Camille Saint-Saëns’ setting of Calme des nuits (from Deux Choeurs), sung by the Monteverdi Choir (John Eliot Gardiner, conductor).
(Source: Spotify)
Bobby McFerrin’s The 23rd Psalm (dedicated to my mother) sung by Cantus.
Singing alto in a quartet for this at church in a few weeks.
Digital Loom, Mason Bates’ 2005 work for organ and electronica.
I just can’t even explain how brilliant I think this is. Listen with headphones.
(Source: Spotify)
Williametta Spencer’s setting of John Donne’s ”At the round earth’s imagin’d corners” (from the Holy Sonnets).
At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scatter’d bodies go;
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God and never taste death’s woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
For if above all these my sins abound,
‘Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace
When we are there; here on this lowly grownd
Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good
As if thou hadst seal’d my pardon with thy blood.
(Source: Spotify)
A photo from scene one of Stravinsky’s Les Noces (“The Wedding”) - taken at Saturday morning’s dress rehearsal.
I don’t think you can see me, but I’m in the back row of the chorus.
Director Alfonso Cuaron is back with a teaser for Gravity, his first film since Children of Men. Watch it here.
This looks goood.
Terrifying. And I approve of the use of Spiegel im spiegel.
(Source: thisistheverge)
I may die today.
Performance Today - In studio with Stile Antico
This afternoon’s accompaniment.
You’ve done it, Igor. You’ve bested me.
I’ve finally resigned myself to highlighting my Les Noces score before tonight’s rehearsal.
There’s just so much on the page.
(Source: Spotify)
WQXR - Mountain Goats & Anonymous 4
Today’s soundtrack.
Finding out that I don’t have to wear a tuxedo for Les Noces was the best news of the week.
(Source: onmyowntwohands)
Currently.
My sweet beloved, why do you withhold the relief which I long for?
Perhaps you think that my burning desire will end, because you turn away whenever I see you?
Alas, this cannot be. I must either love you or die.
I’m obsessed with Gesualdo’s madrigals. The poetry is incredible and the settings are just mind-blowing, considering that they were written in the early 1600s. They’d still be revolutionary if they were written today.
(Source: Spotify)
Samuel Barber’s setting of Stephen Spender’s A stopwatch and an ordnance map, sung by Conspirare (under the direction of Craig Hella Johnson).
A stopwatch and an ordnance map.
At five a man fell to the ground
And the watch flew off his wrist
Like a moon struck from the earth
Marking a blank time that stares
On the tides of change beneath.
All under the olive trees.
A stopwatch and an ordnance map.
He stayed faithfully in that place
From his living comrade split
By dividers of the bullet
Opening wide the distances
Of his final loneliness.All under the olive trees.
A stopwatch and an ordnance map.
And the bones are fixed at five
Under the moon’s timelessness;
But another who lives on
Wears within his heart forever
Space split open by the bullet.
All under the olive trees.
(Source: Spotify)
