Bardic Knowledge

Celtic harper. Lover of history, language, music, and beautiful voices.

[yasunao]

尾根道 - そんなあなたに

[kpellinore]

To make up for the whining...I did discover this on Saturday and briefly enjoyed a little utter bliss. Do you know this piece? The orchestra played it as a surprise tidbit before Debussy’s La Mer and it turned out to be the best moment of the night. 

[met-musical-instruments]

Cor Solo by Dubois et Couturier, Musical Instruments

Purchase, Robert Alonzo Lehman Bequest, 2008 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Medium: Brass, silver

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/505798

[synthesis-music]

Some of the keywork on the 18K gold “Dryad’s Touch” flute, made by John Lunn. Yes, it is a fully playable, functional instrument.

More photos on his website here.

[kpellinore]

Dear Boss:

WHY I’M UNPRODUCTIVE TODAY: 

- My life is a flaming hellscape

- USA continues to be tire fire

- England continues to be tyre fire

- Everybody else has sodding day off today

- All the other people in the world, living or dead

- Constant distracting siren song of the quiet of the grave

- Longest February in human history

[phono-optica]

[kpellinore]

Holy cow did this picture waste a huge amount of my time...trying to figure out what that harp-shaped instrument is. Unfortunately it belongs to a large nebulous category that is notoriously misnamed and confusingly named but the proper term (for a HUGE family) seems to be only “fretless zither”. The thing that broke my brain was trying to decide how his instrument was played and my gut instinct is that there were attachments he put on it (not shown in the picture) to damp some strings and let him play chords (like what will become an autoharp).  I’m going to have to live with this theory because it’s making me a bit crazy! 

[landscape-lunacy]

Isle of Skye, Scotland - by Lawrence Cornell

[kpellinore]

Mood

[kpellinore]

Saw a couple posts on FB earlier today of someone doing incredible painting/drawing which had me longing and admiring and calling it magic and asking myself if I’d made the wrong choice in life. Just now, I had another listen, before bed, to the Scandinavian thing with all the strings I posted, and turned it way up, and at one point I just started crying. This isn’t unusual. It’s never sad crying. It’s because it’s too beautiful. It fill me up and overflows. My heart can’t hold it all. Art might be amazing, but it doesn’t do that to me. A good reminder. 

[kpellinore]

A lot of Scandinavian talent combined on this tune + a lot of energy.(More energy than I would have expected from a tune which I believe is called ‘The death’!). Really wish I could have heard this much sound and all these colours live in that church...must have been something else.  

[kpellinore]

Flanders Recorder Quartet - Fuga in D (J.S. Bach)

(More mellow recorder goodness!) 

[peashooter85]

Coat of scale aror presented to King Edward VII (the Prince of Wales) from Bhavani Singh, Maharaja of Datia, 1876.

from The Royal Collection Trust

[composersdoingnormalshit]

Igor Stravinsky trying on shoes.

[kpellinore]

Following up my last post about the Swedish type of tune called a gånglåt or a ‘walking tune’, here is a great example of some first-rate playing but in a more traditional-sounding (as in less “Classical”) style.

(Personally, I find it so great, I must see if I can ferret out the whole album. It seems a wonderful source for Swedish traditional music, played traditionally!) (Maybe!) (Cuz I really know nothing). 

[kpellinore]

I found a sweet Swedish tune today in a harp music collection of Scandinavian tunes and it led me to look online for a version, and I found THIS BEAUTIFUL THING! :-)  This type of tune what is called in Swedish traditional music a ‘walking tune’ or a Gånglåt which I believe was played by some instrumentalist (like a fiddler) at the head of a wedding party as they all walk in a line.  And this beautiful bassoonist starts this off by playing it just so, as she walks. This is of course much more elegant than I’m sure your traditional historic music would usually have been - but my goodness it is PRETTY!  (Though you know I love the bassoon...). 

[kpellinore]

An hour’s worth of early music magnificence - so many thanks to @sisterreisaid for the recommendation! (That first selection - “Pavan: The Funeals, Antonio Incerto (fl. 1584-1602)”...is just so delicious!).

[kpellinore]

If you want an hour of the most divine early music as a background to whatever you’re doing, you’re welcome.

Gah...No pun was intended!