“Birds of the Air”, Sharron Krauss
This haunting song reminds me of the eerie folk of the seventies – especially, for some reason, Magnet’s ‘Willow’s Song” from The Wicker Man (if you have seen the movie…
Category: beauty
#MarianMay , “Ave Maria”, Krzysztof A Janczak
From the contemporary Polish composer Krzysztof A Janczak here is a timeless sounding (yet of its time) Ave Maria:
” L’amour, ce n’est pas faire des choses extraordinaires, héroïques, mais de faire des choses ordinaires avec tendresse” – Jean Vanier (1928-2019)
Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, has died aged 90. From Caramel Caramelo: « L’amour, ce n’est pas faire des choses extraordinaires, héroïques, mais de faire des choses ordinaires avec tendresse.…
Priére, Erik Satie – performed by Reinbert de Leeuw
A while back I featured Reinbert de Leeuw performing Liszt’s 1880 “Via Crucis”, which seems to me at any rate proto-minimalist. Here from 1893 is the most recognised precursor of…
David Monacchi: “Fragments of Extinction”, the sounds of vanishing nature
With the prospect of mass extinction in the news, it seems a good time to reflect on the loss of soundscapes. In Ireland, the corncrake and the curlew were once…
#MarianMay – “Ave Maria Stella”, Nils Landgren trombone, Anders Bromand organ
Ave Maris Stella is an extremely versatile and influential piece of music, and moving away from the choral focus of Marian May so far, here is an instrumental version by…
May, Cheesemount, Tipperary
In winter, summer seems impossible. In summer, so does winter.
#MarianMay : ” O Pure Virgin”, written by St Nectarios from “Byzantine Music of the Greek Orthodox Church”
A setting of a poem written by (according to the record label site) the Greek Orthodox Saint Nectarios of Aegina , this piece was my first exposure to Greek Orthodox…
Séamus Sweeney 