Read about the above piece HERE. Excerpt:
...The dedication was in French: "Ã Carice". "Carice" was a combination of his wife's names Caroline Alice, and was the name to be given to their daughter born two years later....Read the rest HERE.
Have a good weekend.
Lovely for a Saturday morning AOW...
ReplyDeleteYes it is, Bunker, I'm glad you felt that, but it's also great on Sunday –– and any other of the 365 days available to us in the calendar year.
DeleteIn fact there is never a time when Beauty, Gentleness, Affection, Sweetness, Honesty and Noble Sentiment should not dominate our consciousness as much as possible.
Oh GOSH! I never expected this lovely thing on the last day of February this Leap Year.
ReplyDeleteA favorite all my life. I've played it as a piano solo for sixty years.
Ths is an especially fine performance. The tempo is just right for once, and the poignant sweetness of this most touchng way of saying "I Love You" is perfectly realiized.
Thank you for posting this. Another much-needed antidote to the bitterness, vituperation and seething resentment of our time.
Franco,
Deletemuch-needed antidote to the bitterness, vituperation and seething resentment of our time
One of the reasons I posted this video and music.
The poem wrtten by "Carice" to her future husband, composer Edward Elgar:
ReplyDelete_____ THE WIND AT DAWN _____
And the wind, the wind went out
___ to meet with the sun
______ At the dawn when the night was done,
And he racked the clouds in lofty disdain
___ As they flocked in his airy train.
And the earth was grey,
___ and grey was the sky,
______ In the hour when the stars must die;
And the moon had fled with her sad, wan light,
___ For her kingdom was gone with night.
Then the sun upleapt
___ in might and in power,
______ And the worlds woke to hail the hour,
And the sea stream’d red
___ from the kiss of his brow,
______ There was glory and light enow.
___ To his tawny mane and tangle of flush
______ Leapt the wind with a blast and a rush;
In his strength unseen, in triumph upborne,
___ Rode he out to meet with the morn!
~ Caroline Alice Roberts (1848-1970)
Elgar set Caroline Alice's poem to music. It has been recorded several times.
ReplyDeleteHere is one version on YouTube if you'd like to hear it:
https://youtu.be/QkFcX_XK8jI
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ReplyDeletef you'd like to hear this performd as a piano solo, here's the link to a lovely LIVE performance by pianist Aldo Ciccolini:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/pkcHjmXmEg0
TODAY IS THE FIRST OF MARCH, 2020 –– A NEW MONTH –– ANOTHER CHANCE TO BEGIN AGAIN AND TRY TO REDEEM OURSELVES FROM FOOLISHNESS EGGED ON BY SPITE AND RELENTLESS NEGATIVITY! IF I WERE YOU, I'D GO FOR IT BEFORE ALL CHANCES FOR REDEMPTION AREL OST AND GONE FOREVER.
ReplyDeleteDear March — Come in —
ReplyDeleteHow glad I am —
I hoped for you before —
Put down your Hat —
You must have walked —
How out of Breath you are —
Dear March, Come right up the stairs with me —
I have so much to tell —
I got your Letter, and the Birds —
The Maples never knew
that you were coming — till I called
I declare — how Red their Faces grew —
But March, forgive me — and
All those Hills you left for me to Hue —
There was no Purple suitable —
You took it all with you —
Who knocks? That April.
Lock the Door —
I will not be pursued —
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied —
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come
That Blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame —
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
_____ A Change of Pace _____
ReplyDeleteThink of something gentle
Think of something kind
Dwell today on something not designed
To make you lose your mind.
Think of something pretty
Think of something soft
Take time away each day from Microsoft
And soar instead aloft
Where Spirit reigns in Bliss
Away from all the Madness
Where Kindness ever dissipates the Sadness
In the Realm of Gladness.
~ Alberto Terego
_______ Emily Dickinson _______
ReplyDeleteEking out existence phrase by phrase
Moved by deep desire, maimed by dread
Inward-seeing -- words like “chrysoprase”
Lay beneath the commonplaces said
Yesterday aloud in pale austerity.
Dumb 'neath neat white frock a passion soared
In silent self-made world, and saw the Verity
Contained in visions stark, but leading toward
Kashmir! Perhaps Brazil! the Alps! the Grave.
In life unknown, a lonely wraith –– a mist ––
No one heard the meek majestic rave
Starved for Solace –– praying to be kissed.
On secret stiles of silence one may climb ––
Nunlike ––- quite unnoticed in one's time.
~ FreeThinke
____ Her House ____
ReplyDeleteCreamy quiet rooms
___ filled with light ––
______ white and cream ––
Sparsely furnished rooms
___ filled with light ––
______ almost black
An island here and there ––
___ polished wood ––
______ darkly gleams.
Beeswax and bureau scarves ––
___ echoes of lavender from Before --
______ captured in a drawer.
A solitary bee
___ for company.
A dainty Windsor chair ––
___ a skeleton in black
______ against the light ––
A churchyard framed in white ––
___ crisp unspotted white.
A stillness so pure
__ one could hear
______ the waltzing whir
_________ of moth wings --
___ Somewhere
______ in the attic.
~ FreeThinke
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church ––
ReplyDeleteI keep it sraying at home ––
With BVobolink fr a Chorister ––
___ and an Orchard for a Dome.
Some keep the Sbbath in Suplice.
___ I just spread my wings ––
And instead f uning the bell for Church ––
___ our little Sexton sings!
God preaches –– noted Clergyman! ––
___ and the Sermon is never long ––
So, instead of getting to Heaven at Last ––
___ I'm going all along!
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
A Return to Beauty
ReplyDeleteTaki´s Magazine
by Theodore Dalrymple
The guilty flee when no man pursueth, says Proverbs, but it does not follow from this that the guilty do not flee when they are indeed pursued.
The guilty also have a tendency to argue when they know that they are in the wrong, as for example architects who continue to deny that, for the past seventy years at least, they have been disenchanting the world by espousing a dysfunctional functionalism and constructing buildings so hideous that they make Frankenstein’s monster look like Clark Gable. . . .
I take as an example the response of a university professor of architecture to President Trump’s executive order making the classical style of architecture compulsory for . . .
For an entirely different side of Elgar:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/c9-R4N5zng0
Here’s what i said about the magnificent performance of his own transcription of this most famous of all Elgar’s works: by the sensational young young Dutch organist Gert van Hoef:
What an incredibe joy it is to hear the organ played not only with great expertise, but with a truly GLORIOUS, GODLY SPIRIT. I'm not Brittish, I'm an American, but this piece always makes me choke up with Pride and a degree of sorrow for all the Great and Glorious Accomplishments of Western Civilization and of pre-World War One Britain in particular.
There are lyrical counter melodies in the quick sections that bring tears to my eyes, and threaten to make me break out in great racking sobs.
We have LOST so MUCH in the past hundred years, but bright vigorous, sensitive, young spirits such as the organist Gert van Hoef reassure me that ALL is NOT LOST after all. This marvelous young player keeps the best aspects of the past alive and thriving almost single-handedly.
LISTEN to HIM. He's truly WONDERFUL.
When Elgar was in his twenties, he was the organist in my wife’s church in Worcester —the church she grew up in and attended regularly until I married her and brought her to the Americas. And, by the way, the same church where we took our vows. Lovely people in that congregation ... warm and welcoming. Thanks for posting, AOW. I hope you had a great weekend.
ReplyDeleteMustang,
DeleteOh, how wonderful! Does your wife miss that church now that she's in the States?
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Franco, for sharing your great knowledge of music, and your rich, varied, brilliantly perceptive, heartfelt contributions to this blog, which I'm very much afraid too many take for granted.
ReplyDeleteIt's real a privilege to know you.
it is a rivilege and a pleasure to know you, sir."
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