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The Songs & The Plays - Kean on Shakespeare

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The Songs & The Plays Listen on Youtube Love’s Labours Lost (1593-94) A revised and polished version of this play was presented for Queen Elizabeth I and her court at Christmas 1598. However the elevated language and subject matter of the drama suggests it was always intended for a sophisticated and highly literate audience. There are two parallel plots – one ‘high’ comedy and one ‘low’ comedy. In the high comedy the King of Navarre and his friends make a pact to ‘fast and study’ and to have no contact with women for three years. No sooner have they agreed than the Princess of Aquitaine and her ladies in waiting arrive to discuss ‘state matters’. Inevitably the King falls in love with the Princess and his friends with the French ladies in waiting. The Gentlemen find loophole in their vows and woo and win women with a dance. The Ladies become aware of their broken vows and treat the noblemen with scorn. In the low comedy the page Moth and the clown Costard ridicule the exaggerated m...
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Xavier Montsalvatge - Biographical Notes & My Translations

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  Xavier Montsalvatge i Bassols 1912 The composer and critic Montsalvatge was born in Girona and studied at Barcelona Conservatory with Morera and Pahissa. His education was Castillian; to speak Catalan in public could invite a slap in the face; to write it was seen as an open defiance of Franco. He was a musician of broad culture and a talented journalist: he was a music critic for “Destino” and “La Vanguardia”. Most of his music was written in the 1940’s, during the Republic. The Catalan composer Mompou was a strong influence, but Montsalvatge explored Catalan, Spanish and Cuban/Antillean music in his compositions. Spain still had strong ties to Cuba and the popular Habanera style had been re-imported from the West Indies by émigrés from Spain’s Mediterranean coast. There are still very distinctive Catalan folk qualities in his West Indian pieces. He collected the Habaneros of Catalan fishermen from the days of their fathers and grandfathers sailing in windjammers to Cuba...
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Cuba: The Pearl of the Antilles - behind 'Cincos Canciones Negras' by Xavier Montsalvatge

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  Cuba: The Pearl of the Antilles * The first African slaves were brought to Cuba in 1522, after the Spanish had destroyed the local Arawak population with disease and ruthless exploitation. Even during the eleven-month British occupation of Havana, 4000 more slaves were brought into Cuba. In 1763, the Anglo-Spanish Peace Treaty returned Cuba to Spain in exchange for Florida and the Real Compania de Comercio of Cadiz had the monopoly on Cuban trade until 1765. When Cuban trade was extended, fortresses were built around Havana, which became prosperous from the slave trade. The fortress called “La Cabaña” was built in 1766 to prevent the other fortress “El Morro” being taken and to improve the defences following the exchange with Britain. Havana was then the most fortified city in the world. It was known as “The Bulwark of the Indies”. The fortress’ high stone walls still dominate the port and city. By 1791, Cuban whites were demanding the right to import slaves. The black sla...
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