h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Did you watch 'Tous les Matins du Monde' the other night on TG4? I thought of you and your two daughters. I've seen it before, though, so I didn't have the patience to watch the whole of it again.

I watched a little bit and left it. I had also seen it when it came out first. I was taken by the wonderful visuals -- every scene was like a painting, and the wonderful language ("Vous allez pourrir dans votre boue") but two things had me retching.

1) The actor who played Sainte-Colombe had obviously been shown how to look as though he was playing a viol, but the film editor had taken no care at all to match the action with the sound, so that we heard long-drawn soulful notes apparently issuing from flying fingers. They took more care with Guillaume Depardieu who knows his way around a guitar and could fake the viol pretty well, and extreme care with the 13-year-old girl who really could play the viol. I found myself suddenly relaxing and enjoying myself when she played, which reminded me how uncomfortable the others were making me. My sister-in-law Vanessa, a violin teacher, just snorted out loud.

2) The story was a travesty. At least I have one daughter, but Sainte-Colombe had one son and as far as we know no daughters. The film was advertised as "The true story of Marin Marais" but that like other such claims should be taken as a caveat (see F103872?thread=525695&skip=3 ). The relationship between teacher and pupil in the film seems to be the reverse of the truth. After six months Sainte-Colombe is said to have dismissed Marais saying "I have nothing more to teach you".

There were some pieces of lore faithfully reported in "Tous les Matins" such as that Ste-Colombe was responsible for adding the viol's seventh string, that he refused a place at court, and that Marais hid under his summer-house to spy out how he practised his ornamentation. That's about it.

Ah, some humble pie for me. He did have two daughters as well as a son or sons. http://www.musicolog.com/colombe_life.asp says "The eldest daughter, Françoise de Sainte-Colombe married Jean Varin, a teacher of mathematics to the king and appointed as a teacher in Belfort. Her sister, Brigide de Sainte Colombe, married Louis Lebé, a secretary for Marquis de Segnelay, who was stationed in Versailles."

I noticed the mis-matched fingers, but it didn't worry me.

I'm used to music being treated in a haphazard fashion. My wife got a birthday card which had the words of "Happy Birthday to You" on it, but the musical notation was a travesty, with notes printed backwards, 5 beats in some bars, strange symbols over some of the notes, and an Italian word which I had never seen before at the top. It was as if someone in China was given a page of music score and told to produce something similar.

David Cassidy said that until he joined the Partridge Family, the bass guitarist strummed the bass guitar - he had to tell him to pluck the strings. The idea of getting an actor who actually played the bass had obviously not occurred to the directors.

Apologies, I thought you had two daughters.

I have two viol-playing nieces! Thank you for coming to our concert, and taking so many family members along!