Friday 16 September 2016

Musical renewal

Daily Draw: Anna K Tarot,  Ace of Cups

Emotional renewal and fresh start. The sounds and smells in this card, crisp fresh snow and tinkling clear glacial water remind me that a fresh start is a highly sensory experience. As a young undergrad I could hear and inhale hope and promise in every dawn air. I can't remember when that stopped but it does come back from time to time usually when I'm at a conference...So on to music:  

One of the most significant developments in music in the period 1100-1500 was polyphony. The motet was a composition for multiple voices that emerged in northern France in the thirteenth century and spread throughout Western Europe by the fourteenth. Motets were the results of a cross-fertilisation of liturgical and courtly music. Which means you can hear it as you will as an expression romantic love or something more spiritual. Here is an excerpt from one such piece:

Triplum (the third part in a medieval polyphonic composition)

When both leaves and flowers return
and summer approaches,
God! Then I remember love
which always
has been gentle and sweet to me.
which contents me
by relieving my suffering
Much good and honour
come from being at its service. 

6 comments:

  1. Like seeing (hearing) multiple sides of a faceted diamond. Thank goodness for those cross-pollinations!

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  2. The girl in the card is tilting her head like if she is listening to a beautiful sound. Maybe a polyphony of tiny water droplets falling in the water???

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  3. She does. You comment reminds me the sound of water falling is so lovely.

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