Diego Ortiz - Recercadas del Trattado de Glosas 1553
Asia – Asia
Asia – Alpha
Forqueray – Pieces de Viole avec Basse Continue, Paris, 1747 (2CD)
Marin Marais – Grand Ballet (2CD)
Paolo Pandolfo – A Solo (Various Composers)
Alice Martineau - Daydreams
I love the Viole da Gamba and, today, I spent some time listening to two of the instrument's most expert exponents, Jordi Savaal and Paolo Pandolfo, playing various pieces written over a period of around 200 years...
Diego Ortiz (c.1510-c.1580) published his collection Trattado de Glosas (which includes extensive discussion of performance practice) in 1553. Little is known of his life aside from that date and the fact that he came from Toledo, near Madrid (I’ve been there)....
Despite this obscurity, his recercadas are some of the finest instrumental music of the 16th century, and his publication was a landmark...
Ortiz' works are highly illuminating from a purely musical point of view, as well as being unusual in that it is often scored for solo viol with harpsichord or organ accompaniment...
Marin Marais was born in Paris on May 31, 1656, and died there on August 15, 1728. In fact, he spent his entire life in Paris, never leaving the city...
He was the central figure in the French school of bass-viol composers and performers that flourished during the late 17th and early 18th centuries....
His contemporaries recognized him as an outstanding performer and a composer of stature whose works for viols and the operatic stage were known beyond the boundaries of France....
Antoine Forqueray (1672-1745) was one of the great viol players of his day, a man said to be the one player capable of challenging the great Marin Marais....
Ill-tempered and unpleasant (he behaved appallingly to both his wife and son), Forqueray published none of his music during his lifetime, asserting that learning from the printed page was lazy musicianship...
Thankfully, his “Pieces de Viole avec Basse Continue” were published two years after his death by his son, Jean-Baptiste...
It's some of the most complex music for Viole da Gamba ever written..
I urge you to check out the music of the Viole da Gamba – it really is some amazing music and so very relaxing...
Of course, in between all of this, I had the pomp and circumstance of 80’s supergroup, Asia - but that's another story...
I've added links to all of these people for your further edification...
As we ate our lovely big salad tonight, we caught the consumer protection programme, “Watchdog” and there was one story in particular which made my blood boil...
People with Cystic Fibrosis, a disease of the lungs, require extensive supplies of oxygen to live – and to leave their homes they need small portable bottles...
These are people with very short life expectancies once this disease is diagnosed – indeed, as one sufferer said, their lungs are like sponges which are slowly being filled with concrete...
And so, in its wisdom, a couple of years ago, "our" Government decided to privatise the supply to sufferers of this vital oxygen....
Since then, the supply has been erratic to say the least and, in fact, one woman died because her supply was delivered 8 hours late...
I feel like screaming at Mr Tony Blair to GET THIS FUCKING WELL SORTED RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!
Mind you, bad language gets you nowhere...
And of course, the company now receiving our hard earned tax-payers' cash from "our" government to provide this service which the NHS used to handle very well, thank you very much, issued a very apologetic statement but that’s about all we’re ever likely to hear...
A couple of years ago I bought a CD by a songstress by the name of Alice Martineau. She suffered from this disease and struggled to make the album (click on the link for the story). By the time I bought it, she was already dead....
It’s a really rather good pop album with some cracking tracks, so, if you see it, do grab it....
It was the soundtrack to much of our Austrian holiday of 2005...
Also tonight I watched “Nostradamus : The Truth” which passed an hour...
Funny how no-one ever interprets his verses before something happens, only in retrospect...
However, one interviewee did stick his neck out by saying Nostradamus clearly predicted that Charles would be passed over for King and that Harry rather than William would succeed Elizabeth - and that George W Bush would be assassinated – an act which will have devastating consequences....
We shall see...
Highlight of the Day : 16th, 17th and 18th Century Musicking
2 comments:
"And of course, the company now receiving our hard earned tax-payers' cash from "our" government to provide this service which the NHS used to handle very well"
When did you last pay any tax?
Reading your blog, it would appear that all you do each day is:
A) Burn and listen to lots and lots of CD's, some I might hasten to add that contain illegaly downloaded tracks from the likes of limewire and other peer to peers.
B) Watch inordinate amounts of rubbish tv, I.e - Coronation Street and Dr Who etc.
C) Let your wife work and thus take home the bacon.
Just when in your hectic daily schedule do you manage to fit in your contributions to The NHS and Income Tax or am I missing something?
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NHS Accountant
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NHS Accountant you are a cheeky monkey - I pay far too much tax thanks to the one-eyed wank and his stealth taxes and Anne works not because I allow her but by her own choice.
I have given up on Limewire - it's frankly (IMHO) rubbish - unlike Coronation St and Dr Who which I happen to enjoy - and of course whether or not certain TV is rubbish, is entirely subjective.
Ms L - perhaps Ms Martineau has that strange look on her CD cover because, at the time, she had been suffering from cystic fibrosis for just over 30 years, a disease which claimed her life less than a year after the release of her album.
Thanks for the comments though - it's cheering to know someone's reading this nonsense....
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