![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Trust me, Cicero wrote it all down
It has come to my attention that I do not own enough classical music. By this I do not mean Mozart, Britten, Saint-Saëns; I mean songs on classical themes, either historical or mythological, and multiple versions of "King Orfeo" do not count. I blame ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
watermelontail for inspiring me to take inventory; I decided that I wanted to put together a mix CD of Greco-Roman stuff, and then I realized that I had a little over thirty songs, reckoned generously, and most of those were by the Mountain Goats.* So what else is out there? I know already that I need to pick up the Crüxshadows' Ethernaut (2003). I have Human Sexual Response's In a Roman Mood (1981). And I have several takes on Persephone, but who writes about Hermes or Hadrian?
There were fireworks tonight on the field between Lexington High School and the Center Playground; a carnival lit up on the grass, with fried dough and a Ferris wheel where I once walked in endless circles on a freezing May night, hot cocoa and blankets instead of stargazing and bugs. I no longer even remember what the twenty-four-hour relay was raising money for, only the cold and the conversations and the live music, because someone was fiddling "The Rights of Man." Tonight there were bats tacking back and forth between the trees, and I had never watched fireworks from the ground up before. I don't know what it is about explosions that always makes me feel better.
* Which is not any kind of aesthetic strike against them, but it does threaten the hypothetical CD with a certain lack of variety—and I don't even have quite enough to make a whole CD of John Darnielle vs. Classical Antiquity.
watermelontail for inspiring me to take inventory; I decided that I wanted to put together a mix CD of Greco-Roman stuff, and then I realized that I had a little over thirty songs, reckoned generously, and most of those were by the Mountain Goats.* So what else is out there? I know already that I need to pick up the Crüxshadows' Ethernaut (2003). I have Human Sexual Response's In a Roman Mood (1981). And I have several takes on Persephone, but who writes about Hermes or Hadrian?There were fireworks tonight on the field between Lexington High School and the Center Playground; a carnival lit up on the grass, with fried dough and a Ferris wheel where I once walked in endless circles on a freezing May night, hot cocoa and blankets instead of stargazing and bugs. I no longer even remember what the twenty-four-hour relay was raising money for, only the cold and the conversations and the live music, because someone was fiddling "The Rights of Man." Tonight there were bats tacking back and forth between the trees, and I had never watched fireworks from the ground up before. I don't know what it is about explosions that always makes me feel better.
* Which is not any kind of aesthetic strike against them, but it does threaten the hypothetical CD with a certain lack of variety—and I don't even have quite enough to make a whole CD of John Darnielle vs. Classical Antiquity.
no subject
-Bellini, Norma (Well, parts of it are sung by Romans. This one is Romans vs. Gauls, who both lose to bel canto)
-Berlioz, Les Troyens
-Cavalli, La Calisto
-Gluck, several operas, including Ifigenia in Aulide, Ifigenia in Tauride, and Orfeo ed Eurydice
-Handel, Acis and Galatea (in English, yet!)
-Handel, Semele ditto
-Handel, Giulio Cesare
-Monteverdi, L'incoronazione di Poppea (where else are you going to find two Poppea-Nero love duets? or a dialogue between Minerva and Seneca?)
-Monteverdi, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
-Mozart, La Clemenza di Tito
-Mozart, Idomeneo
-Purcell, Dido and Aeneas (Mind you, historical it is not.)
-Refice, Cecilia (okay, it's pagans vs. Christians, but still . . .)
-Sullivan, The Martyr of Antioch Yes, he composed stuff besides G&S. I've never seen or heard all of this, but I have a CD with two excerpts: a Christians vs. pagans double chorus, and a gorgeous hymn to Apollo.)
That doesn't exhaust my list, but it may not be what you were looking for. Let me know if you want more along these lines. And don't forget Princess Ida's hymn to Minerva.
Finally, if you read this far, I have a marvelous CD by the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus called "Rome's Golden Poets- A Capella Settings of Latin Verse". It lives up to its name. I highly recommend it.
(re-posted for failing at html)
no subject
That is perhaps the best summary of the opera I have ever seen.
-Berlioz, Les Troyens
Whose recording do you have? I don't yet own one.
Yes, he composed stuff besides G&S.
I know. That's still a moment of *blink*.
Finally, if you read this far, I have a marvelous CD by the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus called "Rome's Golden Poets- A Capella Settings of Latin Verse". It lives up to its name. I highly recommend it.
Prrrr.
Thank you!