Alte Musik
Dec. 4th, 2004 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWhen I'm feeling really sentimental (as now, because it's Christmas) I reach for the "Early Music".
Alte Musik (it sounds better in German)- troubadour songs, crusader songs, Carmina Burana- but in the original settings, not Carl Orff's (though I like those too.)
Currently top of my medieval hit parade are.
1. Palastinalied- an ineffably sad song about crusading by Walther von der Vogelweide (d. 1230)
2. Quan Vei La Lauzeta Mover- Benart de Ventadorn's 12th century ballad of lost love.
3. The Wedding of Robin Hood- an English ballad which may or may not have inspired As You Like It. It has such a pretty tune.
4. Ja Nuls Homs Pris- the song Richard Coeur de Lion wrote while banged up in an Austrian prison.
Coeur de Lion was a murderous psychopath and arguably England's worst king ever (all he did was tax us and ignore us) but he can be forgiven much for this lovely little song. I wrote a poem about it a few years back and here it is...
JA NULS HOMS PRIS
Richard the Lionheart sings in his prison
And serve him right.
But the song is lovely.
It potters along the roads of Europe,
Under the poplars, under a sky
Of whisk-tailed cirrus. The killer, the rapist,
The butcher of Acre is feeling so sorry.
It stirs the oak and the beech where peasants
Are herding swine. They suppose that the lack
In their lives is a king who is being kept from them.
I love the middle ages. Maybe I was a crusader in a previous life. Maybe I was an outlaw. Maybe I was a monk.
Maybe I was a lady in a turret room in the Auvergne, waiting for some poet, some singer, to drop by and amuse her.
Alte Musik (it sounds better in German)- troubadour songs, crusader songs, Carmina Burana- but in the original settings, not Carl Orff's (though I like those too.)
Currently top of my medieval hit parade are.
1. Palastinalied- an ineffably sad song about crusading by Walther von der Vogelweide (d. 1230)
2. Quan Vei La Lauzeta Mover- Benart de Ventadorn's 12th century ballad of lost love.
3. The Wedding of Robin Hood- an English ballad which may or may not have inspired As You Like It. It has such a pretty tune.
4. Ja Nuls Homs Pris- the song Richard Coeur de Lion wrote while banged up in an Austrian prison.
Coeur de Lion was a murderous psychopath and arguably England's worst king ever (all he did was tax us and ignore us) but he can be forgiven much for this lovely little song. I wrote a poem about it a few years back and here it is...
JA NULS HOMS PRIS
Richard the Lionheart sings in his prison
And serve him right.
But the song is lovely.
It potters along the roads of Europe,
Under the poplars, under a sky
Of whisk-tailed cirrus. The killer, the rapist,
The butcher of Acre is feeling so sorry.
It stirs the oak and the beech where peasants
Are herding swine. They suppose that the lack
In their lives is a king who is being kept from them.
I love the middle ages. Maybe I was a crusader in a previous life. Maybe I was an outlaw. Maybe I was a monk.
Maybe I was a lady in a turret room in the Auvergne, waiting for some poet, some singer, to drop by and amuse her.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 12:35 pm (UTC)The killer, the rapist,
The butcher of Acre is feeling so sorry.
The rhythm of this line made me remember (because he was in the front of my head eating marmalade) the king who please wanted a bit of butter for his bread in Milne.
Under the poplars, under a sky
Of whisk-tailed cirrus.
The imagery in your poetry is always a surprise and delight.
I love the middle ages.
I do, too. I imagine a convent in the cold north of Europe, stone floors, snow and wolves...
Have you seen the fine British film series about the wives of Henry VIII? My mother has the vhs tapes. Wonderful.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 12:55 pm (UTC)My favourite Henry is Robert Shaw in A Man For All Seasons. He gives us the bonhomie, the charisma and the scariness.
And Vanessa Redgrave is wonderful as Anne Boleyn. All she does is flit across the screen and giggle and yet you know exactly who this woman is and why Henry finds her so damn attractive.
Ooh yes... wolves, snow, cold stone floors. My school was a bit like that....
I'm sure I was a monk- or a nun. I visit ruined abbeys (there are lots in this part of the world) and I feel so at home.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 01:08 pm (UTC)I'd forgotten about A Man for All Seasons. I need to see that again. I remember Cromwell--how I hated that man!
I'm sure I was a monk- or a nun. I visit ruined abbeys (there are lots in this part of the world) and I feel so at home.
I have little doubt that I was, too. I guess many people were.
When Janice and Keith stayed in England and Wales while she was doing research, she was walking down the stairs at a Bed and Breakfast one morning and happened to look out onto a meadow.
She said she suddenly felt an overwhelming feeling that she had come back to England, her real home.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 05:23 pm (UTC)And Cardinal Wolsey was Orson Welles.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-05 12:00 pm (UTC)Thomas More:(Who has just been fatally betrayed by Rich) ... What is on that chain of office you are wearing?
Rich: It is the ensignia of Wales!
Thomas More: Rich ... It profitteth a man nothing if he gain the whole world and he loseth his soul ...but WALES Rich, ... Wales!
There has been a new "Six Wives ..." by the BBC since the far superior Michell version. This version was in dramatised doco style. There was also an "Elizabeth" ... again, not a patch on the Glenda Jackson version.
The historical fiddlings in the recent Cate Blanchett "Elizabeth" annoyed me greatly ... the crowning silliness being Mozart's "Requiem" being used in the climactic scenes.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-05 12:48 pm (UTC)I didn't see the Blanchett Elizabeth either. I'm like you; you my flesh crawls at anachronism.