I have been obsessing on the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882) as I reported in yesterday’s blog. Sorry about this but Rossetti’s poem The Blessed Damozel (1850), new to me until this week, has continued to play around in my head. I read it at one of my regular online poetry events the other day and thought I would just have to get it out of my system by recording myself reading it here in my room.

The Blessed Damozel is dead. She has been in what the poet imagines as Heaven for ten years now leaving him, her bereft lover, on Earth pining for her. She is pining too even though she is meant to be in a state of bliss. She looks over the golden balcony of Heaven down to Earth and hopes (and prays) that her love will come soon to join her because then they will be able to continue their Earthly passion in Paradise.  She looks forward to the totally impossible time when she and her lover will fulfil their erotic desires in the garden Paradise protected, even more inprobably, by the Virgin Mary herself.  The Damozel imagines this reunited life just like any heart-broken lover down here on Earth. The poet, I think, does not really believe this literally of course but he succeeds in showing the power of love and romantic passion even in some imagined unattainable eternal bliss.  He was much influenced by Dante’s La Vita Nuova (1295). Dante, of course, knew all about thr soul’s suffering in both Heaven and Hell.   Rossetti worked on this poem for over twenty years and then made a painting of it too – also called The Blessed Damozel (1875 – 1878) – where the Damazel has lost her golden hair for pure Pre-Raphaelite auburn. Her lover, the poet, lies moodily gazing up towards Heaven from a lyrically beautiful English woodland.

Anyway, here it is – recorded yesterday here in the recording studio that is my desktop computer at home in Lewes, UK. I hope you get at least some of its haunting Romantic flavour.

The post Reading Rossetti’s poem, The Blessed Damozel, a Pre-Raphaelite moment here in Lewes. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

The poem, apparently famous, was new to me and I was immediately drawn to its theme of the, now dead, beautiful love-lorn maiden leaning over the balcony of Heaven hoping that her lover will join her up there where they could continue their very physical relationship. It is a headily exotic piece of mystical eroticism, one of the Pre-Raphaelites classic themes. The young Rossetti is the bereaved young man witnessing what seems like an erotic and slightly irreligious dream of his lost love. This young man’s fantasy drew the piece to the testosterone-charged Claude Debussy who was in his mid-twenties when he wrote his music.   Here are two excepts from the poem to give you some idea of what I mean.

The Blessed Damozel

by Dante Gabriel RossettiThe blessed damozel lean’d out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters still’d at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,The Blessed
But a white rose of Mary’s gift,
For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

*

Around her, lovers, newly met
‘Mid deathless love’s acclaims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their heart-remember’d names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bow’d herself and stoop’d
Out of the circling charm;
Until her bosom must have made
The bar she lean’d on warm,
And the lilies lay as if asleep
Along her bended arm.

 

I was, of course,  pursuing my slightly obsessive journey through the history of classical music in chronological order from the year 1100 onwards (begun fifteen years ago) and now reaching the year 1887.  Listening to Debussy’s first musical masterpiece, La Damoiselle élue (1887/88), opened my ears to a new era and, maybe for the first time on this project, showed me the dawning of the 20th Century. I have tried over the years to block out memories of any music written after the date currently studied but now that I’m nearing the end of the line (I’m finishing in 1897 with the death of Johannes Brahms), I can’t help but hear how Debussy would flower into one of the early geniuses of ‘modern’ music. It was also a thrilling return to one of my favourite composers, long missed over the 15 years. If you want to see what I mean, you can hear an except from the piece at the bottom of this page,taken from the inspiring CD with Esa Pekka Salonen conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I can’t stop playing it. It’s true that you can hear the influence of Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883)  and, one of Debussy’s teachers, Cesar Franck (1822 – 1890), as well as sweetly sensuous echoes of music of Jules Massenet (1842 – 1912), especially his opera, Manon (1884), but the intangibly physical mysticism, and the pure sexiness of Debussy’s later work is already here. No wonder his conservatoire teachers warned him “He should be beware of this vague Impressionism which is one of the most dangerous enemies of artistic truth.” How right they were without realising it.

Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918) as a young man

So I have reached the year 1887 and I can feel the earth shift beneath my feet. There are new kids on the block and there’s no denying that this new generation of composers, learning from the past, would change the future of music. Until now, I hadn’t realised that three composers, in particular, all born within a couple of years of each other, formed, almost single-handedly, the voice of the next great period of classical music. They were, of course, Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918), Gustav Mahler (1860  – 1911) and Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949). My listening list for 1887 – 1888 included not only Debussy’s first masterpiece but also Strauss’ first symphonic poem, the wonderfully confident Aus Italien, and Mahler’s exciting Symphony No. 1. Hang onto your seats, music lovers, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

 

 

Gustav Mahler (1860 – 1911) as a young man

 

 

Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949) as a young man

So one young man’s poem led me to the work of three more young men but from a very different era – thank you Dante Gabriel Rossetti for your own work but also for inspiring this young French maverick to invent his own way forward. When still a student, he was rebuked for disregarding time honoured compositional traditions. ‘What rule do you follow?’ asked the bemused conservatoire Registrar. ‘My pleasure,’ young Claude replied. It has become our pleasure too. Here is the opening of La Damoiselle élue. Something for the weekend, I suggest.

The post Rossetti’s The Blessed Damozel inspires the eroticism of a young Claude Debussy and a new era is born. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

In The Bleak Midwinter (1872)

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Christina Rossetti

It has been set to music several times but,  for me, the most beautiful version is the one by Gustav Holst (1874-1934) written in 1906. Holst, in spite of his name and German ancestry, was as English as the Italian descended Rossetti siblings so what better than to hear their work performed by, who else, the choir of King’s College, Cambridge. It might all be very English but it travels very neatly too.

——————————————————————————————————–

STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love

COLIN BELL’S PUBLICATIONS:

Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love
Ward Wood Publishing
October 30, 2013

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm

Genius Floored: Uncurtained Window
Soaring Penguin Press
June 15, 2013
Poetry anthology

http://www.soaringpenguinpress.com/publications/poetry/genius-floored-whispers-in-smoke/

Genius Floored: Whispers in Smoke
Soaring Penguin Press
June 6, 2014
Poetry anthology

http://www.soaringpenguinpress.com/publications/poetry/genius-floored-whispers-in-smoke/

Reaching Out
Cinnamon Press
December 2012
Poetry and short story anthology

http://www.cinnamonpress.com/product-item/reaching-out/

Tic Toc
A Kind Of A Hurricane Press
June 2014
Poetry anthology

http://www.kindofahurricanepress.com/2014/06/tic-toc-is-now-available.html

The Blotter
The Blotter Magazine Inc.
November 2009
Three pages of poetry in the American South’s unique, free, international literature and arts magazine.

http://www.blotterrag.com/back-issues/2009-11.pdf

The Fib Review
Musepie Press
My Fibonacci poetry has appeared in this journal from 2009 until the present

http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/writers.html

Shot Glass Journal
Muse Pie Press
My poetry has appeared in various issues of this short form poetry journal

http://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/writers.html

Every Day Poets Magazine
Every Day Poets
I have various poems of the day published in this 365 days a year poetry magazine.

http://www.everydaypoets.com/?s=Colin+Bell

In The Night Count The Stars
Bittersweet Editions
March 1, 2014
An “uncommon anthology” of images, fragments, stories and poetry.

http://www.bittersweeteditions.com/in-the-night-count-the-stars.html#%2EU8ZFXY1dXoo

The post In the bleak midwinter – time to remember the Rossettis and Gustav Holst appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

I went to the  “Pre-Raphaelites, Victorian Avant-Garde,” Tate Britain’s Pre-Raphaelite exhibition last weekend and the face that stays with me is that of Jane Morris, the wife of William Morris, the artist and textile designer who was one of the younger members of the Pre-Raphaelites. she was also, probably, the mistress of Gabriel Dante Rossetti, one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and, one of its most influential theorists too in creating the school of painting that mixed modern day realism with pre-Renaissance symbolism. Unwittingly, he also inspired “the look” that wowed Bohemian London in the second half of the 19th Century, a look that is still emulated today. Looking at her paintings, it is not difficult to see why. Jane Morris modeled for both artists, remained married to William but also friends with Rossetti who, in a series of sensationally languid paintings, immortalised this mysteriously alluring woman. Rossetti was also inspired to write poetry about the woman who was one of  “The” faces of the late 19th. Century. His poem Astarte Syriaca, a companion piece to his painting of the same name, is about the Syrian Goddess equivalent of the classical goddess Venus.

Astarte Syriaca

Mystery: lo! betwixt the sun and moon
Astarte of the Syrians: Venus Queen
Ere Aphrodite was. In silver sheen
Her twofold girdle clasps the infinite boon
Of bliss of the heaven and earth commune:
And from her neck’s inclining flower-stem lean
Love-freighted lips and absolute eyes that wean
The pulse of hearts to the spheres’ dominant tune.

Torch-bearing, her sweet ministers compel
All thrones of light beyond the sky and sea
The witnesses of Beauty’s face to be:
That face, of Love’s all-penetrative spell
Amulet, talisman, and oracle,
Betwixt the sun and moon a mystery.

Gabriel Dante Rossetti

Jane Morris appears again throughout the Tate’s exhibition but, another of my favourites is Rossetti’s La Pia, based on the story, in Dante’s Purgatorio, of the sad woman, ill-treated by her husband, who died without absolution and thus, in Dante’s rather unforgiving world view, has to languish in Purgatory. It was a role ideally suited to Jane’s melancholy and to Rossetti’s love of ethereal femininity – ethereal with a large dose of sensuality. Rossetti seems to have realized that he was giving Jane a form of immortality when he wrote about one of his portraits of her. He wasn’t wrong.


From The Portrait by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

This is her picture as she was:
It seems a thing to wonder on,
As though mine image in the glass
Should tarry when myself am gone.
I gaze until she seems to stir,—
Until mine eyes almost aver
That now, even now, the sweet lips part
To breathe the words of the sweet heart:—
And yet the earth is over her.

Jane was born into a working class family in Oxford and was “discovered” by Rossetti and his young friend Edward Burne-Jones and asked to model for them. She modelled too for William Morris who fell in love and married her. Married to Morris, she began her education and became a skilled linguist 

(French and Italian) and an accomplished pianist with a wide knowledge of classical music. She was “My Fair Lady” and might well have been George Bernard Shaw’s model for his play Pygmalion. As her photograph shows, her beauty was not exaggerated in those Pre-Raphaelite paintings. She is definitely the Queen of the Tate show.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

William Morris (1834-1896)

Be sure not to miss the William Morris section at the exhibition and try to resist the snooty temptation to rate his carpets and fabrics any less than the oil paintings in the other rooms. This carpet,  the Peacock and Bird Carpet, is worth the visit in itself. It sits next to some of Edward Burne-Jones most inspired tapestries and stained glass. Those Pre-Raphaelites were multi-talented. I wonder if Jane ever got to lie on William’s carpet.

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