Nothing really. For today's desperate attempt at escapism (the daily), I’ve picked Schubert. The chosen piece is “An die Musik” written in 1817 which is a German poem, written by his friend von Schober:

Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Stunden,
Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt,
Hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb' entzunden,
Hast mich in eine beßre Welt entrückt!

Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!

This is the English translation:

Oh lovely Art, in how many grey hours,
When life's fierce orbit ensnared me,
Have you kindled my heart to warm love,
Carried me away into a better world!

How often has a sigh escaping from your harp,
A sweet, sacred chord of yours
Opened up for me the heaven of better times,
Oh lovely Art, for that I thank you!

And this is how I remember singing it in English, though I can only remember the first verse:

Thou lovely art in every troubled hour
When I have bowed before the storms of life
hast though revived my heart with glowing power
in higher realms unknown to earthly strife
in realms unknown to earthly strife

Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm_AKMV0ME0

sigh

I generally prefer notes over words, but poetry has its own rhythm. When music and poetry meet however, the result can sometimes become an exquisite work of art.

I have here for your pleasure (hopefully, and for my show-and-tell) three musical compositions inspired by poems of Emily Dickinson. The themes of her poems here are poignant and intense, filled with a painful longing for a stillness far removed from the human condition.

The Piano

Big My Secret and The Heart Asks Pleasure First are piano scores composed by Michael Nyman, from Jane Campion's The Piano.

The life of Ada, the film's protagonist, contains the themes of the two poems alluded to in the piano scores. As Ada does not speak, we are left with only the expression and intensity of her music. The clues to its meaning are in the allusion.

The Heart asks Pleasure First is the main theme used in the film. She plays it after she begged to be taken back to the beach where her piano was left behind. The repeating motif of the notes with the accents on top reminds me of the endless churning and rolling of the ocean-Nyman's own metaphor for the human heart.

The heart asks pleasure first
Then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

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Sorry, she has nothing to display...
sorry she has Nothing to say
(she prefers it That way)

Rhymes and whines illimitably
on incomprehensible inarticulate incapacity
(to blog)

Regretting fearing, (inconsequentially) the stupendous
monumental monstrosity, horrendous
yours (forever!).