jazzy_dave | Thursday Musical Selection

An early start today as i will be off to Brighton for the day, and i am concerned a bot about an unaithroized access into my bank account, which i hope to resolve.

Meanwhile, some clasical music for waking up to a fine emerging sunny day.

Sergey Rachmaninov - Isle Of The Dead Symphonic Poem

This version is by the Royal Stockholm Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis.

The image is called Isle of the Dead (German: Die Toteninsel) and is the best-known painting of Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901

The Isle of the Dead is associated with pre-Christian Celtic mythology and occurs as a theme in a number of European countries. In Britain, it is thought to be either a translation of the Welsh word "Annwn" for the underworld or an extant geographical feature of Britain.
Annwn (also spelled Annwfn or Annwvyn, in Middle Welsh Annwvn, Annwyn, Annwyfn or Annwfyn) was the Otherworld in Welsh mythology. Ruled by Arawn (or, in Arthurian literature, by Gwyn ap Nudd), it was essentially a world of delights and eternal youth where disease was absent and food was ever-abundant. It became identified with the Christian afterlife in paradise (or heaven).

Middle Welsh sources suggest that the term was recognised as meaning "very deep" in medieval times.[1] The appearance of a form antumnos on an ancient Gaulish curse tablet, however, suggests that the original term may have been *ande-dubnos, a common Gallo-Brittonic word that literally meant "underworld".The pronunciation of Modern Welsh Annwn is [ˈanːʊn]

In both Welsh and Irish mythologies, the Otherworld was believed to be located either on an island or underneath the earth. In the First Branch of the Mabinogi, it is implied that Annwn is a land within Dyfed, while the context of the Arthurian poem Preiddeu Annwfn suggests an island location. Two other otherworldly feasts that occur in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi are located in Harlech in northwest Wales and on the island of Grassholm in southwestern Pembrokeshire.

Annwn plays a reasonably prominent role in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, a set of four interlinked mythological tales dating from the early medieval period. In the First Branch of the Mabinogi, entitled Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, the eponymous prince offends Arawn, ruler of Annwn, by baiting his hunting hounds on a stag that Arawn's dogs had brought down. In recompense he exchanges places with Arawn for a year and defeats Arawn's enemy Hafgan, while Arawn rules in his stead in Dyfed. During this year, Pwyll abstains from sleeping with Arawn's wife, earning himself gratitude and eternal friendship from Arawn. On his return, Pwyll becomes known by the title Penn Annwn, "Head (or Ruler) of Annwn." In the Fourth Branch, Arawn is mentioned but does not appear; it is revealed that he sent a gift of otherworldly pigs as a gift to Pwyll's son and successor, Pryderi, which ultimately leads to war between Dyfed and Gwynedd.

The similarly mythological epic poem Cad Goddeu describes a battle between Gwynedd and the forces of Annwn, led again by Arawn. It is revealed that Amaethon, nephew to Math, king of Gwynedd, stole a bitch, a lapwing and a roebuck from the Otherworld, leading to a war between the two peoples. The denizens of Annwn are depicted as bizarre and hellish creatures; these include a "wide-mawed" beast with a hundred heads and bearing a host beneath the root of its tongue and another under its neck, a hundred-clawed black-groined toad, and a "mottled ridged serpent, with a thousand souls, by their sins, tortured in the holds of its flesh". Gwydion, the Venedotian hero and magician successfully defeats Arawn's army, first by enchanting the trees to rise up and fight and then by guessing the name of the enemy hero Bran, thus winning the battle.

Preiddeu Annwfn, an early medieval poem found in the Book of Taliesin, describes a voyage led by King Arthur to the numerous otherworldy kingdoms within Annwn, either to rescue the prisoner Gweir or to retrieve the cauldron of the Head of Annwn. The narrator of the poem is possibly intended to be Taliesin himself. One line can be interpreted as implying that he received his gift of poetry or speech from a magic cauldron, as Taliesin does in other texts, and Taliesin's name is connected to a similar story in another work. The speaker relates how he journeyed with Arthur and three boatloads of men into Annwfn, but only seven returned. Annwfn is apparently referred to by several names, including "Mound Fortress," "Four-Peaked Fortress," and "Glass Fortress", though it is possible the poet intended these to be distinct places. Within the Mound Fort's walls Gweir, one of the "Three Exalted Prisoners of Britain" known from the Welsh Triads, is imprisoned in chains. The narrator then describes the cauldron of the Chief of Annwn: it is finished with pearl and will not boil a coward's food. Whatever tragedy ultimately killed all but seven of them is not clearly explained. The poem continues with an excoriation of "little men" and monks, who lack in various forms of knowledge possessed by the poet.

Over time, the role of king of Annwn was transferred to Gwyn ap Nudd, a hunter and psychopomp, who may have been the Welsh personification of winter. The Christian Vita Collen tells of Saint Collen vanquishing Gwyn and his otherworldly court from Glastonbury Tor with the use of holy water. In Culhwch and Olwen, an early Welsh Arthurian tale, it is said that God gave Gwyn ap Nudd control over the demons lest "this world be destroyed." Tradition revolves around Gwyn leading his spectral rouds, the Cwn Annwn ("Hounds of Annwn"), on his hunt for mortal souls. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annwn)

Next up,
Jean Sibelius - The Swan Of Tuonela

Version by The Berlin Philharmonic / Herbert von Karajan

Alexander Scriabin - The Poem of Ecstasy - Le Poème de l'Extase op. 54

Alexander Scriabin's "Poem of Ecstasy" op. 54 also known as his 4th symphony. It is like a long symphonic poem of about 20 minutes composed on a long (about 8 pages) epic-like poem which Scriabin wrote himself. It tells the long course of the spirit through the space, liberated from the human body (like in the "Übermensch" theory of Friederich Nietzsche).

This is the version of Pierre Boulez with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Link to the poem -
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XShpC0jpL0obuSRREZlTlIu4-z8I87-Etb7zPjIMQ6g/edit

Paintings are

Gustav Klimt : Beethovenfries : "Die Schwebenden"
Vassili Kandinsky : "Bleu de ciel"
Gustav Klimt : "Die Musik"
Vassili Kandinsky : Sketch for the "Composition VII"
Gustav Klimt : Beethovenfries : "Hymne an den Glück"
Vassili Kandinsky : "Composition VII"
Vassili Kandinsky : "Composition VI"
William Turner : "Sunset over a lake"
Vassili Kandinsky : "De courbe à courbe"
Gustav Klimt : Beethovenfries : "Die drei Gorgonen"
Vassili Kandinsky : "Improvisation Klamm"
Vassili Kandinsky : "Improvisation XII"
Caspar David Friedrich : "Frau vor untergehender Sonne"

Enjoy