My funeral

I've lived 22 years so far, and I hope to live for many years to come. But my mind really like to ponder over things that shouldn't concern me, not now. Like my own funeral. No, I'm not suicidal, so you who read this don't need to mark a date in your calendar. The reason why I'm doing this, and especially why I've decided to write this post is simple: I'm a music lover, and from time to time do I find music that fits certain contexts and feelings.

I don't want my funeral to be all dark and dreary. I want it to remember who I was (of course I cannot know what I will do in the future, so making a plan now would be a total waste of time...)
Wait, I'm actually conjuring up a small plan here: music for my funeral
I don't want music that makes people sad...I hope the music they will play will be music that meant alot to me during my life. At this point is the list like this:

*Tir n`a Noir - Vamp

The reason I've chosen this is because it speaks of this mythical place, and I've always loved the Celtic myths and the histories about King Arthur and his knights. I don't believe in an afterlife like the Christians do, but the reassuring lyrics of this song means alot to me. All suffering (if there will be any for my part) will be over, and the dream takes over

*Irish Blessing

 

 My love for Ireland and the Irish will hopefully be an inspiration to others, and therefor will it weigh heavily when picking out my own funeralmusic. This prayer could and should speak to anyone with love for humanity, friends and family, despite religious affiliation. There is another tune to this, that I once sang with the school's choir, but I cannot find it on Youtube...I just put a copy of the musicsheet in my last will...

*Carrickfergus

 

There will probably be an Irish core running through my life until the very end. and there is something about this song that echoes continuously in my soul and heart.
My brother is a singer, and if I depart from this world way too early (one can never know...I might be run over by a bus tomorrow..) I really hope he could sing this one.

*Schindlers list -theme - John Williams

 

Why did I pick this one? It's so sad...

Well, I'm a big admirer of the work by John Williams and how he uses the violin..I cannot describe it...

His music always brings forth the strength in the movie it's made for. And I though the theme for "Jaws" would be a bit too much...:p

*The Promise/The Heart asks Pleasure First - Michael Nyman

 Another beautiful piece of moviemusic.
Like Ada McGrath; I speak through music much better than with words (except written perhaps...)
It's like the melodyline never ends, it keeps going even when the player is gone, and the music is immortal...

Hope you liked my little collection, and if you have any suggestions to other kind of music that would fit such a situation, I'll be very happy to check it out

César Gutiérrez; the Rodolfo of my heart

Just back from the opera, and OH MY: the guy singing Rodolfo was so incredibly amazing. He was actually a stand-in for Sergio Blasquez, who fell ill on the premiere with tonsillitis. But what César Gutiérrez did on stage tonight was pure magic. I've still got goosebumps....

He owned and shared the stage at the same time. He made the other people better, and his performance was so believable, so when Mimi died his cries pierce every heart in the audience.
I simply love him....

Here's a video of him singing Che gelida manina:

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes

I had just come home from the opera, and was pretty exhausted. But before I could go to bed I had to check my emails, and there among uninteresting or stupid mails, I could see something small from a friend. He had sent me a song, and after listening to it, I wasn't tired anymore. I was addicted.
The song was "The Highwayman" by Loreena McKennitt, with lyrics by Alfred Noyes.
There was something that captured me, both the melody and the the lyrics appealed to something deep inside me.
So listen and read for yourself, and tell me: what did YOU feel?

 

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor
And the highwayman came riding, riding, riding,
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark innyard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by the moonlight, watch for me by the moonlight,
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell shall bar the way.

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand
But she loosened her hair in the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of the perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet waves in the moonlight!)
He tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come at the dawning; he did not come at noon,
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching, marching, marching
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at the casement, with muskets at their side!
there was death at every window, hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through the casement,
The road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"now keep good watch!" And they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say
"Look for me by the moonlight, watch for me by the moonlight
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell shall bar the way!"

She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness and the hours crawled by like years!
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight, cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

Tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horses hoofs ring clear
Tlot-tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding, riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming!
She stood up straight and still!

Tlot in the frosty silence! Tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment! She drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight, her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him with her death.

He turned; he spurred to the west; he did not know she stood
bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it; his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter, the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

And back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were the spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
when they shot him down on the highway, down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

Still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding, riding, riding,
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Soon...too soon

The time is flying, and I can't really understand that it is November already. What does it all mean? Well, let me tell you:
*My exams are coming closer; which means: I will have no life for the next month. This happens EVERY TIME. I tell myself in the beginning of the semester to be a good student, read properly throughout the whole semester, make notes and hope for the best. It's only the latter I'm good at; because I read like a maniac the last month before my exam, and cross my fingers. I have so far been rather lucky, and passed all my exams...but how long will it last with such a tactic?
I'm gonna mix up everything! Put the definition about diaspora and identity into the exam where I should be answering stuff about new age and folklore...

But even if the days are passing by, and the evenings get darker faster and faster, some things are amazingly great at the moment. Because it isn't just my exams that are closing up; also the Christmas concert with Bergen Philharmonic Choir, Orchestra and students from the Grieg Academy. The plan was to sing "Belshazzar's Feast" by William Walton, but when it proved to hard because of the lack of three important things; men, brass and money, the orchestra decided for something else that has turned out to be addictive:
"Dona Nobis Pacem" by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Seriously, I can't stop humming to it!
Much of the text is actually poems by Walt Whitman (1819-1892); a poet I'd wish more people could appreciate. His "Beat! Beat! Drums!" gets a life of it's own through the music of Vaughan Williams. It strokes, caresses you, before it attacks with a terrible force.
This cantata (as it is being called) was written in 1936, and one can hear the war in the background. The reason for this was that Vaughan Williams had experienced the horror of the First World War, when he partly worked as a stretcher bearer in the trenches in France.
But "Dona Nobis Pacem" also reflects a fear that such a gruesome thing could happen again, and a hope that it won't.
But as we know....it did.
It's divided into 6 parts (well, actually 5, but one often separates the last part which consist of a quote from a speech by John Bright, written trying to prevent the Crimean War and a mixture of Bible-passages)
I remember when I listened through it for the first time, a feeling of peace struck me. I think this happened because of how the piece is built:

Dona Nobis Pacem: it starts with a soprano-soloist....softly...softly...repeating the words "Dona Nobis Pacem", which means "Grant us peace"...she's pleading...the choir is responding is a most amazing way. The frustration and fear are building itself up and the sound is shattered by the next movement....

"Beat! Beat! Drums! Blow, bugles! Blow!: This can be resembled with the "Dies Irae" part in Verdi's Requiem. It tears out everything peaceful and leaves both the singer and the listener with a feeling of shock, fear and anxiety. Here we encounter the  brilliance of Walt Whitman for the first time, and even when it gets unpleasant he manage to drag us back into the horror of the war. We cannot look away. He portrays the civilians meeting with the war, with its wild and illogical being. And when it is over, one can barely breath

Beat! beat! drums! -- blow! bugles! blow!

Make no parley -- stop for no expostulation,

Mind not the timid -- mind not the weeper or prayer,

Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,

Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties,

Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,

So strong you thump O terrible drums -- so loud you bugles blow.

"Reconciliation" - This movement works as the perfect opposition of what we've just heard. It gives me the impression of something magical, and a friend told me that when he heard this part it reminded him of the soundtrack from LOTR. It is very melodic, and tender. One can feel the moonlight through the words and the music, and it gives the listener a chance to relax. In this movement one will hear both the baritone-soloist and the soprano; underlining the theme of tranquility.

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,

Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,

That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again

and ever again, this soiled world;

 

"Dirge for 2 veterans": This movement tends to stick in the memory of those who hear it. It's a funeral-march over father and son who fell together in the war (I would bet he was talking about the Civil War, but the motive is everlasting). Even if it should be sad, one can hear the drums pounding in the background together with the trumpets calling new men to the war:

I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they're flooding,
As with voices and with tears.

I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring,
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.

For the son is brought with the father,
In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans son and father dropt together,
And the double grave awaits them.

Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o'er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

 

Though, one has to take into account that this movement was actually written already in 1914 at the outbreak of a war that would shatter Europe for the next 4 years. But even if it is portraying a tragic event, it still clings to the hope in the last "verse":

The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.

The last movement starts with this quote: "The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land, you may almost hear the beating of his wings.". A mighty mental image; isn't it?

It continues like this: 

"There is no one, as when the first-born were slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel and the two side-posts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on; he takes his victims from the castle of the noble, the mansion of the wealthy, and the cottage of the poor and lowly"

This is a clear reference  to the Angel of Death in the Old Testament, that wandered through Egypt and killed all the firstborn. But against this gloomy image of death, both the choir and the soprano comes back with the pleading and desperate "Dona Nobis Pacem"
The next part is an interesting compilation of Bible-quotes; mostly from the Book of Jeremiah. Though, one can always here the echo of the "Dona Nobis Pacem" in the background.
 Here's the parts that leaves the strongest mark in my soul:

"The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell therein."

Jeremiah 8:16

And the magic lingers in the room after the somber voice of the soprano-soloist has sung her last note...the music just slowly fades away.
That's the trademark of good, music when it leaves something in your soul and heart, that cannot be erased.

 

Enjoy!