Gorecki's 'Miserere,' An A Cappella Oasis Of Calm : Deceptive Cadence : NPR

Górecki wrote the piece in response to an incident of police brutality in the city of Bydgoszcz. It was in 1981, at the height of the conflict between the Solidarity movement and the communist government. A few months later, martial law was declared and Górecki’s music lay silent. The piece finally premiered in 1987.

Like the “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” Górecki’s Miserere is simple in its construction but not simpleminded. The entire text consists of just five words — “Domine Deus noster, Miserere nobis” (Lord our God, have mercy on us). He builds the piece slowly, in layers, beginning with low tones in the basses and eventually rising to the sopranos. The repeated phrase “Domine Deus” washes over in peaceful waves — its meditative mood about as far as you can get from a ferocious police beating.

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  • Music to Hear, Why Hears't Thou Music SadlyLadysmith Black Mambazo and Shakespeare

tragos:

I hear you asking: what would it sound like if the South African choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo (the one that sang with Paul Simon on Graceland) did a rendition of a Shakespeare sonnet?

You have your answer. Read the following sonnet (the 8th) as you listen. A “true concord of well-tuned sounds” indeed.

Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: ‘Thou single wilt prove none.

— William Shakespeare

This group was my first concert ever (5th grade!).

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  • Teenage Dream (Glee Cast Version)Glee Cast

Teenage Dream - Glee Cast (via sheasylvia)

Sis last night: I’m watching ‘Glee’ and I just heard this gorgeous song.
Me: So you called me, when you know I don’t watch the show.
Sis: Well, it’s this pretty song about a teenage dream.
Me: Yeah, that’s a Katy Perry song.
Sis: Oh. Well, this version is really pretty.

Source: lovelyandbeautiful