CLASSICAL OPUS no.5

Johannes Sebastian Bach – “Agnus Dei from Mass in B Minor”

ヨハネス・セバスチャン・バッハ – 「アグナス・デイ・イン・ミー・イン・マイナー」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 6 minutes

This is autumnal messianism by 1000 cuts, wailing subcutaneously at all of life’s regrets.  Bach excels in tetrahedral combination of dextrously crafted coincidences that morph into a seamless, melancholic whole.  The emotional pendulum marks the pivotal element of a Roman Catholic mass, located here in the 24th movement of ‘Mass in B Minor’.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_B_minor

 

A REFLECTION

Now, O Christ, seal my eyelids

Let ice on my lips be spread

All the hours are superfluous

All the words have been said!

 

Gabriela Mistral: “Ecstasy”

Published in: on December 26, 2018 at 5:51 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.8

Johannes Sebastian Bach: “Erbarme Dich, mein Gott, no.39 Matthaeus Passion”

ヨハネス・セバスチャン・バッハ：「「憐れみ給え、わが神よ」、39番マタイ受難曲」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 8 minutes

The prime aria from the second part of the “Passion” has a contemplative, lilting rhythm framing a rather resigned mood – a proper metaphor for the spiritual traditions of the mainly Jewish audience that Matthew targeted in his Gospels.  Kathleen Ferrier’s classic 1950 recording with von Karajan is a priceless document, but the trimmed down orchestration in the second video is more transparent, with the lamenting violin, comforted by the cello under the organ’s warm eiderdown.

 

MUSIC

 

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Matthew_Passion

 

A REFLECTION

Over this your white grave

covered for years, there is a stir

in the air, something uplifting

and, like death, beyond comprehension.

Over this your white grave

oh, mother, can such loving cease?

for all his filial adoration

a prayer:

Give her eternal peace

 

Karol Wojtyła: “Over This Your White Grave”

Published in: on December 23, 2018 at 5:03 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.11

Carl Orff: “Carmina Burana”

カールオルフ  –  「カーミナ・ブラーナ」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 62 minutes

Whenever staged these days, this hellish, galvanizing riot of athletic singing is re-lived as a jostling cauldron of neo-medievalism.  But it cannot escape the cross-textual appeal it once held for authoritarian-minded listeners.  Escalading the walls of blistering cacophony, this choral mastodon of gargantuan proportions has carried its relevance well beyond the philharmonic.  Völkischer Beobachter, NSDAP’s mouthpiece, tainted the opera’s legacy by praising its “disciplined” approach (more on this controversy in the link below).  But much of its musical bequest remains apolitical.  French ‘zeuhl’ music is often said to be the love child of “Carmina Burana” and John Coltrane’s spiritual period.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmina_Burana_(Orff)

 

on the pseudo-historical controversy, read here:

 

A REFLECTION

My Soul.  Why should the imagination of a man

Long past his prime remember things that are

Emblematical of love and war?

Think of ancestral night that can,

If but imagination scorn the earth

And intellect its wandering

To this and that and t’other thing,

Deliver from the crime of death and birth.

 

William Butler Yeats: “Dialogue of self and soul”

Published in: on December 20, 2018 at 5:07 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.24

Toshiro Mayuzumi: “Nirvana Symphony”

黛敏郎 – 「ニルヴァーナ交響曲」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 37 minutes

These disquieting, razor-sharp and flamelike mantras roast uncomfortably in claustrophobic caverns. The composer exposes the vestiges of his country’s heterophonic tradition with precise interplay between the basic structure and simultaneous ornamentation.  For the brave only.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

http://www.jerretanner.com/blogs/2015/6/1/toshiro-mayuzumi-1929-1997-nirvana-symphony

 

A REFLECTION

As autumn mountains

Tinged with scarlet were you, maiden,

A pliable bamboo,

Supply bending, lady,

Of what

Were you thinking?

 

Man’yoshu (by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro): Waka “mys ii: 217”

Published in: on December 7, 2018 at 5:57 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.30

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “Ave Verum Corpus”

ヴォルフガング・アマデウス・モーツァルト： 「アヴェ・マリア」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 2 minutes

This dreaming, elated, sacred phantasmagoria of elliptic immediacy explores a wide contemplative range.  A sense of exultation pervades this daring exploration of the soul’s netherworlds.  Invariably, performances call for fresh voices, ensuring recurrent renewal of this eternally evanescent choir piece.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ave_verum_corpus_(Mozart)

 

A REFLECTION

Where no knowing is I entered,

yet when I my own self saw there

without knowing where I rested

great things I understood there,

yet cannot say what I felt there,

since I rested in unknowing,

all knowledge there transcending.

 

San Juan de la Cruz: “Verses on the Ecstasy of Deep Contemplation”

Published in: on December 1, 2018 at 5:16 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.34

Hildegard von Bingen: “Symphonie”

ヒルデガルト・フォン・ビンゲン： 「交響曲」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 62 minutes

This emphatic, scintillating liturgy of unaltered, transparent fluidity comes from the most enigmatic of medieval figures.  She left behind hymns, psalms and sophisticated antiphonal textures (neither monophonic nor polyphonic), frequently broken down into small choruses.

It is so ironic that the most ancient composition in this series comes from a woman.  Over centuries, male control of musical creativity proved stronger and more enduring than in any other form of artistic expression.  Music had to wait till the 20th century to unleash on us the geniuses of Nadia Boulanger, Grażyna Bacewicz, Thea Musgrave, Sofia Gubaidulina, Kaija Saariaho, Pauline Oliveros or Karen Tanaka.  But how much of their work do you know?

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://sequentia.org/projects/hildegard.html

 

A REFLECTION

Hail, O greenest branch,

sprung forth in the airy breezes

of the prayers of the saints.

So the time has come

that your sprays have flourished:

hail, hail to you.

 

Hildegard von Bingen: “O Viridissima Virga”

Published in: on November 27, 2018 at 3:31 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.38

Guillaume de Machaut – “Kyrie from Messe de Notre Dame”

ウィリアム・マカウト – 「キリスト・オブ・ア・レディー」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 7 minutes

This otherworldly and metaphysically desconsolate tapestry of plaintive themes gently bathes us in spiritual introspection.  What was the first polyphonic setting to a complete mass cycle emerges here masterfully intertwined in seductive isorhythms.  Timeless.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messe_de_Nostre_Dame

 

A REFLECTION

O let your mind and tongue

dwell among divine phrases

For God has given this reward for the

effort, a little light

even to see some hidden thing, or, best,

to be spurred on by the pure God’s

awesome commands.

 

Gregory de Nazianzus – “Poems on the genuine books of divinely inspired Scripture”

Published in: on November 23, 2018 at 2:43 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.50

 

Samuel Barber – “Adagio for Strings (Agnus Dei)”

サミュエル・バーバー – 「弦楽器のアガジオ・（アグナス・デイ）」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 8 minutes

Barber’s lacrymogenous tenebrism reverberates with bottomless anguish.  This latterday master of soaring vocal and choral works plunges us into cheerlessly elegiac veils until we reach transcendence in stagnant, cavernous candlelight.  Once it is finished, I recommend three minutes of complete silence and several deep breaths.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adagio_for_Strings

 

A REFLECTION

Out of the day and night

A joy has taken flight;

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar,

Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight

No more—Oh, never more!

 

Percy B. Shelley: “A Lament”

Published in: on November 10, 2018 at 6:20 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.53

Claudio Monteverdi: “Lettera amorosa”

クラウディオ・モンテヴェルディ：「ラブレター」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 4 minutes

We owe to him the introduction to contrasts in music – texture, timbre and (later) tempo – all with a dose of healthy unpredictability.  While essentially maintaining the structure of a song, the composer sought a wider range of emotional expression, mining the potential of color in vocal rendition.  After all, doesn’t human voice possess more intrinsic emotional quality than any man-made instrument?  Some results may have been inconclusive, others sound ultramodern even today.  Regardless of the final verdict, Monteverdi left behind many resplendent, hallucinatory canticles.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://cappellamediterranea.com/fr/productions/22-monteverdi-a-voce-sola

 

A REFLECTION

I choose to love you in silence

For in silence I find no rejection

I choose to love you in loneliness

For in loneliness

No one owns you but me

 

Rumi: “I Chose to Love You in Silence”

Published in: on November 7, 2018 at 5:51 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.63

Francesco Landini – “Ecco la primavera”

フランチェスコ・ランディニ – 「ここは春」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 2 minutes

The cheerfully organic, multi-vocal pithiness rings seasonally vibrant and rebellious.  With gemstone-like precision of his syncopated ballate, this 14th century’s musical giant never fails to enchant with sharp instrumental simplicity, here equipped with recorders, a lute, bells, a shawm and the climactic tabor thuds.  Alas, for most of us in the northern hemisphere, we are months away from such celebrations…

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Landini

 

A REFLECTION

Though in a foreign land I dwell afar,

I taste in dreams the endless joys of heaven.

Fain would I fly beyond the farthest star,

And see the wonders to the ransomed given!

 

St Thérèse de Lisieux: “My Hope”

Published in: on October 28, 2018 at 4:45 pm  Leave a Comment  
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