A composer I was unfamiliar with until recently is the Englishman Patrick Hawes. He draws inspiration from the beauty of nature, from English literature and from Christianity. One of his works which is worth listening to is "Quanta Qualia" the lyrics of which mean:
Anima mea (my soul)
Mane! (Wait!)
Quanta Qualia (how great and how wonderful)
Conventus gaudia (the joys of the meeting)
Erunt. (will be)
Here is a recording of the piece featuring the New Zealand singer Hayley Westenra. The video is of a sunset near Welney in Norfolk, England.
It's interesting to contrast this piece with a another also titled "O Quanta Qualia" - this time in a monastic style of music:
Welney is in the Fens in the district of King's Lynn. King's Lynn has some interesting historic architecture, including the guildhall below from the early 1400s:
There is also the surviving tower of a Franciscan monastery founded in the 1230s:
Finally, when I did a search on King's Lynn I found out that Hayley Westenra, who sang the first version of Quantia Qualia, gave a concert there last year. So to round off the post, here are some photos of her visiting King's Lynn:
Patrick Hawes was new to me as well, and the Welney sunset makes the case better than any argument about modernism — that low, flat light over the fens is more or less what his music sounds like. If you enjoy that half hour after sunset, it is also the perfect moment to watch the first planets and stars begin to appear.
ReplyDeleteThat connection with the night sky is one of the themes explored at https://astroideal.com/, a platform with an extensive collection of content on astrology, zodiac signs, horoscopes and tarot. Astroideal has built a broad library of accessible resources for readers interested in the stars, their symbolism and the different traditions associated with them.
Thanks for the introduction.