The Moravian hymn Velkomoravský chorál:
My paternal grandmother had training in Moravian music as did Andy Griffith, a distant cousin of mine who passed away on July 3, 2012.
Trailer for A Face in the Crowd, what I consider to be Andy Griffith's best work and a film that Mr. AOW and I will be watching today in this miserable heat wave:
Cousin Andy and I never established a relationship of any kind because of family feuds of generations ago. And, of course, we didn't see eye-to-eye about politics either.
That music has the virtues of simplicity, dignity and strength. It's solemn, austere and reverent. Very interesting to hear all those quartal harmonies.
ReplyDeleteHarmony in music began with organum -- strings of parallel fourths. Early polyphony sounds very "modern" because the triad -- the basis of most of the music we know and enjoy -- had not yet been discovered.
So in a sense this has the flavor and feeling of something ancient.
I once heard a concert entirely devoted to Moravian music in one of the larger Presbyterian Churches with a fine choir and a large music budget to back it up. It was a stirring, unforgettable experience.
Thank you for giving us this beautiful selection, AOW. Good music always helps heal the pangs of heartache and discontent that come from observing hun foibles in action.
~ FreeThinke
Interesting! Very different.
ReplyDeleteFreeThinke,
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking a lot about recent comments you're made -- to the gist of our need to ease our souls by not carping ALL the time.
I've just queued up an essay to that effect for July 14.
Glad the you enjoyed this post! I do love Gregorian Chant and music similar to that genre.
I first saw Andy Griffith at a theater in New York in No Time for Sergeants. That was back in the mid-fifties. I think it was the vehicle that brought him to fame.
ReplyDeleteThe next time I saw him was during the first run of A Face in the Crowd. I was impressed even then at the tender age of fifteen or sixteen at the tremendous power of his performance, which remains truly terrifying to this day.
I didn't realize until later that the film is really a harsh indictment of the television industry and the deadliness of the false image making process it has spawned.
I never had a clue as to Andy's politics, until just a year or so ago, when he came out of retirement to make that sickening "ad" urging senior citizens to support Obamacare.
~ FT
God bless Andy Griffith's soul. He was an wonderful entertainer and quite a man, but also very humble, insisting he himself could not live up to the Sheriff Taylor character. He even said he had some of the Face in the Crowd character in him!
ReplyDeleteOf course, we all do...
Clearly, Andy Griffith was a very talented man.
ReplyDeleteI happen to have one of his CD's of his singing hymns and spirituals. Great stuff!
I enjoy unusual music, indeed.
ReplyDeleteSome considerations:
-Bebe Barron;
-Frank Zappa;
-Bill Laswell;
-Leftover Salmon;
-King Crimson;
-Porcupine Tree;
-Petr Eben
And so many many many more I can't even begin to count.
Good to check out alternatives.
BZ
See this post from 2009.
ReplyDeleteBZ
P.S.
THANK YOU and BLESS YOU for NOT using Glogger's "word verification"!
BZ,
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Blogger's word verification has become a nightmare. The spam folder catches the vast majority of the spam, thank the Lord. Still, that spam folder fills up like crazy without word verification. **sigh**
Used to be a couple labels, Long Distance and Traditional Crossroads which carried these styles.
ReplyDeleteLot of Tyrolean, Armenian, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Turkish styles.
Sadly they are rather inactive these days.