The Slipped Disc daily comfort zone (11)
mainThere are many versions of W B Yeats’s poem Down by the Salley Gardens, from classic to rock. I give you these as personal favourites.
Watch out for the beautiful cup of tea at the end.
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Those three versions are very fine. I am glad the rock version was not included. It is fascinating that a cup of tea could provide a viewing pleasure to moderate drinkers and teetotallers. It may be equivalent for those of us who are drinkers to take pleasure in watching Keith Floyd drinking red wine.
Auger & Britten: a perfect 3:29 meditation loop.
A wonderful poem and song. Yeats was a writer who unequivocally deserved the Nobel prize. An Irish airman foresees his death is one of the most perfect poems in English, ever.
even more touching is the setting by Ivor Gurney: recordings include Ben Luxon on Chandos and (much slower) Paul Agnew on Hyperion and Ian Partridge on Etcetera and (even slower) Nathan Vale on Somm. My favourite is on a wonderful Eigenart cd by Scot Weir. Yeats, of course wrote of the FOLLY of being comforted, set by Gurney in one of his most ambitious songs (also on the Partridge cd). Even more consolingly bitter-sweet is his setting of Belloc’s ‘Ha’naker Mill’
Ha’naker’s down and England’s done
Wind and Thistle for pipe and dancers
And never a ploughman under the Sun
Never a ploughman. Never a one.
Fascinating, thanks Norman.
There is a fantastic recording of the Britten song by Sandrine Piau and Susan Manoff. A Wonderfully moving rendition.