Armide, 2005

I have touched on my love of French baroque music in previous posts, so this probably won’t come as any great surprise. Charpentier, unlike his contemporary and rival Lully, was most famous for his sacred works but he was no slouch when it came to writing operas either, and his version of Medee is now considered one of the pinnacles of tragedie lyrique. This concert performance comes from the beautiful theatre at Versailles, but the intensity of the performers is such that costumes and scenery seem superfluous; and if looks could kill the great Stephanie D’oustrac as Medee would be in the slammer right now!

Visions of Japan : Kawase Hasui’s masterpieces

Hasui was one of the great masters of 20th century Japanese printmaking, and his lovely works clearly exist within an older Japanese artistic tradition whilst incorporating some of the techniques and stylistic devices being brought in from the west. In many ways his landscapes and urban scenes gently document a country in transition, an almost feudal Japan slowly giving way to an inexorable 20th century.

Edward Hopper’s New England by Carl Little

I love the paintings of the great American realist Edward Hopper, and I love the idea of New England (don’t ask….) so this book is a natural. We often think of Hopper as a documenter of urban alienation, and there’s definitely some of that in these works, but the sense of luminous space he captures seems light years away from the film-noirish menace of a work like Nighthawks.

The Rocketeer: original score composed & conducted by James Horner

 

I’ve got a lot of time for film music and we’ve been building up this aspect of our audio collection for a while now, both as an adjunct to our film studies collection as well as our music collection (just search the catalogue for motion picture music). This lovely score by James Horner is quintessentially American in its feel (think Aaron Copland at his most “down-home”), and the film it accompanies is great fun as well; based on a fabulous comic book by the late, great Dave Stevens.

 

To end, click on this link for a taste of Medee, and a glare from Stephanie!