There are people dying today in wars across the globe, in places like Baghdad, Darfur, Afghanistan, Somalia, India, and more troops will soon be sent to Iraq for the New Way Forward, a way likely to lead to many of their own deaths as the continuing senseless violence continues to spiral out of control, and Israel and Iran trade threats of nuclear destruction. It is a world gone mad with death and suffering.
For all those who are suffering, or will suffer in the future, because of these ongoing acts of violence, I can offer no words of comfort. I can only offer you this music, which has spoken to me in times of sorrow. Perhaps it will speak to you where no words, neither mine nor anyone else’s, can.
Barber’s Adagio for Strings
Beautiful music.
Thank you Steven. I really needed something to unlock the tears today, so they don’t drown me from the inside out.
I found myself wishing I could rest my head on that young mans chest just long enough to hear the beating of a strong mans heart that is that full of compassion and gentleness that he expresses in his music.
what a wonderful arrangement, the minimalism of it invokes the power of the composition beautifully.
it reminded me of the minimalist soundtrack to the first film of the QATSI trilogy, by Godfrey Reggio: Koyyanisqatsi by Philip Glass. a film that I find very meditative.
Koyyanisqatsi:
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi, n. (Hopi). 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life disintegrating. 4. life out of balance. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
peace
One of the most poignant pieces ever written.
This post is all screwed up though and the piece is trying to launch without me starting it.
Very sorry. What browser are you in?
it’s doing the same in Firefox. Opens up a tag to request a Windows Media Player license.
me too.
Then I’ll remove it.
I was unable to get in here because of the license request issue.
But it’s a beautiful piece, whether orchestral, or piano…or even sung; there is a version of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) that is sung to Barber’s Adagio; each voice part takes one of the string parts. Very moving…
IE
but it is now loading fine, displaying fine and not launching. Don’t know if you did anything or not. Yesterday there appeared to be 2 versions of media players? It was hard to tell because it messed up the entire web page display.
In any event, whatever you did has corrected the problem. Now I only see the one media player and it is waiting for me to click go.
This was the piece I chose to play at my mother’s memorial service. It helped me to fully grieve then. It always makes me cry. It was also used as part of the sound track I believe in Platoon.
You are absolutely correct. It was the most famous from that movie. Am glad you did not forget that. It truly is as sad as you remember it being.
Both versions are stunning. Thank you for sharing this with us.