Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Happiness Complete
I have on loan a 1936 Liber Usualis and am now facebook friends with a certain famous chant musician. :-)
Corelli
Good, honest music. Open strings and the rule of down bow. Life was simple in those days!
Can't quite find a version that does everything I want and gulp Roy Goodwin seems to have harpsichord continuo and I'm going to use an organ only- cos it says concerto da chiesa on my score and I have an organist in my form who I want to use. No archlute either. We will be at 440 too. This is well flat! That aside I like the tempi and phrasing. I like the proto Vivaldi sound without the angst and pyrotechnics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anVSAGFkuTA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4flBSb5ZaU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4x5XrdU5fg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-PtdTlwdBk&feature=related
Can't quite find a version that does everything I want and gulp Roy Goodwin seems to have harpsichord continuo and I'm going to use an organ only- cos it says concerto da chiesa on my score and I have an organist in my form who I want to use. No archlute either. We will be at 440 too. This is well flat! That aside I like the tempi and phrasing. I like the proto Vivaldi sound without the angst and pyrotechnics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anVSAGFkuTA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4flBSb5ZaU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4x5XrdU5fg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-PtdTlwdBk&feature=related
Saturday, 24 October 2009
The best news
The clocks go back tomorrow!
Obviously, the whole light failing during period 8 thing, along with going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark and only seeing me garden at the weekend is grim, but thinking entirely short term, I NEED a lie in!
Other people I know are even more sleep deprived and really need a lie in. Maybe GMT -1 would be a good idea.
The otherwise silent Church, this morning, was bathed in the mostly soothing sound of sleeping young people. (Don't you hate that term! Some teenagers, some younger children - hard to say, lots of bodies in sleeping bags anyway.) Occasionally, this was broken by some serious snoring, so at least one person was safely in the land of nod.
All this Catholic devotion stuff is fine but my diet has taken a definite turn in the direction of junk (yum) St T of L last week saw me having 3 fine breakfasts and yesterday's Mass and Adoration was followed by drinks in the club and chips. Fantastic! I'm on a roll (or maybe just rolling,) and have just been shopping and bought all the food for my friends. Five days of feasting will follow, after which a turn in a more puritanical direction will be needed if I am to fit into me posh frock for the week after next's posh work dinner.
See Fr Tim and Mac for erudition and photos.
Obviously, the whole light failing during period 8 thing, along with going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark and only seeing me garden at the weekend is grim, but thinking entirely short term, I NEED a lie in!
Other people I know are even more sleep deprived and really need a lie in. Maybe GMT -1 would be a good idea.
The otherwise silent Church, this morning, was bathed in the mostly soothing sound of sleeping young people. (Don't you hate that term! Some teenagers, some younger children - hard to say, lots of bodies in sleeping bags anyway.) Occasionally, this was broken by some serious snoring, so at least one person was safely in the land of nod.
All this Catholic devotion stuff is fine but my diet has taken a definite turn in the direction of junk (yum) St T of L last week saw me having 3 fine breakfasts and yesterday's Mass and Adoration was followed by drinks in the club and chips. Fantastic! I'm on a roll (or maybe just rolling,) and have just been shopping and bought all the food for my friends. Five days of feasting will follow, after which a turn in a more puritanical direction will be needed if I am to fit into me posh frock for the week after next's posh work dinner.
See Fr Tim and Mac for erudition and photos.
Friday, 23 October 2009
Holidays are here again
Yes, a mere 35 working days after the Summer hols ended it's half term.
A friend and her 7 year old son are coming to stay tomorrow til Wed, so I'm off to make my house fit for guests and to make sure that the gravy doesn't touch the carrots and all those other important details. We have lots of museums to get through as Jo has decided London's the place to be and has compiled a list of things he'd like to do.
Heard this in the car on the way home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mta3-sGMi5Q
Be patient with possibly one of the longest crescendos you've ever heard, if not the slowest to get going.
Marvel that the sound is mixed to make a harp gliss louder than the first horn solo and notice how horn 1 has a sizable dent just under his little finger hook. You have to drop an instrument to sustain a blow like that. (I know cos I've done it, but I took my horn to Paxman's where for about £20 they will bang it out for you! Not a nice sound.)
The Berlin Phil are an amazing orchestra. As people say, it's like hearing one person. I heard them do Turangalila at the Proms two years ago and weirdly they didn't actually take the roof off til the last chord. Since it's an 80 minute symphony, that's pretty restrained!
Bed making ....
A friend and her 7 year old son are coming to stay tomorrow til Wed, so I'm off to make my house fit for guests and to make sure that the gravy doesn't touch the carrots and all those other important details. We have lots of museums to get through as Jo has decided London's the place to be and has compiled a list of things he'd like to do.
Heard this in the car on the way home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mta3-sGMi5Q
Be patient with possibly one of the longest crescendos you've ever heard, if not the slowest to get going.
Marvel that the sound is mixed to make a harp gliss louder than the first horn solo and notice how horn 1 has a sizable dent just under his little finger hook. You have to drop an instrument to sustain a blow like that. (I know cos I've done it, but I took my horn to Paxman's where for about £20 they will bang it out for you! Not a nice sound.)
The Berlin Phil are an amazing orchestra. As people say, it's like hearing one person. I heard them do Turangalila at the Proms two years ago and weirdly they didn't actually take the roof off til the last chord. Since it's an 80 minute symphony, that's pretty restrained!
Bed making ....
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Interesting times
Reading The Times front page today led to a game of mental bingo, crossing off the following.
CDF/ Holy Inquisition, previously headed by one Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger.
SSPX/Holocaust denying. I'd be heartily sick of that cheap link if I was a member of the SSPX.
[A threat] to wreck decades of ecumenical dialogue. Or perhaps bring it to true fruition? Like ordaining woman as 'priests' and soon probably 'bishops,' isn't.
Anglican orders being utterly null and void. (No inverted commas on this blog.)
Welcomes being too effusive. (Should they be begrudging then?)
Mention of tanks elsewhere, Panzer Kardinal anyone?
Also elsewhere in The Times a quote in defence of the CofE from the National Secular Society. Desperate?
Bingo!
Marvel at no mention of the aging GERMAN Pontiff, ex-member of the Hitler Youth (and no picture!) no naming of Bishop Williamson, such restraint! No mention of relics and indulgences either, but that was last week. They missed out Galileo and Pius XII too. Sigh. Come on Ruth, this is the front page get all the prejudices out there. No via media on the anti-Catholicism!
Now we've got all of that out of the way, this could all prove to be very good. Goodness knows England needs re-converting. The more the merrier and a return to merry England. It could make being British and Catholic almost normal. I might be able to see an historic Church and go to Mass there of a Sunday rather than feel totally alienated from our architectural and cultural heritage as I do now. It could be very good for music. What if the odd Oxbridge College decided that its Chapel was going to join up to this new venture? Catholic musicians could participate in an excellent training in Church music, for example. That would be good, because then more chant and polyphony could be used in all our churches.
SP has brought about great fruit in two years and the same could be true of this venture, if we support it and the people it pertains to. Yes, we could grumble about whether they are having it easy when so many people have been martyred and persecuted for being Catholic in Britain since the Reformation or in my case just had gratuitously, rude hostile things said to them. If the Roman Catholic Church and the Patriotic Church in China can try to patch things up, surely we can have a few ex-Anglicans on board?
It all makes next year's Papal Visit/ Beatification of John Cardinal Newman an even better prospect.
Tempting to add a little joke about getting our Churches and Cathedrals back, but some people don't find that sort of thing funny. I find it very sad that they are the way they are now, but I'm only a Catholic.
You are far better off reading this on FrZ or this from Fr Tim.
The British secular press; always a good laugh!
CDF/ Holy Inquisition, previously headed by one Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger.
SSPX/Holocaust denying. I'd be heartily sick of that cheap link if I was a member of the SSPX.
[A threat] to wreck decades of ecumenical dialogue. Or perhaps bring it to true fruition? Like ordaining woman as 'priests' and soon probably 'bishops,' isn't.
Anglican orders being utterly null and void. (No inverted commas on this blog.)
Welcomes being too effusive. (Should they be begrudging then?)
Mention of tanks elsewhere, Panzer Kardinal anyone?
Also elsewhere in The Times a quote in defence of the CofE from the National Secular Society. Desperate?
Bingo!
Marvel at no mention of the aging GERMAN Pontiff, ex-member of the Hitler Youth (and no picture!) no naming of Bishop Williamson, such restraint! No mention of relics and indulgences either, but that was last week. They missed out Galileo and Pius XII too. Sigh. Come on Ruth, this is the front page get all the prejudices out there. No via media on the anti-Catholicism!
Now we've got all of that out of the way, this could all prove to be very good. Goodness knows England needs re-converting. The more the merrier and a return to merry England. It could make being British and Catholic almost normal. I might be able to see an historic Church and go to Mass there of a Sunday rather than feel totally alienated from our architectural and cultural heritage as I do now. It could be very good for music. What if the odd Oxbridge College decided that its Chapel was going to join up to this new venture? Catholic musicians could participate in an excellent training in Church music, for example. That would be good, because then more chant and polyphony could be used in all our churches.
SP has brought about great fruit in two years and the same could be true of this venture, if we support it and the people it pertains to. Yes, we could grumble about whether they are having it easy when so many people have been martyred and persecuted for being Catholic in Britain since the Reformation or in my case just had gratuitously, rude hostile things said to them. If the Roman Catholic Church and the Patriotic Church in China can try to patch things up, surely we can have a few ex-Anglicans on board?
It all makes next year's Papal Visit/ Beatification of John Cardinal Newman an even better prospect.
Tempting to add a little joke about getting our Churches and Cathedrals back, but some people don't find that sort of thing funny. I find it very sad that they are the way they are now, but I'm only a Catholic.
You are far better off reading this on FrZ or this from Fr Tim.
The British secular press; always a good laugh!
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
My least favourite musical job
Page turning!
I' prefer to play the notes most of the time.
Anyway, that most unpleasant of tasks passed off OK tonight. One of the pieces by Granados was in an unfamiliar Russian (what else?) edition, printed on paper that I'm not prepared to describe here, as I can only be crude about it and after the first turn I had to remain standing holding the pages so that the they did not fall back. None of the pieces had impossible, let's repeat the exposition turn backs or the immortal words, 'To Coda,' which happens in one of me orchestral pieces infact a DS and a 'to coda,' always a laugh. You don't really want to be looking down fumbling pages over with your left hand whilst supposedly preventing the cellos rushing and the wind spread across the width of the platform going in all directions.
Not as bad as a Lieder recital we went to a while back where the pianist was playing off A3 photocopied spreads, one of which slipped off the stand landing audience side and the turner had to walk round the back of him to pick it up. He just carried on playing, as it goes.
I' prefer to play the notes most of the time.
Anyway, that most unpleasant of tasks passed off OK tonight. One of the pieces by Granados was in an unfamiliar Russian (what else?) edition, printed on paper that I'm not prepared to describe here, as I can only be crude about it and after the first turn I had to remain standing holding the pages so that the they did not fall back. None of the pieces had impossible, let's repeat the exposition turn backs or the immortal words, 'To Coda,' which happens in one of me orchestral pieces infact a DS and a 'to coda,' always a laugh. You don't really want to be looking down fumbling pages over with your left hand whilst supposedly preventing the cellos rushing and the wind spread across the width of the platform going in all directions.
Not as bad as a Lieder recital we went to a while back where the pianist was playing off A3 photocopied spreads, one of which slipped off the stand landing audience side and the turner had to walk round the back of him to pick it up. He just carried on playing, as it goes.
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