Okay, I really enjoyed the new Les Misérables movie. Loved it. But the 10th Anniversary Concert will always be my favourite.
“The Gloucester Wassail Song,” Waverly Consort.
This was on an album that my mother bought when I was about 8, and it didn’t really make an impression on me for a long time. But it’s become quite near and dear to me recently.
It’s quite green to me… dark green, like pine needles or holly leaves (if I may keep in the holiday spirit). It definitely has that feeling that I so love about winter in it: that feeling of being warm and toasty, cuddled up in a big sweater next to the fire, with a big mug of something hot in your hands… being bundled up to go caroling (or get wood for the stove, which my family still does)… I suppose it’s that feeling of successfully warding off the cold. I, personally, don’t like too warm weather much. But, there is something special of being warm when everything else is frozen cold.
The Cherubic Hymn, arr. Lvovksy
I feel like the world would be a poorer place without this.
I have some problems with The Mikado. I won’t lie. But this has got to be one of my favourite things ever.
“That Man,” Caro Emerald.
I love the feel of this… makes me want to try harder not to spaz out when I’m doing quickstep. Or lindy hop. Or charleston.
Peace of Mind - Boston
(Source: supernaturalmusic)
“The Silver Swan,” Orlando Gibbons.
I have such great memories of this peice… I learned the cantus/soprano part for it during the summer before I went to uni, while one of my good friends, her parents and her grandfather, took the other parts. Her grandfather told us that he used to sing it with a friend of his, taking the baritone and bass parts, sitting on a wall near King’s College… My friend knows the quintus/alto part, and during those last few weeks of school, we would sit outside during lunch, and sing it together. I still sing it to myself a lot, though it really isn’t the same without at least one of the other four voices.
I took a jewelry class that summer, and I actually made my friend’s graduation present there: I made her a sort of abstract (art nouveau, in retrospect) swan, about the size of my fist. She put it on a white ribbon and uses it as a sort of keychain, which is probably the best use for it— she doesn’t really wear pins or brooches, and it’s too big to do anything else, really. But yes. It’s become a pretty meaningful thing between us, this peice.
So, I went to see “Pianomania” last night, which was amazing. There were so many wonderful, interesting things about it, I can’t really hope to talk about them all. But what really stood out to me, at the end of it, was how these people actually had a language for describing what they were hearing: that they could agree on certain words to describe a particular sound… and it was great to hear that colour and shape vocabulary being used. It’s often difficult for me, as somone with synesthesia, to describe what exactly it is I’m hearing/seeing/feeling, perhaps especially to other people with synesthesia. And I always wished there was some sort of set vocabulary to describe those sensations… so, it was sort of neat to see people skirting around the edges of that.
Oh. And as I’m watching and fangirling, a pianist called Julius Drake appears on screen. And I think to myself, “That name is incredibly famili- OH! THAT’S THE ONE WHO DID WINTERREISE WITH IAN BOSTRIDGE.” But as the film went on, I starting doubting myself: “Oh, maybe it isn’t him. Maybe it’s another pianist with that name, or I’m just remembering the name wrong…”
And then suddenly, there was Ian Bostridge.
Cannot tell you how happy that made me. Seriously, this film was already basically perfection, and then my favourite tenor shows up.
(ALSO, to rollingstone17, rags-to-rickens, and confusions-masterpiece: thanks for following!)
“Still Alive,” Jonathan Coulton.
“Wild Horses,” The Rolling Stones.
This was one of the first Rolling Stones songs I can remember hearing, and I probably only remember it because my dad told me it was one of his favourites. It’s sort of interesting, I suppose, but mostly it just makes me feel a bit sad… it’s just one of those fairly low-energy things. But there’s a bit of hope to it, I suppose, in the end of the chorus (both in the words and in the chords).
Parts of it seem a bit lavender-ish to me (mainly the verses) but the chorus has a sort of burt-orange (almost orange-brown) feeling to it, so there’s this weird purple-orange combination going on. That’s what makes it interesting at all to me (the words don’t really do anything for me)…
