Sacred Miscellany

Music and Food - The Tabbouleh Song

It's been a busy weekend.  Don't I wish I could curl up with a bowl of tabbouleh!  Enjoy - and thanks to Byzantine Ramblings:

New Wing in the Menagerie of Pet Peeves

If you're one of my three of so regular readers, you know that I have a menagerie of pet peeves. 

For the most part, these are annoyances at bad translations, shifting the dates of religious feasts, and singers who don't hear directions unless they are addressed individually. While the pet peeves rattle their cages, many are only active seasonally.

The current economic crisis has given rise to several new species of peeves.  So many, in fact, that I've built a new wing on the menagerie. 

Most of these fall into the species known as the "self-righteous counsels of thriftiness":

• Don't eat out
• Don't buy a latte
• Don't go to the movies
• Find free music online (or illegally copy your friends' CDs)
• Don't go on vacation
• Etc. Etc. Etc. (as the King said in the musical that included his name in the title)

Everyone knows that you shouldn't throw around money you don't have.  At the same time, I sense a greyness descending on the land.  From every woman's magazine, in every other ad on the television, in the newspapers and from all the talking heads of this world comes the message - "all is lost, we're all doomed, and don't you dare have any fun anymore (unless maybe your idea of fun is going on a charity fundraising walk)."

Well, guess what!  People have jobs in restaurants, in coffee bars, as musicians and in the larger music industry.  How about the ticket seller at the movies?  Not to mention the army of individuals and families that depend on the hospitality industry's health for their livelihood.  What should they do?  Disappear?

Did anyone in this country take Economics 101 other than me?

You may say I'm being touchy because I'm a musician.  Yeah, you might have a point.  But I sense a great deal of tsk-tsking coming from both the Left and the Right because there's a species of puritanism common to both.

So these new pet peeves are rapidly filling up the new wing.  They grouse among themselves and I'm going back to considering important things - music, my new amplifier, and how the Eastern and Western Churches could harmonize the date of Easter. 

Re-reading Thomas Day

The Recovering Choir Director has a great post on the now-classic "Why Catholics Can't Sing."

Since everyone likes a little traffic, go read it over there.

And if you haven't read the book, it's certainly worth your time.

Alas, I've Fallen in Love Again!

This time it's mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink, singing Il Pianto di Maria (formerly attributed to Handel, now attributed to Ferrandini).

And the album's not out in the USA yet.  But I found it on Amazon France.  Listen to the sample of track 4 and you'll see why I'm smitten.

This album was an editor's pick at Gramaphone magazine and they had the track on the monthly sampler CD.  This is something I just play in the car when I'm desperate.  When I heard this voice, I thought I'd have to pull over because it's so ravishing.

 

Live Recordings of the Schola

Here are tracks from our August 7, 2009 concert at the Cathedral-Basilica in St. Augustine.  While File Factory doesn't give you the prettiest widget player, it keeps your blog from turning into molasses.  The player is also in a side-bar.

Go to folder - FileFactory.com

The program had two parts - chant and shape-note music.  And in both, we had the good fortune of fantastic organ playing on the Cathedral's Casavant by Shannon McKay, Cathedral organist and one of the founding members of the schola.

Yes, it's a live recording with all the warts - coughing, the occasional less-than-perfect moment.  But we loved every minute of it - and so did the over 100 people who came!  Enjoy!

Schola at the Shrine for the Queenship of Mary

The St. Augustine Schola will be singing the First Vespers of the Queenship of Mary at 6 p.m. on Friday evening, August 21st, 2009 at the Shrine Chapel of Our Lady of La Leche in St. Augustine, FL. 

The feast was established by Pius XII in 1954 to be celebrated on May 31st.  Paul VI moved it to the octave of the Assumption (August 22nd) in 1969. 

This will also mark the 1st anniversary of the Schola's monthly vespers at the Shrine! 

Bobby McFerrin and the Pentatonic Scale - A "Must Watch"

Thanks to Aristotle over at the Musica Sacra Forum.

Random Thoughts on food and festivals

Last evening I saw a television show that included hordes of people eating pierogis in Whiting, Indiana.  I think I actually know someone who lives there - and she never mentioned the pierogis.  Some friend!

I wonder if there's a piroshki festival somewhere.

Florida is full of fruit and vegetable festivals - strawberries have two - Plant City and Starke.  Chiefland and Newberry both have watermelons.  Windsor has zucchini.  Dade City has kumquats.  There's a peanut festival in Levy County and somewhere there's a fresh corn wing-ding as well.  And I almost forgot the Bostwick Blueberry Festival - one day only and specializing in a blueberry pancake breakfast.

Now I take another sip of Diet Coke.

The Will to Love

In a world awash with emotions, it's nice to remember the will, isn't it?

St. Maximilian Kolbe wrote, “If you have the will to love, you already give proof that you love. What counts is the will to love.”

And I can't think of anyone who knew more about love.  Feast day - August 14th.

Patron Saint of Archivists and Barbeques

Of course, it's the Feast of St. Lawrence!

Here's a bit of background on the archives connection:

A patron saint of libraries and librarians is Saint Lawrence the Librarian. He is a third century saint and martyr (died AD 258) who had responsibility for the written archives and records of the early church.

St Lawrence was one of seven famous deacons of the early church. The other six deacons along with Pope St. Sixtus II (Xystus II) were captured by the Emperor Valerian on August 6, 258, and martyred. They were buried together in the cemetery of Callistus. The oppression of the Christian church was very severe, and many Christians fled Rome or died.

As librarian and archivist, Lawrence was thought to have a list of all the members of the early church, and the locations of all the mythical hidden hoards of gold belonging to the Vatican. Captured by the soldiers of the Emperor Valerian a few days later, on August 8, 258 AD, he was told to produce all the wealth of the church. He was given only two days to bring all the treasures to the imperial palace. Particularly desired were the names of all the Christians who were also Roman nobles, since they could be ransomed for gold by the emperor, or executed and their wealth confiscated by the emperor for the state.

Lawrence gathered up the all the diseased, orphaned or crippled Christians on the appointed day, brought them to the palace, and told the startled emperor that "These are the treasures of the church!"

Thanks to http://valinor.ca/lawrence.html - go there for details of St. Lawrence's roasting on the gridiron.

You'll be happy to know that a reliquary with St. Lawrence's head is in the Vatican Library.  And remembering the problems that institution had with scholarly thieves several years ago, I hope he's watching out for them.

In the meantime, put some of your papers in acid-free folders and fire up the grill!