Melancholic Heart
July 23, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Photo credit: Catherine Buca
Someone once asked me - of all the genres I tend to listen to - what genre really gets to me the most. I’d been thinking about that before but I never can come up with one particular genre. It just doesn’t seem right picking one. Afterwards I realized that the question is just plainly wrong to begin with. It isn’t a musical genre that might or might not get to me. It’s the mood that is portrayed by the music that can really get to me and resonate with my heart. A mood that is ignorant to genres. With this, the answer became clear. Music that feels most right to me often reveals a nostalgic feeling. Like the musical embodiment of autumn rain or old, black and white photographs. This is when I can truly be as one with the music and feel most comfortable.
Maybe I’ve just got a melancholic heart.
- Ingrid Perruche - Lento et Largo - Tranquillissimo
Górecki Symphonie No.3 (Naïve, 2005) - Grace Cathedral Park - Play Delicate, Desire Quiet
In the Evening of Regret (La Verdad, 2004) - Red House Painters - Michael
Down Colorful Hill (4AD, 1992) - Mazzy Star - Flowers in December
Among My Swan (Capitol, 1996) - The Cure - Pictures of You
Disintegration (Elektra, 1989) - Songs: Ohia - Blue Chicago Moon
Didn’t It Rain (Secretly Canadian, 2002) - Tom Waits - Fish & Bird
Alice (Anti, 2002) - David Darling - Darkwood IV: Dawn
Dark Wood (ECM, 1995) - Agitated Radio Pilot - Hold Back the Sea
Your Turn To Go It Alone (Rusted Rail, 2006)
such a nice playlist… exactly what i need and feel right now, front of my desk/computer/office in the middle of the summer…
thanks you so much
Good to hear the music selections of a fellow-melancholic. Emotion is the root of all music and the primary emotion (or prevailing Humour as the Elizabethans might have understood it) we identify in ourselves is what we seek in music. Like yearns to like.
All of my personal CD’s are geared to sleep (when it comes right down to it). This does not mean they are soporific or artificial aids to slumber but that they induce a peacefulness of mood and, invariably, a tear in the heart.
‘On wings of song’…. I float away and enter the realms of Morpheus.
It’s a preference for adagio above rondo; lento above furioso. And it explains why the slow movement is invariably the heart of the symphony. For its there that we are allowed space and time to reflect, assent (to the music), and lament the tears of things undone or impossible to undo.
Keats understood the seductive power of melancholy…
She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;
Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous
tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
Congratulations on another fine post and a redolent playlist.
http://www.fluxblog.net/michaelgarricktrio_sketchesofisrael.mp3
i ran into this the other day and have been constantly listening to it. your description of music reminds me of it
Red house painters & Mazzy star will always make me feel nostalgic and will take me back to my first listening habits and discoverings - Sometimes I feel everything’s become an epilogue in my life since those years.–
That rendition of Gorecki’s 3rd by Ingrid Peruche is very good, much better than the one I bought by Dawn Upshaw.
Thanks everyone, always nice to hear your comments. Thanks for the Keats and the Michael Garrick Trio.
Gilles, I’ll try to get a post up this weekend for you and other people who are trapped in office this summer. Hang in there for now. :-)
Gorgeous mix of heart-sad beauty! It brought tears…so kudos…I think. sniff…sniff…
Haha, oh boy, now look what I’ve done, making grown women cry… I promise my next post will be more uplifting! :-)