...and the Sunday soundtrack is the music that would have been heard in the courts and cloisters of northern Italy around the time San Gottardo was built ...
Showing posts with label Music and Musicians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music and Musicians. Show all posts
Sunday, 16 December 2012
Medieval Sunday in Italia bella
Today, Carmine looks a little as it did at Christmas in 2009...
...and the Sunday soundtrack is the music that would have been heard in the courts and cloisters of northern Italy around the time San Gottardo was built ...
...and the Sunday soundtrack is the music that would have been heard in the courts and cloisters of northern Italy around the time San Gottardo was built ...
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Ave Maria
Warm and breezy. Following the heat of July, when the cats flatten themselves against the cool stone, the chickens rest immobile on their shady perches and the rush-about people wonder if they shouldn't be doing the same - following the heat of July, August in Piemonte is perfect.
Carmine's Chiesa di San Gottardo attracts many visitors. Some simply make the walk from Cannobio to Cannero through the woods and happen upon the village and its jewel of a church by chance. Some ignore the church but enjoy the view along with their picnics. Others call ahead to be sure that the church is open and there is someone there to tell them a little of what we know about the frescoes. Some are knowledgeable, some just interested, and many are very tired. Most leave nothing behind them when they leave. A few leave their trash (harrumph!). But a small number leave behind something invisible and altogether indefinable.
The other day I unlocked the church for a group of six French visitors. I left them inside, gazing in rapture up and around, soaking up the colours, getting a feeling for the forms and losing themselves in the patterns. Among them was a man, perhaps in his late sixties, wearing shorts and a singlet. He had white curly hair, a farmer's sunny face and a warm Gallic greeting. When I returned a few minutes later, it was to the sound of this ordinary man's extraordinary lyric tenor singing the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria. We were all of us transfixed, as he caressed these ancient walls with his voice, as he played the church's acoustics like a master cellist, and when the final soaring notes came, it seemed that the church itself shuddered with pleasure.
Carmine's Chiesa di San Gottardo attracts many visitors. Some are moved by its beauty to add something unique and beautiful of their own. Thank-you to the unnamed Frenchman for those unexpected and exquisite five minutes.
Carmine's Chiesa di San Gottardo attracts many visitors. Some simply make the walk from Cannobio to Cannero through the woods and happen upon the village and its jewel of a church by chance. Some ignore the church but enjoy the view along with their picnics. Others call ahead to be sure that the church is open and there is someone there to tell them a little of what we know about the frescoes. Some are knowledgeable, some just interested, and many are very tired. Most leave nothing behind them when they leave. A few leave their trash (harrumph!). But a small number leave behind something invisible and altogether indefinable.
The other day I unlocked the church for a group of six French visitors. I left them inside, gazing in rapture up and around, soaking up the colours, getting a feeling for the forms and losing themselves in the patterns. Among them was a man, perhaps in his late sixties, wearing shorts and a singlet. He had white curly hair, a farmer's sunny face and a warm Gallic greeting. When I returned a few minutes later, it was to the sound of this ordinary man's extraordinary lyric tenor singing the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria. We were all of us transfixed, as he caressed these ancient walls with his voice, as he played the church's acoustics like a master cellist, and when the final soaring notes came, it seemed that the church itself shuddered with pleasure.
Carmine's Chiesa di San Gottardo attracts many visitors. Some are moved by its beauty to add something unique and beautiful of their own. Thank-you to the unnamed Frenchman for those unexpected and exquisite five minutes.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Sea pictures in a Cannobio car park
A bright, warm and sunny autumnal day. For two weeks now, no rain. Watering like a mad thing.
This morning in the car, once free of the children and their obsession with 'The Five Findouters' audio mysteries, I'm listening to the immortal Dame Janet Baker sing Elgar's Sea Pictures Op. 37. I pull into the car park as she starts in on the sublime 'Sabbath Morning at Sea', from the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (how much more English can you get?), and I can't tear myself away. I am immobile in the driver's seat, windows open, ancient cassette player vibrating (not quite, but almost) like the drum-&-bass trunk of some city pimp. I am gazing across Lago Maggiore, which glitters in a very Italianate way in the morning sun, and I am dreaming of the sea, as sometimes we English must.
In the parking space beside me I notice with the small part of my being that's not drenched in musical salt spray, a dark blue Twingo has arrived. In the driver's seat is a short man in his mid-60s, who glances at me with a twinkle that gives me to understand he was not always pear-shaped and male-pattern bald. I also shortly become aware that instead of immediately going about his business, he, too, has become caught up in the drama of Dame Janet's ineffable mezzo and is soaring with her across the lake, so to speak.
We reach the climactic "He shall assist me to look higher, he shall assist me to look higher", and now the tears are streaming down my face (note to self - must stop being moved to tears by great art in public car parks). He glances at me, can't fail to see the tears, and smiles a gentle smile. As the moment dies away, we are both still for a moment, and then the man leans slowly across.
"Una meraviglia," he says, quietly, "Una meraviglia!"
He twinkles again, then gets out of his car, and disappears from my day.
And I am left with the strange sensation that something has happened, but I can't quite put my finger on what...
This morning in the car, once free of the children and their obsession with 'The Five Findouters' audio mysteries, I'm listening to the immortal Dame Janet Baker sing Elgar's Sea Pictures Op. 37. I pull into the car park as she starts in on the sublime 'Sabbath Morning at Sea', from the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (how much more English can you get?), and I can't tear myself away. I am immobile in the driver's seat, windows open, ancient cassette player vibrating (not quite, but almost) like the drum-&-bass trunk of some city pimp. I am gazing across Lago Maggiore, which glitters in a very Italianate way in the morning sun, and I am dreaming of the sea, as sometimes we English must.
In the parking space beside me I notice with the small part of my being that's not drenched in musical salt spray, a dark blue Twingo has arrived. In the driver's seat is a short man in his mid-60s, who glances at me with a twinkle that gives me to understand he was not always pear-shaped and male-pattern bald. I also shortly become aware that instead of immediately going about his business, he, too, has become caught up in the drama of Dame Janet's ineffable mezzo and is soaring with her across the lake, so to speak.
We reach the climactic "He shall assist me to look higher, he shall assist me to look higher", and now the tears are streaming down my face (note to self - must stop being moved to tears by great art in public car parks). He glances at me, can't fail to see the tears, and smiles a gentle smile. As the moment dies away, we are both still for a moment, and then the man leans slowly across.
"Una meraviglia," he says, quietly, "Una meraviglia!"
He twinkles again, then gets out of his car, and disappears from my day.
And I am left with the strange sensation that something has happened, but I can't quite put my finger on what...
Thursday, 4 August 2011
A little night music
Spagna e dintorni - Francesco Cuoghi, chitarra barocca e chitarra - Giovedì 18 Agosto, ore 21:00. A rare opportunity to experience the unique atmosphere of the Chiesa di San Gottardo and the view of Lago Maggiore by night. Oh yes, and hear some beautiful classical guitar.
Monday, 20 December 2010
An expat's Christmas lament
A fiery sunrise this morning to accompany me, my water-kettle steaming to the snow-bound chicks. Blue skies. Seems warmer.
Christmas is coming (as if you didn't know), and we're awash with candles, cards and Christmas trees. Every expat has to make a decision every year - to spend Christmas in their country of residence, or go 'home'. And having spent more than seven years now as an official, card-carrying resident here in Carmine Superiore, I generally choose to stay put where the chimneys are big enough for Santa, the woods are full of Christmas decorations and I'm among good friends.
At Christmas I, of course, miss my family. But I don't miss the mad cattle-truck crush of the trip home from London. I don't miss the last-minute shopping chaos. I don't miss Christmas tv. I don't miss turkey or Christmas pud or 'all the trimmings'. I don't miss the Queen's Speech and I don't miss the Big Film.
In fact, apart from my family, there's only one thing I miss about Christmas in the UK. And it's something you really can't find anywhere else in the world. It's the ancient Christmas carols sung by a cathedral choir by candlelight.
This I miss so badly I get a stone in my chest and tears in my eyes...
What do you miss about Christmas at home?
Christmas is coming (as if you didn't know), and we're awash with candles, cards and Christmas trees. Every expat has to make a decision every year - to spend Christmas in their country of residence, or go 'home'. And having spent more than seven years now as an official, card-carrying resident here in Carmine Superiore, I generally choose to stay put where the chimneys are big enough for Santa, the woods are full of Christmas decorations and I'm among good friends.
At Christmas I, of course, miss my family. But I don't miss the mad cattle-truck crush of the trip home from London. I don't miss the last-minute shopping chaos. I don't miss Christmas tv. I don't miss turkey or Christmas pud or 'all the trimmings'. I don't miss the Queen's Speech and I don't miss the Big Film.
In fact, apart from my family, there's only one thing I miss about Christmas in the UK. And it's something you really can't find anywhere else in the world. It's the ancient Christmas carols sung by a cathedral choir by candlelight.
This I miss so badly I get a stone in my chest and tears in my eyes...
What do you miss about Christmas at home?
Monday, 30 November 2009
The eye of the storm
Four degrees at 8:30am. We descended amid a storm - howling winds, driving rain, water up to our ankles in places (places that the children joyfully and unerringly found).
But now I am watching the rain dribbling off the nearest piode rooftop and the trees bowing to the wind from the warmth of my kitchen. I have my back to a gently radiant Mathilda, and Allegri's 'Miserere' (the song of angels) pours from the speakers as I quietly consider the oeuvre on the screen before me.
Bliss.
But now I am watching the rain dribbling off the nearest piode rooftop and the trees bowing to the wind from the warmth of my kitchen. I have my back to a gently radiant Mathilda, and Allegri's 'Miserere' (the song of angels) pours from the speakers as I quietly consider the oeuvre on the screen before me.
Bliss.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Motherhood means... No. 18
It must be the phase of the moon, or perhaps the changing weather, but somehow this week, I'm beseiged and beset by little ones looking for love. Cats, kits, chicks, and kids have all sidled up to me in the last few days looking for some seriouser than usual hugs...
...and it came to me this morning that motherhood means being okay with the fact that the term "Love Machine" now means something different to what it meant in the mid-70s...
...and it came to me this morning that motherhood means being okay with the fact that the term "Love Machine" now means something different to what it meant in the mid-70s...
Sunday, 9 August 2009
More meditations
An experience beyond words : Gregorian Laudes sung at dawn at Peterskirche Mistail, nr. Tiefencastel, Grigiona.
Picture : Benjamin Hofer, with thanks.
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
The rain it raineth every day...
And now something to take our minds off the rain...the first rose of spring (AJ says this picture "looks like bon-bons"...)
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Showing posts with label Music and Musicians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music and Musicians. Show all posts
Sunday, 16 December 2012
Medieval Sunday in Italia bella
Today, Carmine looks a little as it did at Christmas in 2009...
...and the Sunday soundtrack is the music that would have been heard in the courts and cloisters of northern Italy around the time San Gottardo was built ...
...and the Sunday soundtrack is the music that would have been heard in the courts and cloisters of northern Italy around the time San Gottardo was built ...
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Ave Maria
Warm and breezy. Following the heat of July, when the cats flatten themselves against the cool stone, the chickens rest immobile on their shady perches and the rush-about people wonder if they shouldn't be doing the same - following the heat of July, August in Piemonte is perfect.
Carmine's Chiesa di San Gottardo attracts many visitors. Some simply make the walk from Cannobio to Cannero through the woods and happen upon the village and its jewel of a church by chance. Some ignore the church but enjoy the view along with their picnics. Others call ahead to be sure that the church is open and there is someone there to tell them a little of what we know about the frescoes. Some are knowledgeable, some just interested, and many are very tired. Most leave nothing behind them when they leave. A few leave their trash (harrumph!). But a small number leave behind something invisible and altogether indefinable.
The other day I unlocked the church for a group of six French visitors. I left them inside, gazing in rapture up and around, soaking up the colours, getting a feeling for the forms and losing themselves in the patterns. Among them was a man, perhaps in his late sixties, wearing shorts and a singlet. He had white curly hair, a farmer's sunny face and a warm Gallic greeting. When I returned a few minutes later, it was to the sound of this ordinary man's extraordinary lyric tenor singing the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria. We were all of us transfixed, as he caressed these ancient walls with his voice, as he played the church's acoustics like a master cellist, and when the final soaring notes came, it seemed that the church itself shuddered with pleasure.
Carmine's Chiesa di San Gottardo attracts many visitors. Some are moved by its beauty to add something unique and beautiful of their own. Thank-you to the unnamed Frenchman for those unexpected and exquisite five minutes.
Carmine's Chiesa di San Gottardo attracts many visitors. Some simply make the walk from Cannobio to Cannero through the woods and happen upon the village and its jewel of a church by chance. Some ignore the church but enjoy the view along with their picnics. Others call ahead to be sure that the church is open and there is someone there to tell them a little of what we know about the frescoes. Some are knowledgeable, some just interested, and many are very tired. Most leave nothing behind them when they leave. A few leave their trash (harrumph!). But a small number leave behind something invisible and altogether indefinable.
The other day I unlocked the church for a group of six French visitors. I left them inside, gazing in rapture up and around, soaking up the colours, getting a feeling for the forms and losing themselves in the patterns. Among them was a man, perhaps in his late sixties, wearing shorts and a singlet. He had white curly hair, a farmer's sunny face and a warm Gallic greeting. When I returned a few minutes later, it was to the sound of this ordinary man's extraordinary lyric tenor singing the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria. We were all of us transfixed, as he caressed these ancient walls with his voice, as he played the church's acoustics like a master cellist, and when the final soaring notes came, it seemed that the church itself shuddered with pleasure.
Carmine's Chiesa di San Gottardo attracts many visitors. Some are moved by its beauty to add something unique and beautiful of their own. Thank-you to the unnamed Frenchman for those unexpected and exquisite five minutes.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Sea pictures in a Cannobio car park
A bright, warm and sunny autumnal day. For two weeks now, no rain. Watering like a mad thing.
This morning in the car, once free of the children and their obsession with 'The Five Findouters' audio mysteries, I'm listening to the immortal Dame Janet Baker sing Elgar's Sea Pictures Op. 37. I pull into the car park as she starts in on the sublime 'Sabbath Morning at Sea', from the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (how much more English can you get?), and I can't tear myself away. I am immobile in the driver's seat, windows open, ancient cassette player vibrating (not quite, but almost) like the drum-&-bass trunk of some city pimp. I am gazing across Lago Maggiore, which glitters in a very Italianate way in the morning sun, and I am dreaming of the sea, as sometimes we English must.
In the parking space beside me I notice with the small part of my being that's not drenched in musical salt spray, a dark blue Twingo has arrived. In the driver's seat is a short man in his mid-60s, who glances at me with a twinkle that gives me to understand he was not always pear-shaped and male-pattern bald. I also shortly become aware that instead of immediately going about his business, he, too, has become caught up in the drama of Dame Janet's ineffable mezzo and is soaring with her across the lake, so to speak.
We reach the climactic "He shall assist me to look higher, he shall assist me to look higher", and now the tears are streaming down my face (note to self - must stop being moved to tears by great art in public car parks). He glances at me, can't fail to see the tears, and smiles a gentle smile. As the moment dies away, we are both still for a moment, and then the man leans slowly across.
"Una meraviglia," he says, quietly, "Una meraviglia!"
He twinkles again, then gets out of his car, and disappears from my day.
And I am left with the strange sensation that something has happened, but I can't quite put my finger on what...
This morning in the car, once free of the children and their obsession with 'The Five Findouters' audio mysteries, I'm listening to the immortal Dame Janet Baker sing Elgar's Sea Pictures Op. 37. I pull into the car park as she starts in on the sublime 'Sabbath Morning at Sea', from the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (how much more English can you get?), and I can't tear myself away. I am immobile in the driver's seat, windows open, ancient cassette player vibrating (not quite, but almost) like the drum-&-bass trunk of some city pimp. I am gazing across Lago Maggiore, which glitters in a very Italianate way in the morning sun, and I am dreaming of the sea, as sometimes we English must.
In the parking space beside me I notice with the small part of my being that's not drenched in musical salt spray, a dark blue Twingo has arrived. In the driver's seat is a short man in his mid-60s, who glances at me with a twinkle that gives me to understand he was not always pear-shaped and male-pattern bald. I also shortly become aware that instead of immediately going about his business, he, too, has become caught up in the drama of Dame Janet's ineffable mezzo and is soaring with her across the lake, so to speak.
We reach the climactic "He shall assist me to look higher, he shall assist me to look higher", and now the tears are streaming down my face (note to self - must stop being moved to tears by great art in public car parks). He glances at me, can't fail to see the tears, and smiles a gentle smile. As the moment dies away, we are both still for a moment, and then the man leans slowly across.
"Una meraviglia," he says, quietly, "Una meraviglia!"
He twinkles again, then gets out of his car, and disappears from my day.
And I am left with the strange sensation that something has happened, but I can't quite put my finger on what...
Thursday, 4 August 2011
A little night music
Spagna e dintorni - Francesco Cuoghi, chitarra barocca e chitarra - Giovedì 18 Agosto, ore 21:00. A rare opportunity to experience the unique atmosphere of the Chiesa di San Gottardo and the view of Lago Maggiore by night. Oh yes, and hear some beautiful classical guitar.
Monday, 20 December 2010
An expat's Christmas lament
A fiery sunrise this morning to accompany me, my water-kettle steaming to the snow-bound chicks. Blue skies. Seems warmer.
Christmas is coming (as if you didn't know), and we're awash with candles, cards and Christmas trees. Every expat has to make a decision every year - to spend Christmas in their country of residence, or go 'home'. And having spent more than seven years now as an official, card-carrying resident here in Carmine Superiore, I generally choose to stay put where the chimneys are big enough for Santa, the woods are full of Christmas decorations and I'm among good friends.
At Christmas I, of course, miss my family. But I don't miss the mad cattle-truck crush of the trip home from London. I don't miss the last-minute shopping chaos. I don't miss Christmas tv. I don't miss turkey or Christmas pud or 'all the trimmings'. I don't miss the Queen's Speech and I don't miss the Big Film.
In fact, apart from my family, there's only one thing I miss about Christmas in the UK. And it's something you really can't find anywhere else in the world. It's the ancient Christmas carols sung by a cathedral choir by candlelight.
This I miss so badly I get a stone in my chest and tears in my eyes...
What do you miss about Christmas at home?
Christmas is coming (as if you didn't know), and we're awash with candles, cards and Christmas trees. Every expat has to make a decision every year - to spend Christmas in their country of residence, or go 'home'. And having spent more than seven years now as an official, card-carrying resident here in Carmine Superiore, I generally choose to stay put where the chimneys are big enough for Santa, the woods are full of Christmas decorations and I'm among good friends.
At Christmas I, of course, miss my family. But I don't miss the mad cattle-truck crush of the trip home from London. I don't miss the last-minute shopping chaos. I don't miss Christmas tv. I don't miss turkey or Christmas pud or 'all the trimmings'. I don't miss the Queen's Speech and I don't miss the Big Film.
In fact, apart from my family, there's only one thing I miss about Christmas in the UK. And it's something you really can't find anywhere else in the world. It's the ancient Christmas carols sung by a cathedral choir by candlelight.
This I miss so badly I get a stone in my chest and tears in my eyes...
What do you miss about Christmas at home?
Monday, 30 November 2009
The eye of the storm
Four degrees at 8:30am. We descended amid a storm - howling winds, driving rain, water up to our ankles in places (places that the children joyfully and unerringly found).
But now I am watching the rain dribbling off the nearest piode rooftop and the trees bowing to the wind from the warmth of my kitchen. I have my back to a gently radiant Mathilda, and Allegri's 'Miserere' (the song of angels) pours from the speakers as I quietly consider the oeuvre on the screen before me.
Bliss.
But now I am watching the rain dribbling off the nearest piode rooftop and the trees bowing to the wind from the warmth of my kitchen. I have my back to a gently radiant Mathilda, and Allegri's 'Miserere' (the song of angels) pours from the speakers as I quietly consider the oeuvre on the screen before me.
Bliss.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Motherhood means... No. 18
It must be the phase of the moon, or perhaps the changing weather, but somehow this week, I'm beseiged and beset by little ones looking for love. Cats, kits, chicks, and kids have all sidled up to me in the last few days looking for some seriouser than usual hugs...
...and it came to me this morning that motherhood means being okay with the fact that the term "Love Machine" now means something different to what it meant in the mid-70s...
...and it came to me this morning that motherhood means being okay with the fact that the term "Love Machine" now means something different to what it meant in the mid-70s...
Sunday, 9 August 2009
More meditations
An experience beyond words : Gregorian Laudes sung at dawn at Peterskirche Mistail, nr. Tiefencastel, Grigiona.
Picture : Benjamin Hofer, with thanks.
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
The rain it raineth every day...
And now something to take our minds off the rain...the first rose of spring (AJ says this picture "looks like bon-bons"...)
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