April 2025
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I have a bad habit, bad and lifelong, of not bothering to look up unknown words encountered when I'm reading. I make a guess based on the context, or perhaps just ignore the word altogether, figuring or at least hoping that it isn't that important, and press on. I have done that for years with…
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Four years ago I wrote about a very interesting collection called Miserere, subtitled "Music For the Holy Week Litugy." It includes the famous "Miserere" by Gregorio Allegri, a setting of Psalm 51: Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. and…
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I have a rule to which I stick pretty closely: I don't write about a piece of music until I've heard it three times. That applies whether it's a three-minute pop song or a ninety-minute Mahler symphony (sometime in the next month or two I'm going to say something about his Sixth). After I'd heard…
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When I wrote about Tallis's Lamentations of Jeremiah a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the LP I had was a 1969 "rechanneled for stereo" reissue of a recording originally made in 1955. Rechanneling was a gimmick used for a while in the earlier days of stereo, when purchasers paid a significantly higher price for…
Light On Dark Water 