↓
 

End of a thirty year search

Head Rambles Posted on by

In a conversation with friends last week I said I was bloody minded and stubborn.

Actually that's not true.  My ideas aren't cast in stone and I can be persuaded if I think the argument is right.  What I should have said is that I can be persistent, and sometimes if I set out to do something I won't rest until I have done it.

I heard a piece of music back in the eighties.  It was unusual and catchy, and at the time I thought I would like to be able to play it whenever I wanted.  However there was no way of finding a source.

Then the Interweb came along.

I searched for the piece of music even though I hadn't a clue what it was called or who sang it.  I just knew where I had heard it.  No luck.

The Interweb has grown considerably since then and over the years I have gone back to my search occasionally.  At this stage I wasn't really pushed about the music, it was a case of a bit of unfinished business and my dogged persistence was kicking in.

Last week I started searching again.  At this point it's purely a case of "can I do it" rather than anything else.  I found a lot more information on the song.  It's called "Porgi Amor" and it's sung by Christine Collister.  I could find tons of versions of "Porgi Amor" and I could find lots by Christine Collister, but my Venn Diagrams refused to overlap.  There was no mention anywhere [that I could find] of her ever singing that piece.

Yesterday I found it.

I am delighted with myself, not for having the track at last, but purely for completing my quest.  Thirty years is a long time.

I still like it though.

For brownie points, anyone like to say where I heard the original?

 

Comments

End of a thirty year search — 29 Comments

  1. Whilst in no way comparable to your 30 year search for strange new life and civilisations, I too have found one of the major boons of the intrawebs to be finding stuff only half remembered from my childhood or out of the green haze of my later adolescene. My personal best was , after many years of googling, finding :

    Silver Anniversary/25.Hochzeitstag

    Although our 'official' wedding anniversary was yesterday, the 14.02 (romantic huh?), The Bestes Frau In The World and I have always considered the Day We Met And Fell In Love to be our real anniversary. We met 25 years ago this May on a trip to Budapest-we were both Volunteers in Germany and the 'seminar' trip was really a free holiday for us volunteers.

    We stayed in a hotel in Budapest but unfortunately a combination of us only having had eyes for each other and my alcoholism meant that now neither of us knew where the hotel had been or even , for sure, what street it was on.

    Yesterday I finally found a clue online to which hotel it had been etc. I emailed them and their reply pretty much confirmed it. Thanks so much for that Eszter <3 !

    It seems it wasn't actually an hotel back then more a 'International Workers Hostel'…its having had communal showers (where The Bestes Frau and I first got hot and steamy together)not en suites should have been a clue! It still has those communal showers-although now divided for Boys and Girls.

    Pics are the entrance and one of the rooms, which looks pretty much as we remembered it.

    • First of all, belated congratulations!

      I first got chatting to Herself on the 31st January 1975 [we worked for the same organisation and there was a "do" on].  We got married on the 31st January 1976 – an easy date to remember though I occasionally forget].  The place where we met is still there but the honeymoon place [a beautiful old pub and B&B] is long gone and replaced by a hideous building. 

      From time to time I go hunting into the past and it's amazing how much has changed over the years.  Sadly, because so many of my searches are for pre-Interweb events, there are few records of them.  Of course these days everyone and everything seems to be on the Web so future generations shouldn't have the same problem, assuming of course that the Web doesn't implode with the weight of all those fucking "selfies".

    • With much muttering, sweat, blood and tears I managed to resurrect them.  WordPress for some reason stripped everything bar plain text out of your comment.

      • Thanks and thanks for the belated congratz. You're right too about how much better future generations will have it…with or without Selfies. One of my greatest regrets is not , on that trip to Budapest in '88, having had a camera with me. But one , as a down and out alcoholic teenager, have one's 35mm with one. When The Bestes Frau In The World & I returned to Budapest a couple of years back now (that blog post of mine is several years old now) we revisited all the haunts but none triggered any memories …and all seemed to full of young peoples pointing bits of plastic at each other whilst saying in Babylonian Tower of languages "just blogging this, babe LOL xxx ".

        • One of the problems for us is that we have too few photographs of the past.

          One of the problems for future generations is that they'll have too many!

          • Ahhh I spy a fellow Granddad what has had to upgrade his dropbox to contained the Terrabytes of photos of the grandkids. Youngest Granddaughter (aka "Das Eichkatzl") is 6 months old and has near permanent ark-eye from the constant flash photography.

            • Good grief no.  Don't trust the Interweb enough for my photos.  Between my laptop and a couple of external disks, I have around 6 Tb of storage.  Filling fast…..

  3. Similar thing happened to me just last week. I've been looking for a tune for years and forgot about it. I'll not tell you what the tune is as you won't like it.

    Last week someone put it on Farcebook. Now I have it. 

    The internet is good for more than just cats and porn

  4. Porgi Amor is Italian and the song is sung in the bel canto style, so I'll guess that you heard it on your honeymoon in Rome, Grandad. If not in Rome, perhaps in Covent Garden.

    • The Marriage of Figaro – Mozart.  Never been to Rome or Covent Garden.  In fact I have only seen one opera – La Traviata – enough to last me a lifetime.

      I first heard that piece on television.

    • When I was in Milan about 15 years ago, I was sitting at a street café drinking a beer when this guy set up a cassette player across the (pedestrianised) road from me, put his hat on the ground in front of him and started belting out arias from Puccini (mostly, I think. I'm not an expert), accompanied by the instrumental track on the cassette. He was bloody fantastic! We were just around the corner from La Scala, too. 🙂

      I'd intended to go and see some opera at La Scala while I was there, but to my dismay it was closed for renovation. Bummer.

      Still, the operatic busker was a welcome change from the buskers in London, and I got to hear some live (? semi- live, anyway) opera!

  5. You're very cultured, Grandad, the only place I ever heard opera was Inspector Morse – I would have heard the Three Tenor blokes at the 1990 World Cup Final, but we didn't turn over in time

     

     

     

    • My one visit to the opera was an attempt by my parents to "culture" me.  I am delighted to say that they failed abysmally.

      • They play the odd piece on Lyric, but generally only the nice songs – the Flower Duet and stuff like that – none of Grunhilde laying down the odds in some Wagner musical

  6. So delighted to find your post on this subject. I’ve had the same quest for 20+ years! The Life & Loves of a She Devil main theme sung by Christine Collister is readily easily found but not the B side, which is this magical rendition of Cavatina from the Marriage of Figaro. Not until I put Christine Collister and Porgi Amor into a search engine did I find your site. Thank you, thank you for putting me out of my increasing misery! Where did you find it in order to upload it?

    • Welcome Richard!  Indeed it was Life and Loves.  It’s a very haunting version compared to the operatic original. 

      I can’t remember now where I found the original.  I found two tracks – Porgi Amor and the full theme [Warm Love Gone Cold] – and what’s worse, I can’t find the files now.  At least I have one saved on the website! 

      The main theme can be found here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM9keMo4Tdw

      If you’d like a copy of the Porgi file, just let me know.

       

  7. Grandad,

    I also loved this version of Porgi Amor from Lives and Loves of a She Devil. However I have some doubt that Chrisine Collister was the singer.  In fact I suspect it is sung in close harmony with a second singer whose name eludes me (having a senior moment) The info came from the B side cover of the BBC record.  That more than one of us searched off and on for so long is rather unusual to say the least.

    I you get any more information please post it.

     

    Cheers from Australia

    • Welcome Colin!

      You me and Richard Jackman above.  I’m sure there are a few others still frantically searching?

      I did a little more digging and you’re right.  Christine Collister is the main name associated but there is an additional mention of Claire Moore.  Is she the one who has had your senior moment?

      • Christine Collister is indeed the lead vocalist on the linked track, also featuring Claire Moore on the soprano vocals.

        Claire Moore also recorded a version of Porgi Amor on the album that accompanied the series

  8. I too having been looking for this music since I first heard it 30ish years. Being a big fan of Christine Collister I borrowed it on a cassette from the library, probably a promo tape as it was a very short cassette with just the two songs on it.   I moved away from the area and library and could never find it again.

    A very big thank you

     

Hosted by Curratech Blog Hosting
↑