Really quite amazing things I can't explain

[aesc]

I've given up on being productive for the evening, because "Written by the Victors" has stuck with me, and will probably stick with me for a while, and has caused me to think about things.

Namely, time and music I really, really like.


It's one of those stories that participates so deeply in time--the past, present, future--and where there's so much of it, no horizon or ceiling, but at the same time there's not enough. I feel the same way about it as I feel about the end of Leah and Springwoof's The Body Holographic, which always makes my heart stutter and twist in my chest, it's so inutterably beautiful. Not just because of the characters, but because of their relationship to time--not history (though that's part of it, I guess) but the way they reach out and inhabit places as far as I myself can travel, and when I advance a little more into the future, they're still there, and even recede from me, so I have to chase after them even though I know I'll never catch them.

Augustine once wrote that he knew what time was until someone asked him to define it, and then the knowledge of it would leave him. And I can't explain it either, how thinking about the stretch of time, all its potentialities, makes me dizzy and euphoric and feel full of potential myself, like I could jump in a car or a space ship and drive forever. It's the same way I feel looking up into a clear sky at night--just infinity, forward and back and everywhere around, everywhere to go.

Okay. I'll try not to wax rhapsodic any more tonight *wry look* But before I go, one more rec for you all, a music one this time.

Thomas Tallis, "Spem in alium" and "Blessed are those who be undefiled"

Tallis was a Renaissance composer of liturgical music, and wrote both Latin and English pieces for Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth. "Spem in alium," one of his most famous pieces, is a motet for forty voices, and is... well, please listen to it, because I can't find the words to describe it. And before you run screaming away from religious music, let me say this:

I'm not religious, but for me, beauty is almost an article of faith in the way I see the world; if the pastor at my (profoundly) Christian school had had me listen to this, I would have been an instantaneous and unquestioning believer, instead of the cynic I am today. The first time I heard "Spem in alium" was when I was half asleep and NPR came on, and I lay there in bed dying in the music, one of the few times in my life I really have been ecstatic--divorced from my body, with a beautiful, ordered world spread out before me.

Comments

[mardia.livejournal.com]

Oh, God, I just finished Cesperanza's story and I'm in just as much awe. OH MY GOD, I kept thinking, right up until I finished it, and I'm still thinking it now. Damn. Just...DAMN.

[apple-pi.livejournal.com]

I love Tallis, and yet I don't know this piece. How? I'm stealing, and thank you so much for posting it. *gleeful*

[slian-martreb.livejournal.com]

I just finished WbtV, too, on the rec of both you and Cate and I'm so beyond *flailing* that I don't know what to do with myself.

That line and I lay there in bed dying in the music is how I felt the first time that I heard Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here by 65daysofstatic (whose music defies all genres and rules). I haven't listened to the songs you uploaded because they're locked (need a password to access on itunes, sweets)but DTGtGH changed my life and I'd never felt that way about a song before. If you've (n)ever watched History Boys, there's a bit where a Professor is telling a student (in a literature discussion) that one of the best parts of literature is reading something that puts into words something that you've felt or thought; discovering that someone else had the same thought as you, the same feelings; someone who may have lived hundreds of years before you. This song was like that for me and I've found that it means something different to each person I've played it for. Heck, it means something different to me each time that I listen to it.

I think I feel the same way about WbtV. I'm going to go back to that story, time and time again and concentrate on something different each time.

And because I am compelled by my blind worship of 65daysofstatic, I offer you a sample of Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here. I would upload the song, but I'm not on my own computer.


So, have a link from last fm:

65daysofstatic (/music/65daysofstatic) – Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here (/music/65daysofstatic/_/Drove+Through+Ghosts+to+Get+Here)

and a video on YouTube. For this one, I'd just play it and listen with the lights off while lying down to get the full effect, but you might not want to bother at all.



Please love them.

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

I have taken this music - I've heard almost nothing from this period apart from a little bit of Palestrina [contemporary? I can't remember] and I'm quite keen on learning more. So thank you! Your descriptions have sucked me in.

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

I have "Spem in Allium" and you're right, it's entirely wonderful. I also got to see them perform in Los Angeles a few years ago, in one of our more historic churches. They were radiant - I can't recommend them highly enough...

[let-fate-decide.livejournal.com]

Uhm, I'd love to listen to the music, but those iTunes files seem to be protected.

Eep :X

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

Ah! Two new long fics to read once I make it through lunch Friday! I was not previously aware of that Springwoof and Leah fic, so I'm particularly thankful that you recced it as well as "Written by the Victors."

MUSIC! I shall have to check that stuff out; the way you sell it is so evocative, and so much what my experience of the best music is, that I'm looking forward to making an experience of it.

[sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh, oh I have this piece of music! The last time I was home, I went to an art gallery in which one whole room was just this piece of music on continuous repeat, with a speaker for every voice. They'd miked everyone separately so it was *incredible* - you could walk between the speakers and hear the individual who was singing the one particular harmony, or you could stand in the middle of the room and let it wash over you. It was transcendent.

[ribby.livejournal.com]

I'm not religious at all, but singing sacred music in a choir is one of my greatest joys--and Tallis is especially beautiful. I suppose that the music itself is my religion--singing something as wonderful as Brahms's German Requiem or Mozart's Grand Mass in C brings me a sense of peace and complete joy.

Have you had the chance to hear the King's Singers perform some of Tallis's music? It's incredibly ethereal, haunting and beautiful. You can hear a bit from it here (http://www.kingssingers.com/recordings/rec_speminalium.htm). I also have a wonderful recording by the Tallis Scholars.

Thanks for the file--I'll listen to it this morning--should give me a *much* better outlook on the day.

*hugs*

~Kris

[ci5rod.livejournal.com]

Spem is glorious. I sang in it once; the Border Marches Early Music Forum (long gone, I think) did an all-day workshop on it, going off as effectively separate choirs to practice our own sections. It's the sort of thing that grabbed and held my interest in church music right back when I was ten.

If you like Tallis, it's worth checking out his protege, William Byrd. Their styles are quite similar (obviously), but for some reason Byrd seems to have ended up slightly better known.

[flyakate]

Music is protected, help? :o)

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, Spem in Alium has that effect on me too - when I lie in the dark and turn it up loud, I feel like that, lifted out of my body into the perfect harmony of the universe. It's such an incredible piece of music. And, strangely, I've always connected it with the moment John sits in the chair - it's what I think he must have felt. I love 'Blessed...' too. Have you heard Tallis' 'Te Lucis Ante Terminum'? That is also stunning. I can upload it for you, if you haven't.