Holiday Music #3 - Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

The cover article of BBC Music Magazine's December, 2008 issue is called "The 50 Greatest Carols, as Voted by the World's Finest Choirmasters." While only two of those choral experts who voted were women (a topic for another day, perhaps), I found myself agreeing by and large with the carols I recognized on the list. Especially intriguing to me was a sidebar written by Harry Christophers, the director of The Sixteen, which was devoted to "5 Ancient Carols," though many of the carols in the top fifty were also composed before 1600. Coming soon--a post on my experience listening to the tracks Christophers recommends. ☺

But today I want to touch on a favorite carol of mine, which was very high up on the BBC list, with text by Christina Rossetti and music by various composers: "In the Bleak Midwinter." I like Gustav Holst's version, which I remember hearing Julie Andrews singing when I was a tween (not that such a term existed way back then).




Even though Holst is well-known for his symphonic work, The Planets, the majority of his works were either choral or vocal, or written for the stage. Holst was largely passed over in my undergraduate music history classes, merely mentioned as a contemporary and friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams and, oh, yes, he wrote that "popular" piece, the one about the solar system or something. Even though I was a music performance major, and we were supposed to be above music that crowds adore, I secretly loved listening to bombastic "Jupiter" and whimsical "Mercury," not to mention vehement "Mars" when I was in a snit (who, me?). And then there was also Holst's other popular orchestral work, St. Paul's Suite, which had plenty of celtic-sounding folksong in it to charm me, too.




Egdon Heath, a tone poem inspired by Thomas Hardy's fictional populated heath, is considered by many to be the finest of Holst's compositions, though I must admit to unfamiliarity with the piece. Ah, well. My holiday wish list and my list of "music with which to acquaint myself" grow ever longer.

"In the Bleak Midwinter," with music by another composer, Harold Darke, is also much sung by choirs around the world. I like this one, too, but the Julie Andrews recording pushes the Holst one over the top for me.

Poetry Friday - Linda Kroll

from Winter, Awake!
by Linda Kroll

The sun hung low in southern skies.
The days grew short; then nights were long,
With bright Orion striding high
Above the quiet farms and towns.
At last the harvest work was done.
The stalks of corn were stacked in shocks.
Potatoes, pumpkins, apples, plums
Were picked and canned and stored and packed.
The wren and robin young were grown.
Their songs had ceased; the flocks were gone.
Great vees of geese had honked good-bye.
The monarch butterflies had flown.
But still fall lingered, fair and fine,
With misty mornings, hazy days,
While waiting nature watched for hints
Of cutting cold and biting winds,
For sullen skies of snowy flakes.

But Winter would not wake.

This is the text on the first page of Linda Kroll's and Ruth Lieberherr's beautiful book, Winter Awake. The rest of this lovely poem and gorgeous illustrations fill the book, which is perfect for this time of year here in New England. The weather keeps flip-flopping, and only the tiniest little flakes of snow have been seen, much to my children's chagrin. But the signs are all around. The trees are mostly bare, the geese have come and gone, the tops of ponds are slushy even when daytime temperatures reach fifty degrees. We're looking forward to celebrating the solstice here in just a little over two weeks, so books like Winter, Awake are at the top of our list of favorite winter books.

Other wintery books that are either books of poetry or poetic in nature that we like include A Snowflake Fell--Poems about Winter (compiled by Laura Whipple; illustrated by Hatsuki Hori), Winter Poems (selected by Barbara Rogasky; illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman), Winter Lights--A Season in Poems & Quilts (by Anna Grossnickle Hines), Winter King, Summer Queen (written by Mary Lister; illustrated by Diana Mayo), and Winter Lullaby (by Barbara Seuling; illustrated by Greg Newbold). I'll be posting more of our favorite winter and holiday books soon. Happy December, everyone!

Poetry Friday is being hosted today at Mommy's Favorite Children's Books.

Holiday Music #2 - Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

It's not Music Monday today, but now that I've figured out that I can embed an Amazon widget in my post and not just on my sidebar, I'm planning to be a lot more vocal about the music I favor. I have just a little bit of a preference for classical music, and early music in particular, but that doesn't mean I won't have plenty to say about music from other genres!

2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn, so I expect to see and hear a lot of Mendelssohn's music performed next year. Other than the oratorio, Elijah, I didn't have a lot of familiarity with other choral works by the composer. My lack of knowledge is taking a swift turn for the better, however, as the community chorus I sing with will be performing not one, not two, but three of Mendelssohn's choral compositions in an early spring concert. Of these three works, particularly appropriate for the holiday season is the Magnificat in D, which the composer wrote when he was just thirteen.

I would have loved to have included a snippet of the Magnificat here, but it turns out that Amazon does not have an mp3 available of any of its sections, though I did find out that Wake Forest Public Radio will be presenting an American broadcast debut of the Magnificat, as sung by the Yale Schola Cantorum under the musical direction of Simon Carrington, formerly of the King's Singers and now professor of conducting at the Yale School of Music. I've already put it in my calendar to tune in online on the 28th at noon.

So instead, here is another, more well known tune by Mendelssohn. Enjoy!

Music Monday - Holiday Music #1

This is that time of the year--you know, the one when you hear Jingle Bells ad nauseam. So, in order to combat ear fatigue, I give you a few of my favorites, starting now. I hope I've figured out how to embed these little snippets of songs!

The cd I always reach for first as soon as Thanksgiving is over is Bright Day Star by the Baltimore Consort, which you can still find at iTunes or as mp3 files at Amazon even though copies are no longer being released from the recording label. I've waxed poetic about the voice of BC member Custer LaRue before, but it's the instrumentals in the first track that I love best. Enjoy!

First the bats, now, acorns?

The bat problem is old news. Mosquitoes in New England rejoiced this summer, and feasted well into November in this area. But I was wondering why weren't seeing as many acorns this year as in years past. Oak trees abound on my neighborhood's walking trails, and my children had noticed that there weren't a lot of "haycorns" to throw at each other or to bring home for the nature table.

Evidently in some parts of the U.S. there are no acorns to be found, at all:

The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.

Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill.

Read the rest of the article here, at the Washington Post online. Photo by Richard A. Lipski, of that same publication.

Some botanists believe the incredibly wet spring experienced by the Mid-Atlantic region and New England could be to blame--all that rain may have washed away enough oak pollen to have impacted acorn production. But no conclusions have been reached, and further study will be done to ascertain both the cause and effects of the dearth of acorns.

Music Monday - Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Here it is, the entry about the Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major I mentioned two weeks ago. Of all the violin literature out there, this piece is the most inspiring to me in its attainability for the musician, its accessibility for the audience, and the pure joy of its themes. Beethoven's music in general is usually quite uplifting, and I look forward to beginning work on his Choral Fantasy in a week at the rehearsals of the community chorus with which I sing.

Once upon a time I actually used the first movement of the violin concerto as the basis of my master's thesis, which was a dissection of the technical aspects of the music in order to create exercises to learn the solo part more easily. In other words, I took the hard parts and broke them down and made up ways to practice them. Too many years later, I find that I can still more or less play the whole first movement (up until the cadenza, at least), with some skill even in these currently mostly unused fingers. I think that, for my 40th birthday, which looms ever nearer on the horizon, I will promise myself that I will continue working on this piece (maybe even the more difficult 3rd movement) with the eventual goal of performing it in some respect. Ack. Those words look scary in writing!

Here's the dreamy Joshua Bell playing the first part of the first movement (visit here, here, here, and here for the rest of the concerto--listen to the last one if you only have time for one more). Take a listen, and see if you can understand why it moves me so!

Interesting parts of my week

Adhesive wrapping paper--a good idea in theory, perhaps? Just say no, unless you are not wrapping children's gifts (the paper was hard to rip off), are not contac-paper challenged (as I am), have no pets, and vacuum every hour. See the wrinkles? Granted, the one with the worst wrinkles was the first one I wrapped, but I did end up wrapping one more gift that was not in a box, and it wasn't pretty--at all--the process or the result. Loved the stripes, though, which is why I bought it even though my inner voice told me it was a specious idea at best.

My baby is four years old! I can't believe how fast the time has gone. The positives: no more diapers, no more nursing, more sleep (theoretically, anyway), and more nights out. The negative: no more baby! Though my little M. is still cuddly, is generous with hugs and kisses, and will sit in my lap without a fuss whenever I want him to, so I have the best of both worlds right now.

The arrival of my parents from the Deep South (blame them--they brought the cold weather North with them) for M.'s birthday also meant that we had extended family that live locally over for "Thanksgiving Lite" yesterday evening. Two of my relatives have Celiac disease, so our gluten-free menu included boneless turkey breast, roasted potatoes, peas, and salad, and gingered dried fruit slow-cooker compote with vanilla ice cream for dessert. I think I prefer the lightness of this menu (and the ease of its preparation) to the all-out Thanksgiving meal we'll be enjoying next week at my sister's house in the Mid-Atlantic region. I'm getting stuffed just thinking about it!

I missed Music Monday (and Poetry Friday on my other blog) this week, as I was too tired all week to post. It was a very musical week, though, with dress rehearsals, a performance by our homeschooling, multi-generational chorus today, and the community chorus (my Monday night chorus) concert tomorrow afternoon. Here's a song our family chorus sang today, as sung by the entertaining Perry Como--enjoy!

Poetry Friday - Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849)

November

by Hartley Coleridge

The mellow year is hastening to its close;
The little birds have almost sung their last,
Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast--
The shrill-piped harbinger of early snows;
The patient beauty of the scentless rose,
Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed.
Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past,
And makes a little summer where it grows:
In the chill sunbeam of the faint brief day
The dusky waters shudder as they shine,
The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way
Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define,
And the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array,
Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy twine.

Hartley Coleridge was the eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan

Poetry Friday is being hosted today by Yat-Yee Chong. Head on over and see what poems are being rounded up today!

Music Monday - Country Roads (from Whispers of the Heart)

I was all set to post an entry about the Beethoven violin concerto when I got home from my Monday night chorus rehearsal, but two of my children were still awake, watching a Hayao Miyazaki film whose English title is Whispers of the Heart. They made me sit down and listen to an enchanting version of John Denver's "Country Roads," which makes an appearance in this film with different lyrics and with an ensemble of violin, lute, viola da gamba, tambourine, and recorder accompanying it. A shawm even makes a brief appearance, setting the heart of this early music lover all a-flutter! I haven't seen the rest of the movie yet, but my kids loved it and begged to watch it again tomorrow, so I'll likely see it soon. Enjoy!

Poetry Friday - Dixie Wilson

The Mist and All

Dixie Wilson

I like the fall,
The mist and all.
I like the night owl's
Lonely call--
And wailing sound
Of wind around.

I like the gray
November day,
And bare, dead boughs
That coldly sway
Against my pane.
I like the rain.

I like to sit
And laugh at it--
And tend
My cozy fire a bit.
I like the fall--
The mist and all.--

This week's Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted at Check It Out. Head on over!



Photo courtesy of Jim Wegryn.

Music Monday - Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Tomorrow we choose a new President here in the U.S. It's an important day for this country. I can think of no other composer who more fabulously represents American classical music than Aaron Copland. Most people are familiar with the opening brass and percussion extravaganza in Fanfare for the Common Man, but there is much more to explore in Copland's diverse litany of work. Michael Tilson Thomas presents the Fanfare and several others in Keeping Score: Copland and the American Sound, part of a series both on DVD and re-running on PBS that I highly, highly recommend for anyone even vaguely interested in orchestral music. The DVDs are in our library system here in New England, but I'm hoping St. Nick drops them down the chimney for me in a few weeks.

One of my favorite Copland compositions is Appalachian Spring, another piece of music that is featured on Keeping Score. Copland uses Simple Gifts, a Shaker tune, in the middle of the piece, and this particular section is just plain inspirational. Enjoy, and go vote!

Thanksgiving Poems for kids

Acting upon a suggestion from a founding member of my oldest child's poetry club, my ten-year-old son will be memorizing a poem about Thanksgiving to recite at this month's poetry club meeting. I'm thinking that my seven-year-old and even my almost-four-year-old may want to join in on the fun here at home, at least, so to that end, I've been ILL-ing many books with holiday poetry in them. In case anyone else is searching for something similar, here's the list as it stands right now. Let me know if you have any suitable titles to recommend, and I'll add them to the list, as well.

The Circle of Thanks: Native American Poems and Songs of Thanksgiving, told by Joseph Bruchac; illustrated by Murv Jacob.

Thanksgiving Poems, collected by Myra Cohn Livingston; illustrated by Stephen Gammell

Merrily Comes Our Harvest in, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins; illustrated by Ben Shecter

Holiday Stew with Seasoning, Too! A Kid's Portion of Holiday and Seasonal Poems, by Jenny Whitehead

The Book of Thanksgiving--Stories, Poems, and Recipes for Sharing One of America's Greatest Holidays, by Jessica Faust and Jacky Sach

It's Thanksgiving! by Jack Prelutsky; illustrated by Marilyn Hafner

Over the River and through the Wood, by Lydia Marie Child; illustrated by David Catrow (in this particular incarnation, anyway)

Thanksgiving with Me, by Margaret Willy; illustrated by Lloyd Bloom

And one more thing. . .

I'm having a fine time not watching a movie I just got from Netflix, Sweet Violets, or something like that (actually, no, it's Purple Violets written by, directed by, and starring Ed Burns--it's usually an omen when all three are the same person, though there are some exceptions), which has got to be the most boring movie I think I've seen since, hmm, I can't remember when. While "enjoying" the flick, I'm also catching up on my blog reading, so here is yet another enjoyable tidbit for those of you who are not fans of the current Republican veep candidate. Thanks much to Alex Ross for this entertaining video. The music is Steve Reich's Different Trains, and the speaker, well, I won't name names.

The poetry of L.M. Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery is best known for her works of fiction, including Anne of Green Gables and its sequels. Scattered throughout her novels are poems, often "created" by the characters in her books. Recently I found a pdf of all of Montgomery's poems, including some I don't remember from the stories I've read. I enjoy the way she evokes images, such as in "Autumn Evening," which you can find here, in my entry in today's Poetry Friday round-up.

Visual Elements Periodic Table

I found this at At Home Science, with a link to the Flash version at The Royal Society of Chemistry, and just had to share. Isn't it cool?

Happy Halloween!

Let me know if you think of a caption for this guy--a result of some photography experiments on my part. I can't think of anything!

Poetry Friday - Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942)

For those of you who will be out with children trick-or-treating tonight, here are some nice images from the beloved author of Anne of Green Gables.

An Autumn Evening

Dark hills against a hollow crocus sky
Scarfed with its crimson pennons, and below
The dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lie
Cradling the twilight, where the lone winds blow
And wake among the harps of leafless trees
Fantastic runes and mournful melodies.

The chilly purple air is threaded through
With silver from the rising moon afar,
And from a gulf of clear, unfathomed blue
In the southwest glimmers a great gold star
Above the darkening druid glens of fir
Where beckoning boughs and elfin voices stir.

And so I wander through the shadows still,
And look and listen with a rapt delight,
Pausing again and yet again at will
To drink the elusive beauty of the night,
Until my soul is filled, as some deep cup,
That with divine enchantment is brimmed up.

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Poetry Friday is being hosted today by Poetry for Children.

Happy Halloween!

Music Monday - Halloween Music No. 4

Saint-Saens again this time. One of my favorite pieces by this composer is Carnival of the Animals, and the Aquarium movement from this orchestral suite is perfect for invoking a spooky aura. The Fossils movement isn't bad for getting into the Halloween spirit, either, but unfortunately I didn't like any of the YouTube videos I could find for either movement.

But I can't let my last Halloween Music Monday post be so boring, so here is quite an enjoyable animation in the style of The Nightmare Before Christmas, to the tune of Funeral March of a Marionette, by Charles Gounod, a contemporary of Saint-Saens, and a fellow countryman. In the video, the music doesn't begin until almost two minutes in, just fyi. This animated short was created by Eric Fonseca, an artist from San Antonio, according to the blurb on his YouTube page.



You may know of another little ditty by Gounod with the title Ave Maria, though he composed only the melody there, and a more famous composer wrote the underlying prelude (J.S. Bach). Other of Gounod's compositions that are still performed today include his operas, Romeo & Juliet and Faust.


Happy Halloween!

Poetry Friday - Robert Frost

After Apple Picking
Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.



Poetry Friday is being hosted today at the blog where it all began,
Big A little a.

Ballads

My older son (age 10) is part of a poetry group whose similarly-aged members meet monthly and recite for one another. Recently, another mom and I have started taking turns talking to the kids about a form in poetry when recitations are finished. Having had an excellent introduction to haiku last month, the kids learned about the ballad at this month's meeting. Since I have a bit of a musical bent, anyway, this seemed to me like a good style into which to delve.

While learning that a ballad, simply put, is a poem that tells a story and is or was meant to be sung, I was fascinated to learn that one of the oldest existing printed ballads is about that heroic figure, Robin Hood. Printed around the late 1400's or early 1500's, "A Gest of Robyn Hode" is almost certainly a compilation of earlier versions of the legends that existed in the oral tradition.

I began, however, with a recording of the song, "The Grey Selkie," as sung by the band Solas on their Words that Remain cd, and then gave the kids a simple definition of the ballad. After this, I mentioned the titles of several ballads I knew the kids knew (as they had all sung at least two or three of them in the recent past). The list of traditional ballads is long, but these were the ones I mentioned--

Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier
Oh, Shenandoah
The Rising of the Moon
Greensleeves
The Highwayman
Tam Lin
Barbara Allen
A Gest of Robyn Hode

One of the children read a few stanzas from "Robyn Hode," and from there we began to talk about rhyme schemes. The kids were all given a copy of "The Great Selkie of Skule Skerry" from the Evan-Moor book, Read and Understand Poetry (Grades 5-6+) to figure out what rhyme scheme this particular poem follows (AABB). Then I read a bit from "The Highwayman" and "Casey at the Bat" and had them find the rhymes. From here we went on to discuss other common aspects of ballads, including

regular rhyme schemes (often AABB or ABAB)
regular rhythm
refrains
unanswered questions
unhappy and sometimes abrupt endings
dialogue between characters
sparsity of narration
in medias res form of storytelling (pronounced ĭn mē'dē-əs rās, as I found out afterwards with the help of a trusty dictionary)

I left the kids with a challenge to find a news story with which to use their imaginations and the facts to create a story featuring two individuals. They will also need to invent some dialogue between the characters, and use the story and dialogue as the basis for a ballad, relying on the possible components of that form listed above to help them. After creating their ballads, they will hopefully bring them to next month's meeting and share them. Since I challenged them, I suppose this means I should work on one of my own, hmm? Stay tuned. . .