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(Hes­pèri­on XX) El Can­cionero de Pala­cio, 1474–1516 — Músi­ca en la corte de los Reyes 
. . Católicos:
. . . . 22419. (Fran­cis­co de la Torre) Dan­za Alta [instru­men­tal]
. . . . 22420. (Gabriel Mena) Aque­l­la Mora Garrida
. . . . 22421. (Fran­cis­co de Peñalosa) Por las sier­ras de Madrid
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String Quar­tet No. 1 in A major, Op. 2 was Dvořák’s sec­ond cham­ber work. He was only 21 when he com­plet­ed it, in 1862. It was not per­formed, how­ev­er, until he revised it in 1888. The revi­sions seem to have been con­fined to some cuts to make it “lean­er”, so it is prob­a­bly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of his musi­cal think­ing and abil­i­ties at that ear­ly stage. If that’s the case, then his genius shines out. It isn’t a great work, espe­cial­ly when com­pared to the divine quar­tets of his matu­ri­ty, but it shows many of his sig­na­ture qual­i­ties: the play­ful­ness, effort­less melod­ic inven­tion, and the abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate beau­ty and even sweet­ness with­out cloy­ing. The first of the four move­ments has a catchy melody, but devel­ops it very con­ven­tion­al­ly. It’s in the third move­ment, Alle­gro scherzan­do, that the future Dvořák is most evi­dent. Its trio sec­tion could have been com­posed by no one else. The ani­ma­to of the final move­ment is vig­or­ous and con­fi­dent. This first quar­tet can be played strict­ly for the plea­sure it affords, not just for its pre­sen­ti­ments of great­ness. My best copy is bril­liant­ly per­formed by the Kvarte­to měs­ta Prahy.

Dayan Ancient Music Asso­ci­a­tion performing

Of all the provinces of Chi­na, it is Yun­nan that has fas­ci­nat­ed me most. Remote and moun­tain­ous, and for­got­ten by the world in the last few cen­turies, it once played a crit­i­cal role in world his­to­ry by being the first region to trans­mit major cul­tur­al and tech­no­log­i­cal influ­ences between East Asia and South Asia. The old­est known hominid fos­sils of East Asia were found there. Before the famed Silk Road was estab­lished in the north, trade and ideas wormed their way through the pre­cip­i­tous moun­tain pass­es of Yun­nan, across north­ern Bur­ma, then over the Naga hills to the val­ley of the Brahma­pu­tra in India. Rice cul­ti­va­tion prob­a­bly entered India by this route in pre­his­toric times, and pos­si­bly the tech­nol­o­gy of cast­ing bronze. Some mag­nif­i­cent bronze art sur­vives from the 3^rd Cen­tu­ry BCE. From that time to the Yuan era, though some­times con­trolled by Tibetan or Han Chi­nese empires, Yun­nan was most often the cen­ter of its own king­doms, such as Dian [滇國], Nangzhao [南诏], and Dali [大理国]. A melt­ing pot of peo­ples spoke var­i­ous Tibeto-Bur­man, Tai-Kadai, and Miao-Yao lan­guages. The his­tor­i­cal­ly impor­tant Bai language’s clas­si­fi­ca­tion is dis­put­ed. These abo­rig­i­nal lan­guages sur­vive and thrive despite the influx of Chi­nese speak­ers to the region, as do many ancient tra­di­tions. Shaman­ism, Tao­ism, Bud­dhism, Chris­tian­i­ty, and even Islam have been influ­ences on local beliefs. A syn­chretis­tic reli­gion called Dong­ba, relat­ed in some way to the shaman­is­tic Bön faith that pre­ced­ed Bud­dhism in Tibet, is still prac­ticed. It focus­es sig­nif­i­cant­ly on the sacred­ness of trees, and once pro­vid­ed the spir­i­tu­al basis for care­ful (and sus­tain­able) prac­tices in log­ging. The Com­mu­nist Par­ty attempt­ed to crush the faith, not only for ide­o­log­i­cal rea­sons, but to facil­i­tate clear-cut­ting and destruc­tive exploita­tion of the forests. The reli­gion, how­ev­er, sur­vives. Read more »

22333. (School of Eccle­si­as­tic Music, Mt. Lebanon) The Divine Byzan­tine Litur­gy of the
. . . . . Anti­ochi­an Holy Church
22334. (Hec­tor Berlioz) Te Deum, Op.22
22335. (tUnE-yArDs) BiRd-BrAiNs
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