The Songs Our Mothers Sang to Us: Isoko and Betty

Yoko & Isoko Ono; Ellen & Betty O'Neill

Several years ago I stumbled upon Yoko Ono's Desert Island Disc, recorded Friday, June 15, 2007, when she was 73 years old. 

Yoko's story brought me an unexpected connection to the whole beautiful, shared notion of mothers & daughters, a choral connection across cultures and decades. Amazing.

It was for her selection of the song "When I Grow to Too Old Dream." Here is the story she tells of why she chose it.  Her distinctive, slight voice somehow made the story even more poignant and resonant:


Yoko:  "This is a very personal memory for me.

One day I just felt I wanted to call my mother.

The way she said "Oh Yoko" I thought there was something strange.

And then she said "I just fell in the kitchen," or something like that.

And I thought, this is serious and I thought I had to do something, but I was in New York and she was in Japan.

So I said, "Ok Mommy, let's sing that song, remember that song you used to sing."

and I started "When I grow too old to dream."

[And my mother started to sing back very weak and very haltingly.]

Ok. Let's start again, "When I grow too old to dream. . ." 

I kept repeating it and repeating it and she finally sang the whole line.

I was so choked up. And my assistant called to Tokyo, to the hospital and got the ambulance to go to my mother, and she was saved."

And that is how Yoko Ono kept her mother calm and alert while her assistant telephoned Japan and got her mother help.


"When I Grow Too Old to Dream" is a song with music by Sigmund Romberg and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, published in 1934. (Yoko Ono was born in 1933). It is one of those extremely special tunes, like Amazing Grace and Danny Boy, that strikes a chord deep within many, many people.

The terrible scenario of an elderly loved one who has fallen is one that every family has known.  Keeping her mother calm and alert was absolutely the thing to do, very quick thinking on Yoko's part. And of ALL the songs in ALL the world she could use, what pops into her head in that desperate moment is a song in English that her mother sang to her as a child.  Isoko of course  also sang songs to Yoko in Japanese, but "When I Grow" has a tune that can connect soul to soul very deeply. Perhaps that is why it popped into her head in that stressful moment.

I hadn't thought of the song in years, but my mother, who was born the same year as Yoko, sang it to me too when I was a child. 

What makes my mom's rendition so special is that she cannot "carry a tune."  My mother can hear distinctive notes in a song, and can recognize songs, but she struggles to re-create differing pitches of any kind. Her notes often come out as a monotone. And yet, her love of songs and desire to share was so strong that I did hear "tunes" come through that monotone. And this song in particular, which I have known practically since birth.

When I grow too old to dream
I'll have you to remember
When I grow too old to dream
Your love will live in my heart
So, kiss me my sweet
And so let us part
And when I grow too old to dream
That kiss will live in my heart
And when I grow too old to dream
That kiss will live in my heart

The song was used in the 1935 film The Night Is Young, starring Ramon Navarro and sung by English light opera actress Evelyn Layne.

Leonard Maltin is not fan of the film: "Novarro, wretchedly miscast and mugging mercilessly, brings his 10-year MGM career to a pitiful end playing a Viennese archduke who spurns his royal fiancee for a fling with ballerina Laye. Oscar Hammerstein/Sigmund Romberg score, including "When I Grow Too Old to Dream,'' is an insufficient saving grace."

Gracie Fields and Nelson Edy had early hits with it, followed by Nat King Cole and Doris Day. Yoko used the Gracie version for her Desert Island Disc. That is not my favorite, because it's too operatic for such a gentle tune (although it does have the nice intro verse).  Here is Linda Ronstadt in a lovely duet with Kermit & Muppet chorus, also with the intro verse.

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 Mapeel     5/10/2020     family, music   

Sexy Beast, I Mean Bing: Happy Birthday!

Bing Crosby’s birthday is today, May 2, as he cites in his autobiography Call Me Lucky: "Uncle George kept my father company, diverted him with his best stories and raised a comforting glass with him when I was born on May 2, 1904."

OR it's tomorrow May 3, the date all the biographies site for him, including the Gary Giddens. And those bios cite 1903 as his birth year, not 1904. Turns out Bing celebrated May 2 because of a complicated family thing & then Paramount used that in their materials, but he was born on May 3. Unfortunately, this confusion about the simplest of a man’s details is the least of the problems with his legacy.

Like the Olympian gods, Bing Crosby is largely forgotten and unloved today, except for the descendents of some loyal fans. Gary Giddins made a valiant attempt to focus attention on this Mozart of the popular song with his very ample 2001 biography Pocketful of Dream. And for a brief moment, pop culture glanced at “the first white hip guy born in America” (as Artie Shaw called him). But the attention has not been sustained. And yet . . . when people discover his work in the 1930s, new fans are born.

In the beginning, Crosby was sexy and compelling. He had a distinct, astonishing voice and a way of singing that was unlike any other on the landscape.

He was a genuine heartthrob, best seen in a movie that is almost impossible to get now, the original Big Broadcast (1931, but before they started assigning years to them. Photos from this great site). Crosby plays himself, and the scenes of the women stampeding to kiss him are funny but entirely believable. Women fell in love with his voice on the radio, and the early shorts and movies use that as a story line.

Here he is, in The Big Broadcast, singing Dinah looking like a male model for Banana Republic, and  Please accompanied by the legendary Eddie Lang.



The tragedy of Eddie Lang. Lang met Crosby when they were both in Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra, and Eddie followed when Bing left the band. They were very close, and Giddins writes how devastated Crosby was when Lang died, hemorrhaging after a tonsillectomy. It was Crosby who had recommended that Lang have his tonsils out to help with chronic hoarseness and so be able to take on speaking parts in future Crosby films. It was an enormous burden for Crosby to bear that Lang died at age 30 from this operation that he recommended.

Important Beatles notes: John Lennon sites Crosby's Please as an influence for his writing Please Please Me: "I was always intrigued by the words of ‘Please, lend me your little ears to my pleas’ – a Bing Crosby song. I was always intrigued by the double use of the word ‘please’."

And in Scorsese's Living in a Material World documentary, Olivia Harrison says of George: "He liked the moon, you know. If the wind was blowing and the full moon was up, he’d put on Bing Crosby singing "Sweet Leilani" and just make the moment even better. And then he might hand you a gardenia."

The First Music Video?
In 1932 Marion Davies insisted on Crosby as her leading man in Going Hollywood, a wild pastiche of a musical. It’s maybe best known for the Grand Central extravaganza number, while the Make Hay While the Sunshine number is almost too hard to watch.

But there is one scene that deserves a place in film history: a drunk, disheveled Crosby singing Temptation intercut with close-ups of the smoldering Fifi D’Orsay. It’s dark and evocative, with other cuts to blurry, tightly-packed bodies, swaying to the pulsating rhythms of the song. It looks like an early music video. The comments on YouTube tell it all: “how young he is” and “how sexy he is” and “Crosby has more talent in his little finger than Sinatra has in his whole body” [okay, that one is just a nice swipe at the other guy].



Yeah. That’s what propelled Crosby into the hearts and imagination of an entire generation, three quarters of a century ago.

Stardust, 1931
One more (audio) clip: Crosby in 1931 singing Star Dust (first published as two words, and then one). It’s nothing like the standard Nat King Cole. He sings it with a wild abandon, always pushing on the tempo. Pure passion. Pure despair. Pure, natural talent.




This Crosby of the 1930s is the guy who fired my father's imagination to be a life-long fan.  As well as a guy from Hoboken, named Frank. And that's a pretty good legacy in itself.

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 Mapeel     5/03/2020     Film, music   

Good Friday: Saint Peter's Worst Day

Thanks to Gwen Toth, the amazing director of music of the early music group ARTEK, I learned an astonishing piece by the great Renaissance composer Orlando di Lassus.

It's Lagrime di San Pietro, The Tears of Saint Peter, a setting of a twenty-verse poem by the Italian poet Luigi Tansillo (published in 1560), to which Lassus added a final motet.

The music is rich and soaring and dense and transparent all at the same time, like all the masterworks of Renaissance polyphony.

But it is the text that is such a discovery for me. The poet Tansillo imagines the grief beyond grief that Peter feels after he has actively denied Christ three times before the cock crows. 

At the Last Supper Jesus told Peter that he would disown him three times before the cock crowed.

Peter replied: "Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will." "I tell you the truth."

OF course that's not what happens. From Gospel of Luke, the third denial:

About an hour later another asserted, “Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean." Peter replied, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.

When Eyes Met

Tansillo's verse focuses on the image of Jesus turning and looking straight at Peter, imagining what it must have been like for their eyes to meet and for Peter to comprehend the magnitude of what he had done.

The entire poem is worth reading, because it tells such moving story, but these excerpts give you an idea. Peter projects his fear and shame onto Christ, that Christ is angry at him for the denial. But Christ has no such anger or hatred of Peter, and when Peter realizes this, he can barely stand it.

When noble Peter, who had sworn

that midst a thousand spears and a thousand swords

he would die beside his beloved Lord,

realized that, overcome by cowardice,

his faith had failed him in his great moment of need,

the shame, sorrow and pity

for his own failure and for Christ's suffering

pierced his breast with a thousand darts.

But the bows which hurled

the sharpest and most deadly arrows

into his breast were the Lord's eyes, as they looked at him;

It looked as if his Lord, surrounded by many

enemies and abandoned by his peers, wanted to say:

"What I foretold him has now come to pass,

disloyal friend, proud disciple"

"More cruel", He seemed to say, "are your eyes

than the godless hands that will put me on the cross;

nor have I felt a blow that struck me as hard,

among the many that did strike me,

as the one that came out of your mouth.

I found no one faithful, nor kind,

among the many that I deemed worthy to be called mine:

but you, for whom my love was so intense,

are more deceitful and ungrateful above all the others.

Each of them offended me only by leaving me:

but you denied me"

The words full of anger and love

that Peter seemed to see written

on the serene, holy eyes of Christ,

would shatter whoever who heard them.

Like a snowbank which, having lain frozen

and hidden in the depth of the valley all winter,

and then in springtime, warmed by the sun,

falls apart and melts into streams,

such was the fear which had lain like ice

in Peter's heart and made him repress the truth;

when Christ turned His eyes on him,

it melted and was changed into tears.

...

By denying my Lord, I denied

life itself from which every spirit springs:

a tranquil life that neither fears nor desires,

whose course flows on without end:

because then I denied the one true life,

there is no reason, none at all, to continue this false life.

Go then, vain life, quickly leave me:

since I denied true life, 1 do not want its shadow.”

So Peter is in despair, almost it seems to the point of suicide. But we know he rallies, and is the rock upon whom the Church is built. The stone rejected by the builders is now the cornerstone.

The end of the Lassus piece is an older, Latin motet re-set. Its words are also pretty incredible: Christ on the cross telling us that as horrific and painful are the nails and spears, they are nothing to the pain of ingratitude. Imagine that.

Behold, mankind, what I suffer for you,

To you I cry, I who am dying for you;

behold the pains with which I am afflicted;

behold the nails with which I am pierced.

There is no pain like that of the cross;

and great though my body’s suffering might be,

the pain of ingratitude, however, is worse,

such ingratitude as I have experienced from you.

Images
Caravaggio, The Denial of Saint Peter, 1610

 Peter's Denial by Rembrandt, 1660. Jesus is shown in the upper right hand corner, his hands bound behind him, turning to look at Peter

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 Mapeel     4/10/2020     Easter, holidays, music   

Allegri's Miserere: Turning Up All Over

There is so much sublime music for Easter, I can barely talk about it. The Renaissance composers saved their most brilliant writing to word paint the holy mystery of the Triduum-—Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter.

One piece is famous beyond the small circle of church music: the Allegri Miserere. It’s a hauntingly beautiful piece that goes between the simple chant melody of Psalm 51 (50) and cascading quartets, with the soprano going up to a high C, one of the highest notes a human voice can produce.

Its popularity is augmented by its intriguing, something-out-of-Indiana Jones like history. It was written by the Sistine Chapel composer Allegri around 1630 for matins during Holy Week on Wednesday and Friday. On penalty of excommunication the score was never to be seen or shown outside of the Chapel choir. The ornamentation was never written down at all, but passed along from singer to singer.

Audiences were allowed to attend matins even back then, and it became known as a “must-hear” for the elite, particularly those on the original Grand Tour of the 18th century.

Enter the 14-year-old Mozart, in Rome in 1770, during Holy Week. When he hears the Miserere, he decides to write it down, note for note, from memory. He goes back on Good Friday to double-check his work. (It's comforting that even geniuses need to double-check things.)

He shortly after encounters Dr. Charles Burney, the British church musician and musicologist. Somehow the piece passes into his hands, and he publishes it in 1771 (it seems excommunication was now off the table). The piece that is performed today was permutated over the centuries—-sometimes by design, sometimes by out-and-out mistakes of transcription—-so it is not very close at all to what Mozart heard. But what Allegri’s Miserere has become is still an exceptional musical experience that captures the imagination of most who hear it.

In the Movies and Onstage
I have sung the alto part numerous times, so I am privileged to know it very well. I heard it recently in two very surprising places.

One was me finally watching the John Woo movie Face/Off, with John Travolta and Nicholas Cage. At the end, at the funeral for the director whom Travolta has killed, we see the funeral procession, and the music is the Miserere. (While it is so closely associated with Good Friday, Psalm 51 itself is used for Catholic burial.) Suprisingly, it is not listed in the Wikipedia write-up for the film, which does list other classical music that is used. How could they miss it?

The other instance was in the play The Seafarer, the Irish play by Conor McPherson (more about it here). The play is set on CHRISTMAS Eve. They turn the radio on at one point, and there we hear the Allegri Miserere. Very strange. With so much great Christmas music available, why would Conor (who is also the director) choose that? If anyone knows how to reach him, I would love to get an explanation for this.

Here is the performance by the exquisite English group The Sixteen, with the words below. (The high C comes around 1:45 minutes in and is repeated every other verse.)





Miserere Mei Deus
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

14 Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

(Reposted and updated from 2008.)

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 Mapeel     3/25/2016     music   

Bill Murray Channels Bing & Frank for a Very Merry Christmas

There's no doubt: My Christmas spirits have been sagging. There is so very much pain in the world, it has taken my blogging voice away.

And then. I finally watched A Very Murray Christmas on Netfilx, and it woke me up, just in time. It spoke to my DNA, and with that connection I realized that I can't help the world at large. But I can be "as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knows or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world." Thanks Bill.

A Very Murray Christmas is a touchstone to my childhood. I know what he's doing with his 57 minutes, and it is not self-indulgent, the word I saw most often in reviews.

In the Beginning, There was Bing Crosby
Yes, I am a Bill Murray fan, from Caddyshack on. And I was weened on 1940s movies. When Irving Berlin's Holiday Inn was on WOR, Channel 9 in the 1970s, my father--a lifelong Crosby fan--said, "this is important you need to watch this." And I found it stunning. The towering talents of Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, set against the glamour of NY nightclub life with those glittering white Christmas trees, was intoxicating. In high school I made my friends sit and watch it with me, and they were glad. High schoolers. In the 1970s.

Fast forward some decades: When I finally watched A Very Murray Christmas, I was immediately connected back to my Crosby heritage, which of course included every Crosby Christmas special from the early 1970s until his death, and his famous Christmas songs. No stretch there, since Murray used the most famous Crosby album graphic directly. (Although I think Bill looks oddly like Derek Jacobi here.)





But the Crosby specials aren't the most direct connection for me: instead it was to a special episode of Frank Sinatra's short-lived The Frank Sinatra Show, for Bulova, called Happy Holidays with Bing and Frank. The premise is that Bing Crosby is dropping by Frank's very chic apartment with some gifts.  The banter is scripted. Sometimes awkward (sound familiar?) while sometimes it's cool:

Crosby "Hey this must be in your key."
Sinatra:  "Well it's my ballpark."

They drink from a Wassail bowl in a visual quote of "Did You Evah" from The Philadelphia Story, and become inebriated enough to see Ye Old Merrie England outside the high-rise door. And they both enter this alternate universe (sound familiar?) in Dickensian costume to join in with the carolers. (To see Crosby wear a Dickensian top hat atilt is alone worth the price of admission.)

1957 friends get together; 1957 friends enter alternate reality.

2015 friends get together; 2015 friends enter an alternate reality.

Frank and Bing then return to 1957, and Bing thinks he needs to leave because Sinatra's table is set for an intimate dinner for two, which then Frank says is for him! (Not a date!).

This allows the duo to continue to sing Christmas songs solo and in duet, until Frank graciously gives the Bing the closing spotlight for "White Christmas." It's a lovely reminder that Sinatra idolized Crosby, even though he was to surpass him in cultural relevance. For sensibilities that love that classic singing, the 27-minute special is sublime.

Bill and His Friends
Many critics found Murray's special lazy at best, self-indulgent at the least. But the vision of combining famous friends playing themselves with others playing characters is neither. It's creative.

The premise of the live show is right out of the Mitch Glazer/Murray collaboration of Scrooge. It continues Murray's homage to the early days of live TV, something that Clooney is also interested in, bringing the 1962 film Fail-Safe live to CBS in 2000, as well as being in the live ER episode "Ambush" in 1997. There is no sense of parody here for Murray, it is a tip of the hat to TV's past.

Bill Murray, both the actor/singer and the "character," would not have the same kind of 1950s polish that we see in Crosby and Sinatra. That's not who he is. But I think he brought his own A game: his echoes of Nick Ocean lounge singer & Lost in Translation's Bob Harris, with some redeemed Frank Cross. So the tone is mixed but always genuine. That is part of its charm.

Murray and Glazer & Sofia Coppola capture the ersatz exuberance of "the Christmas special of Christmases past" beautifully with the chic sparkling white set and snow and cute chorus girl costumes. George "you shook Sinatra's hand" Clooney is the perfect friend to be in the dream sequence. He also has enormous respect and nostalgia for old Hollywood and early TV, which can be easy to mock.

Quick Music Nit-Pick Interlude
Paul Shaffer, musician extraordinaire, allowed two goofs on his watch:

•Jenny Lewis starts "Good King Wenceslas" and commits the age-old error of reading the 3 syllables of his name as though he "last" did something.

It's "Good King Wen-ce-las looked out."  NOT "Good King Wence-las LAST looked out."

•Having Miley Cyrus sing 2 verses of "Silent Night" and then sing the first verse AGAIN instead of the exquisite third verse is a gaff. She did a beautiful job.

One funny thing in 1957. They altered the words of the 2nd verse of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" so that they did not have to say "a Virgin's womb."

CHRIST, by highest Heav'n ador'd; CHRIST, the Everlasting Lord; Late in Time behold him come; Offspring of a Virgin's Womb the favored one.

Big Finish: We Wish You a Merry Christmas



Bill wakes up from his glorious blackout to find himself on the couch, in his robe, with faithful Paul at the piano and Dimitri Dimitrov on call. He sings "We wish you a Merry Christmas" in his alcohol-wrecked voice. Then looks out the window to wish the greeting to all New York in a poignant, sad, grey shot.

Bing and Frank end their tableau sitting down to a festive dinner together as the camera pans back to a window with snow a-swirling, a shot right out of Holiday Inn.

Big difference between 1957 and 2015. In part, perhaps, because men, and I do mean the male gender, are now free to show their fears in a way Crosby and Sinatra would never have dreamed of.  And 2015 does not have the post-war optimism that the 1950s saw.

But what is most important is that we can still enjoy Bing & Frank's talent, and if you're in more of a Joni Mitchell "River" mood, pop into Bill's Very Murray Christmas. So many riches. God bless us, every one.


Happy Holidays With Bing and Frank (Classic) from Dill Bates on Vimeo.

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 Mapeel     12/22/2015     Christmas, music, TV   

Sing Polyphony & See the World. But not Cuba.

September 19, 2015: I'm watching Pope Francis arrive in Cuba, in advance of this visit to the US. I tried to go to Cuba 3 years ago, shortly after Pope Benedict visited, to sing in one of the polyphony courses I do around the world.  It was an idea before its time: the US Department of the Treasury wasn't having it. 

Here is my non-travel tale from 2012:


-->

Cuba: the Pope [Benedict] didn’t have a problem getting into the country, but this lowly American alto couldn’t make it happen.

This tale of non-travel amidst my usual travelogues begins late last year when I learned of a thrilling opportunity to sing polyphony in Cuba, at an international workshop organized by Andrew Van Der Beek, who lives in England and runs the Lacock courses in Europe.

The course is in Havana, under the direction of the Spanish conductor Carlos Aransay, starting on Palm Sunday April 1 and ending with a FREE concert in the main cathedral on Holy Saturday on the 7th.

Here is the course description:

 “A week for singers of all ages and nationalities in the historic centre of Cuba's capital city. The course will be directed in English and Spanish, and will end with a public performance in Havana cathedral. The general aim is to explore Cuba's musical heritage with a leading specialist conductor, in a relaxed and convivial setting.

"Our concert will be in Havana cathedral on Holy Saturday, so we begin with Alonso Lobo's Lamentationes Sabbati Sancti, one of the most sublime and vibrant settings of these powerful texts. The year 2012 is an important one for Cuba: the 400th anniversary of the apparition of Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre, Cuba's patron saint and dedicatee of the church where we will be rehearsing. We will commemorate the event with two hymns to the Virgin: Ave Maria by Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), one of the most beautiful settings I have come across, widely performed in Latin America; and Salve Regina by William Byrd, the five-part setting. Early English choral music is virtually unknown in Cuba, and this is just stunning with its canons and quick ascending scales.”

Wow. Choir nerd heaven. (I had no idea that the Pope would be in Havana just days before the course started.)

The wrinkle for me is that Americans cannot travel independently to Cuba because of the economic sanctions enacted 60 years ago. President Obama relaxed some of the restrictions in Jan. 2011, allowing for some travel under very specific, spelled-out provisions that are in keeping with “U.S. policy.”

And so I began my saga to try to attend this workshop.

Rest Easy: Our Wire Transfer Officers Are Very Alert

The first indication that this was not going to be easy was when I tried to wire the down payment for the course to Andrew. I was wiring the money from Chase, and I had put in the note “Havana” because I was registering at the same time for a second course Andrew is running, in Italy, and I wanted him to be able to distinguish the two down payments.

Now, I knew that I would have to apply for a license to travel to Cuba, which was going to be my next step, when my bank Chase called to basically say they had confiscated my $234 dollars, which they could neither pay to the beneficiary (Andrew) nor return to me unless I got a license from the Treasury department. They followed up with this email:

Please be advised JPMorgan Chase is required under the U.S. Treasury dept. Asset Control regulations to hold wire transfer funds USD $236.50 due to the reference Cuba . This reference may be associated with Cuban Sanctions. The funds are now in a JPMorgan Chase Blocked funds account. Chase cannot release the funds to the beneficiary nor can we return the funds back to you unless you obtain a license from the Treasury office. In order to obtain this license you should apply to the following address or website.

All triggered just because I put “Havana” in the notation. Comforting to know that Chase officers are not asleep at the wheel. But I was still surprised, because I was paying pounds sterling to an Englishman in England! Not much supporting of Communism in that.

Licensed to Travel

An American needs to apply for a “license” to travel to Cuba from the Treasury Dept., the Office of Foreign Assets Control to be specific—not the State Department—because the policy sanctions against Cuba are specifically economic.

The T-Dept. has a good website that spells out the sanctions, and spells out what provisions you can apply to travel under. There is a general license, and they specific provisions.

I applied under “31 CFR § 515.567 Public Performances, Athletic and Other Competitions, and Exhibitions,” which seemed to be dead-on for my situation.

“You may request a specific license authorizing certain travel-related and additional transactions incident to participation in a public performance, clinic, workshop, athletic or other competition, or exhibition in Cuba. The event must be open for attendance and, in relevant situations, participation by the Cuban public.”

The provision even specifies a workshop. And the course has a free concert, which some students from a local conservatory will participate in. I expected a slam dunk approval.

Instead, my application to travel to Cuba for this workshop was denied because the performance provision does not “contemplate” the specificity of this international workshop.

(Side note, “contemplate” is a very active verb for a provision. Who knew our government was such a fan of personification.)

Such is the downside of bureaucracy: it leaves no room for common sense interpretation.

I know that an international workshop of singers who are not in any sort of permanent group is not specified in the provision, but the spirit of this activity is absolutely within the spirit of the provision.

I felt so strongly that my request was actually within “U.S. policy” I appealed my rejection. There is no formal actual appeal, you just reapply again, and try to emphasize anything that will show that your request fits within the provision. In the appeal I played up being a Roman Catholic, going to sing a FREE concert on HOLY SATURDAY, for my fellow Catholics in Havana.

I made that new application on December 27, and three months later they still had not made a determination, which basically ran out the clock on me.

I respect that there are national interest situations that put the good of the country above the individual’s rights and liberties. And so I didn't go.

I am glad that my European musician friends will be in Havana next week, bringing the sublime music of polyphony alive amid the ancient stones of the Cuban capital cathedral.

Up next for me: Petitioning to to get my confiscated funds back. A least there’s a specific form on the OFAC website to apply. Bureaucracy at its most efficient when you need it.

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 Mapeel     9/19/2015     music   

"Clarence Sent Me": Still Missing the Big Man as Born to Run Turns 40

I wrote the post below back in 2011 when the Big Man, Clarence Clemens, died. And now, August 25, 2015, Born to Run is 40 years old. It was great to see Springsteen and the E Street Band sing-off Jon Stewart with the rock anthem, but it's still hard not having Clarence on the defining sax sound. 

Born to Run. The song itself is exquisite poetry with a soul rousing sound. But every song on the album is extraordinary. For 3 generations now that collection of songs is a touchstone of yearning, love, and fear that touches the soul like few things can.  It's often said that the music of Bach is so complex and musically deep that it reveals the mind of God, and as a singer, I agree with that.  But Bruce. Bruce reveals the complexity of God's love for the strivings of humanity . . . and, clearly, his preferred groove (sorry Bach). 

In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream 
At night we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines 
Sprung from cages out on highway nine, 
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected,and steppin' out over the line
H-Oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back 
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap 
We gotta get out while we're young 
`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run 

Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend 
I want to guard your dreams and visions 
Just wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims 
And strap your hands 'cross my engines 
Together we could break this trap 
We'll run till we drop, baby we'll never go back 
H-Oh, Will you walk with me out on the wire 
`Cause baby I'm just a scared and lonely rider 
But I gotta know how it feels 
I want to know if love is wild 
Babe I want to know if love is real 

Beyond the Palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard 
Girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors 
And the boys try to look so hard 
The amusement park rises bold and stark 
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist 
I wanna die with you Wendy on the street tonight 
In an everlasting kiss 

One, two, three, four!

The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive 
Everybody's out on the run tonight 
But there's no place left to hide 
Together Wendy we can live with the sadness 
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul 
H-Oh, Someday girl I don't know when 
We're gonna get to that place 
Where we really wanna go 
And we'll walk in the sun 
But till then tramps like us 
Baby we were born to run 


The Death of the Big Man

It’s hard to lose a towering talent. My older brother was a fan of Southside Johnny and Bruce, that’s how I was introduced to the music. Born to Run then cut into my soul and touched every inch of its teen age fiber and I was cast as a fan for life.

Bruce and Clarence are both great storytellers with a love of the dramatic and the witty. Here’s a great story that Dave Marsh used at the end of his 1979 book,  Born to Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story. It's from the 1978 tour, Bruce talking to the audience in the middle of Growin' Up. He's telling about his mom & dad and their attitude toward his rock dreams.

Bruce Springteen's Concert Patter

“Anyway, one day my mom and pop, they come to me and say, ‘Bruce, it’s time to get serious with your life, This guitar thing . . .it’s okay as a hobby but you need something to fall back on.' My father, he said, “You should be a lawyer’--which I coulda used later on in my career. He says, ‘Lawyers, they run the world.’

“But my mother used to say, ‘No, no, no, he should be an author, he should write books.’ But me, I wanted to play the guitar.

“Now, my mother, she’s real Italian, and my father, he’s Irish. So they say, ‘This is a big thing. You should see the priest. Tell him we want you to be a laywer or an author. But don’t say nothin’ about that God-damn guitar.’

“So I went to the rectory. ‘Hi, Father Ray, I’m Mr. Springsteen’s son.’ I tell him. ‘I got this problem. My father, he thinks I should be a lawyer, and my mother wants me to be an author. But me, I got this guitar.”

“Father Ray says, ‘This is too big a deal for me. You got to talk to God,’ who I didn’t know too well at the time. ‘Tell him about the lawyer and the author,’ Father Ray says, ‘but don’t say nothin' about that guitar.’

“Now I was worried. Where was I gonna find God, right? So I go find Clarence—-he knows everyone. Clarence says, ‘No sweat, I know right where he is.’ So I show up at Clarence’s house in my mother’s car-—an old Nash Rambler. Clarence looks at me. He says, ‘You gonna go visit God in that? Man, he’s got like, people in Cadillacs, you know, He aint’ gonna pay attention to anybody shows up in a Nash Rambler.’ But it’s all I got.

“So we drive way out of town, and I say to Clarence, ‘Man, you sure you know where we’re goin’?’ Clarence says, ‘Sure, I just took a guy out here the other day.’ So we finally come to this little house way out in the woods. There’s music blasting out and a little hole in the door.

“I knock and this eye peeps out. I say, ‘Uh, Clarence sent me.’ So they let me in. And there’s God, behind the drums. On the bass drum it says: ‘G-O-D.’ So I said, ‘God, I got this problem. My father, he wants me to be a lawyer. And my mother, she wants me to be an author. But they just don’t understand---I got this guitar.’

“God looks at me. He says, ‘I know, I know. See, what they don’t understand is, Moses screwed up. There was supposed to be an Eleventh Commandment. Actually, Moses was so scared after ten-—it was a great show, the burning bush, the thunder, the lightening, you shoulda seen it-—he went back down the mountain. You see, what those guys don’t understand is that there was supposed to be an Eleventh Commandment. And all it said was:

LET IT ROCK!

* * *

So now the Big Man has met the Man Upstairs. And if Bruce is right, then he’s right at home, letting it rock.

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 Mapeel     8/25/2015     current events, music   

The Carol of a Chrismtas Carol: God Rest You Merry[ily], Gentlemen

The choir of King's College, Cambridge, is in the middle of it's Advent Lessons & Carols service, singing this classic carol. Their phrasing is impeccable, and you can hear the comma between "merry" and "gentlemen." Thank goodness.  But that is not always the case, leading to several hundred years of 'happy guys,' rather than a soul 'being well and happily kept' by God.

I love that Charles Dickens chose "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" to represent the whole kit and kaboodle to Scrooge.

"...at the first sound of — "God bless you merry, gentlemen! May nothing you dismay!"— Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror”

This carol was first written down in the 18th century, with no known composer.

As a song it is a triumph of clear, simple exposition of faith: the Son of God came by name to save us from sin and bring us comfort and joy. That’s what it’s all about, Charlie Brown.

As syntax, it is a little less successful, because "merry" is an adverb in hiding describing ‘how God should rest you’ where rest is the sense of "keep" or make," and not an adjective describing gentlemen, even when that comma goes astray (God rest you merry gentlemen). Which, I’m sorry to say, it did in the juvenile edition of the Dickens story that I bought for my niece. Sigh.

There is also the "ye" versus "you." Because it feels like it's from Merry Olde England, most people reach for the "ye." But "ye" is the nominative case, and so would not have been used as the object.  And we know this because in one of the earliest surviving written documents for the song, from 1760 London, when thees and thous were in abundance, the word is "you." It's also what Dickens transcribed in 1843 for his story, and it's what Bing Crosby so clearly sings, so that settles it.



God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas day,
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray:

O tidings of comfort and joy,
comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.
 
From God our heavenly Father
A blessèd angel came,
And unto certain shepherds
Brought tidings of the same,
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by name:

O tidings ...


(update from 2009 post)

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 Mapeel     12/24/2014     Christmas, literature, music   

Remembrance Sunday: Life and Death 100 Years After the Great War Started

Tyne Cot Commonwealth Cemetary, Ypres Salient. 11,954, of which 8,367 are unnamed. Cross is built on site of a German pillbox.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Trench photo in the Flanders Field Museum, Ghent, Belgium

* * * * * *

I recently returned from Belgium, visiting Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres as part of a singing holiday run by some very talented Brits.  The company arranges for a music director to meet up with singers in a European city, with a preselected repertoire that will be performed in a concert or service after a series of rehearsals, and then everyone goes their own way.

On 7th October 1914, some 8,000 soldiers of the Imperial German Army proudly marched into Ypres, Belgium. They represented the vanguard of a nation hell-bent on claiming its share of empire, and although the Great War was still in its infancy, the notorious Schlieffen Plan appeared to be working as intended. The following day, they promptly left the city’s walled enclave to continue on their great march westwards. It was to be the last time that the German army would set foot in Ypres during the war, something that would ultimately lead to the deaths of almost 600,000 people and the annihilation of the city [as they tried for 4 bloody years to re-take the city]. [Text from an open educational resource website on the Great War.]

This outing was built around participating in the beginning of Europe's "ritual act of remembrance" for the World War One centenary: singing at a Mass in Ghent; the Faure Requiem in a church in Bruges; and at the Menin Gate Last Post Ceremony in Ypres, along with a visit to the Flanders Field Museum and the Tyne Cot Cemetery in the Ypres Salient (my photo above). It is the largest cemetery in the area, but as you drive along the Zonnebeke road, you see signs for dozens upon dozens of others. 160 cemeteries in total, in the Ypres Salient alone.

I learned about Ypres from Paul Fussell, studying his highly acclaimed The Great War in Modern Memory with him back in the day, and so it was very special to be on the very ground I studied so many years ago.

It was also very moving to be with the grandchildren of the British Expeditionary Forces (B.E.F.) that entered on the side of France & Belgium to stop the German aggression.

But there is still the fact of Ypres. From a wall card in the Ypres Flanders Field Museum:

From October 1914 onwards, the German artillery began to shell Ypres and the Cathedral went up in flames. In May 1915 the last inhabitants had to leave their town and Ypres was completely delivered up to military violence. By the end of 1917 not a single house or tree was left standing.


The Menin Gate
The Menin Road was the main road to the front for the Commonwealth troops. It bears the names of 54,389 officers and men from the UK and Commonwealth (except New Zealand & Newfoundland) who died on the Salient and whose remains were never found for a proper burial.

From 11th November, 1929, the Last Post [the British version of Taps] has been sounded at the Menin Gate Memorial every night and in all weathers. The only exception to this was during the four years of the German occupation of Ypres from 20th May 1940 to 6th September 1944. The daily ceremony was instead continued in England at Brookwood Military Cemetery, Surrey. On the very evening that Polish forces liberated Ypres the ceremony was resumed at the Menin Gate, in spite of the heavy fighting still going on in other parts of the town. Bullet marks can still be seen on the memorial from that time. [Text from a UK Great War website.]

The town that you see today is a complete reconstruction, following the war. They chose to rebuild the great medieval Cloth Hall--built in the 15th Century--exactly as it had looked. Our charming local guide kept saying, "everything you see is a copycat of the original."  It is an astonishing story.

I witnessed and participated in the "ritual act of remembrance" at the Menin Gate on September 22, 2014. Traffic is stopped, the Belgian buglers arrive to sound the Last Post. Sometimes there are extra elements, like our choir, and that day also a Scottish bagpipe contingent. Sometimes there are ceremonial wreath layings.

On this day there were English children from a public school, and a highly decorated, active duty English soldier.  We sang the very haunting Douglas Guest setting of For the Fallen. It is remarkable that this ceremony has continued daily for almost 100 years.  It's hard to sustain anything, but this small, ritual remembrance connects the living through the decades to all those lives slaughtered.

[top and third Menin Gate photo by Nick Couchman]

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 Mapeel     11/09/2014     current events, literature, music, vacation   

Pops with Our Better Ghosts and Goblins: Happy Halloween

This Louis Armstrong number from the 1936 Bing Crosby movie Pennies from Heaven is a great, great Halloween treat. Louis and the skeletons swing it hot.





The Skeleton in the Closet, (Johnny Burke/Arthur Johnston)

There's an old deserted mansion
On an old forgotten road
Where the better ghosts and goblins
Always hang out.

One night they threw a party
In a manner a la mode
And they cordially invited
All the gang out
At a dark bewitchin' hour
When the fun was loud and hearty
A notorious wall flower
Became the life of the party

Mmm! The spooks were havin' their midnight fling
The merry makin' was in full swing
They shrieked themselves into a cheerful trance
When the skeleton in the closet started to dance
Now a goblin giggled with fiendish glee
A shout rang out from a big banshee
Amazement was in every ghostly glance
When the skeleton in the closet started to dance
All the witches were in stitches
While his steps made rhythmic thumps
And they nearly dropped their broomsticks
When he tried to do the bumps
You never heard such unearthly laughter
Such hilarious groans
When the skeleton in the closet rattled his bones

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 Mapeel     10/31/2014     music   

"Breathes There a Man with a Soul So Dead" The Last Certain Day of the UK As We Know It

The UK is on the eve of possibly coming apart at the seams, and so the Twitter feed is filled with all things Scottish. A CNN post declares Sir Walter Scott the first literary superstar, and Wiki agrees, saying he was the first English-language author to be celebrated internationally in his own lifetime. He was born in 1771, after the England/Scotland marriage. He manifested the oral tradition of Scottish lore into sweeping historical novels that gave flesh and blood and Tartans to a war-strewn history of his country in the Waverly novels, Ivanhoe,  Rob Roy, The Bride of Lammermore, and so helped to create a national identity.

The famous canto from The Lay of the Last Minstrel is uniquely fitting for the day, although both sides have claimed the Great Scot for the WWSWD.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own, my native land"?
Whose heart hath n’er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned...?
If such there be, go mark him well...
The wretch, concentrated all in self,
...Doubly dying shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor’d, and unsung. —

******

No politics here, but the CNN story reminded me of this post I wrote a few years ago when I learned some lovely tidbits about one of my favorite stories from childhood, Scott's Lady of the Lake.

My father bought me used books for many years to build a library of classics for me. One of them was a small book of Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem, The Lady of the Lake (1810). As a child, I thought it was wonderful that the Lady is named, well, L.N (as M.A.’s alter ego is known to her RL friends).

So, I developed a deep attachment to L.N. Douglas and Scott’s work.

Now, jump to almost any Catholic wake or wedding you’ve been to, or the first scene of the film Prizzi’s Honor. There you would have heard someone singing Schubert’s Ave Maria. It’s a beautiful, beautiful melody, which Schubert wrote around 1825, set to the Latin words of the prayer to the Virgin: “Áve María, grátia pléna, Dóminus técum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus frúctus véntris túi, Iésus. Sáncta María, Máter Déi, óra pro nóbis peccatóribus, nunc et in hóra mórtis nóstrae. Ámen."

All of the 3 tenors have recordings of this, and Andrea Bocelli, and Celine Dion, and everyone and their aunts.

(This is not to be confused with the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria, which is less often heard.)

Except, that Schubert did not set the words of the Catholic prayer. And if you listen closely, you will hear that the melody and the tune are not tightly in sync. Unlike the Bach/Goudnod, where the music moves perfectly with the words.

Schubert actually wrote his haunting, beautiful melody to a “song” from The Lady of the Lake. At one point in the action, Lady L.N. goes to a cave to pray to the Virgin for protection from being discovered by the enemy clan. Scott calls it a song in his text, and the first words are Ave Maria. The rest are English words that he wrote for his poem. Schubert was a fan of Scott, and so he set one of the songs of his great poem. In German, he called it “Ellens dritter Gesang,” “Ellen’s Third Song.”

It was some time later that an anonymous person, inspired by the opening words Ave Maria, squished the Latin prayer into the haunting melody. It was so successful to generations of listeners, that it became known as Schubert’s Ave Maria. Schubert died in 1828, three years after his “Ellens dritter Gesang,” so he never heard the permutation of his music that became so famous.

Here are the words to Scott’s song, and below is Barbara Bonney singing the German translation of Scott, which is what Shubert actually set to his melody (although from the comments, people don't seem to know it's not the religious text). This wikipedia page is very clear bout this strange twist of fate.


Ave Maria! maiden mild!
Listen to a maiden's prayer!
Thou canst hear though from the wild,
Thou canst save amid despair.
Safe may we sleep beneath thy care,
Though banish'd, outcast and reviled -
Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer;
Mother, hear a suppliant child!
Ave Maria!

Ave Maria! undefiled!
The flinty couch we now must share
Shall seem this down of eider piled,
If thy protection hover there.
The murky cavern's heavy air
Shall breathe of balm if thou hast smiled;
Then, Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer;
Mother, list a suppliant child!
Ave Maria!

Ave Maria! stainless styled!
Foul demons of the earth and air,
From this their wonted haunt exiled,
Shall flee before thy presence fair.
We bow us to our lot of care,
Beneath thy guidance reconciled;
Hear for a maid a maiden's prayer,
And for a father hear a child!
Ave Maria!




And,  here’s one more amazing thing about Scott’s Lady of the Lake. It is the origin of the song “Hail to the Chief.” Scott wrote it as the “Boat Song,” for the arrival of the clan’s chieftain.

It was set to music in 1810 by James Sanderson for a stage version of the epic poem. In 1812 the stage version opened in New York. By 1828 the piece was well known as popular music, and the Marine Corps. Band performed it at the opening of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which was attended by John Quincey Adams. The song was first played to announce the arrival of the president at James K. Polk's inauguration on March 4, 1845. It was Julia Tyler, wife of Polk's predecessor, John Tyler, who suggested that the song be played when a president made an appearance, and in 1954 the Department of Defense made it the official music to announce the president. (All from Wikipedia.)

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 Mapeel     9/17/2014     current events, literature, music, poetry   

Independence Day: A Slight Refresher Course in the Events that Changed the World

Happy Birthday, USA. Another  Independence Day when we stop commerce, close the Stock Market, hit the beaches, go to baseballs games, gather in backyards for the very idea of our Declaration of Independence.

It's the anniversary of our legal separation from Great Britain, but not the anniversary of our independence—though we call it that—because we were still fighting the Revolutionary War. There were many points after this legal separation when the tide turned toward a Redcoats victory. It is possible that the Continental Congress would have written and adopted the masterpiece that is

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

but it would have been no more than a poetic moment and not the start of a nation that has meant a great deal to so many if the brave farmers and craftsmen who fought hadn't won. And the odds were definitely stacked against the rebels, as Wiki so succinctly puts it:

The Americans began the war with significant disadvantages compared to the British. They had no national government, no national army or navy, no financial system, no banks, no established credit, and no functioning government departments, such as a treasury.

The Revolutionary War went on for a brutal 8 years, 1775 to 1783, marked from the date of the Boston Massacre on April 19, and for us ending with the Siege of Yorktown, when Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781. Fighting continued in Gibraltar and the East and West Indies, reminding us of the international complexities as the war grew, which finally ended on September 3, 1873, with the Treaty of Paris. That other masterpiece, the US Constitution, is adopted on September 17, 1783, and went into effect on March 4, 1789.

I went on a four-hour tour of Revolutionary sites in lower Manhattan, organized by Fraunces Tavern.  They run it in the middle of the night, from 3:00am to 7:00 am, just to make it extra special. The guide paints a picture of lots of history that New Yorkers walk by every day.

Remembering Evacuation Day Hijinx

The last invading, garrisoned British troops left our beloved NYC on November 25, 1783. It's known as Evacuation Day, and was celebrated as a holiday in NY for a century.  Washington would not formally enter the city while any Union Jack was flying. One was seen near the Battery, and when the Patriots went to get it down, they found the Brits had greased the flagpole, and our guys couldn't scrammble to the top to get it down.  The Pats then made a series of cleats to hammer in, and veteran John Van Arsdale got to the top, took down the last British flag, and put up the Stars & Stripes. Enter the victorious George Washington.

The flagpole at Bowling Green, behind the Wall Street Bull, has a plaque commemorating this original Evacuation Day, just another part of hidden New York.

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 Mapeel     7/04/2014     current events, holidays, music   

Happy Easter from Irving, Fred, Bing, (and the Guys at Kings)

Irving Berlin gave us our one great pop culture Easter song, Easter Parade, published in 1933 and first sung in the Broadway revue As Thousands Cheer, the same year. As my mother told me long ago, Berlin first wrote the melody way back in 1917 with lyrics, "Smile and Show Your Dimple." It was a flop, but he was smart enough to bring back the lilting tune for the revue.

Berlin then used it in his 1942 film Holiday Inn as the Easter song, with Bing Crosby singing to Marjorie Reynolds.

The song then become the basis for the story for the 1948 film from Charles Walters and Arthur Freed with Fred Astaire and Judy Garland.  It is for the me the epitome of the movie musical. Every number is a classic. It's where I learned word "rotogravure" as a kid and loved seeing the shot of St. Patrick's Cathedral "on the avenue, Fifth Avenue."

In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it
You'll be the grandest fella in the Easter Parade
I'll be all in clover and when they look us over
We'll be the proudest couple in the Easter Parade

On the avenue, Fifth Avenue, the photographers will snap us
And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure
Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet
And of the guy, I'm taking to the Easter Parade

And, just because they are so good, the men & boy's from King's College, Cambridge, because it's not Easter without the Hallelujah Chorus. Happy Easter to all who celebrate, and everyone can enjoy the great music.

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 Mapeel     4/20/2014     Easter, Film, holidays, music   

Good Friday: Johnny Cash Asks Us "Were You There?"

Some of my favorite hymns and a motet for the day.


Were You There When They Crucified My Lord
Johnny Cash  
The show-closer from the Sept. 6, 1969, episode of The Johnny Cash Show, with Johnny, the Carter Family (featuring Anita Carter) and the whole ensemble bring down the house. Johnny sings the all-important lowest "F" in "trem-blllle."



Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross
Eddy Arnold
Not talked about much in this century, but he had quite a following in the middle of the last.



When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
Choir of Kings College, Cambridge
Isaac Watts' wonderful hymn sung to the lovely tune Rockingham. Nobody sings a descant like the boys at Kings.




O Vos Omnes
Gesualdo

"O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte:
Si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus."

"O all you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see:
If there be any sorrow like my sorrow."

The great cry of hurt written by the prophet Jeremiah mourning the destruction of the First and Second Temples, traditionally recited on Tisha B’Av, was co-opted by the first-rate Catholic composers of the 16th as motets for the Tenebrae Service of Good Friday or Holy Saturday, turning the POV to Christ on the cross.

You know what they say, if you’re going to steal, steal from the best. Pain for a devastating loss is the same, no matter who you are. The composers may have lifted the text, but they did make it completely their own with the most sublime composing saved for this holy day.

Gesualdo was a prince of Venosa known for murdering his wife, her lover, possibly his son and father-in-law. He also wrote in a chromatic musical language 300 years before its time, it wouldn’t be heard again until the late 19th century. Completely astounding. Two telling comments from YouTube: “insanely stunning music by a stunningly insane man” and “really disturbing... that's Gesualdo. Perfection itself.”

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 Mapeel     4/18/2014     Easter, music