Welney sunset & more

At The Orthosphere there is a regular feature called "Reactionary composer of the week" - meaning a contemporary classical music composer who has rejected the atonal or dissonant type of modernist music.

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: