Today's post brought two new/old CDs which are clearly enough related
to poetry that I believe I may without apology make notice of them
here.
One is Troubadour & Trouvere songs: The 12th and 13th Centuries
(Music of the Middle Ages vol. 1) (Lyrichord Early Music Series LEMS
8001) by Russell Oberlin, Countertenor, and Seymour Barab, viol. This
is a CD transfer of a 1958 LP. Russell Oberlin is considered by some
the greatest of counter-tenors, and he brings a fine expressiveness
here to his material, which makes it attractive and accessible even to
those to whom it is unfamiliar. Even those have the old LP might
still want this CD, since it includes full texts of six songs by some
of the most famous Medieval poets, along with English verse
translations by Kenneth Koch. (I haven't actually listened to this CD
yet so I can't speak to the quality of the transfer from the original
LP.) Anyone who's at all into the Troubadour/Trouvere tradition will
want this CD, and anyone who's not but wants to know what it's about
will benefit from listening to it.
The other is The Fugs final cd [part 1], by of course The Fugs.
Supposedly there isn't a part 2 but they called it Part 1 because they
didn't want to feel like they'd reached the end of the road. The
Fugs work after their all-time classic first two album has been
uneven, but this is one of their better efforts, including Tuli
Kupferberg's reworking of "Teenager in Love," "Septuagenarian in
Love," and Ed Sanders's performance version of a poem by Charles
Bukowski. Will be treasured by anyone who still somewhere deep inside
has that sixties flip-the-bird faith.
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Jon Corelis www.geocities.com/jgcorelis/
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