The Hounds of Spring

4:49 PM PDT, March 24, 2009

[Information about my other writing can be found here. Happy reading!]

And time remembered is grief forgotten,

And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

It never lasts long, this sweet first flowering time. Two days ago the redbud and crabapple trees around the deck were just beginning to bloom; now they’re at their height. From my window I can see their delicate hues, purple and rose, demurely defiant amid the gaunt trunks and branches of oaks and maples still leafless. The daffodils flaunted in their golden hosts weeks ago, and are now shriveling on their stalks. So temporary, and for that very reason so beloved, this fragile, fitful interval.

I can well understand why medieval people always went wild when Spring finally arrived. Even with my modern comforts, winter is a grim and shivering eternity that gets more arduous with each passing year, and this particular year was a bad 'un. My left tympanic cavity is still clogged from the crud that began afflicting me around Thanksgiving, and is only now making an all too leisurely retreat from my mortal clay. To finally feel warm, really and truly warm, is wondrous.

So with my one good ear, my two bad eyes and my cough-rough voice I’ve been reveling in Karl Orff’s Carmina Burana, singing along to the irresistibly upbeat ‘Tempus Est Iocundum.’ Orff’s mainly known for another song in the cycle, ‘O Fortuna,’ but its grim staccato howl that made perfect background music for the last several months has been bumped from my player, replaced by the pagan glee of youths and maidens giddy with the joy of shrugging off heavy itchy rank infested wool breeks and coathardies and frolicking about bare-limbed on the greensward.

Oh, oh, oh!
Totus floreo!

Texts and translations of the Carmina Burana can be found at http://www.tylatin.org/extras/index.html

Swinburne's breathtaking poem about spring's hounds, partially quoted above, can be found here: http://www.bartleby.com/101/808.html


CK

Life, Exquisitely Examined

1:51 PM PDT, March 13, 2009

Like all good torturers, the malaise mentioned in an earlier post granted me a brief respite, during which I took a road trip to Chapel Hill, NC with my hub, who'd been invited to give a colloquium at UNC. I enjoyed every minute of it, my pleasure all the more enhanced by the blessing of complete, actual health. We drove through snowy skies and white-laden stretches of forest by late afternoon, the first real winter I’ve seen all year. Although we outran the weather on our way to town, when I awoke the next morning at UNC's lovely Carolina Inn and looked out the window, all the world was covered in ‘ermine too dear for an earl.’ I wandered about the near-deserted campus (classes were called off until noon) and took photos before the sun shone out and all the wonder melted away.

We met up with many old friends, and three days fled by in a delicious blur. Breakfast at the Inn on the morning of our departure capped the experience with a serendipitious chance encounter. I’d at once noticed the man across from me, whose unruly hair, visionary eyes and civil but strained forbearance with the over-attentive waitstaff presaged singularity. In British-accented tones just above a whisper, he eschewed the communal carafe in favor of a bespoke espresso, and specified fresh eggs made to order—perhaps a covert jab at the scrambled offerings of the buffet, which were pretty visibly heaped on my plate. Amused, I made some remark about the persistence of Southern hospitality, to which he replied with ironic resignation, and then surprised me by asking if Hub and I were with the orchestra. We soon discovered that we were conversing with the founder of the Arditti Quartet, which was visiting UNC for a concert and a master class. The group specializes in contemporary music of a rarefied, difficult, experimental nature, and is widely considered the best in the world at what it does. Hundreds of pieces have been commissioned by and composed for the AQ, most notoriously Karlheinz Stockhausen’s irresistibly weird Helikopter Quartett, which has to be seen on YouTube to be thoroughly appreciated.

I like to define my life as 'Vissi d'arte,' but Irvine Arditti really, truly walks the walk. He formed the quartet in 1973 while barely in his twenties, three years before joining the London Symphony Orchestra, and is now the only original member. He and his group have recorded more than 160 cds. He lives perpetually on tour, never at rest. His skill as a violinist is breathtaking, as this John Cage piece will demonstrate.

Since I'm most at home with Scarlatti and Dowland, the conversation was as much an education as a pleasure, and all too brief. As he departed for morning rehearsals, Mr. Arditti noted that I’d find a lot of contemporary composers mentioned on his website, and gave both Hub’s and my hand a slight but cordial clasp. Since then I’ve been enjoying a new realm of music, and value the maestro's farewell gesture all the more. I hope to see the quartet in concert as soon as may be.

How I admire people who live big, dedicated, beautiful lives.

CK