Posts

Showing posts with the label Jesus Guridi

The Songs & The Plays - Kean on Shakespeare

-
Image
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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jesús Guridi - biographical notes and my translations

-
Image
  Jesús Guridi 1886 –1961   Born in the Basque province of Alava, Guridi came from a talented musical family. His creative gifts were nurtured through a rigorous training, which took him to Paris, in 1904 and later Brussels, Liege and Cologne. In 1908 he returned to Spain and worked as an organist and chorus director in Bilbao. As a composer, vocal music was his priority and like Turina he was both a nationalist and a regionalist. His operas were internationally famous and his nine stage works included Zarzuelas based on Basque themes and customs. His compositions brought world attention to the wealth of Basque folk songs and dances, evoking the valleys and mountains in his 22 Basque Folksongs. He wrote the Seis Canciones Castellanas in 1936, using folk material, which he had compiled for a film score for Jacinto Benavente’s drama “La Malquerida”. The film’s premiere was postponed because of the Civil War. The originality and charm of these songs are considered second ...
Post a Comment
Read more