Thursday, June 16, 2011

Day Seven - Thirty Days of Songs

A Song The Reminds You of A Particular Event

A great many possibilities here -

"Let the Bright Seraphim" (Handel)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SNj1AQ8r3w

reminds me very much of the Charles & Diana wedding back in 1981. Yes, I knew said tune at the time... I didn't get out much as a kid. I nearly dropped my breakfast when Kiri Te Kanawa got up and sang something I knew. Not just knew, but loved and still love...

I freely admit that some of this is probably soprano envy. Singing is great fun for me, but it's highly unlikely that I will ever stand in front of an orchestra and belt this piece out, let alone sound half as good as Te Kanawa does at it. She makes this performance all look and sound so effortless... and I'm sure that on that sunny July morning, even though she'd performed the piece countless times, Te Kanawa thought about the size of her international audience and felt at least a little nervous.

The way that the trumpet and the vocal trills come together thrills me no end. This is a piece I truly could listen to over and over again, Royal Wedding or no Royal Wedding. I'm still not entirely sure what it's about, but that doesn't matter.

As a slightly (cough) older person than the starry eyed kid with a bowl of Honey-Nut Cheerios in her lap who watched the wedding with her dog, I'm struck by this being a rather odd choice for a wedding - perhaps this is English tradition, or perhaps it's further proof that Charles didn't quite think through all of the details of marriage before jumping in.

No matter. There's nothing wrong with the occasional fairy tale.

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