Unicorn set is superb - you’ll enjoy it
1 Like
It is, it’s a John Peel session first broadcast in September 1973, then again on The Saturday Rock Show December 1973. Solo / Like An Old Fashioned Waltz / Who Knows Where The Time Goes?
2 Likes
Thanks
The opening of O Fortuna from Carmina Burana is ‘just’ a unison D played on Bassoon, Tuba, Timp, 2 Pianos, Cellos and Basses: nothing which objectively ought to cause any particular response. The slow choral section over the next four bars involves some fairly crunchy suspensions, which musicologists usually argue lead to a sense of suspense, though there’s little objective reason (beyond simple word association) why this should be so. I totally get what you mean though, which shows how difficult it is to explain this sort of thing.
As far as I know (and I have tried to read into it), almost all strong emotional responses to music seem to be culturally learned responses. Even ‘major key = happy, minor key = sad’ is not entirely universal. Yet, when some slightly rickety and morose jazz music played by a small band in a minor key came on Radio 3 the other day, and I said to my daughter that it sounded like the sort of thing the Addams Family would play at a family reunion, she instantly knew exactly what I meant and laughed – that’s how specific it can be.
A piece that repeatedly shocks me with just how achingly wonderful yet aw(e)ful every chord can sound is the Kyrie from Victoria’s requiem of 1605, in the Paul McCreesh version. Listen along with me, if you will:
0.00-0.30: the opening plainsong (Lord, have mercy) sets the scene - quiet and contemplative. A false sense of security?
0.30-1.00 : every chord builds the sense of longing and desperation for forgiveness. Listen for the basses coming in at 0.42, sounding as if the whole of creation is rumbling and moved to join the cry of despair.
1.00: the resolution of the sequence makes you think it’s over, but Victoria just builds further on it until the first release is granted at 1.20.
1.50: after another plainsong section (Christ, have mercy), this time just the higher voices sing. At 2.06, the tenors join with a descending scale which tightens the screw further.
2.59: After the third and final plainsong section (Lord have mercy), the whole choir start together, building and building the sense of abject despondency. Listen for the tenors at 3.08 with their repeated suspensions.
3.17: Somehow, Victoria manages to make the simplest of chord changes (Bb major to C major) sound like the final nail in the coffin. As the music descends from this peak, listen for more suspension after suspension as they sing ‘eleision, eleison’ (have mercy, have mercy). Finally, mercifully, it resolves.
Extraordinarily, it’s in a major key but somehow sounds utterly despairing, Victoria managing to compound the sense of self-abnegation in the hearts of the faithful as they lament their sins yet nonetheless have a sure and certain hope of forgiveness from their loving God.
Takes me to some very emotional places every time I listen to it. Yes, every time. I have no idea why, and I have no interest in finding out. It just does something to me; something deep, almost painful but somehow valuable.
Mark
4 Likes
Excellent example and analysis - not listened to this in years.
I have similar thoughts about John Shepphard’s media vita and Allegra’s miserere. Tallis and Byrd too but not quite in the way Victoria achieves, and of course Garbarek and the Hilliard’s Take on the Officium.
The ballad of rob macdunn -johnny cash.Simon&Garfunkel s Bridge over troubled water.The ballad of lucy jordan by marianne faithfull.Handle with care-the Traveling wilburys when Orbison makes his entrance.Gilles Requiem conducted by Joel Cohen. .
1 Like
A few years ago I was travelling home from work listening to Johnnie Walker on Radio 2. His live guest that evening played a “tune” on a didgeridoo. Inexplicably I found myself literally moved to tears, and had to pull over to side of the road and compose myself.
I thought it all extremely odd, and not a little unnerving, but I was somewhat reassured minutes later when Johnnie Walker announced that he had been inundated with calls from listeners who had experienced exactly the same reaction as I had.
I never did get a satisfactory reason, but it seems that there are sounds which evoke a spontaneous primeval response beyond rational explanation.
1 Like
Doves - The Man Who Told Everything.
Can have an out of body experience when I listen to this.
2 Likes
The end of the Lacrymosa from Berlioz’ Grande Messe des Morts—recorded in St Paul’s Cathedral by Sir Colin Davis in the year he died (a performance which I attended and which I shall never forget).
Stephen
1 Like
The Doors “Riders on the Storm”
…and…
Fairport Convention’s “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” (From Unhalfbricking)
2 Likes
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask.
Especially the wailing and hysterical laughter.
And the yodelling and cat calls.
2 Likes
Dylan’s Percy’s Song performed by Fairport and the incomparable Sandy Denny. She somehow manages to make palpable the sense of injustice, and convey a depth of emotion that never fails to move me.
1 Like
Not music per se but music to my ears: Richard Burton reading ‘under milk wood’. Is it: to begin at the beginning?
Too many to remember them all and it’s all down to time, place and mood. However this never ceases to emote for me. Infact the whole album does but this one track stands out.
And more recently this album overall just leaves me tingling.
1 Like
Thanks for pointing me in the direction of Ms Olsen. She has a captivating voice.
1 Like
We saw the Anniversary performance in Newport in 2014, Polly Garter’s part played by Katie Elin-Salt. The solo voice in her song, a totally silent theatre was truly spine tingling.
1 Like
“Unicorn…” is one of my finds of the last couple of years. A lot of these “demos” are superior to the rather overproduced versions on the finished albums. For example, the demo version of “No End” has quickly become one of my Desert Island discs. Recorded in December 1972 in a classical venue with just Sandy and grand piano at Trevor Lucas (her husband)'s suggestion it never fails to bring a tear to my eye. Such a contrast to the final version on “Like An Old Fashioned Waltz”. Check it out on YouTube and see if you agree:
2 Likes
I’m into lots of impressionist composers at the moment, and one of my favourites is John Ireland. His piano concerto is astonishingly beautiful and the first four minutes of the second movement get me going pretty damn well.
https://tidal.com/album/43765463
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.