Lord of the Inaugural Dance: Surprising musical subtexts at Barack Obama's inauguration

Barack Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration was truly disturbing to many of us. His policies regarding gays, his willingness to say publicly that Jews will go to Hell -- no doubt Pagans are even more fervently consigned to everlasting horror -- these made him unacceptable. Recently it has come out that his stealth plan for pushing his worldwide Christian agenda is coupled with a public admiration of the effectiveness of Hitlerjugen (Hitler Youth). Warren's links with the dominionist Joel's Army likewise make his official presence even more appalling. Don't bow your head and close your eyes around this man. Keep your head up, your eyes open, and your mind open and questioning.

Warren's leading of the 23rd Psalm was something I didn't have problems with. Some of us also have a Lord whose rod and staff is comforting, though that Lord may have antlers.

Yet all thought of that dissolved with the premiere performance of "Air and Simple Gifts", composed by John Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, Gabriela Montero and Itzhak Perlmen. Tim Smith of the Baltimore Sun discusses piece's roots in the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" and the Aaron Copland version that many are familiar with. Smith takes it deeper in its political significance:

The "air" at the start of the roughly four-minute piece strikes a sober note, as if to recall the many challenges facing the country. The soft, slow, rather bittersweet theme, begun by the violin and soon picked up cello and piano, gives way to another, very familiar melody from the clarinet -- the gently uplifting Shaker hymn, "Simple Gifts," which was used so indelibly by Aaron Copland in his 1944 ballet score Appalachian Spring. Williams quotes that passage almost verbatim, and goes on to put the hymn tune through a very Coplandesque treatment before bringing the mood back down to earth with the opening material.

Although Williams chose to use the Copland material because President Obama counts that composer among his classical favorites, there's another significant point here. In 1953, a pre-inaugural concert by the National Symphony Orchestra at Constitution Hall, a concert attended by then president-elect Eisenhower, was to have included a performance of one of Copland's most popular works, A Lincoln Portrait. But a Republican congressman (from Illinois, by the way) objected, suggesting that Copland was too liberal and maybe even Communist-friendly, so the piece was pulled from the concert. Inserting the touch of Copland into the Obama inauguration, Williams told Variety last week, offers "a completed circle of events that is nice to think about."

The music went further up and further in for Pagans, who know the traditional tune as that of the Pagan "filk" song (authors often uncredited) based on Sydney Carter's song "The Lord of the Dance." The Pagan version is often sung in a minor key, which I think enhances its power.

Lord of the Dance (Pagan)

When She danced on the water and the wind was Her horn
The Lady danced and a universe was born
And when She lit the sun and the light gave Him birth
The Lord of the Dance first appeared on the Earth

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He
I'll live in you if you'll live in Me
And I'll lead you all in the dance, said He

I dance in the circle and the flames leap on high
I dance in the fire and I never, never die
I dance on the waves of the bright summer sea
For I am the Lord of the waves' mystery

I sleep in the kernel and I laugh at the rain
I dance in the wind and through the waving grain
When you cut me down, I care nothing for the pain
In the spring, I'm the Lord of the Dance once again

I dance at the Sabbat when you dance at the spell
I dance and sing that everyone be well
When the dancing's over, do not think that I am gone
To live is to dance so I dance on and on

The Lord and the Lady cast a song across the plain
The birds took the notes and sang them back again
'Til the sound of Her music was the song of the sky
And to that song, there is one reply

They danced in the darkness and They danced in the night
They danced on the Earth and everything was light
They danced in the darkness and They danced in the dawn
And the day of the dancing still goes on

I gaze on the Heavens and I gaze on the Earth
And I feel the pain of dying and rebirth
And I lift my head in gladness and in praise of the day
For the Dance of the Lord and the Lady gay

I see the maidens laughing as they dance in the sun
And we count the fruits of the harvest one by one
We know the storm is coming, but the grain is all stored
So we sing to the praise of the Lady and the Lord

We dance even slower as the leaves fall and spin
And the sound of Her horn is the wailing of the wind
The call of the Hunter as He rides across the plain
While the Lady sleeps 'til the spring comes again

The Sun is in the southlands and the winds they will chill
And the sound of Her horn is fading on the hill
The herd stands in the stillness as we move in a trance
But we hold on fast to our faith in the Dance

The Sun's in the southlands and the days lengthen fast
And soon we will sing of the winter that is past
But now light the candles and rejoice as they burn
We dance the Dance of the Sun's return

The snow is slowly melting and the clouds bring the rain
The Lady wakes, for the spring has come again
We dance in the meadows and we dance in the groves
And rejoice in the Lord's and the Lady's love

Ironically, Sydney Carter described the song as "a carol -- a dancing kind of song, the life of which is in the dance as much as in the verbal statement." Perhaps Carter was unaware that the earliest senses of the word "carol" refer to a ring dance, and before that to the ring of stones at Stonehenge. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the early usage from the 14th and 15th century:
II. A ring, and related senses. (perh. ought to be I.)
† 4. A ring or circle, e.g. of standing stones.
[All these instances refer to Stonehenge, also called the Giants’ Dance; cf. quot. 1865 in sense 1; but Du Cange has instances of a very different kind, e.g. ‘Unum annulum cum saphyro magno, et karola in circuitu 7 lapidum et 8 perlarum’.]
1330 R. Brunne Chron. Wace in Hearne Pref. R.B. 194 þis Bretons renged about Þe feld, þe karole of the stones be~held, Many tyme _ede Þam about.Ibid. 195 Whan he had gon alle aboute Within Þe karole & withoute.c1470 Harding Chron. lxx. x, Within [the] Giauntes Carole, that so ther hight, The [Stone hengles] that nowe so named been.

Background on Lord of the Dance versions:

Gary McGath
http://www.mv.com/ipusers/mcgath/lotd.html

Lord of the Dance FAQ
http://www.stainer.co.uk/lotd.html

The inauguration ended with a surprising musical reference, in the benediction by the Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder with Martin Luther King Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His quotation from the solemn and moving "Lift Every Voice And Sing," (sometimes known as the Negro National Anthem") might have been expected.

But his "help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right" that was an unexpected gift. As far as I recall, these lines were a sixties variation on the earlier song "Black, Brown and White" by blues artist Big Bill Broonzy. The 1945 song was a scathing indictment of the Jim Crow laws. Steve Horowitz notes,

"Broonzy grew up in the Deep South and headed to Chicago to avoid Jim Crow’s deepest stings. Big Bill introduces his composition “Black, Brown and White” with a monologue about his family. His kids won’t travel South because of racial prejudice. Broonzy blames discrimination on poverty, “It’s just po’ people,” but notes that racism occurs in the North just as well. This tune itself serves as interesting example of bigotry as he wrote it in 1945, but his record company wouldn’t let him record it for over five years because of its explicit views on the situation of race attitudes in America."

This little song that i'm singin' about,
People you know it's true
If you're black and gotta work for a living,
This is what they will say to you,
They says, "if you was white, should be all right,
If you was brown, stick around,
But as you's black, hmm brother, get back, get back, get back"
I was in a place one night
They was all having fun
They was all buyin' beer and wine,
But they would not sell me none
They said, "if you was white, should be all right,
If you was brown, stick around,
But if you black, hmm brother, get back, get back, get back"
Me and a man was workin' side by side
This is what it meant
They was paying him a dollar an hour,
And they was paying me fifty cent
They said, "if you was white, 't should be all right,
If you was brown, could stick around,
But as you black, hmm boy, get back, get back, get back
I went to an employment office,
Got a number 'n' i got in line
They called everybody's number,
But they never did call mine
They said, "if you was white, should be all right,
If you was brown, could stick around,
But as you black, hmm brother, get back, get back, get back"
I hope when sweet victory,
With my plough and hoe
Now i want you to tell me brother,
What you gonna do about the old jim crow?
Now if you was white, should be all right,
If you was brown, could stick around,
But if you black, whoa brother, get back, get back, get back"

Maybe Gil Scott-Heron was wrong. Maybe the revolution will be -- was -- televised after all.

May there be blessings and protection for Barack Obama. May he provide the leadership our country, and our world, so desperately needs in this difficult time.

Carol Maltby

Witches in Opera

Operacadabra!

From Purcell to Wagner to Sondheim, opera-makers have never been able to resist a witch. Philip Hensher looks at the eternal appeal of the black-hatted hag

July 11, 2008 The Guardian

Article

Pseudo-Elizabethan Placename Generator

Blearybarrow Snitterel Snapemore Babbingporte Ashead
Lindfield Locktonleigh Newdery Umbermount Wodeney
Huttonhope Cuddonshaw Woltonston Marshbrygg Foggford
Cravenlocke Throckstin Swainsreagh Marhearst Wolfdenwocky
Fishstocke Cheddarswich Follygrass Listerfork Cassyden
Wintergill Asplinchase Barmfens Beldansridge Colbyham
Crowsteeple Pinchcourse Brokesheaf Complincliff Augurland
Waldewake Bacuplark Deeringwedge Faldoveldt Winklebury

Et cetera.

Forget that you can hear the nearby bulldozers knocking down the homes of little woodland creatures, to be replaced by developments like "Quail Run" named after little woodland creatures they've replaced. Flee to the imagined past of The Olde Country. When my children were small, on the way to our occasional vacations in Bath, I'd sing to them when we passed the sign for Nimlet,

We go to the hamlet of Nimlet
Go to the hamlet of Nimlet
Go to the hamlet
Eat egglets and spamlets
Go to the hamlet of Nimlet

(It's folk music, dammit, it doesn't have to be brilliant, and I'm not Brightshadow) :)

Moby Click by David Rothenberg

[Terra Nova] • Last month I told the tale of one scientist who thought my idea of learning the music of whales by playing along with them was the worst kind of egotistical folly. But recently I met a scientist with quite a different approach.

Michel Andre is one of the world's great experts on the acoustics of the sperm whale. He had long been vexed by the problem of how to tell one whale from another when recording a cacophony of clicking noises made by groups of these Moby Dick-type whales foraging under water.

Andre heard layers of overlapping rhythms that made no sense to him. He remembered that European musicologists, when first visiting Africa, could not understand how the large groups of drummers in countries like Senegal could keep their own part going in the midst of so many other contradictory beats. In fact these drummers have maintained their own signature rhythms in the din of the crowd since childhood. From these years of practice, each drummer knows how his pattern sings out in the spaces between all the other patterns. You must be an expert in the discernment of rhythms to successfully play this music.

With this in mind, Andre invited a Senegalese drummer, Arona N'Diaye Rose, to listen to his recording of a four-member unit of vocalizing sperm whales. The sabar master was immediately able to distinguish the beat of each of the four clicking whales from the others. He also believed that what the scientists heard as cacophony was actually an organized rhythm, based on a dominant beat coming from one of the whales, which Rose felt was analogous to the signature rhythms marking the social structure of an African tribe.

"I couldn't believe it," said Andre to me at a café in Barcelona last week, close to his laboratory. "We knew there were four whales because we took notes during the recording, but all we heard was a confusion of clicks. I asked Arona how he could tell there were four different animals. He said 'I don't know how – but I know.'"

Since that listening session ten years ago, Andre has been seeking funding to continue his research. But his story is the same as I've heard from many scientists: it is invariably difficult to get support for descriptive work. Applied science, especially work towards managing whale "stocks" or populations, is always easier to fund. An approach that combines biology with music – for all its intercultural promise – is the hardest to support. Should the funders be research agencies or cultural exchange groups? Neither wants to touch anything so firmly on the charged border between one approach and the next.

Andre has been developing more mathematically rigorous, or "objective," ways of categorizing whale clicks. Building this system is a prelude to being able to study the relationship between clicks that come from different whales with greater accuracy. It would also be a method that takes account of the precise rhythm that goes on between the clicks, how they fit into a larger patterned context. This complexity is what Rose heard in the recordings, and Andre feels we should not ignore it.

"We need to study the whales' perception, not our own perception," he said. "Scientists are more used to counting, so we count. We have to learn from the insights of polyrhythmic drumming to perceive the value of rhythm at work in the clicks themselves." So at the same time as trying out wild ideas, like collaborating with drummers, Andre is also applying more sophisticated mathematics, for more rigorous results.

Andre believes it is the relationship between the clicks that is most important. He also thinks that "reading" the clicks as music might help figure out what's really happening. But it's going to take musicians, scientists, and whales spending a whole lot of time together to get meaningful results.

"Sure, it's subjective if a drummer just listens once," said Andre. "But if I ever get to work with Rose for several months at a time, learning his perception and his approach toward analyzing the combinations, then I hope to learn something of his rhythmic intelligence that has been passed down through many generations. Yet we still don't have the funding to bring a drum master onto our team. Rose was certainly on to something. He immediately sensed an organization to these whale sounds that none of us in my lab could hear."

Perhaps one day the powers that grant funds to make science possible might see fit to support musicians and scientists working together more deeply. But at the moment, only about ten people in the world have even the slightest understanding of the code-like tappings produced by these legendary, mammoth beasts. How will we figure them out? The problem with whale science is the same as the problem Brian Eno pointed years ago regarding digital communication: "It's got to have more Africa in it."


Michel Andre's websites:

http://www.lab.upc.es/
http://www.sonsdemar.eu/

Source: Reality Sandwich

Thanks to The Daily Grail