Author: artsyhonker

Cheerful Voices: She moved through the fair

Byartsyhonker December 18, 2013 0 Comments
My young love said to me, "My mother won't mind And my father won't slight you for your lack of kine" And she stepped away from me and this she did say: It will not be long, love, till our wedding day." As she stepped away from me and she moved through the fair And fondly I watched her move here and move there And then she turned homeward with one star awake Like the swan in the evening moves...

O Adonai

Byartsyhonker December 17, 2013 0 Comments
O Antiphons by Kathryn Rose O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento. (English:) O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm. The photograph is from St Catherine's...

Cheerful Voices: The Song of the Vineyard

Byartsyhonker December 17, 2013 0 Comments
Cheerful Voices by Kathryn Rose My truelove had a vineyard upon a hill so high, He dug the ground and planted the best that you can buy, He hollowed out a winepress and built a wall and tower; At harvest-time he gathered but every grape was sour. Now find the guilty party, you masters of the law; My truelove in his vineyard could not have laboured more. A vineyard so ungrateful with grapes so...

O Sapientia

Byartsyhonker December 16, 2013 1 Comment
The "O" Antiphons are traditionally sung with the Magnificat starting on 17th December (Roman use) or 16th December (Book of Common Prayer). I like the BCP use, so I start today. O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviter disponens que omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae. (English:) O Wisdom, which camest out of the mouth of the most...

Cheerful Voices: There was an old woman who had a little pig

Byartsyhonker December 16, 2013 0 Comments
Cheerful Voices by Kathryn Rose My grandfather used to sing this to me. He sang a sort of postlude, too, to a different tune which I have now forgotten. I don't know why pig mortality was something my grandfather was singing to me about, or indeed whether two grown-ups dying of broken hearts is really appropriate material for a four-year-old, but I don't remember it bothering me at all. Some of...

Gaudete

Byartsyhonker December 15, 2013 0 Comments
First a little music -- the second track from my album, Cheerful voices, available at Bandcamp. As I've written there: This carol is from the Piae Cantiones, a cllection of Scandinavian sacred music published in 1582. Only the music for the chorus is given; the traditional tune for the verses is taken from other songs from around that time. Thanks to Ruth Moss for the English half of the chorus....

Cheerful voices: As pants the hart

Byartsyhonker December 14, 2013 0 Comments
This anonymous piece is one of my favourite settings of Psalm 42. I know it from playing and singing with London Gallery Quire, though I've recorded one more verse than we usually sing in order to better portray the hopeful tone of the psalm near the end. The setting is edited by Dr Francis Roads. Psalm 42 is the sort of thing that many people think of as a bit miserable. It is a psalm of crying...

St Lucy, and another Ember Day during Advent

Byartsyhonker December 13, 2013 0 Comments
Another Ember Day today. They come in threes, you see. On Wednesday I found the spray I used kept flaking off an irritating my throat. Not good. So today I've used some hair gel I had lying around, and mixed in some red food dye powder from the Turkish shop next door, as well as some talcum powder to thicken the mixture. It has made a more brilliant red than before, and isn't irritating my...

Liturgical hair: Ember Day during Advent

Byartsyhonker December 11, 2013 0 Comments
So far in Advent I've been puprle, purple, and purple. There have been a few optional white days for various saints, but they aren't ones we normally keep at St Andrew's. Today is what is known as an Ember Day, and I thought I'd do some red spray-on stripes to highlight it. According to Wikipedia, Ember days are four separate sets of three days within the same week — specifically, the...

Liturgical Hair: Advent I

Byartsyhonker December 1, 2013 2 Comments
The liturgical hair thing has not started all that well, though it could have been worse, I suppose. I started by cutting the very ends of my hair off. These bits would have too much henna in them, I thought, to bleach well. Then came bleaching: well, I missed a bit, but also it became apparent that the henna goes rather further up my hair than I had thought. When I went to put purple in my hair...