I wasn’t finding what I wanted from a barbershop quartet today, but I did come across this recording from the 2013 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. It’s saxophone quartet playing “Memory” from a set written by Marcelo Zarvos for a string quartet. Here you see soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones played at a breathless pace by the Kenari Quartet of Indiana University, Bloomington.
Category Archives: Music
Friday Singing: Little Patch of Heaven
I think I said something about being one of the busy people during the lockdown days. Yesterday was one of those days. You could say I was longing for a little patch of heaven way out west, but you and I both know owning an acre or more of land on the frontier wouldn’t be an easy life. Maybe rewarding, maybe fortune building, but it would be a hard, daily life of somewhat undefined chores and taking risks you hope will pay off.
Still, we can dream.
Friday singing: The NewFangled Four
The Newfangled Four from Southern California can’t sing sober song to save themselves.
Friday Singing: Windsor, All About the Bass
Here’s a whole set from a female quartet Windsor from the 2016 Sweet Adelines International competition. They joke about intending to sing Andrews Sisters trios and that Jenny, the bass, won’t fit in. They sing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, When I Fall in Love, Daddy, and an adaptation of Johnny One Note.
‘Tidin Rennur’ on my birthday
The title means something like “Time Runs On (like a river).” It’s a beloved hymn of the Faeroe Islands, sung here by the world’s greatest singer, Norway’s Sissel Kyrkjebo. She’s singing in Faeroese, which I understand only a little better than you do. It’s an ancient dialect of Old Norse, and the Faeroese claim that it’s closer to what the Vikings actually spoke than modern Icelandic is. But the gist of the thing is that time runs on like a river, and I am in a little boat. Who will bring me safely home? Only Jesus can do that.
Appropriate thoughts for my birthday. I had a nice day. Went out to lunch with a friend, and reveled in the pleasure of having paying work, and the promise of more to come. Thank you for your friendship here.
Friday Singing: What’ll I Do in Apple Blossom Time
The Main Street Quartet reminds us of love when spring comes again.
In this vein, South Florida’s Signature Quartet asks what they will do without their lovers nearby.
Friday Singing: Saints and Summer Quartets
I know I just shared some music with you, but it occurred to me today that summertime is for happy music. This year has been tough, so I’ll see if I can find some good barbershop quartets to post for the next several Fridays. Here are two.
Passaggio
Passaggio, originally written for piano by Ludovico Einaudi
Voces8: “Be not angry, O Lord”
Ne irascaris Domine satis,
et ne ultra memineris iniquitatis nostrae.
Ecce respice populus tuus omnes nos.
Civitas sancti tui facta est deserta.
Sion deserta facta est,
Jerusalem desolata est.
Be not so terribly angry, O Lord,
and remember not iniquity forever.
Behold, please look, we are all your people.
Your holy cities have become a wilderness;
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation. ( Isaiah 64:9-10 ESV)
Imagine No Bad Songs
Inspired by the mayor of New York City, who said the song “Imagine” was an inspirational song about treating each other better, writer Matthew Walther suggests that the unifying banner under which we can all gather could be disdain for this song.
Start with the word salad of Marxism, anarchism, and existentialism. Nowhere is there even the faintest hint of how any of the hypotheticals we are being asked to consider might be realized. Instead Lennon does the political equivalent of telling us that the real magic was inside us all along.
This terrible song offers “a vision of a reality in which ‘lol nothing matters’ is elevated to a first-order principle.”
I’ve always hated “Imagine.” It’s as silly a song as “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime.” It’s abyssmal. I can barely listen to Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and “Bewitched, bothered and bewildered” has to be about singing under the influence–does anyone like that one?
Let’s unite in our disdain for overly popular songs. What’s your pick? (via Prufrock)