"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
-G.K. Chesterton
The last time I was down at the American River they had set up an impressive amount of temporary fencing around an impressive number of goats for a fire control project. I didn't take the time I should have to get a picture that conveyed the muchness of the goats.
But a little further into the park, there was a fine example of their effectivity. This view is looking over one side of the trail, left in its natural condition:
And this is the view in the opposite direction, where the goats had been pastured only a day or two before. And yes, the trees were bare of leaves as high up as a goat might reach. They're definitely good at what they do.
This is something I've been meaning to post for ages; the only reason I never did was I felt somehow obliged to say more about it. And this mostly because it features four musical factors I like very much. Iarla Ó Lionáird rather goes without saying, but we have here, too, a tune that can be played as an Irish-style polka, ditto a tune that has an obvious tie to an entirely different version of itself, and words that are so nonsensical that they toe the line of pure puirt a beal.
(As for the different version of this tune, I wouldn't put it past you to catch it after a line or two, but it took Mr. Ó Lionáird actually slipping in a "Heilan' Laddie" to make me realize that part of the reason the tune sounded so. . .comfortable was I'd actually heard it many a time before.)
There's really no need for further commentary, other than if you Google "Tá Dhá Ghabhairín Bhuí Agam" you can find translations for some similar versions of these words. I doubt a word for word translation would make any better sense of it; I don't doubt that it's a kick and a half to listen to. And Steve Cooney is having too much fun wringing every last drop of music from that guitar.
Minikin A thin string of gut used for the treble string of a lute or viol.
The Oxford Universal Dictionary offers the surprise that the mini- half of the word has nothing to do with being small; it is, in fact, derived from the Middle Dutch minne, love. The -kin half is the diminutive (c.f. lambkin, and its ilk). The word was, in fact, originally a term of endearment for a girl.
I am rather curious to know whether it came into use to refer to a particular string merely because of its accidental resemblance to English terms for tiny, or whether there was, at first, some poetic or punning association that fit the original meaning and the musical context both. At any rate, it seems a reasonably useful word to revive, expanded to include a wide interpretation of gut-type strings and lute-type instruments.
Today's video is an extraordinary installment from an extraordinary series. The Netherlands Bach Society has an ongoing project to film performances of all of Bach's compositions, and to post them online, free of charge. That in itself sounds like an incontestably worthy intention, but if you've run across any of the videos they've made to date, you'll have noted the magnificence of the recording and cinematography, heaped on the virtuosity of the musicians. There is no quality versus quantity dichotomy here, to put it mildly.
I'm far from being a qualified commentator on Bach's music, but perhaps, then, it is even more of a tribute its transcendence that the Philistine likes of me should take so much enjoyment therein. I can't explain to you anything worthwhile about form, construction, or even historical context, but I can tell you in plain English, listening to it makes me feel like I am flying. This is especially true of Bach's works for solo string instruments, and of the cello suites above all. When I discovered that the All of Bach project had a playlist that included all six of the suites, I felt as though somebody had handed me a gift of gifts. The striking cinematography that I already mentioned adds to the gravitas of each presentation. Again stressing that I know very little about it, I also very much appreciate the use of period instruments, and even more so the general inclination of these six musicians to take these pieces somewhat more lyrically than many modern renditions I've heard. Though the level of playing here is beyond comment, there is a love and awareness for each note and each phrase here that goes beyond mere technical perfection.
I don't think I'm giving away the crowning glory in posting only the 6th suite, (but if you have time and inclination, you can start the whole lovely list from the beginning here). This sixth video features a striking exception in the use of a violoncello da spalla, rather than a cello, but what I found most surprising about it was that the novelty (to me) of the instrument offered no distraction from the sheer commanding beauty of the music. (As an aside, I found it interesting, too, that the stark aesthetics of the setting, which would seem appropriately bleak if seen in a film noir movie, seemed beautiful and even hopeful here, as though the darkness had not crept near to menace, but to warm itself and wonder at an impossible spark.)
I used the word "novelty," about the violoncello da spalla, as it was outside my previous experience. In an accompanying video, however, the soloist, Sergey Malov, makes the case that it was a five-string instrument (whether this type, held on the shoulder, or the more cello-like one played vertically) which Bach had written this piece for. (There is a CC button in the lower corner of the frame for English subtitles.)
The striking grace of Persian miniatures, and by extension, Mughal miniatures, is an aesthetic that has always appealed to me. I do not wish to distract from the effect of any whole by emphasizing only the botanical angles, but at the very least, the variety of the flowers that punctuate many of the scenes are worthy of remark. And outdoing the variety, and the colours is the striking imagination that sets out an identifiable species in an elegance of form that supersedes realism in the same way that a well-polished legend supersedes history. It may not be entirely scientific fact, but it carries a universal truth in it.
The illustration above, attributed to Muhammad Khan (17th c), is a public-domain picture from an article on the British Library's website which takes a look at a few links between Mughal art and European floral depictions. It's an interesting read, and it goes without saying, worth a look at least for the sake of the pictures.
* * *
As I began to think about Mughal painting, I found myself returning to an old question in my mind as to whether Pauline Baynes with her stylized figures that yet seem to move on the page, not to mention the gratuitous flora mixed tastefully into otherwise minimalist scenes, had taken any inspiration from anything related to the Persian tradition. Short answer. . .well, yes. At least once. Flowers and all.
This is a mighty intriguing interactive presentation from Voces 8. Whether you want to sing along or not (c'mon! you know you want to!) it's a kick to hear them build the arrangement piece by piece.
And since I can't think of Voces 8 without thinking about this song. . .also:
There is, thank God, the garden variety of wonder that gives life to the moment in which it's encountered, a spark blown from outside the complacency of mere existence. But there's another, rarer variety that does not merely touch--it transfixes. Something that hits with an elemental power, and makes one realize the accuracy of the cliche "it takes your breath away."
This guitar, built by Kevin Ryan, and inlaid by Larry Robinson struck me as something in the latter category, even seen from a remove, in pictures. The monumental artistry of the Lindisfarne Gospels is surely a standard worthy of imitation. . .but it's not imitated here. It's brought blazing into life. Every aspect, from a wood pale enough to stand in for vellum, to copper-wire stippling warming the empty spaces, seems to have been planned and executed in the same degree of care as in the original, if in a very different medium. Words have so far failed me as reach for something to describe the colours, and the impact of seeing them delivered in shell and sumptuous shades of wood, all cut to fit layered, precise knotwork. Luminous is about as close as I can get.
There's a short interview here with the artists, as well as some further pictures--not the least of which is part of the inlay before it was set, looking rather surreal, as if a strong wind had come and scattered it off the manuscript.
EDIT: The first link is now defunct. There are some other pictures of the guitar in the slide show that heads this article.
In the last five years or so I've acquired a lasting interest in the Punjabi language. I haven't risen to the progress in learning it that I'd hoped for initially, but I've managed to keep picking away at it. At the very least, it's a great reason to listen to Punjabi music, which has some highly likable traditions (and pop tunes, even) from both sides of the India-Pakistan border.
Today's is a quite recent Pakistani one. This song struck me as a sweet one the first time I heard it, but even then, it has grown on me considerably. For starters, while there are plenty of lyrics in existence about the wrongs inflicted on a lover by his beloved, I'm pretty sure there isn't any other which begins with the complaint that she was the cause of spilt tea*. There is a CC button in the lower corner of the video that provides an English translation. If you want the least-video-possible version, you can start with the music at 1:10.
*The Urdu (and Hindi) word for tea, chai, is familiar enough to those of us who haunt American coffee houses to make it worth pointing out that here in Punjabi it's cha.
The previous post touched on a few of the pleasures in observing nature recorded in art. One aspect I did not mention was that of discovery, of seeing something previously unknown--or unknown, at least, to the viewer. While there is no dearth of new material for the amateur, who can, to speak from experience, happily reinvent the wheel of discovery every weekend, we seem to have landed in an age when there is not a good deal of the natural world that is truly new to science. At least there is not the same prodigality of fresh discovery as there was in, say David Douglas' time.
But of course that doesn't mean that new species aren't found and catalogued. There was, for convenient example, a brand-new trap door spider that ended up in the Sacramento news this very week. I took a great delight in the mention of it, partly because it had the wonder of something previously unknown, or at least unnamed, and partly because it was discovered in a place that occupied mythical status in my childhood memories. There was a further intriguing twist--the gentleman who ended up having to wait 20 years to complete his report on the creature has asked for help in choosing its scientific name.
If you are slightly interested, you can read the flash here on the local CBS13 channel; that gives you the bare bones of the story, a picture of the spider, and an email address to send your best shot at naming. But if you have a bit more time, this video posted on the UC Davis website, an interview with Professor Jason Bond, the man who tracked down this particular spider, is a leisurely, pleasant watch.
If there is pleasure to be had in contemplating a beetle or a bit of moss, there is a corresponding pleasure in art that records another's scrutiny of such things. I love the wonder that comes through in the simplest photograph of a bird or a flower, the knowledge that somebody came face to face with beauty and tried to hold onto it. But if nature photography, in which every successful picture likely stands on the shoulders of dozens of unsuccessful ones, is a tribute to a human being's dogged fascination with wonder, how much more so the records found in sketchbooks. In photography we might attempt to grasp at a moment; in drawing and painting, we try to bring back a moment, a sight that has passed.
In my estimation, even the most clinical of illustrations for field guides have this sort of surprise in them, an attempt to catch and hold something beyond our full control. So I was delighted, if a little bemused, today to discover that I had saved a link to an 1813 engraving in the collection of the British Library. I don't know when I saved it, or what had led me to it in the first place, but the wide-eyed wonder of the title might be explanation enough:
Yes, yes, I know that "singular" is a scientific term, every bit as factual as the picture. But there is a note of surprise and delight in it, all the same. A frog was seen, and it was a frog like no other.
This was my first introduction to the contagiously listenable Russian folk group Отава Ё (Otava Yo). A kind commentator on YouTube explained that the music video is a reference to a 1960's Soviet film called The Republic of ShKID, where one of the characters sings the song; I have no idea if that explains all the highjinks that are going on here. But it's fun to watch, excellent music, and of course I thought the use of bagpipes was most tasteful! There's a little CC button in the lower corner of the video which you can click for English subtitles to this very good (and very catchy) advice on how you should not treat a cat.
It's a good sound, isn't it? Eventually one quiet day at work, I left a YouTube generated playlist of Otava Yo recordings going, which I was enjoying a good deal (despite not being able to check for subtitles) and the video below crept into the mix. And thinks I to myself, "Wowww, that's a perfect fit for the pipes. It's almost like. . .what's that tune? 'Merrily Kiss the Quaker!'. . . Oh, maybe because it is 'Merrily Kiss the Quaker.'" What I didn't know about this group was that the founding members had busked, specializing in Celtic tunes before settling into Russian folk. (You can read a nice, fairly recent interview with Alexey Belkin, the piper, here.)
As far as I can gather, the pipes that are being played in these videos are a Russian type. If I find out more about them one fine day, I'll return and update this post.
Here's a lovely song from Zoë Conway and John McIntyre about the peace to be found in one's hometown. If you click on the video to watch it on the YouTube page, you'll find both the Irish lyrics and the English translation in the description.
This evening one of my friends forwarded me a video about sloths. I can't say this was a topic I have ever given any great consideration before, so I was quite intrigued to learn that sloths have great quantities of algae growing in their fur. That in itself seems like a habit worthy of remark, but I was positively delighted to learn that, better still, they have. . .moths. There are several species of Pyralid that spend most of their adult lives comfortably living in the fur of the sloth.
When the sloths descend from the trees to defecate, the female moths lay eggs in the dung. The caterpillars which hatch are thus quite happily placed, as they are coprophagus. Some theories, like that shown in this summary from the Royal Society posit that the sloths benefit equally from this relationship, as the sloths with more moths also seem to have more algae in their fur and the algae may, in turn provide a source of extra nourishment to the sloth.
Whatever the truth of it, I'm just really excited about the moths. And also rather disappointed that Brits don't pronounce sloth to rhyme with moth, as the whole business might otherwise be an instant worldwide classic, rather less hectic than a cat in a hat.
I just realized I'm in the act of making two posts in a row on rather the same subject. Yesterday's song talked about a man who had his head turned by simplicity; today's is a modern Lebanese classic in which the poet asks his lover to forget, if only for a while, all the intervening distractions of society, fashions and chatter.
The first video below is a live recording of the song's composer, Ziyad Rahbani; it includes by far the best translation I could find.
(And the lyrics in Arabic, and Roman-letter transcriptions of the Arabic script. That's what I call a translation indeed!)
The second video was my introduction to the song, a recent cover (with tastefully sparse guitar accompaniment) by the Jordanian singer RAFE.
I have no idea why I find "The Galway Shawl" so endearing. It's really not much of a narrative, but it's sweet and simple, and does the heart good.
I've actually been using the tune with my beginning fiddle students, as it has repeatedly proved itself easy and enjoyable for them to memorize. (And I don't get tired of listening to it.) One of them recently asked me to recommend a sung version. I couldn't for the life of me tell her, or you, where I originally got the spare, simple setting of it that is rolling around in my head; but I was mightily pleased to find this video while trying to answer that question. A nice bit of singing indeed--and I would never have imagined that a solo bouzouki could provide such a full range of accompaniment.
Fiona MacKenzie sings the lament "Mo Rùn Geal Òg," in the National Trust for Scotland's video, published today to mark the anniversary of the short, bloody Battle of Culloden. On April 16, 1746, in an hour's time, about 1,500 Jacobite soldiers lost their lives. This devastating ending to the 1745 Rising had a similarly devastating aftermath in the Highlands in the form of government retaliations.
Large swathes of society and tradition were upended by stringent laws, stringent enforcement, or by those fleeing from the same, but the sorrow of the song here is keenly personal. It was composed by Christiana Fergusson, the widow of one William Chisholm, who died at Culloden. One Victorian scholar verbosely but accurately referred to the composition as the "wail of a mateless dove."
There is an English translation of the song on Fiona MacKenzie's own Bandcamp page.
Gerard Manley Hopkins has grown to be my favorite poet. But one of his greatest attractions as a poet, his use of conversational speech rhythms in contrast to the heavier, more predictable rhythms rightly expected in more traditional verse forms, brings out the beauty of language in a rare fashion that stands on its own. I would have thought, given time to reflect on it, that the one thing lacking in Hopkins' style (or I should say an exclusivity, rather than a lack) is that you cannot sing his works in a believable fashion. Any attempt to impose a strict musical rhythm over such verses would be bound to sound quite contrived. But last week the Irish sean-nós singer Lorcán Mac Mathúna posted this video, proving that there is at least one musical style which commits no such transgression, and only adds delight to delight:
