Tenebrae

« Lumen Valo perform in the Swedish Methodist church in Töölö. »

One of the few things we actually managed to do over the long Easter weekend was to attend a Lumen Valo performance of Tomás Luis de Victoria's Tenebrae responsoriot in a local church. I've listened to their music for a few years and was pretty excited to see them perform live in such an appropriate setting. It's the kind of music that is so quiet and reverent that you're almost afraid to breathe lest you make too much noise. The Leica is supposedly the most quiet camera in the world but even it seemed like an imposing amount of noise when I took a couple pictures while lurking behind a pillar. The only light in the church were the lectern lamps, the spot on the crucifix and six candles.

Judging by the age of the small crowd that came to the performance and that I've had to enter the CDDB information for all of the albums of theirs I own, I'm guessing that the music isn't very popular with the young wired crowd in Finland. It's a pity as their voices are so beautifully harmonic and the music so ethereal. The following liner notes from Gimmel Records explains the Tenebrae in more detail.

The publication which contains these eighteen Responsories first appeared in Rome in 1585 under the official title, as it then was, of Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae. It consists of considerably more than the Responsories, since Victoria set not only the nine Lessons from the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet but hymns, motets, the Reproaches, the two sets of Passion choruses and other music from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday. Taken together, these pieces represent the most complete cycle of music for Holy Week by any leading Renaissance composer. Gesualdo set all the Responsories (at considerably greater length than Victoria), but none of the Lamentations. Lassus set the same Responsories and the nine Lamentations, and Palestrina composed five sets of Lamentations but no Responsories. It is interesting to observe that settings of the Lamentations have received more concert performances than have settings of the Responsory texts. This must have something to do with the strict liturgical structure of the latter and the resulting impression that a concert is not quite the right place for them. They are well represented in recordings, however, where one may listen to them as they were intended to be heard, in three separate groups, one each for Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Holy Week.

Originally, on these seminal days of the Church's year, the Responsories were sung early in the morning during Matins which was followed by Lauds. Later, these Offices together became called Tenebrae and were performed during the evening of the preceding day. In this service, the only light in the church came from a triangular stand holding fifteen candles (representing the eleven faithful apostles, the three Marys, and Christ), and from six candles on the altar. As each psalm was chanted, a candle was extinguished, so that after the fourteenth psalm only the highest candle (which represented Christ) was still burning. During the concluding recitation (the Canticle of Zachary) the six candles on the altar were also put out one by one until, as the Office of Lauds drew to a close, the only candle which was still burning was concealed behind the altar; thus the church was left in tenebris - in darkness. The rite symbolised both the darkness which covered the earth as Christ was crucified (2), and his burial. After the closing prayers the worshippers made a certain amount of noise to represent nature in turmoil at the death of Christ. Once the noise had died away, the remaining candle was brought out from behind the altar (a sign of the resurrection), returned to the stand and extinguished.

permalink Ω 2 April 2005, Helsinki

The Fifth Horseman

You know those dreams that come for you in the middle of the night, the ones that give you the sweats and make you think that the end of the world is nigh after watching Leonard Nimoy's Bilbo Baggins video [google for it at your own peril]? William Shatner, the posterboy for has been TV stars, is reportedly going to be releasing an album with Ben Folds this Autumn. If Common People is any indication of what we can expect to find on the finished album, maybe there's a fifth horseman whose name noone dares speak for fear of losing heaps of cash from sappy 30-50-somethings; Nostalgia. Gotta love the aptly named album: Has Been. What is it about has been b-rate Trek actors who won't die quietly and the gushing over old, bad TV that seems to be all the rage now? It's a sign - a bad one. Bush is gonna win in November, so avast all ye who are still in denial and escape while you still can. I blame pudge for the bad news.

permalink Ω 25 July 2004, Helsinki

The Weird Als of Finland

Finland has a dance called the humppa, but it's spoken of with the same disdain that disco gets in the US these days. It's for the geezers. I have been told it is something like the German polka only without the lederhosen, which is good since I'm half German and, after a few Straßenfests where people jump around in lederhosen with buckets of beer in their hands barely able to stand up, much less dance, the costumes just don't really add much to the overall aesthetic. I had a biology professor, a Bavarian who was really into opera singing, show up for a lecture in lederhosen and dance a polka for us while we sat there speechless. Everyone thought he was nuts, but I just thought he was hopelessly homesick and I couldn't imagine him doing that dance without the full costume in his usually disheveled professor uniform. I have been spared, so far, the spectacle of drunk Finns hopping around much like drunk Germans to goofy music. So far.

While we were off at the lake for Juhannus, my ear picked up something that sounded a lot like Viva Las Vegas but....not. I was informed that it was a group called Eläkeläiset [the pensioners] who are the humppa song gods in Finland and, well, everywhere else people like to humppa. I fried a few neurons just thinking about an Elvis tune done in humpaa/polka time. I can't describe their music except to say that they are the Weird Al Yankovics of Finland. Sample the Peljätty Humppa [2.2mb] and try to guess the song they are covering and be very, very afraid. It's like Ethyl Merman singing a disco version of No Business like Show Business [yes, she really did...], as it's so bad that it transcends the badness and is irresistibly brilliant. I must have more of their music. The guys actually have a regular band, Kumikameli, but I can't really tell the difference between the samples on that web site and the humppa music so it may be just a nuance only a Finn can hear. :) The lyrics are very clever and, unsurprisingly, the music is popular with the polka loving Germans. There even seems to be an OpenBSD-Humppa connection which does help explain a few things about OpenBSD. Weird Al has done a polka album so perhaps it is time he teamed up with Eläkeläiset and did a humppa album. Disturbing thought. *zot* There went another neuron.

permalink Ω 1 July 2004, Helsinki

Hit the road Ray and dontcha come back no more

Ray Charles is dead. His music is timeless, unlike most of the forgettable music of the 80s, 90s and today. Of the few things that might make me feel proud of the country I have disowned, Ray Charles and his music are at the top of the list. I'm sure even the aliens who find the Voyager probe message and listen to his music on the disc will enjoy it. He may be gone, but hopefully we'll always have his music. So long Ray, and thanks for making the world a better place just by having had you in it.

permalink Ω 14 June 2004, Helsinki

Mita sina sanoa?

In Wednesday's sanomat I saw the picture and article about Pizza Enrico. I couldn't read all of the article but I got the impression from the photo that either Colonel Sander's grandson wearing a gold lamé jacket was visiting Helsinki while drunk or that lounge singers were making a comeback. I was partly right :)

Meet the boys from Vantaa who are Pizza Enrico. The joke is that most, if not all, the pizza kebab joints in town are owned and operated by Turkish guys. The same is true in Boston except they seem to be Pakistani, but I digress. What started out as a joke has apparently mushroomed into a full album. They also take a bit of glee from ribbing the Turks on their bad Finnish by making flagrant use of it on the website and in the lyrics. :) After listening to the Club Mix of Mita sina sanoa? I find that I have a sudden craving for kebab. You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll kiss far too many euro good-bye!

permalink Ω 11 December 2003, Helsinki

Lumen Valo

Jarkko introduced me to Lumen Valo a few years ago. Their name is something of a pun since Lumen means light in Latin and Valo the same in Finnish :) We got a copy of their most recent album, Gravity, last night and it is utterly outstanding. It was performed and recorded in a church which really gives it an ethereal quality. As a 'recovering Catholic' I continue to find it odd that this genre of music still gets to me in a way I cannot quite explain. :)

permalink Ω 12 June 2003, Helsinki

Koopanova

I discovered a new artist the other day after hearing a brief clip of "Waltz for Koop" and hunted it down; Koop. If you like Jazzanova then you'll want to check them out.

permalink Ω 12 January 2003, Helsinki

Ouside wants in too

Fans of John Mayer will be happy to see that he's re-releasing his first album Inside Wants Out. It contains several acoustic versions of songs on Room for Squares as well as some new songs.

permalink Ω 1 September 2002, Helsinki

A different DOS

After a long period of watching and waiting the Supreme Beings of Leisure have finally rewarded us with Divine Operating System to be released on 10 September. Any group who can do groovy dance music with a sitar is, at the very least, innovative and Geri Soriano-Lightwood's voice is as gorgeous as she is :)

permalink Ω 26 August 2002, Helsinki

Elvis on Bravo

Bravo is going to have Elvis Costello, the most important and versatile artist in the last 50 years, on Musicians on Monday, 29 April. His new album, When I was Cruel will be in stores tomorrow. He sounds as good today as he did when I bought my first album of his on vinyl in 1976. I keep hoping he gets together with João Gilberto before he dies to record some awesome Bossa Nova as it's about the only thing he hasn't tried. :)

permalink Ω 22 April 2002, Helsinki

Room for Squares

It's not very often I gush over newly discovered music or musicians since I find my old reliables from the 70s and 80s still churn out excellent music but....I recently saw a guy on the Conan O'Brien show who caught my attention. No small feat since the TV is usually just white noise that I easily ignore. I heard the same song on the radio not long afterwards and remembered his name so I could order the album online. His name is John Mayer and the album is as amazing to me as my first Elvis Costello album in 1978. The lyrics are terrific too. From No Such Thing:

"So the good boys and girls take the so called right track
Faded white hats
Grabbing credits
Maybe transfers
They read all the books but they can't find the answers
And all of our parents
They're getting older
I wonder if they've wished for anything better
While in their memories
Tiny tragedies

They love to tell you
Stay inside the lines
But something's better
On the other side

His voice is luscious. He's a superstar.

permalink Ω 9 January 2002, Helsinki

Duck and cover with your yuletide lover...

Since pudge stuck the Venture's Christmas songs in my head all day long I've no choice now but to retaliate. The following is one of my all-time favourite christmas songs, especially this year. It's a classic and even more amusing when you consider that it has been suggested that Larry and Weird Al are the same person :)

Christmas At Ground Zero by Al Yankovic [ Holly Jolly Christmas tune ] It's Christmas at Ground Zero
There's music in the air
The sleigh bells are ringin' and the carolers are singin'
While the air raid sirens blare

It's Christmas at Ground Zero
The button has been pressed
The radio just let us know
That this is not a test

Everywhere the atom bombs are droppin'
It's the end of all humanity
No more time for last minute shoppin'
It's time to face your final destiny

Well, it's Christmas at Ground Zero
There's panic in the crowd
We can dodge debris while we trim the tree
Underneath a mushroom cloud

(siren)

You might hear some reindeer on your rooftop
Or Jack Frost on your windowsill
But if someone's climbin' down your chimney
You better load your gun and shoot to kill

Oh, it's Christmas at Ground Zero
And if the radiation level's okay
I'll go out with you and see the all new
Mutations on New Year's Day

It's Christmas at Ground Zero
Just seconds left to go
I'll duck and cover with my yuletide lover
Underneath the mistletoe

It's Christmas at Ground Zero
Now the missiles are on their way
What a crazy fluke we're gonna get nuked
On this jolly holiday
What a crazy fluke we're gonna get nuked
On this jolly holiday

(siren)

permalink Ω 17 December 2001, Helsinki

Hail! Hail! Rock 'n Roll

Chuck Berry is 75 years old! I remember camping out with friends in 1986 to get tickets for a show at the Fox Theater to see him live. It was a sensational show and the movie didn't do it justice.

I grew up in St. Louis or rather, the very white affluent suburb that would later be called Chesterfield in West St. Louis County and it frequently fascinated me that a city, so well known for its racial segregation, would be home to so many famous and revered black musicians and entertainers such as Chuck Berry. The St. Louis Walk of Fame was created by Joe Edwards to honor and remember many talented St. Louisans. The Walk of Fame was my first web page project in 1993 when I was bored and wustl.edu was hosting the first 'official' St. Louis homepage and it needed content. So, armed with an SE/30, a B&W scanner and a friend less graphically challenged than me, I scanned about 1 photo an hour and created a simple web site. Joe seemed to be skeptical of the web at the time since few seemed to know about it or care, but in 1997 I gave a group of people he hired all the files I had and they snazzed it up into what it is now.

Joe Edwards is king in U. City. He started out with a little bar in The Loop, a crime ridden section of town, in 1973 called Blueberry Hill, a wonderful bar that a lot of students from Washington U. would frequent and where I bartended for a while to supplement my paltry research salary and eat once in a while. He has since revitalised the Loop with restoring the Tivoli, the Walk of Fame, various other projects and now The Pageant right across Skinker in St. Louis proper [ read 3am liquor license ]. Joe is the Bill Gates of the U. City Loop, some love him, some hate him. He works harder than any human I've ever met and whether or not he has a monopoly on the loop, what he has made of it can't be wrong as I have no doubt it would still be a forlorn slum had it not been for him. I miss this part of St. Louis since Boston doesn't have anything like it that I'm aware of. It had a good pub, theater, bookstores and a variety of international food all within walking distance of the U. and it had a cozy feel to it. Harvard Sq. just seems like a cross between a eurotrash shopping mall and a tourist trap.

I miss Blueberry Hill as they still have the best soup in town and before my butt can hit the seat at the rail, I have a drink waiting. And the regular crowd is still the regular crowd. Chuck Berry was and still is a regular feature in Blueberry Hill. I miss getting the coveted slot down in the Elvis Room bar pouring drinks and watching the show. Even now, the man is an incredible entertainer and is also courteous and polite. His 'entourage' of family and friends are also part of the show as they are so well dressed and colourful they make you feel like you didn't dress for the event. So, Hail to Chuck Berry, long may he entertain and hopefully I'll get back to the Hill soon to catch a show, and go to the Tivoli and .....damn, now I've managed to make myself homesick.

permalink Ω 20 October 2001, Helsinki