by no means the worst reader of his own work among twentieth century poets, either, and one is better off with Larkin himself than Alan Bennet or Tom Courtenay standing in for him. Considering that the poems must have been written without public performance in mind, they are brought alive convincingly.
It has been reassuring to follow Larkin’s reputation since his death, through the accusations of misogyny, misanthropy, racism and miserabilism to a balanced and sensible rehabilitation. It is a credit to the reading public that they have been able to appreciate one of the finest writers of the twentieth century beneath the bad publicity of the politically correct and the piously fashionable left-wing criticism.
Frugality can be something to be admired, especially in comparison to the prodigious output of some other poets among which one is required to find the highlights in between all the other bits. Larkin’s editorial process seemed to occur at an earlier, pre-publication stage, or even a pre-composition stage, and so his Selected Poems would be almost the same as his originally published oeuvre, in The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows.
This could easily turn out to be the only CD I buy this year. I seem to have finally outgrown the need to rush out and buy pop records and I seem to have enough Bach keyboard music and Handel opera to last my meagre needs for a while yet. This isn’t a turntable hit that one would stay up all night dancing to with a glass of wine in one hand and the poems in the other but, for an admirer of fine verses of this circumspect and considered type, one can’t really be without it.
And if one last word of recommendation from this website were needed- it does seem incredibly unfashionable.
It might have seemed a few years ago that the Larkin legacy was being too deeply mined; the barrel scraped a bit too thoroughly. For a writer who was frugal in his lifetime in publishing his poetry and reluctant to read or reveal himself too much in public, it did seem that two biographies and the publication of work that might not have been given his approval was overly intrusive. On the other hand, when I did finally read Trouble at Willow Gables, the collection of very early attempts at fiction, and the Early Poems and Juvenilia appeared, it had to be admitted that there was plenty to enjoy in them.
The recordings on this CD appear now because they were only quite recently discovered, on a shelf in a garage. They double the number of available Larkin recordings and so are an important addition to the poet’s work. They are not private letters, they are genuine performances of many of his major poems, and so they are necessary and welcome and nobody can suggest that Faber are trading on the name by releasing sub-standard material after the fact.
In many ways it is only ever satisfactory to hear the poet themselves reading poems out loud. Actors are often too actorly and other readers might find inflections and stresses in the lines that the poet might not but, even if the poet isn’t a great reader, it is always much more interesting to hear their own account in their own voice and through their own personality.
Larkin probably isn’t in the same league as Ted Hughes, Tony Harrison or the inestimable live performer, Paul Durcan, as a reader. His poems are probably intended for the page but an intrinsic part of poetry must be its sound and so hearing Larkin perform them adds a great deal to these pieces. Certainly, there is a melancholy feeling to much of his delivery (as there obviously is in the poems) but he attempts more expression and liveliness than one might expect. He sounds quite posh by 2009 standards but he was at Oxford in the 1940’s and didn’t regard himself as posh at all. He is reserved and dignified, even aloof, but makes deliberate efforts to dramatize, and in For Sidney Bechet or Church Going for example, we appreciate the effort even if he can’t quite bring it off. Listening to the poems pass easily by without having to read them from the page, one is stuck by the jokiness and slightly awkward humour that informs the generally forlorn lyricism, the cartoon-style perception of a social world that he wasn’t entirely comfortable in and the dry wit with which he fended off a world that his best poetry successfully transcends.
So, he was by no means the worst reader of his own work among twentieth century poets, either, and one is better off with Larkin himself than Alan Bennet or Tom Courtenay standing in for him. Considering that the poems must have been written without public performance in mind, they are brought alive convincingly.
It has been reassuring to follow Larkin’s reputation since his death, through the accusations of misogyny, misanthropy, racism and miserabilism to a balanced and sensible rehabilitation. It is a credit to the reading public that they have been able to appreciate one of the finest writers of the twentieth century beneath the bad publicity of the politically correct and the piously fashionable left-wing criticism.
Frugality can be something to be admired, especially in comparison to the prodigious output of some other poets among which one is required to find the highlights in between all the other bits. Larkin’s editorial process seemed to occur at an earlier, pre-publication stage, or even a pre-composition stage, and so his Selected Poems would be almost the same as his originally published oeuvre, in The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows.
This could easily turn out to be the only CD I buy this year. I seem to have finally outgrown the need to rush out and buy pop records and I seem to have enough Bach keyboard music and Handel opera to last my meagre needs for a while yet. This isn’t a turntable hit that one would stay up all night dancing to with a glass of wine in one hand and the poems in the other but, for an admirer of fine verses of this circumspect and considered type, one can’t really be without it.
And if one last word of recommendation from this website were needed- it does seem incredibly unfashionable.
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