The Hammock Papers: Titian

Showing posts with label Titian. Show all posts

22 March 2026

Resonance.

Titian, Fête Champêtre, 1510

The Resonance of Spring: A Bacchanalia of Lute Tunes

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Palestrina's Lute

Venere Lute Quartet

The Art of Resonance: Archlute & Theorbo Music Of The Italian Seicento

Luca Pianca

Del suono come perla: 17th-Century Italian Music for Theorbo

Laura La Vecchia

Scarlatti & Zamboni: Italian Lute Music

Toyohiko Satoh and Michiel Niessen

Nobilissimo Istromento: Virtuoso Lute Music of the Italian Renaissance

Luca Pianca

... in vece d'arco o di faretra, chi tien leuto, e chi viola o cetra: 16th Century Italian Lute Music

Roberto Gallina

Alla Venetiana: Early 16th Century Venetian Lute Music

Paul O'Dette

Vieux Gaultier: Pièces de Luth

Hopkinson Smith

Jacques de Gallot: Pièces de Luth

Hopkinson Smith

François Dufaut: Pièces de Luth en Manuscrits

Hopkinson Smith

Robert de Visée: Theorbo Solos

Jakob Lindberg

Nicolas Vallet: Le Secret des Muses

Nigel North

Alessandro Piccinini: Intavolatura di Liuto et di Chitarrone, Libro Primo, Bologna M.DC.XXIII

Nigel North

Capricci: Castaldi & Pellegrini

Albane Imbs and Rolf Lislevand

Dolcissima et Amorosa: The Lute Music of "Il Divino," Francesco Canova da Milano, Vol. 1

Nigel North

A Decoration of Silence: The Lute Music of "Il Divino," Francesco Canova da Milano, Vol. 2

Nigel North

19 July 2022

Strong.

Titian, Pastoral Concert, 1509

Under the shadow of the trees

We sat together, you and I;

Our hearts were sweetly ill at ease

Under the shadow of the trees.

In the green circle of the grass

We saw the fairies passing by;

The wake, the fairy wake it was

Upon the circle of green grass.

And softly with their fairy chain

They wove a circle round about,

And round our hearts; ah, not in vain

They bound us with their fairy chain!

With shadowy bonds thy bound us fast,

They wove their circle in and out;

Ah, Céleste, when the fairies passed,

With what strong bonds they bound us fast!

Arthur Symons

24 August 2021

Imperfection.

Titian, Sisyphus, 1548

Some thoughts on imperfection.

A Jewish proverb ...

A young man who went to a rabbi and said, “I know that we are commanded to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength. But I know that my heart and soul and mind and strength have bad parts in them. So how can I love God?”

After a pause the rabbi replied, “It seems you will just have to love God with the bad parts too.”

John Lubbock ...

Our great mistake in education is, as it seems to me, the worship of book-learning–the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children in our elementary schools are wearied by the mechanical act of writing, and the interminable intricacies of spelling; they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation to their daily wants and occupations; while in our public schools the same unfortunate results are produced by the weary monotony of Latin and Greek grammar. We ought to follow exactly the opposite course with children–to give them a wholesome variety of mental food, and endeavor to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their minds with dry facts. The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. What does it matter if the pupil know a little more or a little less? A boy who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, will soon have forgotten almost all he ever learned; while another who had acquired a thirst for knowledge, even if he had learned little, would soon teach himself more than the first ever knew.

G.K. Chesterton ...

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

14 April 2019

To BACCHUS: A CANTICLE

Whither dost thou hurry me,
Bacchus, being full of thee?
This way, that way, that way, this,
Here and there a fresh love is;
That doth like me, this doth please:
Thus a thousand mistresses
I have now; yet I alone,
Having all, enjoy not one.

Robert Herrick

10 August 2017

Gladden.

Titian, Flora, 1515

I am the handmaid of the earth,

I 'broider fair her glorious gown,

And deck her on her days of mirth

With many a garland of renown.

And while Earth's little ones are fain

And play about the Mother's hem

I scatter every gift I gain

From sun and wind to gladden them.

William Morris

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL