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Elvis Costello and The Brodsky Quartet
The Juliet Letters
Warner Brothers Records
When a musical artist becomes a success after toiling in relative obscurity for a certain time, he or she can go either of two ways with their success. Some get greedy, making albums that increasingly fall in towards the core of popular music until their art is void of most of the qualities that made it so powerful in the first place. Others, however, seem to take their success as an artistic license. These musicians understand that popular music doesn’t have to be static, and record making can rival literature and film as an art form.
Luckily, Elvis Costello is one of the latter musicians. Costello released several best-selling albums in the U.K. before his first American hit, and didn’t have a bonafide smash album in the U.S until his 13th, 1989’s Spike. Buoyed by this success, Costello had now produced one of the most original albums of any genre in long time. Although countless popular music albums have involved the use of strings, but few musicians have everconstructed anentire album around astring quartet.
The Juliet Letters is inspired by the story of a Veronese university professor that had been secretly answering letters addressed to “Juliet Capulet” for several years. What the contents of the letters were, why this academician was responding to letters written to a fictional character, or who was writing the letters is unclear, but Costello and the quartet exploit the pretext of the situation in creating the song cycle on Letters.
_ All of the music present on this album was composed by Costello and the members of The Brodsky Quartet, a 20-year old string quartet consisting of violinists Michael Thomas and Ian Belton, Paul Cassidy on Viola, and Cellist Jacquiline Thomas. The arrangements on the album span a wide range of influences, from Schubertlike melodies to Gilbert and Sullivan popular song, to even more modern song forms. Standouts include the Tango “I Almost had A Weakness,” the modal harmonies of “Who do you Think You Are?” and “This Offer is Unrepeatable,” which captures the golden age of musical theater.
This album integrates music and voice as well as any I have heard in some time. The dark “For Other Eyes” is supported by rich, minor chords and Costello’s somber narration: “I don’t know what I would do/If this letter should fall into/Other hands than it should pass through/ For other eyes.” And on the dirge “Dear Sweet Filthy World,” Costello wears his emotions on his sleeve, with a total lack of cynicism when he sings “Dear sweet filthy world, my wife or whoever reads this/I think that I’ve lived too long with all of my promise unfulfilled/ but there’s a veil drawn over that” to a stunning effect.
With The Juliet Letters, Costello has achieved a plateau achieved by few other popular musicians. With the help of the quartet, Costello captures the spirit of musics of past generations better than Linda Ronstadt, Harry Connick, or any number of retro-popular musicians, while adding his own personal stamp on the music at the same time. It’s hard to write about the singular components of this album - it works best as a whole. Completely without pretense, The Juliet Letters is an amazing, enjoyable journey.
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