“As she talks, her lips breathe spring roses: I was Chloris, who am now called Flora” – from “Fasti”, a six-book Latin poem written by the Roman poet Ovid and published in 8 AD. Detail from “Primavera” by Sandro Botticelli. Painted ca. [read more…]
Ivan Aivazovsky: “The Black Sea at Night” 1879
Live Amateur Video recorded at the Casa Labia Cultural Center, Muizenberg, Cape Town, 13 June 2013
This version for Cello and Piano Arranged by Sarah Acres & Albert Combrink
Website: Sarah Acres – http://www.facebook.com/CellistInTheCity
Website: Albert Combrink – https://www.albertcombrink.com
Twitter: @albertcombrink
Read more about the original programme here:
https://www.albertcombrink.com/2013/05/05/casa-labia-morning-concert-series-presents-linvitation-au-voyage-french-music-for-cello-and-piano-sarah-acres-albert-combrink/
Read more about the song here:
https://www.albertcombrink.com/2013/06/30/dun-prison-reynaldo-hahn/
Gustave Caillebotte, Jeune homme à la fenêtre (Young man at the window), c. [read more…]
A disturbingly static song at first hearing, D’un Prison paints a picture of a man who has an epiphany. Neither the naked Archimedes’ “Eureka” nor Oprah’s “Aha” moment, this is the quiet inner slice of time of a man who looks up over the roofs of Paris, and realises – perhaps for the first time – how simple life actually is, and asks himself what it was all for. On what had he spent his youth?
“My God, My God, life is so simple and quiet”.
Venezuelan [read more…]
Child prodigy and youngest of 12 children, Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic, diarist, theatre director, and salon singer. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie. The fine craftsmanship, remarkable beauty, and originality of his works capture the insouciance of la belle époque.
Accompanist and brilliant writer Graham Johnson describes the song beautifully:
“À Chloris is beyond doubt the summit of Reynaldo Hahn’s art as a pasticheur, and [read more…]