Sunday, November 6, 2011

'DANSE MACABRE' FROM MR CATOLICK



Excellent video from Mr CatOLick.

The gentlemen in the danse are Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, Giles Fraser, and former Dean of St Paul's, Graeme Knowles.

7 comments:

  1. Dancing in front of the choir screen of the church that was burned in 1666, yet.

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  2. Lapin, thanks for that bit of information, which I did not know.

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  3. This just in:

    Niels Bohr
    Over his door,
    Hung up a horseshoe for luck.
    Guests would inquire --
    He wasn't a liar,
    He'd just say, "It works! What the F***?"

    Sorry to go OT, but as I started to type a comment, my dear wife walked in and recited this original verse about the physicist who beat Einstein in a famous debate and once hung a horseshoe over his door on the grounds that it can't hurt.

    I figured the Wounded Birds ought to be the first to know.

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  4. Ahem.

    Love the Danse Macabre. Carries me way back, as that was the first piece of Real Music I ever heard and liked. (All right, there were a couple of others about the same time, and who remembers an exact sequence from when he was 7 or maybe 6?) I remember playing the old 78 of it -- not old at the time! -- more than once.

    I've never ceased liking it. And like a book one loved as a child, it has gained meaning with time. It was many years before I realized that the jig tune is the Dies Irae -- a joke that I guess Saint-Saens stole from Berlioz.

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  5. Porlock, tell your dear wife that I laughed at her original verse, and I'm honored to have it first here where the Wounded Birds hang out

    The 'Danse Macabre' is the type of classical music that even young children would latch on to quite easily. I remember it from way back, too.

    And you, like Lapin, just handed me another bit of arcana, which I did not previously know.

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  6. Wow! This conversation takes me back!
    In 7th grade, Miss Barbara Miller, teacher extrodinaire, taught me to love classical music...
    This piece and the Opera "Carmen"! My parents bought me a Philco record player and the 78 Album for Christmas that year. While they were out at work or shopping I played "Carmen" so much and so loudly that the neighbors complained and threatened to go to the police........
    Miss Barbara Miller changed my life, thank you Miss Miller, and thanks to the other teachers who go on changing lives!
    Thanks for posting this, Grandmere.

    nij

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  7. Nij, you're quite welcome. Bless Miss Barbara Miller.

    And there's the theme from the Lone Ranger.... When I was in London, Cathy and I attended a wonderful performance of the opera 'William Tell', and I could not keep a straight face when I heard the theme in the overture. I can never not think of the Lone Ranger when I hear the music.

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