For the #Epiphany, here’s Omnes de Saba venient by Lassus, sung by The Sixteen, together with my #AdventPoem recording of T.S. Eliot’s The Journey of the Magi (thread below 👇).
Seems to me that these days the Wise Men are only bringing myrrh…
As well as featuring #ChristmasMusic posted by @alexjenkinspoet.bsky.social & my own #AdventPoem cycle which includes music from mediaeval & Renaissance times & some seasonal oddities, this thread of threads now guest-stars @mrchrisaddison.bsky.social’s fine selection of #ChristmasCarols in its weft
Perfect addition. And if I throw in my recent #AdventPoem stuff, not for my poetry but for the music deployed to hide its deficiencies, then this is the capo di tutti capi of interwoven #ChristmasMusic threads
The link below 👇 contains all six of my series of #AdventPoem recordings, four of my poems bookended by two classics, alongside an array of wonderful #ChristmasMusic from across the world and the centuries.
#Christmas #Poetry #Music #Advent #poetsonbluesky #poetrycommunity
#AdventPoem #ChristmasMusic thread 🧵 👆🎄🌲
And just a quick note to say thank you for all the likes and reposts of this series of seasonal poems. Much appreciated. It was really great fun to do, as much fun as I have had on here, especially with all the encouragement 🙏🙏🙏
So that’s it for my #AdventPoem recordings, 4 of mine bookended by 20th & 15th C masterworks, all in the thread 👆, where I’ve also shamelessly exploited fine #ChristmasMusic
I’ll end where I began with great Tudor polyphony, Taverner’s Audivi Vocem de Caelo sung by the brilliant @stileantico.co.uk
All my other #AdventPoem recordings are in the thread below👇
My SIXTH & LAST #AdventPoem is Adam Lay i-Bowndyn. In the thread below you can find the text & a discussion of this early 15th Century work.
#Christmas #Advent #poetsonbluesky #poetrycommunity
I am also much taken by Orlande de Lassus’s Omnes de Saba Venient. Performed here by Harry Christophers and The Sixteeen #ChristmasMusic #AdventPoem #Advent #Christmas
Finding music for this #AdventPoem wasn’t about specifics (the figures in the piece are mysterious to me) more about atmosphere. Ancient French ecclesiastical music is distinctly seasonal. Perotin was active at Notre Dame at the start of the 13th century. Here’s his Beata Viscera #ChristmasMusic
My fifth #AdventPoem recording is of my #poem Winter Wandering, first published in the brilliant @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social’s online poetry periodical, The Starbeck Orion. A link to the text and an earlier recording is in the thread below
#poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky #christmas #advent
I’ve just recorded final #AdventPoem Adam lay i-bowndyn (Wikipedia entry👇). I used the original spelling with its pronunciation clues, though uncertainty persists about the Great Vowel Shift impact. I could’ve gone further. But the challenge is to get an authentic feel while remaining comprehensible
And as a bonus piece of #ChristmasMusic for this fourth #AdventPoem recording, here’s my favourite recording of the Coventry Carol, complete with dissonance, from The Sixteen and Harry Christophers #christmas #advent #poetrycommunity #poemsonbluesky
The medievalism of Vox Clara fits the visions in the latest #AdventPoem perhaps. But given its many associations, this from the great Vince Guaraldi was a close second
#ChristmasMusic to go with this fourth #AdventPoem recording is Vox Clara, an album by Schola Cantorum Riga, featuring seasonal music from medieval Riga, Limoges, Lund and Hamburg. Look out for bagpipes, hurdy gurdy and ancient kokle instruments. #christmas #advent #poetsonbluesky #poetrycommunity
My other #AdventPoem recordings can be found in the thread below 👇
#christmas #advent #poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky
My fourth #AdventPoem recording is my #poem Tree. First published by @helenivory.bsky.social in the brilliant Ink Sweat & Tears @inksweatandtears.co.uk I have put the link to the text in a portion of a thread shared below👇. #poetrycommunity #christmas #poetsonbluesky
And thank you to everyone who has been kind about the latest #AdventPoem and the associated #ChristmasMusic thread. Much appreciated 🙏✍️🎄🎶
Here’s another masterpiece of French Renaissance #Christmas polyphony from Mouton’s great contemporary, Josquin des Prez, his Praeter Rerum Seriam, performed on Alamire’s award-winning album Anne Boleyn’s Songbook #AdventPoem #AdventMusic #poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky
But probably the best choice for this third poem in the #AdventPoem series is one of my favourite pieces of #ChristmasMusic Jean Mouton’s glorious canon motet Nesciens Mater, sung here beautifully by The Sixteen. If there is a heaven it sounds like this 🎶🎄 #poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky #christmas
Thinking about suitable music for this third recording for my #AdventPoem series, the ancient devotional works of the Winchester Troper, which I shared last night in the thread below, might be appropriate
The first two #AdventPoem recordings are in the thread below👇
The third recording in my #AdventPoem series is my #poem Come, first published by the brilliant @zoomburst.substack.com as part of his Sixty Odd Poets initiative (text in the thread below👇).
#poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky #christmas #advent
But since it was a close call, here’s an especially fine version of the Ukrainian 🇺🇦 theme that became the #Christmas favourite, Carol of the Bells, from Harry Christophers and The Sixteen #AdventPoem #poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky #Advent
I’ve debated suitable seasonal or #Christmas music to post with this #AdventPoem. Carol of the Bells? Prokofiev’s Troika? In the end I went for Hátið fer í hönd from an album by Icelandic-Belgian ensemble Mógil based on Aðventa, a 19th C novel by Gunnar Gunnarssson #poetsonbluesky #poetrycommunity
And for anyone who missed it, below is the thread of the first #AdventPoem TS Eliot’s Journey of the Magi #poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky #advent #christmas
The second in my #AdventPoem series is a new recording of my #poem Snowscape. Not strictly a #Christmas piece but certainly a seasonal one. First published in @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social’s The Starbeck Orion (see thread below for the text & my earlier recording) #poetsonbluesky #poetrycommunity
And here are the wonderful @stileantico.co.uk performing another seasonal masterpiece William Byrd’s Ecce Virgo Concipiet, live at the Wigmore Hall #Christmas #Advent #AdventPoem
Today I’m starting my #AdventPoem series. My recordings of six seasonal poems, four of them mine, bookended by a twentieth & a fifteenth-century masterpiece.
First, inspired by a Lancelot Andrewes sermon, TS Eliot’s glorious Journey of the Magi
#poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky #Advent #Christmas
