Come, My Lyre, My Heavenly Turtle Shell — Sing!
— Sappho, poem fragment
I already expressed my opinion about Nisbet, Mooney and all other appeasers who insist that scientific illiteracy and resistance to science would disappear if only scientists were “nicer”. I won’t waste more time or thought on them, I have far more interesting things to discuss.
My multi-talented friend Kay Holt recommended the music of composer and cellist Zoë Keating. I just finished listening to her hypnotic album Natoma. She uses her instrument as a cello, a lyre, a drum. The warm tones of the cello come across like a dark-hued human voice. The pieces bring to mind the more melodious works of Philip Glass — but equally so, the elegiac yet soaring Celtic-tinged tunes in The Last of the Mohicans and Peter Gabriel’s haunting Biko, with its interweaving of Zulu drums and Highland bagpipes.
Now if only I could find Jean Langlais’ rare Suite Folklorique, an (un)holy hybrid of full-throated organ music based on Breton folksongs, I’d be ecstatic! (Update: Found it, I think… I’ll know when the CD arrives.)
These all sound like enthralling recommendations; I’ll have to look them up. 🙂
I enjoyed the Langlais Suite, too, by the way! *smile*