Simplicity

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.

The Galway Shawl

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.

Culloden Anniversary

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.

Happy Easter!

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:

Lamentations

For Good Friday: a stunning setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah from the Alexandrian tradition.