The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.
I hang my harp upon a tree,
A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt
For a dream's sake.
Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.
Christina Rossetti
Q U O D L I B E T
Reflections and meditations on music and singing, birds in my life, books and literature, reading, art and art history, history and humanity, words and writing, and things that catch my eye or cause me to wonder.
Thursday, June 4, 2020
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
“Come away, death”
Come
away, come away, death,
And
in sad cypress let me be laid.
Fly
away, fly away, breath;
I
am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My
shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O,
prepare it!
My
part of death, no one so true
Did
share it.
Not
a flower, not a flower sweet,
On
my black coffin let there be strown.
Not
a friend, not a friend greet
My
poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.
A
thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay
me, O, where
Sad
true lover never find my grave,
To
weep there!
—
William Shakespeare, from Twelfth Night, II:4
I have long felt a connection with this text, and it moves me so much that I try to keep it shut away. (Like this one.) But a few days ago, in a Shakespeare-themed choral concert, I performed in a most poignant setting by Erik Nielsen, and it still haunts me, words and music. I wish I could forget it.
Monday, November 14, 2016
“As the bird sings”
“I would like to paint as the bird sings…I would like to
prevent one from seeing how it is done.”
— Claude Monet (French, 14 November 1840 - 5 December 1926)

Claude Monet (1840-1926), The Magpie (La Pie), oil
on canvas, painted 1868-1869. Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Painted en plein air near Étretat in Normandy. [frissons of recollection of Étretat and the
Musée d'Orsay]
Source of quote: Maurice Guillemot in Steven Z. Levine’s Monet, Narcissus, and Self-Reflection: The
Modernist Myth of the Self, University of Chicago Press, 1995, page 177.
Monday, August 8, 2016
“When I can look Life in the eyes”
When
I can look Life in the eyes,
Grown
calm and very coldly wise,
Life
will have given me the Truth,
And
taken in exchange---my youth.
—
Sara Teasdale, American poet (8 Aug 1884-1933)
Labels:
Human Nature,
Life and Death,
Poetry,
Quotations
Friday, July 8, 2016
“When the darkness sets in”
“People
are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but
when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a
light within.”
—Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and author (8 Jul 1926-2004)
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Florida foliage
D
and I recently enjoyed a road trip to Sarasota, with a quick two-day dash down,
and a more leisurely five-day drive back. At a fundraising event in February,
we had won a week at a condo in Sarasota, and we built a nice little trip
around that windfall. It was a very relaxing vacation; unlike our most recent
big trip (2014 choral tour to Paris!), this time we had no commitments, no
schedule except as defined by our week at the condo, and no obligations except
to each other. D grew up in Sarasota (on Siesta Key), and was interested in
having a look. We’ve been to Sarasota a few times over the years, but never for
such an extended period. In the weeks leading up to the trip, we did some
research so we could make the most of our time while there. Cycling is always D’s
first priority, so he called a local bike shop to see about group rides, and he
hit the jackpot – there were group rides every day of the week, mostly in the
very early morning, and most of them of the race-pace type of ride that he
prefers. Of course, I was looking forward to birding in Florida, and hoped to
add a few birds to my nonexistent life list. (I don’t maintain a list, except in
my head, where I do know what I have, and have not, seen.) I’ll save bird
photos for some future posts.
Of
course, the tropical foliage is altogether different from what we have here in
New England, and I was entranced by the sheer variety of colors, textures of
the plants, shrubs, vines, and flowers. Here are a few photos of foliage that
caught my eye. I think all of these are native plants. (We also visited a
botanical garden with exotics; I’ll write about that in a separate post.). The
photos shown here are from Sarasota and the surrounding area, including Myakka
River State Park (FL), as well as from natural areas in South Carolina and
North Carolina where we stopped on our way home.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
"The kingdom of music"
“The
kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom
breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person
begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up,
marvelling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and
love him, would he but translate his visions into human words, and his
experiences into human actions. Perhaps he cannot; certainly he does not, or
does so very seldom. … Like every true performer, she was intoxicated by the
mere feel of the notes: they were fingers caressing her own; and by touch, not
by sound alone, did she come to her desire.”
―
E.M. Forster (1879-1970), A Room with a
View
Labels:
Music,
Music in Art and Literature,
Performing,
Quotations
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Convergences
While reading about Plum Island (Mass.) just
now, I remembered a short but wonderful visit that D and I made there last
summer. Here is one of the scenes
we enjoyed:
I’ve
noticed that in many of my photos, I’ve unconsciously framed the shots so that they
reveal converging (or diverging) angles. Here, a series of converging lines are
formed by the horizon (top of the water), the “border” between the sand and
water, and the ascending progression of vegetation.
Here’s
a similar convergence in a photo taken on a frigid day last winter at the Quabbin
Reservoir:
Something
about these angles and proportions appeals to me.
Images
© 2016 Quodlibet. All rights reserved. Duplication or republication in any
format is prohibited without express permission.
“Language is as real”
“Language is as real, as
tangible in our lives, as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards,
microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.”
—
Adrienne Rich, American writer (1929-2012)
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Hoffmann on Beethoven: “The essence of romanticism”
My
notes indicate that some time ago, during a conversation about music
(including, apparently, Beethoven), I had sent these quotes to K:
“Music
reveals to man an unknown realm, a world quite separate from the outer sensual
world surrounding him, a world in which he leaves behind all precise feelings
in order to embrace an inexpressible longing.”
and
“Beethoven’s
music sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain, and
awakens that infinite yearning which is the essence of romanticism. He is
therefore a purely romantic composer.”
At
the top, I had written in all caps one word: TRUTH.
I
can’t recall the conversation, or what inspired me to find and send those
snippets. In any case, their wisdom persists. Their origin, of course, is
E.T.A. Hoffmann’s justly-famous review of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
Labels:
Beethoven Ludwig van,
Music,
Music History,
Reviews (Media)
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Audition!
[originally published 5/10/16]
[An ensemble in which I used to sing] requires quadrennial re-auditions for each of its members, and this spring, all Soprano Is and Tenor Is will have to re-audition in order to maintain membership. I had my audition last night. I’ve been in the [ensemble] for ten years, and have re-auditioned twice, so this was my third go-round. The process is fine, and gives everyone – singers and leadership – an opportunity to reassess membership.
[An ensemble in which I used to sing] requires quadrennial re-auditions for each of its members, and this spring, all Soprano Is and Tenor Is will have to re-audition in order to maintain membership. I had my audition last night. I’ve been in the [ensemble] for ten years, and have re-auditioned twice, so this was my third go-round. The process is fine, and gives everyone – singers and leadership – an opportunity to reassess membership.
Friday, May 6, 2016
"Aesthetic surplus"? Or the highest expression of his piety?
This
morning, a musical colleague forwarded an interesting article
about JSB from today’s issue of the Wall
Street Journal. The author, Markus Rathey (professor of music history at
Yale University and president of the American Bach Society) reflects on the profound
differences between the way Bach’s sacred works are heard in modern times (that
is, in concert) compared to when they were presented as originally intended
(that is, during worship services). This is nothing new; these differences are
well known to Bach scholars, Bach performers, and Bach lovers, and necessarily
inform many aspects of presentation and interpretation of JSB’s sacred works.
I
was surprised however, that Rathey used most of his allotted word count to
speculate on the idea that “We don’t know much about Bach’s own faith.” Here’s
what he said, in part:
Labels:
Bach Johann Sebastian,
Commentary,
Music,
Music History,
Religion
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
“You're chosen to be a poet"
“You
choose to be a novelist, but you’re chosen to be a poet. This is a gift and
it’s a tremendous responsibility. You have to be willing to give something terribly
intimate and secret of yourself to the world and not care, because you have to
believe that what you have to say is important enough.”
—May
Sarton, Belgian-American poet, novelist, and memoirist (May 3 1912-1995)
Reading
these words of May Sarton forces me to recall the many poems I wrote several
years ago, during a very dark period of my life.
Monday, May 2, 2016
Erosion
I
subscribe to several email services by which I receive daily doses of art and
cultural history. Each day I learn new vocabulary, read a poem, look at (and
learn about) a piece of art, enjoy snippets of literary and music history, etc.
Many of these bits and bobs are connected to the date – “On this date in [fill
in the year,] such-and-such happened.] Together these are a nice way to start
the day.
Much
of what I read is new to me, but of course, much of it is familiar, too.
Sometimes I skip over the topics I already know about, but sometimes I read the
familiar pieces with close attention if they are favorite topics. Such as
Mozart.
Yesterday’s
edition of The Writer’s Almanac
included a feature about the premiere of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro on May 1, 1786 in Vienna. The article included
the usual stuff about Beaumarchais, political tensions, da Ponte, and Emperor
Joseph’s famous edict about excessive encores. But two items caught my attention
and made me wonder who had researched and written — and edited — this little essay.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Common Knowledge
In
recent weeks, I’ve been thinking of our relationship to our natural world, and
in particular, how we have lost so much knowledge about how nature “works.” This,
combined with what seems to be some sort of modern fastidiousness about what is
“ugly” in nature, and misplaced fear (born of ignorance) about animals and
natural phenomena, underlies much destructive behavior. The results of this
disconnect are really distressing. Our common knowledge about the natural world
has evaporated.
Labels:
Animals at Home,
Beauty,
Birds Out and About,
Ethics,
Knowledge,
Life and Death,
Nature
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
"A fresh seed"
“A
new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Viennese
philosopher (26 Apr 1889-1951)
Labels:
Quotations,
Wittgenstein Ludwig,
Words and Language
Sunday, April 24, 2016
“Was ever anything so civil?”
“What
on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of
coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?”
—Anthony
Trollope, English author (1815-1882), from The
Warden
Oh,
how I love Trollope’s Barsetshire series! I knew nothing of it when, years ago,
I picked the slim and slight-seeming novella The Warden, the first of the six novels that comprise the series. I
knew The Warden to be about a
choirmaster in the Anglican Church in the mid-19th century, but
I never imagined what a wonderful world it would open up to me. Each of the novels
is wonderful, though The Warden and Barchester Towers will always be my
favorites. And of course of course, the BBC dramatization known as
The Barchester
Chronicles is perfect – perfect in its casting, costumes, settings, and
most of all for capturing Trollope’s razor-sharp satire of the Church, tempered
by many comic moments and a tender affection for the characters that people
these novels. And any dramatization that brings together Alan Rickman, Nigel
Hawthorne, Geraldine McEwan, and Donald Pleasance has got to be worth
watching.
My
pleasure in the Barsetshire novels led me on to the Palliser series, and to
several other novels in Trollope’s oeuvre,
all of which I read (and re-read) with great pleasure. Someday I will read them
all.
In
honor of Trollope’s 201st birth anniversary, which is today, April
24, I will watch the Barchester
Chronicles again as I prepare dinner.
Friday, April 22, 2016
Renewing their Vows
Almost
exactly two years ago, I wrote about the feeding rituals that Northern
Cardinals display in the spring. Cardinals mate for life, and each spring they use
specific feeding behaviors to refresh and strengthen their pair bonds. Read the
whole thing here: http://quodlibet-sarah.blogspot.com/2014/04/to-refresh-and-strengthen.html
This
year, the Cardinals that nest in and around our yard have been displaying this
behavior since January – much earlier than I’ve seen before. Here’s a pretty
pair that was having a breakfast date on our deck this morning:
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Choir Moon
Choir Moon © Quodlibet 2016 All rights reserved |
I’m always in a rather exalted state after choir rehearsals. Not exalted as in above it all, not elevated, not superior, but exalted as in expanded, brightened, and feeling somewhat unearthly. Not unearthly as in heavenly, but unearthly as in not of the earth.
“No net ensnares me”
Charlotte Brontë was born on this date in 1816 – exactly 200 years ago. That’s reason
enough to write about one of my favorite novels, her Jane Eyre. Since I first read it at about the age of twelve, Jane Eyre has been a sort of touchstone
in my life. I’ve probably read it twenty times or more, and in fact I enjoyed
another survey of its pages just a few months ago.
Labels:
Books and Reading,
Brontë Charlotte,
Quodlibet,
Quotations
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Gaze Not on Swans
April is National Poetry Month, so here's a poem. But why limit your enjoyment of poetry to any particular month, or day, or hour? Find a poem to enjoy any time it pleaseth thou so to do.
Encore!
[During the time when I was
unable to update this blog, I set aside many drafts, topics, and items of interest
to write about later. Among the items I saved were responses that I had posted to
ChoralNet in response to questions from other members of that forum. Here’s one
of those Q&A items, edited slightly for publication here.]
***************************************************************************
Question: How important/necessary is it to have an encore
prepared for a choral concert? We have a
tradition of closing our Christmas concert with a piece about peace, which is usually
fairly quiet and contemplative. I have difficulty
finding a suitable encore, and sometimes wonder if it’s really necessary. Is it perhaps better to send the audience out
with peaceful sounds, and just conclude with the applause and the presentation of
flowers, etc.? Would the audience feel cheated? What is your practice and your experience?
My Answer:
Scientists “Discover” Forgotten Human Knowledge
Excerpts
from a research summary published in the
Washington Post:
Living closer to nature is better for your health, new research suggests — and may even extend your life.
Labels:
Human Nature,
Knowledge,
Nature,
Science,
Thinking About...
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Monday, April 18, 2016
Resting Shopping Face
The
other day as I was doing the grocery shopping, I moved up and down the aisles, deep
in thought about several pressing problems – some personal, some professional,
some musical. I was by myself, and busy with my thoughts about shopping (check
prices, ingredients) and the various issues on my mind.
Untitled
I
guess I’ve reached the point in my life where it’s easier, and sometimes a
better choice, to stop caring so much about things. What is gained by investing
emotionally or intellectually? What difference is made? Not much that I can
see. Investment implies a return, and where there is no return, or where there
is a negative result, it is wiser not to invest.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Not Excited
I finally have gotten the strength to confront this blog and delete delete delete anything related to my association with certain choral ensembles and their directors, since it just makes me sad.
Some of the essays are, I think and hope, valuable in and of themselves, so I've edited many of them to delete references to those ensembles and persons.
Ooh, just found this in my draft folder - what the hell. It's a few years old, but it's a perfect example of how even the highest standards for a choir mean nothing if there is no follow-up to hold people accountable. And how the double standards and inconsistency can breed discontent and resentment among those who do invest in doing the right thing. It used to matter to me, I guess. Funny how angry I was, when in the end it did not matter at all.
Some of the essays are, I think and hope, valuable in and of themselves, so I've edited many of them to delete references to those ensembles and persons.
Ooh, just found this in my draft folder - what the hell. It's a few years old, but it's a perfect example of how even the highest standards for a choir mean nothing if there is no follow-up to hold people accountable. And how the double standards and inconsistency can breed discontent and resentment among those who do invest in doing the right thing. It used to matter to me, I guess. Funny how angry I was, when in the end it did not matter at all.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Everybody goes Awww!
Why
do I so love the paintings of Jackson Pollock? I suppose it doesn’t really
matter why, only that I do.
Storytelling and Religion
Yesterday, in the context
of writing about Galileo, I explored a few ideas about free thought. This
morning, when browsing through some unfinished essays, I found the following
fragment, which seems substantial enough to publish on its own. I wrote this a
few years back in response to an online discussion about how religion consists
merely of stories but relies on the ability (?) of people to accept the stories
as real.
Labels:
Commentary,
Religion,
Science,
Thinking About...
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Free Thinking
It
was on this date in 1633, April 12, that the Italian astronomer, mathematician,
engineer and philosopher, Galileo Galilei (1564-1662) was brought to trial by
the Inquisition. Of course, Galileo’s heliocentric theories, observations, and assertions
undermined the geocentric perspective that had originated with interpretations of the Bible, so the
Roman Catholic Church couldn’t allow that sort of free-thinking.* He was
eventually found guilty of heresy and was forced to spend the remainder of his
long life under house arrest.
English
novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) offered this observation: “If
Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let
him alone.”
*
Think for a moment, about that concept – free
thinking. If our thinking is not free, what is it? Bound? Constricted?
Limited? Why would anyone choose to
be limited in thought, in the exercise of the brain, the act that most
profoundly defines us as individuals? To what end? Religions that suppress and punish free thought are dangerous and anti-human. Where would we be today without the benefits of ideas from the scientists, poets, artists, musicians, humanists, leaders, and regular people who have enriched, enlightened, and elevated our lives?
Portrait
of Galileo Galilei (1636) by Justus Sustermans (1587-1681). This is a copy by
Niccolo Cecconi (1835-1902) of Sustermans’ original, which had been painted
during the period of Galileo’s house arrest. Sustermans’ portrait hangs in the Uffizi
Gallery in Florence; Cecconi’s version is held by the National Maritime Museum,
Greenwich, London.
Labels:
Galileo Galilei,
Hardy Thomas,
History,
Poetry,
Religion,
Thinking About...
Monday, April 11, 2016
Storm
The
rain rained
The
wind wound
The
night blew
With
a blowing sound
What
did I fear
In
the blowing night?
The
darkest dark? or
The
flash of light?
Much
is hidden
In
the dark
Much
revealed
By
lightning’s spark
Though
darkness
yet
appeals to me
the
day reveals
what
I must see
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Subtle Lunacy
Did I write this?
While clearing and
cleaning and classifying this afternoon I found a folder marked “Miscellaneous”
– oh, that label is like unexploded ordinance, unearthed while cleaning the
yard after a long and messy winter. I opened the folder, afraid to the point of
stomach-churning nausea at what I might find inside
Poetry.
Monday, February 1, 2016
Someday maybe I'll get in there
My childhood fantasy dream was to be able to get into a drawer and close it from the inside and no one would know I was in there
I'm too big to fit into a drawer now
But a closet might do
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
The Call Away
The
Call Away
by
Robert Bly
A
cold wind flows over the cornfields;
Fleets
of blackbirds ride that ocean.
I
want to be out of here, go out,
Outdoors,
anywhere in wind.
My
back against a shed wall, I settle
Down
where no one can find me.
I
stare out at the box-elder leaves
Moving
frond-like in that mysterious water.
What
is it that I want? Not money,
Not
a large desk, not a house with ten rooms.
This
is what I want to do: to sit here,
To
take no part, to be called away by wind.
I
want to go the new way, build a shack
With
one door, sit against the door frame.
After
twenty years, you will see on my face
The
same expression you see in the grass.
"The
Call Away" by Robert Bly (American, b. 1926) from Like the New Moon, I Will Live My Life. © White Pine Press, 2015
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Possible Sapsucker Hybrid?
As
a fairly dedicated “patch” birder (read more about that here), I don’t travel specifically to look for birds, though I will
take advantage of errands and longer trips to bird whenever I can. During the
winter, especially, I enjoy just seeing what shows up at the feeders.
I
was delighted when Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers stopped at our suet feeder in
October 2006 and again in 2007, most likely migrating birds. None came by in
2008, but in January 2009, a male Sapsucker came and stayed for the winter. You
can read about its interesting behavior here (no photos from that long-ago
era). A
couple of juveniles stopped by briefly in October 2009 and
in January 2010, the same male that had been our guest the previous year
returned and took up residence. You can read about its encounter with a localmockingbird.
The
same Sapsucker has returned each January since then, staying for a few months until
the weather warms and the sap runs again. (D and I have noticed that the
Sapsucker doesn’t show up in the yard until the weather gets really cold, say
below 20°F. That makes sense, of course, given its preferred diet of sap and
sap-attracted insects.)
How
do I know it’s the same bird? Well, photos are telling, of course, and I have
many, dating back to 2012. But birders, especially patch birders and back-yard
birders, are able to identify individual birds; we are close observers of
plumage and behavior. In the case of this Sapsucker, it has followed the same
route into our yard every day that I have seen it over the years: from the
neighbor’s yard to the west, stopping in the dead elm (where an old bittersweet
vine provides fruit snacks) before winging into the suet. And its behavior on
the suet is the same from day to day and year to year.
Anyway
– the point of all that is to establish that I know this particular bird very
well. Now to the interesting part.
Harbingers of Spring
It’s
been bitterly cold for days, and it was -5°F this morning, yet over the past
few weeks I have noted many signs of spring in the behaviors of birds in and
around the yard. Yesterday I watched two male Hairy Woodpeckers in their funny
territorial display:
Neruda: Bird by Bird
![]() |
Baltimore Oriole © Quodlibet 2014 All rights reserved |
I’ve
wandered the world in search of life:
bird
by bird I’ve come to know the earth:
discovered
where fire flames aloft:
the
expenditure of energy
and
my disinterestedness were rewarded,
even
though no one paid me for it,
because
I received those wings in my soul
and
immobility never held me down.
–
Pablo Neruda (Chilean, 1904-1973)
from Art
of Birds
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