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Showing posts with the label poetry

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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Eric Satie - Biography - Trois Poèmes d’Amour & Je Te Veux

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  Erik Satie   1866 – 1925   This witty and quizzical composer began his life ironically, by being born at No 90 Rue Haute (High Street), the lowest street of Honfleur!  His music is admired for its harmonic innovation, revolutionary simplicity and lack of romantic excesses, but in his early career, he was considered an obscure eccentric and was ridiculed as a musician.   His father was a ship broker and his mother was English of Scottish descent. After the 1870 War, the Satie family moved to Paris, but when his mother died in 1872 Erik was sent to live with his grandparents in Honfleur. His early life was further disrupted when his grandmother died in 1878, and he was returned to his father in Paris. He was given a very informal education until his father remarried. His new wife Eugénie Barnetsche, a pianist and amateur composer forced her musical tastes on young Satie. He disliked her and her tastes intensely. He found the concerts and academic music she l...
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La Belle France - A French Song Recital Programme for Mezzo-Soprano & Translations by Helena Kean

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  La Belle France - A French Song Recital  & Translations by Helena Kean Recital Programme:   Henri Duparc               L’Invitation au Voyage   Gabriel Fauré               Le Jardin Clos                                                               1.   Exaucement                                           ...
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