On National Radio, there's an afternoon programme, called "Afternoons with Jim Mora", hosted by a chap called, funnily enough, Jim Mora. In the early part of the programme he has an item in which he invites listeners to nominate the "best song ever written". I have heard all sorts of music, but almost never any classical music, such as Schubert, or Mozart, or Handel.

Some years ago I bought my first every DVD. It was called "A Night with Handel"......... but I won't go on, I wrote an e-mail to Jim Mora, explaining my choice of the best song ever written. This is it:

Dear Jim. 

I have my own candidate for the "best song ever written", but in making this suggestion, can I be so bold to state that there is no such thing as the "best song ever written", for everyone has their own judgement of music, a personal and emotional reaction which is unique to them, like a fingerprint, and to suggest differently is plainly absurd? 

I have been married thirty years, to a lovely Kiwi woman, her name is Tess, who shares a great number of similar interests and outlooks with me, as I do with her, and this includes to a certain extent, music. But there is one thing she can't appreciate, and that's opera. But like red wine, which I love, and which she once detested but now loves too, I thought it was just a matter of educating a taste, so I took her to see "The Italian Girl in Algiers" the other week at the St James Theatre, here in Wellington. I don't know whether you got to see it, but it was brilliant, wonderful singing, wonderful staging, wonderful music. You know Rosssini, not difficult, tuneful, gay, life-affirming. I thought she would like it. I have taken her to other operas before, which generally hasn't been a success - perhaps taking her to see all four hours of "Der Rosenkavalier" as her first experience was just too much for her. Generally her comment has been "the music was quite nice, but it would have been better without the singing!". But true love is always blind, even after thirty years, and so off we toddled to see Rossini. But even as we sat in the darkened theatre, and I sat enraptured, I was aware that sitting next to me was this musical black hole, from which no musical light was allowed to re-emerge. As we walked out in a rainy and windy Courtney Place, she asked me what I thought of the performance, I said, truthfully, I thought is was "wonderful". I asked her in return what she thought of it, and she said, equally truthfully, she thought it was "awful". 

Yet there is no-one else can say that either of our opinions were wrong, they were merely different. 

So my suggestion for the best song ever written is given with the knowledge that for many, perhaps the majority of your audience, it will be considered "awful". The song is a duet, "As Steals the Morn", written by George Frederick Handel, as one aria of a pastoral ode, "L'Allegro, Il Pensieroso ed Il Moderato", the music being composed to settings of John Milton. (Though the words for this particular song were adapted by Handel's librettist, Charles Jennens, from a speech by Prospero, in "The Tempest"). I love Handel's music. Perhaps he wasn't as great a composer as Bach, but as a composer of glorious melody, with a  direct and simple approach to getting the most wonderful noises from singers in particular, both solo and in ensembles, and producing the most sublime emotions in the listener,  I think he is without equal in the history of music. I first heard this song when I listened to a DVD "A Night with Handel", in which music taken from his various operas is set in a modern day London, with the songs performed in the streets, in a railway station, in a broadcasting studio and even an underground carpark, over the equivalent of one night in that historic city, the songs being interspersed with commentary on Handel operas, including a discussion on castratos, who were all Italian, as the "English didn't go in for that sort of thing"

"As Steals the Dawn" is the last song in Handel's pastorale, and on the DVD. Two lovers walk slowly arm in arm in a early misty, damp London morning, as dawn breaks over the Thames, perhaps making their way home from a tryst in some hotel room, whilst the rest of a grey London humanity makes their early way to work over a grey London Bridge. The first time I heard it, with the haunting melody from the oboes in the orchestra, to the beauty of the music and the singing, I was quite overcome, I found it so gorgeous, I was reduced to tears. 

As steals the morn upon the night,
And melts the shades away:
So Truth does Fancy's charm dissolve,
And rising Reason puts to flight
The fumes that did the mind involve,
Restoring intellectual day.

I don't know what others will think, but one of the most beautiful songs written by one of the most accomplished composers in history must at least have some merit to be considered "the best song ever written".

Thank you for your attention.  And the next time I go to the opera, perhaps one of your listeners would like to accompany me, because I'm definitely not taking my wife!!

Regards, 


I don't know if I'll get any acknowledgement (I did, see below), but if not, I'm content to place here my feelings about the "best song ever written". Below is a video of a performance from the Albert Hall proms. Click on play and see what you think.





Added 14th June '09

In fact, my letter was followed up, and last Thursday morning I got a phone call from the "Afternoons" producer asking if I'd be happy to speak to Jim Morar the next day. So next lunchtime, indeed Jim Morar called, and had a chat with me. He must have checked me out on the internet, as he asked me about cycling in Wellington. Anyway, I'm not going to rabbit on here, if you are interested, I have downloaded an MP3 and you can hear it by clicking here.