John Sinclair - Folge 1808: Die Vorhölle (German Edition)

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Each succeeding level has all the capacities of the previous level, and then it adds something extra. That something extra is what makes it transcending in relation to the previous one. Each stage transcends and includes. Searching for Wisdom in America , S. Your opinions , as well as your unconscious attitudes and beliefs, affect your testing results, explaining why errors and inconsistencies are likely. Hawkins calibrations are infallible. The unspoken assumptions seem to be that because Hawkins is "enlightened," he can't be manipulating his wife's arm; is completely void of opinions, positions, and beliefs; and possesses percent objectivity.

One of the things [Hawkins] does is use [Hawkins applied] kinesiology, which is muscle testing, to test the truthfulness of statements […] making a kind of lie-detector test out of it […]. The hidden ego hook is that now the student's attention is being put on the wrong place, focused on an illusory test of an illusory thing in an illusory world […]. People love it […]. Add the lie-detector test to the mix and you have a lifetimes worth of distractions […]. Don't be discouraged by those who borrow from the Course instead of teaching it.

Skepticism calibrates at about Kinesiology calibrates at Therefore it is beyond logic and reason. We must truly want the truth. This needs to be our intention. Hawkins, Sedona Seminar What is Real? You get much sharper at picking up that you're being had all the time. Not some of the time, all the time […]. So your mind is one set of stupid programming. Hawkins, Prescott Seminar Spirituality: Reality and Subjectivity , pg.

Falsehood , same pg. Force , Transcending the Levels of Consciousness , pg. Force , Truth vs. At least 2,, yet less than 3,, people die in traffic accidents in America each week. This number mounts up to ,, deaths each year. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety The average variation in percentages for each item listed above is The median percentage change is These figures represent unacceptable percent errors in any form of science.

Falsehood , chapter 10 "America", S. Sometimes these calibrations were off by hundreds of points between visits. What follows is just a taste of the calibration discrepancies found in his work. Although Hawkins references repeatedly a "database" of consciousness calibrations for example, in Truth vs. Falsehood, pages 88 and , when I inquired about it, Hawkins said no such database exists.

I compiled his calibration dictionary after Truth vs. Falsehood was published and submitted it to Hawkins. To my knowledge, Veritas Publishing never publically released this document. Hawkins classifies his own experience as a "major transformation in consciousness," offering the date of his sobriety, January 10, , as the date of his permanent enlightenment.

He variously calibrates this "revelation of Divinity" at , , 1,, and 3,, depending on the date of the calibration.

Surnames of Scottish origin

In the Power vs. Force video in , Hawkins calibrated it at level In a private lecture to a group of Koreans in December , he calibrated this same experience at 3, He calibrated this experience at on January 27, and at 1, on August 25, — both during a private interview with me in his home. They are confusing the accessing of transpersonal states, which anyone, including children , can do, and being stable in one's development at some transpersonal level, which almost nobody does. It has been reported that psychedelic substances like LSD, DMT, and psilocybin , taken under the appropriate internal conditions with the proper understanding while in a safe, supportive setting, can offer experiences similar to those described by the ancient Eastern traditions through meditation.

Most of the effects of these substances in terms of higher states of consciousness are temporary, but numerous participants have reported long-term psychological benefits. Hawkins , "Appendix E: Hawkins , chapter 9 subheading "The Ultimate Trip: A Psychedelic Experience", S. He confirmed the time line of his acid trips in one of our private interviews for his biography.

It seems entirely plausible that Hawkins dropped acid with Wynn in December — the month his sobriety began. On acid, he realized a greater truth and, like many others, had the confidence to remain sober for reasons highlighted in Appendix. He says that "LSD taken under the best of possible circumstances has allowed many people to experience the exquisite and infinite awareness of the truth of reality.

If you stay in that state, the world calls you enlightened. If you come out of it, it says you were stoned. Hawkins' addictiveness Hawkins was always a truth seeker: And all the while, he was manipulating his brain chemistry: As the biography iterates, Hawkins alters his brain chemistry with nicotine as a heavy chain smoker and with caffeine as an addicted espresso and Diet Pepsi drinker.

He was also addicted to Diet Pepsi replacing alcohol and espresso coffee. David has smoked an average of three packs [of cigarettes] daily for over five decades, starting when he was sixteen. For many years, David grew his own tabacco, rolling his own handmade cigarettes and giving the organic tabacco as a gift to close friends.

David tried to stop smoking several times in his life, even completing Jacquelyn Roger's eight-week Smokenders program. David believes that smoking somehow anchors him to the physical world, a consequence of the recurring sensory movement, without which he just "drifts off" due to his state of consciousness. This drives us to some kind of impulsive or addictive behavior like smoking, drinking, watching television, eating sugar, or checking our email — all of which trigger the neurotransmitter dopamine in our brains.

Unless we can break the cycle of guilt and shame — by owning our shadow and developing new behaviors — it is unlikely that can overcome our addictive tendencies. Hawkins […] maintained his neurotic behaviors and addictive habits throughout his entire life. Hawkins , "Appendix C", footnote 41, S.

Personal avowal by D. Hawkins To be really stoned, is to be exposed to exquisite beauty of all things. It lays you back — takes you out of the picture. And then reveals exquisite beauty. If you come out of it, the world says you were stoned. Hawkins , lecture Consciousness: Hawkins , chapter 6 "Hell", S. October ; Power vs. General quotes On a cross-country trip in , Wilson met Aldous Huxley, popular author and intellectual of his time. Huxley and his brother, British biologist and scientific humanist Julian Huxley , were big supporters of psychiatrists Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond Before researching the effects of large doses of niacin and other vitamins, these fathers of Orthomolecular Psychiatry were two early LSD researchers who studied its effect on schizophrenic and alcoholic patients.

Osmond coined the term psychedelic , derived from the Greek work psyche meaning "mind" and delos meaning "to make visible. Huxley documented his experience with mescaline in The Doors of Perception , the title inspired by William Blake's poetry: You call yourself a philosopher, a reformer. But the key to your work is advertising. You're promoting a product. The new and improved accelerated brain. You must use the most current tactics for arousing consumer interest.

Associate LSD with all the good things that the brain can produce — beauty, fun, philosophic wonder, religious revelation, increased intelligence, mystical romance. Word of mouth from satisfied consumers will help, but get your rock and roll friends to write jingles about the brain. The psychiatrists and police propagandists have already stressed the negative, which can be dangerous when the mind is re-imprinting under. They may be deliberately provoking bad trips. They never mention the good experiences. They keep repeating 'LSD: Jump out a window.

It's like the over-solicitous mother who warned her kids not to push peanuts up their noses. Find the god within. This is all frightfully interesting. Your competitors are naturally denouncing the brain as an instrument of the devil. To dispel fear you must use your public image. You are the basic product endorser. Whenever you are photographed, smile. Never complain or appear angry. But a confident attitude is the best advertisement. You must be known for your smile. But you're going to lose some major battles on the way. Putnam's Sons , , J. Personal remarks by author S. I can only recall a single lecture where a bold student publicly asked Hawkins about his own calibrated level.

Cordially dodging the question, Hawkins only said that his wife calls him "the Real McCoy. I truly believe the man doesn't think he's doing anything "non-integrous," but that, of course, doesn't excuse his impropriety. Avatara literally means "crossing down" or "descent" into the realm of humans. An avatar, according to Hawkins, "is one whose birth, teachings, and presence recontextualize the significance of all of life for all of mankind throughout thousands of years. Savior complex — messiah complex — God complex In psychoanalytic terms, this is called a savior complex or a messiah complex.

A complex is a troubling cluster of mental content images, memories, fantasies, wishes, and so on that forms an organized whole in the psyche. A complex is either partly or totally unconscious, meaning that a person is unaware that this organized cluster of mental content exists. A savior complex occurs when, by its own grandiosity, the ego gets so inflated that it believes it is a savior or a messiah to humankind.

How might this savior complex have developed in Hawkins? Based on my personal experience as Hawkins' biographer and through my analysis of his teachings, I believe Hawkins dissociated from his body and mind, as well as his ego, shadow , and overall personality.

He speaks like a normal human being in the first person when he's not on stage. Beware of Level , S. At the time, he believed he was a mystic striving to move beyond level a high level of Enlightenment on his map. Hawkins , chapter 9, subheading "Foremost Teacher of Enlightenment", S. Hawkins received the title "Foremost Teacher of the Way to Enlightenment. During his first of two trips to South Korea, Hawkins discovered that he had a group of devoted followers and students.

These students were and are highly devotional, waiting on Hawkins hand and foot. It appears likely that Hawkins came to fully believe he was an enlightened master on his second trip to Korea. Wayne Dyer After his second trip to South Korea in September , he started writing Eye of the I , where he first expounded on his own teachings. A teacher, however, needs students, and for finding Hawkins those, all accolades go to one man: Dyer single-handedly built Hawkins' readership.

Not only is Dyer responsible for getting Hawkins his publishing contract with Hay House where the bulk of Power vs. Force has been sold , but Dyer generously and enthusiastically dedicated a large portion of his own lectures and syndicated PBS specials to promoting and selling Power vs.

Hawkins , chapter 9 "Foremost Teacher of Enlightenment", S. Yet, when we repress the feminine principle and avoid listening to the unconscious, the unconscious innocently hijacks our mental health. Hawkins dissociates from the dream state and the unconscious in the same manner that he dissociates from his body and mind. This type of dissociation leads to larger and larger projections from our unconscious.

It also leads to ego inflations: In Jungian terms, this is called being possessed by the god-image. This denial of the ever-present power of the unconscious also can lead us to project evil onto many aspects of life — in Hawkins' case, aspects such as skepticism , atheism , relativism , and activism — classifying them as destructive or below if they conflict with our beliefs. Hawkins , "Appendix C Integration", S. It is much easier to admire a great personality and become a pupil or follower of a guru or a religious prophet […] That is much easier than following your own star.

One does not even know if it is not necessary sometimes to fall into it, because otherwise it cannot be assimilated. Video presentation by Iain McGilchrist, M. It is the ever-present dark brother or sister. Whenever we fail to see where it stands, there is likely to be trouble afoot. For then it is certain to be standing behind us.

What seems to be the meaning of "The Second Coming of Christ"? Because the unenlightened person believes that they are a separate physical body, the expectation, therefore, is of a physical reincarnation of a Christ with historical connection to that appearance of Jesus two thousand years ago. The term "Christ," however, generically refers to the ultimately possible level of consciousness on this plane. The conscious awareness of the Self as Divinity manifests as Christ Consciousness , which calibrates at 1, The prediction is that Christ Consciousness will prevail upon the earth. It could be that, inasmuch as the consciousness of mankind prevailed for many centuries at and only very recently jumped to , this signals the beginning appearance of the dominion of Christ Consciousness on Earth.

Whether or not a physicality is necessary to confirm that reality may be seen as relevant or irrelevant. The need of the majority of humans for a real human personage could be a "necessity" capable of being granted. Recontextualizer of the reality of mankind for centuries [An avatar] has the capacity to send forth and radiate into the world an energy which tends to recontextualize the reality of mankind for centuries.

What happened two thousand years ago defines [reality] through the next two thousand years […] our definitions of right and wrong, values, the Ten Commandments, the judiciary, its influence on architecture, human behaviors […] It's the power of that energy field, which contextualizes consciousness of all of mankind. I saw in him a very troubled human being who was crying out for help […] I remember him walking into my office for the first time. He was kind of hunched over and really beat. Everything the world said would work — a bastion of security on every level. Yet my personal life was disintegrating, falling to pieces before my very eyes.

All that I had so carefully built up over the years, based on all the traditional human values , could not stand up under the stress of the catastrophic. Hawkins, printout manuscript Sedona Releasing Method , chapter 1, S. I began to study my perfectionism and see how this tendency, which allowed me to forgive others but did not allow me to forgive myself, was creating an intolerance of my own humanness.

As you can see, to be intolerant and condemn and attack all these things within oneself produces unconscious guilt about one's own human limitations. Hawkins, Healing and Recovery , S. You are not perfect. To not be perfect is perfect. If you were perfect you wouldn't be a human being, you would stay in heaven. Is the system closed to modification? Hawkins' Map of Consciousness is a linear ladder, closed to modification. Is there a covert [political] agenda in the system? Hawkins favors conservative-Republicans over the liberal-Democrats.

Does the system deal in absolutisms? Hawkins taught a system based on absolutist tenets. He proclaimed absolutist views and devalued relativist views. Does the system denounce opposing points of view or seem paranoid? Hawkins' calibrations devalue skepticism , atheism , relativism , activism, multiculturalism, environmentalism , feminism , liberalism, diversity as destructive and without integrity.

Does the system avoid critical thinking? Hawkins humiliated critics on stage who attempted to challenge him. But as evolutionary postmodern philosophers as well as the entire field of developmental psychology demonstrate, our "truths" are still evolving. We've seen how absolutism creeps its way into virtually every field of study: When people take an absolutist position — assuming that their way is the right way — they cut themselves off from other perspectives.

This always leads to a very limited worldview. It also stifles their ability to clearly evaluate new information. For example, see Plato's Theaetetus, cc. Although Protagoras — a famed relativist — was a Sophist, Socrates had deep respect for him as a thinker. Plato offers a refutation of his own concepts by a then-dead Protagoras that illustrates the merits of Protagorian discourse.

Also, in the conclusion of Plato's Protagoras named after this influential thinker , we're given the definition of knowledge as justified, true belief. Where modernism amended Plato's definition so that justified true belief requires confirmable objective facts, postmodernism challenges this amendment by arguing that all "objective" facts are partly culturally and socially molded and therefore subject to change.

Hence, there is no absolute, confirmable truth in the domain of relative form.

Dark, Jason 1945-

If we follow Hawkins' calibrations as absolute truth, we are putting our authority in him and his method, not in ourselves. We want to have certainties and no doubts , results and no experiments — without even seeing that certainties can arise only through doubt, and results only through experiment. Everything good is costly, and the development of the personality is one of the most costly of all things. A Chinese Book of Life , S. The person must give himself to the new way completely, for it is only by means of his integrity that he can go farther, and only his integrity can guarantee that his way does not turn out to be an absurd adventure.

The good and the beautiful freeze to the ice of the absolute idea , and the bad and hateful become mud puddles full of crazy life. Possessed by one's inner unconscious God archetype The concrete acting out of compelling archetypal contents is the greatest danger accompanying numinous experiences. One has and represents the only truth and feels justified in beating down everything else.

Relocating authority within the self [M]any persons undergo the relativization of their inherited worldviews and value systems. They come face-to face with the relativity of their perspectives and those of others to their life experience. Fowler US American professor of theology and human developmental psychology, Emory University, political and social scientist, Methodist minister, author, Stages of Faith.

A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy , S.

Hawkins' quotes on absolutism and certainty Start with certainty and a feeling of security instead of self-doubt or timidity. Accept without reservation that you are worthy of the quest and be resolved to totally surrender to the truth about God. Reality and Subjectivity , chapter 6, S.

A seeker should have the security and support of inner certainty and firm conviction that are consequent to study, personal research, and investigation. Thus, a pathway should be intrinsically reconfirming by discovery and inner experience. Hawkins, Discovery of the Presence of God. Hawkins, Sedona Seminar Radical Subjectivity: Hawkins, Sedona Seminar Reason vs. Truth , CD 3 of 5, track 1, August If your sense of adequacy is strong, nothing challenges you.

Hawkins, Sedona Seminar Experiential Reality: The Mystic , DVD 2 of 3, track 1, 8. December Because it's infallible, it allows you to get the answer to anything you want to know in the known universe — anywhere in time or place […] It's God-like almost. Somehow morality — right and wrong — is inborn and wired into the nervous system. I don't know what it is about it. I guess they are all atheists, and absolutism is such a challenge to the narcissistic core of the ego that the thought that there's something other than yourself that's sovereign just can't be handled.

Reason and Faith , CD 1 of 4, track 6, Everybody has their own moral code. Hawkins, Sedona Seminar Spiritual Truth vs. Spiritual Fantasy , CD 3 of 4, track 4, We're not a world of success anymore, but of moral superiority […] So you see the narcissistic core of judgmentalism — to be able to claim that you're morally superior. The human race is so worried about its own survival. What difference does it really make whether it survives or not? That is sheer vanity and egotism. Environmentalists are sort of mad people. Hawkins , Sedona Seminar What is Truth?

The Absolute , 3 DVD set, Nobody in a cult thinks he or she is in a cult, and only the most devious of cult leaders know they are cult leaders. There is an absolute truth. The mind can't know what absolute truth is. Only by using Hawkins' calibration method can one accurately discern truth. All four statements are made implicitly throughout Hawkins' work, each capable of setting up a cult-like environment.

In so doing, the students also trust that their teacher doesn't have any developmental arrest, limiting value structures, distorted worldviews, political positions, or mythic belief systems of his own. If you took a random sample of die-hard Hawkins' students, you would be amazed at how many of them have had prior cult experience in one form or another. While Hawkins' system appears to be an "upgrade" compared to certain, more destructive cult systems, it still appears to be a manifestation of developmental arrest at a particular stage of development.

The Role of the Student", S. September Purification of the ego. Only perfection is good enough. Violation of boundaries as a norm. Inner deviants must be eradicated. Defend the leader, no matter what. Audio podcast interview Daniel Shaw: Members have an 'insider' status and a special 'lingo. We are the epitome of it in this domain at this moment. The Eastern tradition maintain that there are gross, subtle, and causal domains of consciousness, which translate to waking, dreaming, and deep sleep.

For the important role of dreaming, see, for example, Wilber , Integral Psychology. Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy , pages 13 and []. Hawkins , "Appendix C", S. Collected Works of C. Jung, General problems of psychotherapy. Volume 16 , S. The sharpening of differentiation of ethical reactions into too clear-cut black-and-white lines is not favorable to life. Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self.

June , 2nd revised edition 1. August , cited in: Jung identified the "collective unconscious" "the two million-year-old self" as a third source of the dream content. Hull, Jolande Jacobi editors , C. May , cited in: Brain lateralization resulting in the history of the split Western culture — Iain McGilchrist. Conscious and unconscious, solar and lunar, north and south, Shakti and Shiva, Dionysian and Apollonian, Eros and Thanatos, life and death, hard and soft, thinking and feeling, sensation and intuition, anima and animus, attraction and repulsion, day and night, positive and negative The opposites are not opposite at all but are merely linear gradations along the same line and not along different lines […] The gradations are all on the same continuum, not on two opposing ones.

The masculine principle is epitomized by otherworldliness, rationality, and the conscious mind. The feminine principle is represented by thisworldliness, non-rationality, and the unconscious. His system values transcendent realities over earthly existence. Hawkins , "Appendix C Integration'", S.

Frozen in misogynous Freudian views Footnote 8: Hawkins was a Freudian analyst for fifty years. Personal avowals by David R. I saw my masculine protest about entering this whole unfamiliar dimension. Hawkins , Sedona Releasing Method , chapter 2, S. Hawkins , chapter 13 "Self-Healing", S. I rejected feelings because they were illogical, but I paid a great price.

I had cut myself off from half my life and diminished the quality of my relationships. Because the Christian god-image is exclusively masculine, she can become one with God only through alienation from her own feminine nature. This, however, is nothing other than a spiritual possession, a denial of her feminine consciousness and her physical reality. Reflections of the Soul , S. Video presentation by Carol Gilligan, Ph.

April , uploaded He calibrates almost all these "dirty word" concepts below Hawkins spends an inordinate amount of time in his lectures as well as in his books Truth vs. Falsehood and Reality, Spirituality, and Modern Man describing the supposed destructive nature of these movements and ideologies to an audience that, for the most part, has little knowledge of them. His audience then assumes, for example, that they know what relativism is, based on Hawkins' discourse, and they know that it is inherently destructive because Hawkins calibrates it at — below the critical level of integrity A Closer Look", S.

January Anything that Hawkins does not personally value — relativism, postmodernism, feminism, activism, atheism , and so on — gets relegated to below destructive; false; without integrity. Everything depends on context not an illusionary map — who does what and in what situation as well as how each person feels about the matter.

This fact begins to reveal itself at the relativistic stage of ego development where a pregiven, absolute world is no longer perceived as valid. It was a very important insight and a kind of warning. Blog entry Against High Vibrations: There is simply expansion, with no direction being more or less enlightened than any other.

On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness and rooted in divine truth, wisdom, and compassion will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions. When, however, the deepest and most grounded spiritual vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic and social institutions, a holy force — the power of wisdom and love in action — is born.

This force I define as Sacred Activism. The Institute for Spiritual Research, Inc. By running a non-profit, Hawkins is able to accept non-taxed income in the form of donations. Remember that his "consciousness research" translates to him doing muscle testing with his wife in their kitchen. To my knowledge, they do not have outside income. Hawkins and his wife would need to find another means of supporting themselves without the income generated from these businesses.

They need income to pay their living expenses, home mortgage in Sedona, weekend cabin outside of Sedona, home furnishings and new construction, car expenses, and so on — just like all of their many customers students. But under the guise of "spirituality," it's easy to miss this point: They are running a business. The same observation can be made of all cults, most spiritual teachers, and most religions. Personal avowals In my opinion, the best place for scorpions is encased in plastic paperweights. As you can see, I am a true scorpiophobe! Hawkins , Goodbye, Scorpion.

Farewell, Black Widow Spider. Then I have cited the references in history that confirm it. All the books I write have extensive references in the back. Characterizations of David R. Hawkins With his unusual brand of wit, cutting through the bullshit, David has been called "the George Carlin of consciousness ". In his writings, he avoids using humour to avoid appearing frivolous, but during his lectures, David's humour is unleashed on an unsuspecting audience.

Scott Jeffrey , Doctor of Truth. Hawkins has apparently taken a grandiose road less traveled, and [ Personal avowals The idea of my being a kind of guru or a messiah a savior of the world just breaks me up because I know me. It's very difficult to be holy in the ordinary sense. We have come to realize that there is not one reality but many different, often conflicting realities. We have come to see that our ideas about truth are not eternal, but made. The two go together. The world is an illusion. Only Brahman is real. Brahman is the world. Not only the conscious but the unconscious as well should be taken care of in our spiritual practice.

Talks with Sri Nisargadatta , S. It's an aspect of his personality, not a description of his politics. Right-wing authoritarianism is a personality trait. Literary quotes He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche German classical scholar, critic of culture, philologist, philosopher of nihilism [LoC ], writer, philosophical work Beyond Good and Evil.

Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft], aphorism , C. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche German classical scholar, critic of culture, philologist, philosopher of nihilism [LoC ], writer, source unknown. Henri Bergson Intuition Unmediated knowledge "[F]or a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. Alfred North Whitehead Philosophy mediating between science and religion The world transcends god as much as god transcends the world.

Jean Piaget Developmental stages of human cognition As the brain matures a child is capable of increasing complex mental transformations understanding. Erik Erikson Stages of psychosocial development Centauric stage: Habet preterea nostra Cestria ex Dei munere, ditantem atque decorantem amnem secus urbis muros pulchrum atque piscosum, et a meridiano latere receptorium nauium ab Aquitania, Hispania, Hibernia, Germania uenientium, qui remige Christo per laborem et prudentiam mercatorum bonis pluribus reparant et rei- ciunt urbis sinum, ut modis omnibus consolati per graciam Dei nostri, etiam frequenter uberius et profusius bibamus uinum, quam illa regionum loca quae gaudent prouentibus uinearum.

Meanwhile God has given our Chester an enriching river, which follows the line of the city walls and teems beautifully with ish, and, in the south, a port for ships coming from Aquitaine, Spain, Ireland and Germany, which, with Christ as their helmsman, bring industrious merchants to replenish the city with a variety of goods, so that, consoled in all ways by the kindness of our God, we may often 33 See Robert W.

Barrett, Jr, Against all England: Notre Dame University Press, , pp. For an earlier partial edition of the text, with critical discussion, see M. Taylor, Extracts from the MS. Printed for the Record Society, With the river and its harbour presented repeatedly as a gift from God, Lucian skilfully appropriates even the secular landscape of the city and its associated activities of trade and commerce within his own monastic discourse.

Unde nuper piscium copiam prouincialibus attulit et pisca- toribus uitam ademit. Qui auidi preter modum, aquam biberunt ultra modum et dum fretum exhaurire uolunt, luctibus absorti sunt. Adhuc eciam nostros serenat obtutus speciosissimum maris litus, mirabili Creatoris potencia, nunc existens aqua, nunc arida, ubi parente pelago Potentis imperio quantumlibet consuetis, tamen ampla sensatis datur ammiratio, quod eodem die, eodem loco et aptis- simum iter facit Deus uiatoribus ad gradiendum, et altissimum gurgitem aqua- tilibus ad natandum.

Quod aliquis delicatus aut durus, nesciens naturam maris, credere fortasse contempneret, si non orbis astrueret, oculus comprobaret. Meanwhile the very patent plenty of the sea does not cease to revisit Chester with a daily tide, which, to the very broad ields of sand, both open and hidden, is accustomed ceaselessly for better or for worse to send or lend, and by its advance and retreat to bring forth and take away.

In our own time it has brought a great catch of ish from neighbouring areas and took the lives of ishermen. Insatiable beyond measure, they overdrained the sea and when they wanted to drain it further, they were engulfed by waves. Translations are also by Mark Faulkner, with some of my own modiications.

See the Introduction to De Laude Cestrie, www. Once again, this description of a tidal land- scape evokes its mysterious, fascinating potential as an edge and liminal space, bordering between the known and understood world of local experience and other realms and agencies beyond. From the thirteenth century onwards, the church of St John in Chester housed a wooden image of the cruci- ied Christ, believed to be formed from relics of the True Cross and known as 40 Fol.

Whilst most of this Welsh poetry dates to the late Middle Ages, it relects earlier medieval belief and practice, as well as oral traditions attached to the Chester Rood. Joy to the day and the wave that steered it to Chester, where strength and solemn power came from the hand of the Lord to its church. Lewis, Welsh Poetry and English Pilgrimage: Grufudd ap Maredudd and the Rood of Chester Aberystwyth: Dylan natur fawrdeg eglur fordwy Gogledd, Delis arwain o ddwfr dwyrain i Ddeifr diredd. Dyddug mordon ar ei dwyfron, arw ei dyfredd, Dyfrdwy waeddgreg arial gwaneg ar ael Gwynedd, Delw werthforaf a glodforaf o gludfawredd A sea-wave with its rough waters bore on its breast To the hoarse-voiced Dee, force of a wave upon the brow of Gwynedd, he most precious image which I praise on account of its riches A more sustained passage at lines —90 imagines the journey of the Rood in detail: Llanw llwybr glud Lloegr dud y dug Llun Llyw pum oes ar groes grog; Mawrchwedl llawen gan wenyg, Marchog bron mordon mawrdeg.

Despite its location in England — and more speciically Chester, a site of colonialist aggression and oppression of the Welsh — Grufudd acknowledges that the Rood is a gift sent from across or beyond the sea by God. All subsequent quotations from the poem will be taken from this edition. In the Grufudd ap Maredudd poem to the Rood of Chester, the healing properties of the cross feature less prominently than in the poem by Maredudd ap Rhys. Doeth delw fyw fy Llyw, llyrion — prif obaith, Praf Adeiliad iaith profwydolion, Dawn a phlaid gweiniaid, uwch gwynion — foroedd A phrifdeg lysoedd frydau gleision.

Dug o gaeth alaeth, faith alon — oid, Ei bobl i rydid, Bibl arodion. A prophecy from the ocean, leaves of the pale waves of the sea, Was the sending of him to a chancel whose host is great: He brought from captive misery, from long sufering at the hands of enemies, His people to freedom, so the Bible accounts go. Although never explicitly stated, parallels or analogies between the biblical Isra- elites and the medieval Welsh are clearly sustainable here.

With repeated allusions to the tidal Dee estuary and the wide seas beyond, the poem cultivates a mystical, enigmatic geography in contrast to the colonialist map of North Wales drawn by the English. Chester — the site of English control and oppression — is juxtaposed with the possibility of other realms and agencies beyond. As acts of resistance to colonialist rule, the poems to the Rood of Chester imagine an alter- native geography not shaped by English power, using imagery of the tide and the mystical forces which drive it to suggest the presence of otherworlds and other forces beyond English control.

Palgrave, , p. University of Pennsylvania Press, , p. Davies, he First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles, — Oxford: Dimock, Rolls Series, 21 London: Longman, , Liber II, cap. Both of these readings open up productive approaches to the accounts of tidal spaces discussed in this chapter. Whilst tracing parallels and analogies across these sources, my analysis has also examined how representations of tidal spaces might function diferently within diferent texts and contexts, and for diferent audiences.

Across the material discussed here, tidal locations are repeat- edly described in terms of ambiguous otherworldly spaces, or as liminal sites suggestive of other domains and agencies beyond the familiar geographical and political landscapes of dry land. Tidal spaces refuse clear deinition as either land or sea, and defy human control, exposing the limitations of human authority over the natural environ- ment and assertions of territorial ownership.

In terms of the meanings carried by these texts, the moral-didactic, religious and political are always intimately enmeshed. Longman, , pp. In the Old English Exodus we also ind a complex layering of meaning within its story of a miraculous tidal event. Here, the religious message is obvious: Essays in Memory of Rees Davies, ed. Huw Pryce and John Watts Oxford: As a destination for pilgrimage and subject for devotional verse, the relics of the cross represent an alternative symbol of power and authority which transcends the colonialist administration and regulation experienced by the Welsh at the hands of the English in Chester and the surrounding areas of North Wales.

In the Welsh poems, the tide with its miraculous cargo becomes a powerful symbol of the edge of English control and rule, and the possibility of alternative powers and forces beyond. Clearly, more work remains to be done on this topic, and this chapter has provided only a preliminary overview of certain selected texts with suggestions of possible shared themes and rhetorical techniques, as well as some contrasts and divergences.

Beyond the simple binary of land and sea, tidal spaces compli- cate easy assumptions about geography, territory, and power, and generate a range of challenging moral, religious, and political implications. In the material examined here, the diferent ways in which tidal spaces function as otherworlds and suggestive edges conirm the susceptibility of British island topography to symbolic readings and politically charged interpretations in medieval texts.

But they also have fundamentally diferent attitudes to the sea, which probably in the end comes down to their diferent genres: Holden, Bibliotheca Bodmeriana Cologny-Geneva: Fondation Martin Bodmer, It is a pleasing irony that this journey rests ultimately on a fundamental misun- derstanding of the earliest known Life of the saint.

Edmund thus sails to East Anglia, though this journey is not described. John Murray, and hree Lives of English Saints, ed. Pontiical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Hambledon Press, , p. It is found in Hervey, Corolla, pp. York Medieval Press, , pp. Anglo-Norman Text Society, , p. Legge Anglo-Norman Literature, p. In both texts all seems well in hand. University of Exeter Press, Only the saint through his inter- cession can save them: Aspre est le vent, li sigle legier, Unc ne les covint haneker.

Bon vent aveient e bien portant. No doubt this anxiety about marine invaders is owed to an enduring memory of the continual Danish attacks on East Anglia from onwards, and some of the towns mentioned, like Brancaster and Caister lines , , may relect knowledge of them as fortiied naval bases. With it they ravaged many a country, destroyed and killed many people. Divine intervention is hinted at or overtly stated in the preservation of family members, as when Gudlac is the only person to escape a shipwreck — Denmark provides Gudlac with the arms and men to further his enquiries.

In his search for origins he resembles his father and brother: Dunc a primes se purpensa….. It now becomes apparent that the insistent vocabulary of conquest is no longer positive but increasingly used to focus our attention on the negative side of a lust for power and wealth. In a deliberate reference to part of the Belin and Brenne episode in Wace, the disastrous outcome of this combat is only thwarted by the mother who bares her breasts to her husband and son, whereupon the separated family is reunited.

He is only delected from this arrogant course by the warning of a mysterious pilgrim and by messengers from England: Approaches and Explorations, ed. Corinne Saunders Malden, MA: We shall never know quite how the poet of Waldef reconciled what at this point in his narrative seem to be contradictory points of view. A Latin translation was made of the poem around by Johannes Bramis, a monk at hetford, which provides us with an ending, though not necessarily the one originally envis- aged: Guiac emerges from self-imposed retirement from the world as a beggar to assume once more the reins of power and invades Greece and Rome, inally reigning as Emperor over both empires.

His previous ambitions and values have completely changed after the arrival of the pilgrim. Anticipating the action of the hero of Gui de Warewic, which as Holden showed owes much to the earlier poem,18 Guiac resolves: A Deu le roi, nostre sengnur, Me rendrai ui en icest jur lines —60 [Today, this very day, I shall enter the service of God the king, Our Lord] he poet states unequivocally that Guiac and his followers never saw each other again , he never returned from exile , and even cites a supposed folk-tale that he was abducted by fairies and remained forever in their land lines — His brother Gudlac and his men, resisting all attractive Continental ofers, take ship for England.

It would seem that the murder of Waldef, by pagans Brand and Hildebrand and their African giant Hunewald, is on the point of being avenged, but that is where the poem breaks of. E dun ne sunt il voz veisins? Edmund continued to be venerated by the Normans; in the course of the twelfth century his house at Bury became one of the most renowned monasteries in England. Waldef, written by a landlubber uninterested in the practicali- ties of sailing, uses the ocean as a plot mechanism to transport his hero and his family hither and thither, and its storms to disrupt, though often through that 19 Such as Elfrid and Cadwan, Roman de Brut, lines — For changes of place-name in Waldef, see lines —18 and —7.

Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: Edward Arnold, , pp. Depart- ment of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, , p. But in the end — though who knows what the original end would have been? Its messages are mixed, interesting and, inally, undiscoverable. In the dream, young Scipio Aemilianus inds himself perched high amongst the stars with the ghost of his grandfather, Scipio Africanus.

Upon seeing his grandson focus his gaze upon his earthly home, Africanus schools him on the ordering of the cosmos and its nine harmonising spheres. Again I see you gazing at the region and abode of mortals. If it seems as small to you as it really is, why not ix your attention upon the heavens and contemn what is mortal? You see that the earth is girt and surrounded by certain zones.

But look closely, see how small is the portion allotted to you! But you can see how small it is despite its name! Himself a world conqueror, Africanus does not stress the territorial extent of the empire but rather its limits. William Stahl New York: Columbia University Press, , pp.

Moreover, the sea represents a border that cannot and indeed should not be crossed. But the status of the sea as a charged border would continue to inform discussions of empire in the west, both by ancient authors as well as by medieval writers interested in Rome and questions of expansion. In that anonymous text, which straddles the generic line between epic and romance, Arthur overcomes Lucius and comes quite close to taking Rome. Arthur is forced to turn back home to England upon learning that his nephew Mordred — the man he left in charge of his realm — has taken for himself both the crown and Queen Guinevere.

In the civil war that ensues, the king is killed and the empire he built dissolves. As Arthur puts it to a wise man to whom he recounts his dream: Princeton University Press, , p. A Critical Edition, ed. Mary Hamel New York: Medieval Institute Publications, With a comb she skilfully arranged my hair so that the curling lock reached my crown. To be sure, orbs usually functioned in late medieval culture as straightforward signs of power. Representing not all the territories of the world but only the terra cognita of Asia, Africa, and Europe, royal orbs suppress the presence of unknown and unreach- able lands on earth.

Cartography and Culture in hirteenth-Century England London: As much emerges in the manner in which the poem likens the globe to the notorious apple of paradise. But crucially, the poet ofers his geographic critique of Arthurian imperi- alism from a completely diferent vantage point than that assumed by Cicero. Brewer, and he History of the Kings of Britain, trans.

Lewis horpe New York: Cornell University Press, As we shall see, at the start of the Morte, the sea provides Arthur with a source for his sovereignty, as the king exerts his power over a realm clearly deined as insular. But as the king crosses over the Channel and pushes further and further into Europe during his Roman campaign, he evinces a certain disre- spect for British insularity that accounts for the failure of that imperial project and, ultimately, the collapse of Arthurian England altogether.

Empire is unquestionably at the heart of such fraught border crossings in the Morte. Indeed, the Morte poet evinces an unparalleled investment in the idea of Arthur pushing past the limits of Britain to Rome. At the same time, however, such national border violations enable a larger scale version of the destructions witnessed at the scale of the knightly body. As a cannibal, a tyrant, and a rapist, the giant represents notions of wrongful consumption and conquest that render him a igure of the Roman emperor Lucius, who emerges in the Morte as an orientalised oppressor.

As Chism points out: By virtue of these shared emblems the poem shatters the ideological boundaries between diferent sides of the conlict just as Arthur transgresses the boundaries of England, France, and Italy. Univer- sity of California Press, , p. Matthews is referring to the chronicles of Geofrey of Monmouth, Wace, and La3amon. But of all such luid bodies, the sea proves most crucial to the imperial tensions depicted in the Morte.

As the aforementioned citations of English insularity in Geofrey of Monmouth and the Gawain poet indicate, the literary history that the Morte poet inherited provided him with much inspiration for his oceanic meditation on English expansion. But insofar as, among all medieval Arthurian texts, the Morte seems most invested in the sea as a tool for engaging with questions of empire and nation, what circumstances peculiar to his time and place may have inluenced the poet to adopt that perspective?

Although such historical questions cannot be answered with irm precision, we can point to some broad trends regarding fourteenth-century warfare, commerce, and the sea that may have informed the Morte. But the Morte likely was composed earlier, near the turn of the fourteenth century, and has been read productively by scholars as a commentary on kingship, war, and imperialism during both the reigns of the unpopular Richard II —99 and his far more successful predecessor, Edward III — She ofers a helpful overview of critical work on the dating of the poem and its historical ailiations on pp.

Indeed, even before the ascent of Richard to the throne, English writers may have been attuned to the excesses of war. Williamson, he English Channel: World Publishing, , pp. During the schism that occurred a year after Richard assumed the throne, England joined Germany and Italy to support the Roman papacy of Urban VI — And among the spaces used to construct that royal identity, the ocean is particularly charged.

If you are found a foot outside the edge of the sea, after the eighth day when the third hour is rung, you shall be beheaded swiftly and drawn apart by horses, and then hung highly for hounds to gnaw upon [my emphasis]. Conquest hardly proves easy for the Romans, who are defeated repeatedly before they eventually overcome the Britons. And if you were overseas, you would never await my arrival. I believe that you will not wait, and if you do you shall hide yourself. I do not believe that on this side of the sea you shall dare show yourself to me, and if you are on this half, if I come, truly you will lee Text and Translation, ed.

University of Exeter Press, , ll. Idelle Sullens Binghamton, NY: Binghamton University, , ll. It is as the ruler of, not a global empire, but an island bounded by the sea, that Arthur best exerts his sovereignty. And, when Arthur sets of across the Channel with his men to take the imperial crown from Lucius, he problematically echoes the very movements he ordered the foreign ambassadors to perform.

Like Wace, La3amon, and Mannying, the poet ofers a detailed and rousing rendering of the king and his troops readying their ships and setting sail for the continent. At the same time, however, the Morte does not provide anything like the celebration by Wace and, later, Mannyng of the irst hardiz or bold sailor who dared to set of for unknown lands. Modiiers whose connotations encompass strength, violence, severity, boldness, dread, and cruelty, the adjective steren and adverb sterenly transform what was a joyful crossing in earlier texts into serious and possibly even dreadful business MED, s.

In the Morte as in most versions, the bear signiies some sort of opponent of the king, such as the Roman emperor Lucius or the giant of Mont St Michel, while the dragon symbolises Arthur and his forces. Translations of Wace are taken from Roman de Brut, ed. Translations of Mannying are my own. At the same time, however, the dream disturbs.

A Reassessment of the Poem, ed.

Arthur, however, violates that right relationship to the sea by travelling with his men across the Channel. Arthur himself explicitly addresses the unclean nature of the border-crossing giant. But, as Chism, Geraldine Heng, and others have observed, for all his awareness of the abject dangers posed by the ilthy giant, Arthur bears certain disturbing ainities with him. In his connections and even his attraction to the giant and his accoutrements, Arthur admits his desire for the various unclean border crossings and violations — sexual, gustatory, sartorial, etc. An Essay on Abjection, trans. Routledge, , p.

Mannying alone represents a conlict at sea, though that battle is signiicantly expanded and altered by the Morte poet. Unlike his literary predecessors, the Morte poet urges us to pause over the sea bordering Britain, to anticipate the battle that occurs there; to imagine leets loating, sailing, and ighting upon it; and to recall that ocean-based conlict after it has ended. Moreover, the poet frames that ocean conlict by, on the one hand, looking toward it while Arthur is still in Italy and looking back upon the event after Mordred has moved inland.

Heng, Empire of Magic, pp. Most striking of all such lingerings over the sea is what occurs just after the conlict ends. While Arthur ultimately triumphs over Mordred, he nevertheless inds his passage onto English soil delayed: In preventing Arthur from entering England, the ocean efectively performs the role assumed by Mordred in earlier texts.

Instead, the sea itself stops the king in his tracks. Valerie Krishna New York: Mud, sludge, and slime are strongly ailiated with dirt, ilth, and unclean entities. But given the tendency of the Morte to both criticise and embrace excess, this is hardly the end of the story. Moreover, the mudlats ultimately do not impede Arthur, or his best knight. Like Gawain before him Arthur viscerally experiences the pleasures of abjection and excess by immersing his body in sloppes or sludge. Complete English Translation, trans.

Priscilla hroop, 2 vols Charlotte, VT: Even as the imagining of an English community in the Middle Ages is enabled by the heightened sense of boundedness that arises from insularity and oceanic limitations, that incipient nationalism is also deined by the desire to disturb and disrespect borders. World borders themselves, after all, were viewed during the Middle Ages as notably unruly sites: More than any other Arthurian writer in the Middle Ages, the Morte poet demonstrates how Englishness emerged in the Middle Ages often through its annihilation. Derek Brewer and A. Maps, England, and the Sea Alfred Hiatt Two theories, both inherited from classical Greek and Roman scientiic texts, underpinned the representation of the sea on medieval English maps.

Tides generated by the intersection of these two oceans were thought to low from the centre of the earth to its northern and southern extremities. In the following pages, I will argue that both of these learned models contributed to the conceptualisation of the position of the British Isles in relation to the sea, and to other lands and peoples. However, I will also emphasise the importance of another genre of map for the question of the sea and English identity, one frequently marginalised in discussions of English cartography: Ocean Flows he ancient Greek notion of an encircling ocean was transmitted to Anglo-Saxon England through a fairly large number of classical and late antique texts.

In the irst place, the British Isles Britannia, Hibernia, and the Orcades are shown within an outer ocean that surrounds the three partes of 2. On classical theories of Ocean, see James S. Romm, he Edges of the Earth in Ancient hought: Princ- eton University Press, , pp. Brepols, , p. Oxford University Press, , I. Columbia University Press, Part I , ed. Rosenkilde and Bagger, , pp. British Library, , pp. On the theory of Roman origins, see P. Harvey, Medieval Maps London: To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book. British Library, Cotton Tiberius B.

Michelet, Creation, Migration, and Conquest: It shows the division of the world into ive zones: Two world oceans — the equatorial, and the outer, encircling ocean — are represented on this image. For the Tropic of Cancer is habitable above and below, and similarly the Tropic of Capricorn above and below; and so it is that the sea, which is impassable due to heat or cold, runs through the middle of the world as well as encircling it, and it is calculated that the circuit of the entire world is , stades.

For discussion see Leonid S. Chekin, Northern Eurasia in Medieval Cartography: Inventory, Text, Translation, and Commentary Turnhout: Brepols, , pp. Teubner, , 9. North is at the top. As the presence of these maps in the same manuscript testiies, the two world images were comple- mentary. Both represented certain theoretical propositions about the relation- ship of land to sea, but both also — to varying degrees — attempted to locate the local region of the viewer in relation to a world space. BL Cotton Faustina C. South is at the top on mappae mundi and because it is often neglected in discussions of maps and English identity.

All these things can be found before your eyes in the inserted image, through which you will see both the origin of our sea, which is one part of the whole Ocean, and the rising of the Red and Indian seas. You will also discover the source of the Caspian Sea. In representing the extent of the earth, and the impenetrable divides between known and unknown parts of the world, the map had the further, moral, purpose of illustrating the limited duration of fame.

Oriented to the south, the map in Cotton Faustina C. It is divided into ive zones, marked simply from south to north Australis, Temperata Zona, Torrida Zona, Temperata Zona, and Septentrionalis, surrounded by an outer band of ocean and intersected by the horizontal band of the equatorial ocean. However, alongside the diagram a gloss in the hand of the main scribe records: Chicago University Press, , p. All translations are mine unless otherwise stated. North is at the top, with a sketch of Neptune unusually placed in the central zone. As this gloss makes clear, the image is to be conceived of as repre- senting one half, two of the four islands, of the earth.

Just two places are marked: Italia and Orcades the Orkneys. If so, however, they were added no later than the tenth century, from which point they are a very consistent feature of Macrobius maps. Most unexpected, however, is the presence of a sketch of Neptune in the central zone, pouring out the contents of an amphora into the equatorial ocean.

As this igure attests, the transmission of an image, however widespread and regularised, is never static: Maps of Britain, Britain on the Map here is fairly clear evidence that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw a growth of interest in the production of relatively detailed maps of Britain. Matthew Paris produced a map of England, Wales, and Scotland, extant in four versions, in the s.

Recent research on the most detailed medieval map of Britain, the Gough map, strongly suggests that it existed in multiple copies, only one of which survives. Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, , pp. On dating, see most recently T. Some maps, such as the Sawley map of c. Virtually all agree, however, in locating the British Isles on the north-west edge of the world image. Of the later English mappae mundi two in particular are notable for their depiction of Britain. Latin is preferred for the names of nations Anglia, Scocia, Wallia , coun- ties Norhumbria, Wircestria, Cornubia , and usually for cities with particular ecclesiastical signiicance Sanctus andreas, Eboracum, duremum, Lincolnia, cantuaria, Ahrmaca civitas Sancti Patricii [Armagh].

Scolar Press, , pp. An interactive Gough map is available at www. Image, texte, contexte, ed. CNRS, , pp. Die Ebstorfer Weltkarte, ed. Hartmut Kugler, 2 vols Berlin: Many modern observers of medieval mappae mundi are struck by the apparent lack of centrality, or indeed visibility, accorded to the British Isles on texts such as the Hereford map. An apparent exception to this reticence is the Evesham map, a late fourteenth-century world map possibly commissioned by the abbot of Evesham, which ofers what at irst glance is the most striking display of nation- alism on any English mappa mundi Figure 7.

Evesham Abbey appears on a par with Canterbury Cathedral, while England itself is swollen to the extent that it extends from Zeeland to the north coast of Africa. It would be wrong, however, to interpret such distortions as simply parochial. Instead the origin of the map is located, and knowingly magniied, but it is still to be read as part of the world image, neither its centre nor its fulcrum.

Prominence is also given to Jerusalem and to the earthly paradise at the top far east of the map. Rather than nationalism, one option would be to see the size of England on the Evesham map as a pragmatic response to a desire to insert a particularly detailed representation of southern England. East at the top. Far more weight was given to the proximity of England to terrestrial routes.

Medieval sea-charts often termed portolans, or portolan charts in anglo- phone literature characteristically represent coastlines with far greater precision and level of toponymic detail than can be found on any other genre of medieval map. Some, though not all, sea-charts showed the Atlantic, and in certain instances they extended as far as Scandinavia and the North Sea;27 most of these more extensive charts include some representation of the British Isles see Figure 8.

Consistent features of sea-charts are the provision of a scale bar, and the presence of a network of inter- connecting lines which are organised to represent 32 directions, in theory at least to assist the calculation of distances and the correct courses to follow between places on the map. Ricerche sulla cartograia nautica a Venezia sec. Atento Veneto, ; Ramon J. Pujades i Bataller, Les Cartes portolanes: Sea-charts were produced in signii- cant numbers in Europe from the second half of the fourteenth century.

In a short prologue, the author explains that, in compiling his work, he drew on a sea-chart, and that — under the inluence of a certain canon of Pisa — he emended the map to show regions of religious signiicance. Internal evidence supports the supposition, derived from the prologue, that the Liber de existencia riveriarum was compiled in Pisa.

BL Cotton Domi- tian A. A few may have set eyes on a portolan chart Cartography in the Euro- pean Renaissance, ed. However, the detailed description of the Mediterranean is perfectly consistent with evidence of a strong and quite pragmatic interest in maritime travel within certain sections of learned society in twelfth- and thir- teenth-century England.

Chronicles such as the Gesta and Chronica of Roger Howden, and crusade narratives such as De expugnatione Lyxbonensi contain rather detailed descriptions of sea routes along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. Such texts reveal not only a sophisticated and wide-ranging knowledge of coastal topography, but also a strong sense of political geography, borne of practical necessity as well as ideology. De viis maris carefully notes the jurisdictions of the areas described, and draws particular attention to a stretch of water between Spain and north Africa where the nearest harbours on either side are under Muslim control: Et est sciendum quod ab introitu districtarum Africe usque ad Scalonam que est prope Iherusalem, tota terra paganorum in dextra parte nauigii, et ex opposito ab introitu districtarum Africe usque ad montem magnum qui dicitur Muscian est Hyspania Sarracenica.

Et iuxta illam est uia nauium euntium in peregrinatione in terram Iherosolimitanam. Et a monte illo qui dicitur Muscian usque ad Scaloniam in sinistra parte nauigii secus mare fere tota terra est terra christianorum. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn London: Royal Historical Society, , pp. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, 51, 4 vols London: William Stubbs, Rolls Series, 49, 2 vols London: Longman, , II, —25; —9, —06; De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed.

Charles Wendell David New York: Droz, , p. And next to this land is the path for ships going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And from that mountain which is called Muscian as far as Scalona on the left side of the ship following the sea almost the whole land is Christian. In medieval usage at least, portolans are not maps but written directions for navigation, usually from place to place along a sea coast, often including speciic comments on the approaches to harbours. Clarendon Press, —9 , s. British Library, , p. Exeter was certainly resident in Oxford in —6, probably at Gloucester College, and he may have spent as many as four additional years at the University in the s.

Hector and Barbara F. Weltbild und Beken- ntnisse eines avignonesischen Klerikers des Jahrhunderts, 2 vols London: Church, Society, and the Individual in the works of Opicino de Canistris —c. Hector and Harvey, p. Essays in Honour of May McKisack, ed. Du Boulay and Caroline M. Most strik- ingly, there are indications of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic: Tenerife , written at right angles to the coast in imitation of the manner of sea-charts. At the very least, however, we can be conident not only of the existence of a sea-chart in at least one monastery and one university College in England by the end of the fourteenth century, but also — thanks to the Aslake map — that such maps were, on occasion, being examined and used to fashion images of the world.

Another route of entry of sea-charts into late medieval England was that of the high status gift. If the possession of sea-charts in fourteenth-century England seems to have been restricted to a few learned scholars, the royal court, and perhaps members of the merchant community, there is evidence of an increasing familiarity with, and use of, sea-charts in England in the ifteenth century.

At the same time, it is possible to see a continu- ation of the tradition of compiling detailed written records of coastal topog- raphy and toponomy visible in De viis maris and other twelfth-century texts. It is, furthermore, worth noting that extant records of the circulation of these maps points to their pres- ence in diverse contexts: In its crudest form such a theory would deem mappae mundi primarily the products of churchmen, myopic and uninterested in geographic reality, desirous only of symbolic and allegorical readings.

And it would oppose to mappae mundi the pragmatic and dynamic genre of the sea-chart — the map of mariners and merchants, but not of monks. A small amount of imagination only is needed to see the reductive nature of such a paradigm. May we not allow the possibility that a merchant might have wanted to look at a map to see holy sites some of which, such as the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, are regularly portrayed on sea-charts , and that, conversely, a monk might have been interested to know where Cyprus was in relation to Genoa?

Schubert himself had famously said that each night he fell asleep hoping for death to overtake him and that each morning came as a disappointment to him. While not clearly autobiographical, the literary themes resonated with the composer. Schubert wrote this quartet at a time when he knew that he was dying of syphilis. The lied upon which the second movement is based is one of the most compact and hard hitting works in the whole of song. The original lied is on a poem by Matthias Claudius; text and translation may be found at http: The Quintet was written for a non-standard instrumentation: The lied upon which the variation movement is based has been put on the playlist.

The text and translation of that lied may be found at http: Briefly noted on page of the textbook. It may be tempting to assume these named for the great violinist Fritz Kreisler, but he was yet to be born! Instead, namereference goes to Johannes Kreisler, a recurring character with elements of manicdepression, in the works of E. It is a complete contrast to the overtly virtuosic Kreisleriana. How wrong she was when she wrote on 26 November , "I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it.

Should I expect to be the one? This lied is given on the playlist [performed by Victoria-native Susan Platts]. Music practitioners and listeners will have strong opinions as to the better composer of lieder: Generally speaking, Schumann delves psychologically deeper through broad melodies and rich harmonies he was the stronger pianist , whereas Schubert has the theatrical edge with greater tunefulness and picturesque piano effects. This quartet is the last major work from the pen of Felix Mendelssohn. A performance on each clarinet and cello has been placed on the playlist.

VIRTUOSI In stark contrast to the intimacy of the miniatures above, these works for solo performer — whether subtle or bold — were calculated to show the performer on the stage to the highest effect. Really all the concertos from the end of the Baroque forward to today 21st century can be counted in this category, but for our purposes here we focus only on the most extreme — the performers who really only composed for themselves and their own instruments. Further down on this section you will find a second reference to the Devil and his violin.

The 24th caprice of this set plays directly into that legend. The exception here lies in the fact that Chopin reportedly did not want this work published. Despite his wishes, however, the work was published after his death — hence opus posthumous [op. See pages in the textbook. Together the two express two opposite but not competing views of Poland and her people.

See page in the textbook. The work is said to be inspired by 14th-century etchings and drawings depicting scenes of The Black Death. ORCHESTRA TALES From early in the 19th century, orchestral instruments were undergoing rapid transformation from primitive sticks with holes, tubes with bells, and other inflexible designs to the sophisticatedly flexible and versatile instruments we use today.

Additional to the development of basic instruments, smaller and larger instruments within the families — piccolo, English horn, contrabassoon, bass tuba, double bass — were developed, effectively expanding the range of the orchestra to the limits of human hearing, while adding a wealth of colour possibilities. More instruments meant more players, more players meant that a conductor was a good idea to help organize, balance, and shape the mighty symphony orchestra.

With this powerful tool at their disposal, composers were now free to let their imaginations fly and create fantastic tales driven by the resources of the orchestra. For the incidental music, Mendelssohn drew from the earlier ideas of his Overture and completed a full 40 minute suite of music. The overture is considered on Page of the textbook.

Berlioz called this 7movement choral symphony a symphonie dramatique. Despite the obvious poetic association with Lamartine, Liszt included the following expression — apparently personal, and definitely after the fact — in the front of the score to Les preludes. This tone poem has a disjointed compositional history. Still Mussorgsky did not live to complete his very Russian work. Mussorgsky wrote to his friend Balakirev about the piece almost dispassionately http: See pages and in the textbook.

Mussorgsky wrote this 10 movements suite for piano in less than two weeks following the sudden death of Russian nationalist artist Viktor Hartmann. The piano work is a bravura showpiece for pianists, but the work is best known in its arrangement for orchestra by the French composer Maurice Ravel 78 Module 13 Romanicism Tchaikovsky pulls out all the stops, adding to the traditional orchestra 16 military cannon, a full carillon, and any extra brass players obtainable to bring to life the narrative of the historical Battle of Borodino with instrumental forces only, as surely as could any verbal narrative.

Oddly enough, the effects that Tchaikovsky sought were virtually unattainable with the artillery technology available at the time of its composition. This extroverted showpiece for orchestra was originally conceived as a work for solo violin and orchestra. The solo violin does take a leading role, but it is the whole of a very virtuosic orchestra which takes center stage. Here Rimsky-Korsakov does not mere assign parts to instruments of the orchestra, but rather demonstrates his supreme skill at working with full orchestra by composing for orchestra from the beginning.

The work draws on melodies and chants of the Russian orthodox liturgy. His original programme may be found at http: In Strauss described the tone poem at http: Till Eulenspiegel is playful prankster from medieval German folklore. His character dates back to the early 14th-century and has roots throughout German-speaking lands. Four Sketches from the Kalevala The Swan of Tuonela. This ultra-famous work was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical treatise of the same name.

Stanley Kubrick used the opening 90 seconds of music — Sunrise — in his film See pages of the textbook While it never became the national anthem for an independent Finland, the great hymn of Finlandia has been adapted and adopted by many whenever lofty sentiments need to find voice. String sextet loosely based on the poem by the same name by Robert Dehmel.

Schoenberg does not set the actual text, rather uses it for inspiration. The playlist performance is given by string orchestra rather than simple string sextet. The inspirational poem and translation is found at http: Eventhough written in the 20th century by a fairly young Rachmaninov on a progressive topic, the work is viewed more as a work of late romanticism than a work of the modern era. For many composers the attraction to the older classical forms was strong, full of possibility.

With these forms abstract stories could be told and big-picture ideas could be explored: Traditional forms embody the possibility of relating these stories without implying scenery or events. In some cases, stories might be avoided entirely, simply allowing the forms to express themselves as the earlier Classicists intended. Here Italy is evoked through a rollicking saltarello, a popular dance from Naples. Sometimes we say that Tchaikovsky only wrote three symphonies, the 4th, 5th, and 6th. Generally speaking the 4th Symphony is good natured, particularly the third movement which is built around playful pizzicato plucked string writing.

A second performance of the work took place after his death as a memorial service for the composer. Out of the proliferation of overtly romantic, directly programmatic, predominatingly large scale works emerges a renewed spirit of romantic neoclassicism as embodied in the music of Johannes 81 Module 13 Romanicism Brahms. For most familiar fun, test out number 5 from book 1 … and see page !

Variation pieces can sometimes seem dull, with the same tune repeating over and over. However, for the creative listener, exploring the changing qualities of the theme as it is put through its variation gymnastics can be great fun, especially here where the theme starts out unbalanced in its length and then is treated so richly in the variation.

The themes of his first symphony may have originated from his youth, but Brahms was a mature and respected composer before he felt ready to tackle the form of the symphony. Most of his composing life, Brahms claimed to have been conscious of the spectre of Beethoven held over German composers and even all of composition. In his last symphony, Brahms plays homage to the old masters in fine form by crafting a massive and wonderful passacaglia, continually varying the melody and materials above an eight-note descending bass figure, for the last movement.

Late in his life, and technically after he had retired from composition, Brahms was compelled to write a number of works of overwhelming beauty featuring the clarinet. With the resources of the romantic orchestra and a refined bel canto vocal technique for singers, composers obliged! No story or tale was past consideration and full musical treatment.

Texts and translations for the following arias, respectively: See page of the textbook to follow this very special Cavatina more closely. In an unusual move, Rossini casts the heroine as a contralto, to express her downtrodden state. Still the role is a coloratura role demanding extreme prowess on the part of the singer. The joyous aria is at the conclusion of the ball when Cenerentola has fallen in love with her prince. No translation of the lyrics is currently available online, but the following link has a number of film clips of great mezzos creating this role; Cecilia 83 Module 13 Romanicism Bartoli is particularly fun to watch.

While following the outlines of a singspiel, its emotional depth leads musicologists to claim it as the first important German Romantic opera. With a plot and music based on German folk legend and German folk tunes, it is also one of the earliest works of overt nationalism. See the textbook pages Rapid developments as a result of the incipient Industrial Revolution bring new capabilities to instrumental performance through sophisticated mechanical changes to individual instruments.

Reference to this work is made on page of the textbook. The story is a depiction of the17th-century historical General Ivan Susanin, who pushed back invading Polish army and lost his life in the process under the leadership of Tsar Mikhail Romanov. A selection of the orchestral incidental music is given on the playlist. The work is for four solo voices, 7-part chorus, children's chorus and orchestra. When Mendelssohn received a commission from the Birmingham Festival in England, he translated the libretto to English. One of the most beloved operas of all-times, by one of the most beloved opera composers of all time.

While his operas are far from realistic, none-the-less they somehow transcend the overt perkiness of the much of the music to create entirely believable characters. As much as anything, Verdi and his librettist Francesco Maria Piave were masters of dramatic development. Verdi capped off the drama with an unfailing ability to set scenes of incredible intimacy — monologue or not — with extraordinary sensitivity, as well as to create some of the grandest choruses of all operatic historic.

Texts and translations, respectively, may be found at: The Prelude includes a particular chord — now traditionally sounding to our ears — which shocked audiences, musicians, and critics at the time for its unorthodox preparation and resolution: See pages , , and in the textbook. Liebestod [Love Death] Additionally, it is interesting to note that for this opera, Wagner returned to the 85 Module 13 Romanicism simpler form of opera, not composing this stage work according to the principles of Music Drama.

The Feast of St. John, and the Singing Competition The setting is in the Old Kingdom and tells of forbidden love of an Egyptian commander and a captured Ethiopian princess. Texts and translations are a bit hit or miss online, but may be found best at: Tra la la la, coupe-moi Carmen, Zuniga, Women http: Pres des remparts de Seville Carmen, Don Jose http: Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre Escamillo, Chorus, Carmen http: Literary themes frequently function only on the level of metaphor and do not gain by literal interpretation. You can find her at http: Act 2, Scene 2 — http: In the opera, the dances were danced in sequence accompanied by full chorus.

In an orchestral setting neither choir nor dancers are present, and the missing choir parts have been redistributed to instruments within the orchestra, notable the clarinet, oboe, and English horn. Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty Feel free to substitute excerpts from one of these ballets for The Nutcracker, if you like.

Nationalism manifest in many cultural forms: Where music is concerned, composers picked-up on folk songs, traditional dances, old tales, national events, heroic biographies, indigenous instruments and elevated these in a way that spoke to the people of the nation of a national identity. It was music for the nation by one of the sons or daughters of the nation; it spoke to its people and told outsiders what the nation meant.

Sometimes nationalism is the most defining quality of a piece of music and sometimes it is just one element of many. Here is a list of the works from this and the next module which most readily might be considered works of nationalism: During these last years, we note formative events that prompted a change in musical language: With our long-term well-being and survival under constant threat, and yet with a greater expectation of longevity and safety, we have given ourselves and our world a paradox within which to exist.

Music has struggled to contend with and express the paradox and the elements that create it. These themes persist to today, and, recalling Module 4, we recognize that composers have gone to greater and greater lengths to achieve expression. It is during these years that radio and recording, TV and film, and eventually computers and internet have all changed the way we listen to and hear music, as well as what we expect from our music. The same vehicle of radio which first brought concerts into our living rooms and allowed us to dance in our parlours also brought news of death at the front.

In time, we asked our media to tell us about today quickly and immediately: As a listening personhood, whether we recognized it or not, we rediscovered for ourselves the joys of listening to a poem well-set, and took particular joy in it if it also encouraged us to tap our toes and nod our heads: We have tended toward short forms in the 20th century. Some would say that this is as much as we can focus on, but in all likelihood the truth is closer to a matter of potency — a quick, deep immersion soon followed by another quick, deep immersion.

And so, we reserved the concert hall and theatre for those longer expressions — the expressions which benefit from time to unfold, continuing relationships to be revealed and explored over time, music which needs us to sit and to ponder the implications of what we hear. It is this latter music we will consider in this module. We are not dismissing the shorter forms, but those come to us with a greater familiarity and so we can set them aside temporarily knowing that when we return to them they will make sense to us. The longer forms which ask us to spend time with them need us to do just that: Please turn to that after class and again before the final exam to further familiarize yourself with terms and concepts in this module.

In the days that preceded films with sound, opera remained the prime theatrical entertainment for upper-classes and socialites across Europe and now in the major cities of North America: It is hard to draw lines between the various forms of sung theatre, although generally speaking, it can be assumed that at this time: Not a lot of difference! Ultimately, operetta would drop away as a contemporary form of composition: In the 21st century the line continues to blur with opera companies performing both musical theatre and operetta, and musical theatre groups ranging into the area of opera and operetta.

The operas included in this section share the common theme of difficult topics: In Italy, such a true-to-life topic and treatment was called Verismo — truth — with Puccini as its master craftsman. You should know that there are several other opera composers of the 20th century whose works are highly celebrated but are not represented here: Most active composers of the last years wrote opera — Stravinsky, Barber, Shostakovich, Dvorak, Debussy etc. In Canada, we have a stronger tradition of opera performance than of opera composition; however, it must be acknowledged that the dominant opera companies in Canada — Canadian Opera Company Ottawa and Pacific Opera Victoria yes, our own Victoria — actively commission and present operas from Canadian composers.

Whether these enter the repertoire will remain to be seen. Text and translations may be found, respectively, at: The opera now has an established place in the repertoire. A succinct synopsis is given at http: Unfortunately the opera was not received in the United States as legitimate until staged by the Houston Opera in , even though, the opera had already had much success in Europe, opening at no less a house than La Scala in Milan in Similarly, the presences of strong overtones of New York jazz and melodies which smack of Jewish liturgical music are heard as suspect.

Ballet as a style originated in the dances of Renaissance Italy, and was elevated and perfected as a theatre style first in France — where it was incorporated into Grand Opera as well — and later in Imperial Russia which had imported French ballet models along with its French-born princesses who married into the Imperial family. Indeed all of the ballets in this section except the last two blend this twinned tradition: The Ballet Russe http: Really Diaghilev was running primarily in the face of the coming revolutions in Russia, but he also saw France in general and Paris in particular as being receptive to is radical visions of ballet.

In Paris he surrounded himself with the best and brightest of local artists — Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau to name a few — and ex-pat Russian musicians, dancers, and choreographers — Vaslav Nijinsky, Leonide Massine, Mikhail Fokine, and Igor Stravinsky. Working with these formidable artists Diaghilev and his Ballet Russe collaborated in the creation of stunning and shocking masterpieces of ballet and some of the most legendary riots in musical, artistic history.

In North America, ballet was introduced as a serious theatre dance option by George Balanchine after his days with the Ballet Russe. If the Ballet Russe developed the style of neoclassical ballet moving away from the excessive classical ballet, Balanchine moved back toward classical ballet and created contemporary ballet in the process.

We can mention here one small subcategory: These two movements are not confined to the arena of dance, but two of the great surrealist scores do happen to be ballets. For our purposes we will note that Dadaism, which arose in Vienna, put forward nonsense as a reaction to the horrors of WWI and surrealism, which arose a bit afterward in Paris, prospered the practice of unlikely juxtaposition.

This is the full ballet score written specifically for a production organized by the impresario Serge Diaghilev and his troupe the Ballet Russe. The Ballet Russe became a fixture on the Parisian arts scene for several decades, and ultimately participated in some of the most astonishing and noteworthy collaborations and productions of the 20th century, if not of all time.

The dancers of the Ballet Russe were often exiles in Paris from St. Petersburg as a result of the political tensions in Russia. The story of Petruchka is something of a Pinocchio type story, with Petruchka being a puppet at the Shrovetide Fair who subsequently comes to life along with his fellow puppets of a ballerina whom he loves deeply, but who rejects him and a Moor who steals the love of the ballerina. After the sumptuous music of The Firebird, the brittleness and harshness of this score offended audiences as did its non-classical choreography by Mikhail Fokine and The Ballet Russe which included gymnastics and exercises in addition to more traditional gestures.

Despite the non-traditional dance style, Stravinsky fills his score with recognizable folk tunes for a brilliant, vibrant, relatable score. Here is a recreation of the original choreography http: Again, composed for the Ballet Russe their impresario Serge Diaghilev. The scenario was adapted by the great choreographer Michel Fokine to be danced by Vaslav Nijinsky the 2nd century Greek romance by one Longus.

The huge orchestra Ravel used is almost unmatched in size and colour — including among other forces a textless part for full choir on and off-stage — anywhere in the orchestra repertoire. Closing scenes Suite no. Another Ballet Russe production. Now with increased confidence following a string of reasonable successes all collaborators set out to create something very special, something very shocking. Danses des Adolescentes Part 2: Less about war that wishful thinking on the part of the soldier, the plot follows a soldier on leave from the front who sells his violin to the devil in return for wealth.

And this link will show some of the very creative choreography http: The ballet is really a ballet about nothing, but rather a series of scenes and music! It is rumoured that the work originated as the film score for a Charlie Chaplin silent film. Another Diaghilev commission, this work was first planned as a reworking of a waltz by Johann Strauss, Jr. At one time, La Valse was thought to represent the demise of European society as the waltz — a symbol of high society before WWI — is torn apart at the seams.

Ravel dispelled those thoughts, calling it a portrait of society The ballet was never produced because Diaghilev thought it too much a caricature of a ballet. It remains today as a popular and colourful orchestral piece. The popular concert suite comprises about two-thirds of the original ballet's music. Ballet in six sections. The first performance of this work was in Brno, Czech Republic in Prokofiev had his nose out of joint — as often happened according to the anecdotes — because the Soviet premiere was delayed until The Dance of the Knights, no. The video quality of the television production is a bit suspicious http: Saturday Night Waltz Scene 5: Just be aware that the music is for the original smaller instrumentation of 13 players and is recorded monophonically.

In the music, Prokofiev used many Baroque dances of the type that would have been popular at the time the story is set. In the earliest period, sound could not me recorded along with visual images. Carnival of the Animals, Samson and Delilah, Symphony no. Synchronized sound was possible from and this encouraged composers to work with film directors in collaborative projects. By the s composers of stature were contributing to music for film: Numerous concert music composers also contributed to the genre: The study of the film musical is one of its own right, but it is worth keeping the names of Harold Arlen, Robert and Richard Shermann, Stephen Sondheim, and Alan Menken in mind.

We can consider here one small subcategory: It not that futurism is a subgenre of film music, but rather that two of the great futuristic scores are given below. In futurism, we note either the depiction of machinery, mechanization, factories, and industrialism — in effect, dehumanizing aspects of society — in vivid detail, or the inclusion of machinery as a sounding element of the music. It was not until when the film and score were experienced together http: The ballet of the film was of mechanical instruments and for this Antheil included parts for player pianos, airplane propellers and electric bells.

The instrumentation is used to produce a dramatic, futuristic, percussive score. In the tone poem was used as the backdrop for an otherwise silent film, a film which was highly acclaimed for its amazing footage of the locomotive engine in action. See the film at http: Make no mistake about it! The Gene Kelly film of the same name was inspired by the tone poem, followed its rough story line, and used a good percentage of the music. Do enjoy the film! It is a delight! Just remember that the music predates the film by 23 years. It was only much later adopted for use in popular media as the TV opener for sporting events for many decades.

Bernstein won an Academy Award for this brilliant and evocative film score.

It is a joy to listen to on its own, but takes on extra dimensions when experienced in the film. Even the artistic movement received the title by accident: In art, impressionism is achieved by capturing an impression on an artist of the light reflected from an object at an exact moment in time. Since these pieces of art are often created of little dots of colour, loose brush strokes, and therefore, indistinct outlines, the parallel is drawn with French music of the same period. Impressionist music is loose and mobile.

Open harmonies lose the impulse of tonal direction and so can move from one to the next in non-traditional, non-tonal ways. This should not be mistaken as dissonant! To the contrary each simultaneous sounding of pitches is meant to be lovely, and it is meant to be loved in the moment without concern of what comes next. Like minimalism Module 4 , the wafting and indistinct quality of impressionistic music was inspired by music of gamelan, heard for the first time in Paris at the Exhibition universelle.

The first impressionist composer, Claude Debussy, did not like the appellation, preferring the term symbolism. Symbolism was a style of writing practiced by poets and novelists which stressed the sound of words and sounds in addition to relying on hefty use of understandable symbols. In the days of vinyl recordings, this small piece was the goto space filler at the end of a recording, and as such was one of the most recorded pieces of the lateth century. Performances of both the piano and the orchestra versions are on the playlist.

It is an excellent time to hear how perfectly Ravel composes for instrumental groups, thus was his formidable skill with orchestration. By the way, ignore the English translation of the title: Through this practice, the extremes of emotion and the psyche were probed: The principal musician to follow the lines of expressionism was Arnold Schoenberg, himself a painter http: The poems are half narrated, half sung using Sprechtstimme.

See page of the text. Text and translation of poems may be found at http: Oh, no, not again! Indeed the ideals of classicism return, but this time not so far back as classical antiquity. With neoclassicism of the 20th century, composer sought to elevate the pure forms of 18th-century classicism or to simply look back to other golden ages of music: A good part of the push toward this movement of neoclassicism was an attempt to reclaim values that seemed to have been shoved aside as a result of the Great War. Somewhat more pragmatically, however, is that fact that older styles required fewer players and could sustain stranger instrumentation — both an asset after losing so many musicians to the battlefields of Europe.

As a compositional project, Prokofiev tasked himself with two challenges. One, to create a symphony for a Mozartian sized orchestra in purely classical shape and proportion; and two, to compose without using the piano to guide his ear. The result is a wickedly hard orchestral showpiece that indeed accomplishes task one. Commissioned by Serge Diaghilev and the Ballet Russe, this ballet proved the collaboration between some of the great artists of the day: The scenario and choreography were both by the great Leonide Massine, Pablo Picasso designed the original costumes and sets, and, of course, Stravinsky provided the score.

For the ballet Stravinsky reworked music thought at that time to be by Giovanni Battiste Pergolesi , one of the great tragic figures of the early age and mover within the earlier gallant style. It would be somewhat later before he really became acquainted with the work of the Russian expats working outside the Soviet 99 Module 14 Modernity Union.

Until then, his art was shaped by strictly conservative teaching and prodigious youthful skills. The mansion is renowned for its exquisite music room and now for its museum and library. Quartet for violin, cello, clarinet, piano, mvts. This late work was commissioned by the violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Bartok responded with a gem full of Hungarian melodies, rhythms, and harmonies. A quarter century the junior to countryman Dmitri Shostakovich, Gubaidulina grew up with the Soviet injunction against formalism. Formalism in a Soviet context meant western musical experimentation.

Avoiding formalism drove Soviet composers backwards to their roots, either folk roots or musical roots. Here, Gubaidulina uses the old Baroque form of the chaconne with its short repeating bass harmonic progression as the basis of an intense set of variations. The last symphony by Shostakovich resonates with a sardonic wit. In contradiction to the apparent simplicity, however, one also finds complex mathematical relationships in the rhythms and tone implications in the melodic selections.

What did he really mean? Here Gubaidulina traces the history of percussion in a 40 minute romp. There are distinctions between them, and it is useful to know the differences, at least in a cursory way. The two terms in question are PostRomanticism and Neo-Romanticism: In practice, the way the first of the two movements manifest is thus: In the last movement, Mahler introduces the voice to express the ideas that he felt instruments alone could not express. In this case Mahler writes three movements which express the threat of death, even the reality of death complete with funeral march.

In the fourth movement, Mahler considers the heavenly life, which, after all, must include angels. Long before Sibelius was the acclaimed voice of Finnish nationalism, he composed both epic tone poems and symphonies of exceptional beauty in a musical language which ultimately became stereotypical of Scandinavia.

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The huge orchestral forces which Mahler employs in the majority of the symphony are pared down to just strings and harp in the exquisite 4th movement, Adagietto. In the meanwhile, Mahler used a device begun by Beethoven, used occasionally by other composers, and certainly used by Mahler in about half of his symphonies: Mahler never composed operas despite conducting opera and operetta for most of his career.

Instead, Mahler treated the voice symphonically, either accompanying folksongs with symphonic resources, or incorporating song into his symphonies. Texts and translations may be found at http: Der Abschied [The Farewell] A virtuosic piano concerto by one of the most esteemed pianists of the early 20th century.

If you listen carefully to this work side-by-side with the next by Rachmaninov, you can discern the strengths of each pianist, both a true virtuoso of the instruments. Prokofiev was much more diminutive with tiny hands. Listening to this powerful concerto, you can sense those small hands charging up and down the keyboard, tumbling over each other.

When you listen next to the Rachmaninov below, you will likely be aware of the massive clutches of notes Rachmaninov grabs at one time. The whole string quartet by this uncommonly lyrical American composer is worth considering, but it is the central Adagio which carries the weight of poignancy, despair and resolve lying side-by-side. Fabulous tension is created with trudging, climbing lines seeming to torque ever tighter.

The strongly funereal tone of the movement in the orchestral version has made it a go-to piece for sorrowful remembrances including state funerals and war films, most notably in the film Platoon. Shostakovich had been strongly censured for his 4th Symphony; in fact he was nearly shipped to Siberia over it. Joseph Stalin himself had demanded that the 4 th Symphony be withdrawn because of its stridency, but Shostakovich boldly attempted a performance.

That performance attempt was abandoned, resulting in a panicked flight from the concert hall of all who were there, and the 4th Symphony was not heard until As a part of his reconciliation with the Soviet government, Shostakovich wrote the strong, proud, dynamic 5th Symphony as a so-called response to just criticism. Prokofiev was one of those rare Russian-born artists who worked in the west for a time and then chose to return to the Soviet Union even with its artistic directives and strictures.

In fact his draw to the ballet was uniquely suited to the style of the Kirov and Bolshoi Ballets than of, say, the Ballet Russe; and his angular, upside-down melodies and backward-moving harmonies worked for the folk melodies and national perspective of his homeland. His style changed on return home, for sure, but not so much to lose himself. The 5th Symphony, written at the height of WWII, contains much of soaring beauty and exhilarating drive.

His exquisite retrograde tonality was picked up by John Williams and used to great effect in the film score to Star Wars, Episode 1 One of the last works from the great romantic — perhaps the last romantic composer comes complete with one of the great stories of inception in all of music, truly rising from the ashes of Nazi Germany. Believed to be deeply autobiographical — Shostakovich imbedded his musical initials, D-S-C-H, in each movement — the whole is a dark study of the possibility of the string quartet.

The broadly lyrical concerto is a full-blooded example of post-romanticism, full of arching melodies, dense by warm harmonies, and all the energy expected from a solo concerto. Neo-Romanticism just embraces the musical language of Romanticism, the structural freedom allowed by Romanticism, the large and creative orchestra of Romanticism, the strong chromatic tonality of Romanticism. And the potential chaos and juxtapositions permitted by Romanticism.

In short, Neo-Romanticism took all that made Romanticism Romanticism and took it to new and impressive heights. This wild composition is famous for its layers of popular tunes in seemingly chaotic procession, cavalcading on top of one another as if a parade of different marching bands were stomping through the camp.

The little set of six works, originally for piano, derives from seven folk songs and dances from the Transylvania region. Bartok collected these dances from the countryside. All six are on the playlist. The reason for only seven movements is that there is no ancient astrology associated with Earth and Pluto was not discovered until In a spate of nationalistic fervor, Respighi wrote a triptych of Italian works, each celebrating one of the glories of Italy. In this work four of the renowned fountains of the city of Rome each depicted at a different time of day: It was hard to pick a category for this one!

The experimental tilt of Neo-Romanticism seemed to fit best. The fourth movement — Pines of the Appian Way — is probably the greatest of the long orchestra crescendos in all of music, tracking the returning ghost armies of Rome on their procession into Rome and up the Capitoline Hill to the waiting Emperor at the Temple of Jupiter.

This beautifully constructed monument of the 20th-century violin repertoire capably combines tone compositional technique with episodes of traditional tonality. The tone row itself is packed with tonal elements. View the row at http: It is in the Symphonic Dances that we are reminded that Rachmaninov was Russian by birth and upbringing.

There is a bit of Prokofiev, a bit of Stravinsky, and a bit of Rimsky-Korsakov in here. The harmonies are piquant and the melodies are lightly contorted, still the Module 14 Modernity orchestra is richly Rachmaninov in its full flower. Throughout the work, Rachmaninov quotes his earlier works and also, again, the Dies Irae of liturgical chant setting up a battle between death and resurrection. While these dances were all along conceived as dances for orchestra, conversations had begun with Mikhail Fokine about the possibility of actually choreographing them.

This probably would have become reality had Fokine not died suddenly in The critically acclaimed work by Bernstein speaks of the destruction of the Yom Kippur War. Texts and translations at the links below:

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