A Momentary Taste of Being

Some information about Orlando Gibbons's "Daintie Fine Bird" a Madrigal for 5 voices. I mention this because I was listening to Pandora when this came on and it just stood out from the other brilliant and refined pieces of the age.  Glorious, silvery, and sounding entirely like the religious music of the age.  Music to be taken seriously and to be savored, sipped, and taken in small amounts, a cordial.  A cordial of melancholy, to be sure, and yet, so very lovely.  I hate to ask the trite question--but is there similar music today?  Is there the same silvery, lingering sound that will resound long after its makers have passed?  Obviously, I don't expect madrigals, but I do wonder about the substance sometimes of music--how well it will endure--Lady Gaga can excite the crowds at her concerts, but I'm not certain that I expect "Poker Face" to be placed alongside Orlando Gibbons, or even, to be honest among the more rustic tunes that come down to us from ...

Mark Strand--"My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer" Poem and Part I of discussion Part II of discussion With the usual helpful analysis one has come to expect from these all-too-rare excursions into the literary world.  I would wish for more from UD in this direction, but then I would not have so much of what is normally done, and that would be a shame as well. And as we're on the subject of summer--I'll post the perennial reminder: Original Middle English Svmer is icumen in Lhude sing cuccu! Groweþ sed and bloweþ med and springþ þe wde nu. Sing cuccu! Awe bleteþ after lomb, lhouþ after calue cu, Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ. Murie sing cuccu! Cuccu, cuccu, Wel singes þu cuccu. ne swik þu nauer nu! Sing cuccu nu, Sing cuccu! Translation: Summer has come in Loudly sing, cuckoo! Seeds grow and meadows bloom and the woods spring anew Sing cuckoo! Ewe bleats after lamb, Calf lows after cow, Bullock leaps, billygoat farts, Merrily sing...

There are so many wonderful things about the internet: there was a time when a scholar had to order through ILL and wait for weeks or months before he or she could set eyes on such works as Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini or Robert de Boron's Prose Merlin . No more. from Prose Merlin Robert de Boron Full wrothe and angry was the Devell, whan that oure Lorde hadde ben in helle and had take oute Adam and Eve and other at his plesier. And whan the fendes sien that, they hadden right grete feer and gret merveile. Thei assembleden togedir and seiden: "What is he this thus us supprisith and distroyeth, in so moche that oure strengthes ne nought ellis that we have may nought withholde hym, nor again hym stonde in no diffence but that he doth all that hym lyketh? We ne trowed not that eny man myght be bore of woman but that he sholde ben oures; and he that thus us distroyeth, how is he born in whom we knewe non erthely delyte?" Than ansuerde anothir fende and seide...