OSSA 15 JUDGES: The Books of the Old Testament

15 JUDGES The Books of the Old Testament - KJV

Mnemonic Phrases:

1. God’s Excellent Love Never Dies
2. Joshua Judges Ruth
3. Sally (1, 2) Keeps (1, 2) Cookies (1, 2)
4. Elephant Named Esther’s Job Pays Peanuts Every Saturday
5. I Jog Late Every Day
6. Hungry Joel Ate Oranges
7. Jonah Made Ninevah Heed
8. Zebras Have Zebra Mamas

When I was around 12 years old, my parents, hitherto content to spend Sundays engaged in such heathen rituals as late pancake breakfasts and yard work, had a twinge of doubt as to our family's immortal souls and thereby announced we would now be spending our Sundays going to "Sunday School" and "Church Services" at Park City Baptist Church. This announcement was met with predictable groans from myself and my sister. Regardless, the following Sunday, we were dressed in our finest little outfits and dutifully escorted into the Sunday School section of the church to attend our class.

Park City was a large church in a wealthy part of Dallas. Going to church was very much a social affair. The charismatic Reverend Minister drove a Cadillac, dressed in custom-tailored suits and wore a Rolex watch - all of this remarked in whispers to me by my mother. Most of the congregation was the same. The entrance to parking lot must have been an eye of a needle wide enough to allow the largest luxury automobile. There was a gym where you could roller skate, a game room with pool tables and a small diner with a sour-faced cook that served hamburgers and fries and had a sign that charitably said, "In God we trust, all others pay cash."

Young and deficient as I was in the ways of the Southern Baptist God, I still sensed something was not quite right with Park City Baptist Church. There I sat in my Sunday School classroom with a kitschy poster of a blue-eyed Caucasian Jesus, holding an awkward and frightened lamb, gazing down on me with hazily rendered placidity, my hair crisp with VO5 hairspray, dress shoes too tight, clip-on necktie itching. I felt utterly sick unto my soul with uncomfortableness. Add to this the nascent disapproval of the young spawn of the Dallas social elite and the sickly smell of aftershave and hair-gel emanating from the Sunday School teachers. The sum of it all was that I developed a Pavlovian dislike for church. Once I was even dismissed from class for non-stop sneezing and sniffing my nose. I later told my parents I was becoming allergic to God.

I can remember almost every teacher I have had since first-grade, but I cannot recall a single name of any teacher from any Sunday "education." As a whole, there were all - and this is to put it lightly - horrible teachers. Horrible not due to any overt acts of malevolence. No they were horrible in the mindless simplicity of their belief and the banality of their teaching of it. Having endured an adequate public school education for over half my young life still gave me enough discernment to detect a phony and a fake, a teacher of false authority who had no clue about what he was teaching.

And these sickeningly pious proselytizers of pathetic faith were entrusted to imprint upon my, supposedly tender, impressionable and pious young mind the ways and mysteries of the One True God and His Only Son Who Died for My Sins? I was lucky to have survived with all of my religion intact.

Years later, the old story: the Reverend Cadillac Rolex Minister was caught molesting young boys. I am confident that he moved on to a more lucrative congregation somewhere in the deeper south of Hell. However, Park City Baptist Church still stands as a proud sanctuary for Dallas High Social Christianity, a gleaming Temple of Mammon in a City of the Damned.

All of this as preface to the memorization of the Books of the Old Testament. Why?

One dismal Sunday, one of the nameless revolving roster of Men of Wretched Faith, announced to us, his young uninspired flock, that he had a challenge. If we could memorize all of the books of the Old Testament, he would buy us a case of the soda of our choice. A whole case of soda pop! As if this was what you drink while lounging about for time never ending in Heaven with all your lost pets.

But it was something new in the dead world of Sunday School. Enough to pull my thoughts away from the window and to attend to what was going on. He then proceeded to slowly and monotonously recite all of the books of the Old Testament for our listening pleasure. I do not recall if there was applause. But I do remember his self-satisfied smile.

I suspect much of the genesis of his challenge was rooted in the desire to have an occasion to show off his memory skills. I have slight sympathy here. I am all too aware that no one is ever interested in listening to a recitation of all of the books of the Bible or all of Shakespeare's plays, etc. I begrudge the guy some credit for finding a captive audience of the young, bored and uncomfortable upon which to subject his dubious accomplishment.

The rest of the class, stimulated at the prospect of gaining the unimaginable joy of a case of soda pop, asked him how it did it - with genuine curiosity and hunger to learn. And here is the beauty of it, the epitome of my Sunday School education: he told us we just had to sit down and repeat each of the books over and over until they were fixed in our memory. That's it: "just keep saying them out loud until it sinks in." No discussion of what a mnemonic was and how it might help. No examples using melody and song. No suggestions about visual associations and creating a narrative. There was no relevant instruction regarding the writing of the Old Testament, about history, about religion. Nothing. Just pound it in into your stubborn little brain with brute memorization.

Later in church, while the minister sermonized his usual analogies between the Dallas Cowboys and our eternal salvation, I opened one of the Bibles in the pews to consider the Books of the Old Testament. The list seemed long and forbidding. The names strange and unpronounceable. I could see no way I would be able to memorize all of that.

I told my parents about it and my mother helpfully suggested making it a song. But multi-syllabic words do not a simple song make. I made it to the eighth book, Ruth, assisted as all are by the lovely phrase: Joshua Judges Ruth.

Now, years later, deep into my memory practice, as I am working on the Ossa, the Bones, Systems of Thought, underlying structures, archetypal forms with many lists, I remember the Old Testament Challenge. A quick internet search for classic mnemonics, supplies me with eight memorable phrases:

1. God’s Excellent Love Never Dies
2. Joshua Judges Ruth
3. Sally (1,2) Keeps (1,2) Cookies (1,2)
4. Elephant Named Esther’s Job Pays Peanuts Every Saturday
5. I Jog Late Every Day
6. Hungry Joel Ate Oranges
7. Jonah Made Ninevah Heed
8. Zebras Have Zebra Mamas

Of course, each word stands for a Book - with the simple exception of the third phrase and it's pairs of books all together. In the end, you have all 39 Books of the Old Testament KJV. The phrases are all vivid with imagery and have strong narrative. And there is enough of a link between them to keep them straight: God’s Excellent Love Never Dies however Joshua Judges Ruth because Sally Keeps Cookies and the Elephant Named Esther’s Job Pays Peanuts Every Saturday, etc., etc..

In 15 minutes, I had memorized all of the Books of the Old Testament. It was easy. And it would have been so easy to have taught this method with all of its natural mnemonic charm to a group of Sunday School children, to have made it a fun, a game. And I know the world is full of excellent teachers that instruct their student in this way. These mnemonic phrases have been around for ages.

Unfortunately, there are also bad teachers who fail to educate with even the simplest of learning tools. Sunday School at Park City was, thankfully, not typical of my overall education. I was given an excellent higher education - especially at the Greenhill School in Dallas, extending also to Southern Methodist University, The University of Dallas and the University of Texas. I labor this to make a point: at none of these fine centers of education was I adequately instructed in the development and use of my memory. And if I, who was privileged enough to receive the education that I did, was still not provided with even the rudiments of an adequate training of the memory, I despair to think what most students suffer through in the name of Education these days.

Marshall McLuhan explored the "extensions of man:" the hammer extends the hand, the car extends the feet, writing and books extend our memory. With each extension, we surrender autonomy in exchange for greater efficiency and power. Yet, at the same time, we still use our hands and feet. If we do not have access to a hammer or a car, we are still able to function in the world. However, when the extensions of memory - writing, books, the internet - are unaccessible, we are increasingly at a loss. With the rise of smart phones to place calls - few people actually remember phone numbers these days. Beyond this trivial example, our interior world has become increasingly impoverished and empty.

We no longer know the greatest poems and prose "by heart." We no longer have at hand quotation, reference and theme of the great works of literature that have not only shaped and strengthened our culture but have also defined who and what we are. Instead, our memory theaters - if they can justify that phrase - are filled with trivia about celebrities and sporting events, the lyrics to mindless pop songs and quotes from blockbuster movies. It is tragic and darkening to consider that we have extended our memory into plastic, superficial and meaningless playpens, thereby reduced ourselves to intellectual cripples, with no memory abilities, utterly dependent upon our crutches, doomed to atrophy in our wheelchairs, dead in the mind at age 12, fated to live out a quiet and desperate life in an increasingly diseased and decaying body.

Thus I state my belief in the benefits of Memory Practice. And there is more to say. But not here and not now.

See also:

Introduction: When the Canaries Stop Singing
Three Criteria for the Memorization of a Poem
For this invention will produce forgetfulness
EMBLEMS: QUATIT HASTATUS CANTUUM: Shakespeare's Sonnets
SCRIPTUM 2 CONSTITUTION: The Preamble


1. Genesis God’s Excellent Love Never Dies
2. Exodus
3. Leviticus
4. Numbers
5. Deuteronomy
6. Joshua Joshua Judges Ruth
7. Judges
8. Ruth
9. 1 Samuel Sally Keeps Cookies
10. 2 Samuel
11. 1 Kings
12. 2 Kings
13. 1 Chronicles
14. 2 Chronicles
15. Ezra Elephant Named Esther’s Job Pays Peanuts Every Saturday
16. Nehemiah
17. Esther
18. Job
19. Psalms
20. Proverbs
21. Ecclesiastes
22. The Song of Solomon
23. Isaiah I Jog Late Every Day
24. Jeremiah
25. Lamentations
26. Ezekiel
27. Daniel
28. Hosea Hungry Joel Ate Oranges
29. Joel
30. Amos
31. Obadiah
32. Jonah Jonah Made Ninevah Heed
33. Micah
34. Nahum
35. Habakkuk
36. Zephaniah Zebras Have Zebra Mamas
37. Haggai
38. Zechariah
39. Malachi

OSSA 14 MARK: The 27 Books of the New Testament

14 MARK: The 27 Books of the New Testament

The 27 Books of the New Testament

4G to the A to the R and C2 the GEP to the C5T and the PHJ then P4J and no Repeats.

For those raised in an atmosphere of casual Christianity, the Books of the New Testament are familiar and easy to memorize. New Testament names are common, as opposed to the Old. I wish it were otherwise. I am always delighted to meet an Ezra, Jeremiah or an Ezekiel. And I will long shake the hand of a man named Micah, Zechariah or Malachi.

In Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, Bill Bryson writes:

"At first descriptive names were confined to a single virtue: Faith, Hope, Love, Charity, Increase, Continent and the like, but within a generation Puritan parents were giving their children names that positively rang with righteousness: Flie-Fornication, Misericordia-Adulterina, Job-Raked-Out-of-the-Ashes, Small-Hope, Praise-God, Fear-Not, The-Lord-Is-Near. Names began to sound rather like cheerleaders' chants, so that among the early Pilgrims we find Fight-the-Good-Fight-of-Faith Wilson, Be-Courteous Cole, Kill-Sin Pemble, and the memorably euphonious Safely-on-High Snat. Occasionally the desire for biblical fidelity resulted in names of daunting sonorosity: Mahershalalhasbaz, Zaphenathpaneah, Zerubbabel and Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin. And sometimes parents simply closed their eyes and stabbed blindly at the Bible, placing their faith in Providence to direct them to an apposite word, which accounts for the occasional occurrence of such relative inanities as Maybe Barnes and Notwithstanding Griswold."

The most troublesome names in the Books of the New Testament are all grouped conveniently together in the GEP to the C5T sequence. Philemon and Hebrews are slightly more palatable.

There are mnemonic sentences such as those listed below. However, I found a mnemonic letter number code, which has a slight rhyme to it and use that as my guide. Like most of the lists in the OSSA: Bones, after a week of solid memory work, with occasional refreshes, the sequence becomes "second nature" and the mnemonic remains only as a incidental index.

 4G to the A to the R and C... 2 .... the GEP ... to the C5T ... and the PHJ ... then P4J ... and no Repeats.

Everyone is familiar with the first four (4G): Matthew Mark Luke and John

Than the A to the R to the C, then the 2 clueing in both books of Corinthians.

Acts, Romans, Corinthians one and two

There is a some narrative flow here the Acts of the Romans against the Corinthians.

This is my first cluster or memory chunk. Kick-starts the rest.

Then, the GEP to the C5T

This is a sticking point at first. Note the 5 applies to the T, not the C. It is helpful that all the Ts follow alphabetically: Thess, Tim, Tit.

Galatians Ephesians Philippians

Perhaps it is helpful to think of homophonic terms here:  Gal-Lays-Ian If-He-Is-In a Flip-Peeing

After a few times, this helpful nonsense will fade.

Then the C5T:

Colossians Thessalonians one and two Timothy one and two and Titus

This is my second memory cluster.

Next is the P sequence:

and the PHJ then the P4J and no Repeats.

Think of a PBJ sandwich with is made for Jay only once: The P B(H) J is made (P) for(H) (J)ay with no Repeats.

You know the final book is Revelations/ Repeats. So that is easy.

The PHJ is tag as the weird one because of Philemon and Hebrews, which is followed by the normal P4J: Peter, John and Jude.

More nonsense mnemonic: Fill Amen He Bruised James.

Philemon Hebrews James

P4J is unusual however because you have to remember there are two Peters, followed by three Johns and then Jude - and there is always a mnemonic reward here for me to associate it with the song "Hey Jude" and hear chime of the melody, which, if I didn't already know it, associates Revelations with "Revolution Number 9."

So first and second Peter, John one two three (like the count-in to the song), Hey Jude, then all will be revealed in Revelations.


1. Matthew My Mother loves Jesus a lot
2. Mark
3. Luke
4. John
5. Acts
6. Romans Roosters Can Crow
7. 1 Corinthians
8. 2 Corinthians
9. Galatians Geese Eat Pop Corn
10. Ephesians
11. Philippians
12. Colossians
13. 1 Thessalonians Turkeys Trot
14. 2 Thessalonians
15. 1 Timothy
16. 2 Timothy
17. Titus Telephone Poles Have Jaybirds
18. Philemon
19. Hebrews
20. James
21. 1 Peter  Peacock Pier’s Jingling Jeans just joined rhinoceros
22. 2 Peter
23. 1 John
24. 2 John
25. 3 John
26. Jude
27. Revelation

OSSA 13 MUSE: 9 Muses, 3 Graces, 3 Fates, 3 Furies

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13. MUSE - 9muse 3grace 3fate 3furies - 9M3GFF

Exploring connections between the Muses, Graces, Fates and Furies. Inquires in the mythological ground out of which these figures emerge. What archetypal forms dwelled within the ocean blue consciousness of the Greek Mind?

In the chapter, "The Anaximander Fragment," in the book Early Greek Thinking by Heidegger, he writes of what it would be like to penetrate through the veils of time and translation to actually hear the Anaximander Fragment (translated by Nietzsche as: Whence things have their origin, there they must also pass away according to necessity; for they must pay penalty and be judged for their injustice, according to the ordinance of time). Our understanding of the essence of Anaximander's thought is necessarily bound to our language. Translation, at best, replaces the clothes and coverings on the naked thoughts with garments from its own language. At worst, there is no prior uncovering and new clothes are fitted over and over upon the thing itself until it is lost under the layers. The act of uncovering the original thought is a poetic and violent process, "Thinking of Being is the original way of poetizing." According to Heidegger - and I agree wholeheartedly - this poetic process of uncovering, revealing, is the only method by which the Truth of Being might be preserved. Only by honoring the Naked Presence of the thought itself, is there any hope of an accurate translation. There is a certain and necessary violence here: "Because it poetizes as it thinks, the translation which wishes to let the oldest fragment of thinking itself speak necessarily appears violent."

"If only once we could hear the fragment it would no longer sound like an assertion historically long past. Nor would we be seduced by vain hopes of calculating historically, i.e. philologically and psychologically, what was at one time really present to that man called Anaximander of Miletus which may have served as the condition for his way of representing the world. But presuming we do hear what his saying says, what binds us in our attempt to translate it? How do we get to what is said in the saying, so that it might rescue the translation from arbitrariness? 

"We are bound to the language of the saying. We are bound to our mother tongue. In both cases we are essentially bound to language and to the experience of its essence. This bond is broader and stronger, but far less apparent, than the standards of all philological and historical facts—which can only borrow their factuality from it. So long as we do not experience this binding, every translation of the fragment must seem wholly arbitrary. Yet even when we are bound to what is said in the saying, not only the translation but also the binding retain the appearance of violence, as though what is to be heard and said here necessarily suffers violence. 

"Only in thoughtful dialogue with what it says can this fragment of thinking be translated. However, thinking is poetizing, and indeed more than one kind of poetizing, more than poetry and song. Thinking of Being is the original way of poetizing. Language first comes to language, i.e. into its essence, in thinking. Thinking says what the truth of Being dictates; it is the original diet are. Thinking is primordial poetry, prior to all poesy, but also prior to the poetics of art, since art shapes its work within the realm of language. All poetizing, in this broader sense, and also in the narrower sense of the poetic, is in its ground a thinking. The poetizing essence of thinking preserves the sway of the truth of Being. Because it poetizes as it thinks, the translation which wishes to let the oldest fragment of thinking itself speak necessarily appears violent."

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Where to the gods come from? What gives birth, name, feature and power to the gods? At the dawn of our culture, what strange mysteries emerged into the light? Here and now in my exploration of memory, I sense a primordial reckoning with these beings. As indicated by Heidegger, the language fissures and collapses inwards under the pressure of these archetypal depths. Poetic consciousness rearranges the morphemes and phonemes of the words, chanting Indo-European roots, glossolalia, speaking in tongues, Babel....

The Muses, offspring of Memory, Graces, associated with the Ocean, Fates, born from Divine Law and the Furies, risen from the blood of the sky.

I believe that in order to understand not only the foundations of Western Culture but to be well acquainted with the rich tradition of literary and poetic reference, it is necessary to, at the very least, know the names of the Muses, Graces, Fates and Furies. Such knowledge allows the Pulse to move through you and galvanizes the beauty of the threads that run through the culture. Example: If you know Ovid, you know Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, thereby illuminating the language to an unprecedented degree.

From Ovid's Metamorphoses, Bk IV:464-511 Tisiphone maddens Athamas and Ino

      "After Saturnia had looked grimly, glancing fiercely, at all these, and at Ixion above all, looking back from him to Sisyphus, she asks the Furies ‘Why does this son of Aeolus, suffer perpetual torment, while his brother Athamas, who, with his wife, scorns me, lives, in his pride, in a rich palace?’ And she expounds the causes of her hatred, her journey, and what it is she wishes. What she wished was that the House of Cadmus should no longer stand, and that the Sisters should drive Athamas mad.  She urged the goddesses help, mingling promises, commands and prayers together. When Juno had finished speaking, Tisiphone, grey-haired as she was, shook her locks, flinging back the snakes that concealed her face, and said ‘It does not need all these words: consider it done, whatever you have ordered. Leave this unlovely kingdom, and go back to heaven with its sweeter air.’ Juno returned happily, and Iris, her messenger, the daughter of Thaumus, purified her, as she was about to enter heaven, with drops of dew. 

      "Without delay, Tisiphone, the troubler, grasped a torch soaked with blood, put on a dripping red robe, coiled a writhing serpent round her waist, and left the spot. Grief went as her companion, and Panic, and Terror, and Madness with agitated face. She took up her position on the threshold, and they say the pillars of the doorway of Aeolus’s palace shook, the doors of maple-wood were tainted with whiteness, and the sun fled the place. Athamas and his wife, Ino, were terrified at these portents of doom, and they tried to escape the palace. The baleful Erinys obstructed them, and blocked the way. Stretching out her arms, wreathed with knots of vipers, she flailed her hair, and the snakes hissed at her movements. Some coiled over her shoulders, some slid over her breast, giving out whistling noises, vomiting blood, and flickering their tongues. 

      "Then she pulls two serpents from the midst of her hair, and hurls what she has snatched with a deadly aim. They slither over Ino and Athamas, and blow their oppressive breath into them. Their limbs are not wounded: it is the mind that feels the dreadful stroke. She had brought foul poisonous liquids too, spume from the jaws of Cerberus, Echidna’s venom, those that cause vague delusions, dark oblivions of the mind, wickedness and weeping, rage and love of murder, all seethed together. She had boiled them, mixed with fresh blood, in hollow bronze, stirred with a stalk of green hemlock. 

      "While they stood trembling, she poured this venom of the Furies over the breasts of the two of them, and sent it into the depths of their minds. Then, brandishing her torch, encircled them with fire, by fire’s swift movement, whirling it round in repeated orbit. So having conquered them, and carried out her orders, she returned to the wide kingdom of mighty Dis, and unloosed the serpent she had wrapped around her."

There are Nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who represent the arts and sciences. The Father of Gods and Men and the Personification of Memory created the Muses.

"In Hesiod's Theogony, kings and poets receive their powers of authoritative speech from their possession of Mnemosyne and their special relationship with the Muses. 

"Zeus and Mnemosyne slept together for nine consecutive nights, thus birthing the nine Muses. Mnemosyne also presided over a pool in Hades, counterpart to the river Lethe, according to a series of 4th century BC Greek funerary inscriptions in dactylic hexameter. 

"Dead souls drank from Lethe so they would not remember their past lives when reincarnated. Initiates were encouraged to drink from the river Mnemosyne when they died, instead of Lethe. These inscriptions may have been connected with Orphic poetry (see Zuntz, 1971)." - Wikipedia: Mnemosyne

Mnemonic nonsense phrases follow. However, it doesn't take long for these vivid mythological archetypes to body forth into vivid and unforgettable imagery.

The Nine Muses

Calliope (epic poetry)

Muse of Eloquence and heroic Poetry. Her name means fine voice and she is depicted with stylus and tablets.

Calliope by Augustin Pajou, c. 1763

The mnemonic association of the austere tradition of epic poetry with the lighthearted carnivalesque musical calliope is, perhaps, not the most appropriate. But I see a Professor Marvel type from the Wizard of Oz, a new American epic poet, riding through the West on a calliope performing his poetry in Boom Towns and Indian Camps, composing with the eagle, the buffalo and the bear.

"Calliope, the wonderful operonicon 
or steam car of the muses" – advertising poster, 1874

The pronunciation of the word 'calliope' has long been disputed. The Greek muse by the same name is pronounced /kəˈlaɪ.əpiː/ kə-ly-ə-pee, but the instrument was generally pronounced /ˈkæli.oʊp/ kal-ee-ohp. A nineteenth century magazine, Reedy's Mirror, attempted to settle the dispute by publishing this rhyme: 

Proud folk stare after me,
Call me Calliope;
Tooting joy, tooting hope,
I am the calliope. 

This, in turn, came from a poem by Vachel Lindsay, called "The Kallyope Yell," [sic][3] in which Lindsay uses both pronunciations. 

However, in the song Blinded by the light, written in 1972, Bruce Springsteen used the four syllable (/kəˈlaɪ.əpiː/) pronunciation when referring to a fairground organ, and this was repeated by Manfred Mann in their (better-known) 1976 cover, suggesting that this is a common modern pronunciation in both the US and the UK. - Wikipedia: Calliope

Clio (history)

Muse of History, her name derives from the Greek kleos (glory) or kleiein (to celebrate). She is depicted as a virgin with a laurel wreath, a trumpet in one hand and a volume in the other one.

Clio by Charles Meynier - 1798

"Clio, sometimes referred to as "the Proclaimer", is often represented with an open scroll of parchment scroll or a set of tablets. The name is etymologically derived from the Greek root κλέω/κλείω (meaning "to recount," "to make famous,"or "to celebrate"). 

'Clio' represents history in some coined words: cliometrics, cliodynamics." - Wikipedia: Clio

Erato (lyric poetry)

Muse of lyric Poetry and Anacreontic Poetry, her name derives from the Greek Eros (love). She is represented as a nymph crowned with myrtle and roses, holding a lyre and a bow.

The muse Erato and Her Lyre, 1895 - John Wiiliam Godward

"Erato is the Muse of lyric poetry, especially love and erotic poetry. In the Orphic hymn to the Muses, it is Erato who charms the sight. Since the Renaissance she is often shown with a wreath of myrtle and roses, holding a lyre, or a small kithara, a musical instrument that Apollo or she herself invented. In Simon Vouet's representations, two turtle-doves are eating seeds at her feet. Other representations may show her holding a golden arrow, reminding one of the "eros", the feeling that she inspires in everybody, and at times she is accompanied by the god Eros, holding a torch." - Wikipedia: Erato

Euterpe (music)

Muse of Music. Her name means she who makes herself loved and she is usually represented as a maid crowned with a flower garland, playing the instrument she invented, the flute.

Euterpe by Egide Godfried Guffens - 1823-1901

"Called the "Giver of delight", when later poets assigned roles to each of the Muses, she was the muse of music. In late Classical times she was named muse of lyric poetry and depicted holding a flute. A few say she invented the aulos or double-flute, though most mythographers credit Marsyas with its invention." - Wikipedia: Euterpe

Melpomene (tragedy)

Muse of Tragedy. Her name comes from the Greek melpein (to sing). She is represented as a woman in buskins, holding a sceptre and a dagger covered in blood.

Detail from mural depicting the muse Melpomene (Tragedy) by Edward Simmons - 1896

Melpomene, Muse of tragedy. Marble, Roman artwork from the 2nd century CE.

A Curious Historical Item about the name Melpomene:

"Painting of the Muse Melpomene by Edward Simmons, 1891; Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C. According to certain modern Olympic historians and journalists, Melpomene and Revithi are the same person, and the Greek woman was attributed the name of the Muse."

"In March 1896, a French-language newspaper in Athens (the Messager d'Athènes) reported that there was "talk of a woman who had enrolled as a participant in the Marathon race. In the test run which she completed on her own [...] she took 4½ hours to run the distance of 42 [sic] kilometres which separates Marathon from Athens." Later that year, Franz Kémény, a founding International Olympic Committee member from Hungary, wrote in German that, "indeed a lady, Miss Melpomene, completed the 40 kilometres marathon in 4½ hours and requested an entry into the Olympic Games competition. This was reportedly denied by the commission." According to Martin and Gynn, "a peculiarity here is why there is no first name for Melpomene". The Messager report faded into obscurity for about 30 years before it was revived in 1927 in an issue of Der Leichtathlet. 

Olympic historian Karl Lennartz contends that two women ran the marathon in 1896, and that the name "Melpomene" was confirmed by both Kémény and Alfréd Hajós, two-time Olympic swim champion of 1896. Lennartz presents the following account: a young woman named Melpomene wanted to run the race and completed the distance in 4½ hours at the end of February or the beginning of March. The organizing committee, however, did not allow her to run, and the newspaper Akropolis criticized the committee for its decision. The Olympic Marathon took place on 10 April [O.S. 29 March] 1896, and another female runner, Stamata Revithi, took 5½ hours to run the course on 11 April [O.S. 30 March] 1896. The newspapers Asti, New Aristophanes and Atlantida reported this on 12 April [O.S. 31 March] 1896. 

However, Tarasouleas argues that no contemporary press reports in Greek newspapers mention Melpomene by name, while the name Revithi appears many times; Tarasouleas suggests that Melpomene and Revithi are the same person, and Martin and Green argue that "a contemporary account referring to Revithi as a well-known marathon runner could explain the earlier run by a woman over the marathon course—this was by Revithi herself, not Melpomene". The daily Athens newspaper Estia of 4 April [O.S. 23 March] 1896 refers to "the strange woman, who, having run a few days ago in the Marathon as a try-out, intends to compete the day after tomorrow. Today she came to our offices and said 'should my shoes hinder me, I will remove them on the way and continue barefoot'." Moreover, Tarasouleas notes that on 13 March [O.S. 1 March] 1896, another local newspaper indicated that a woman and her baby had registered to run the marathon, but again her name is not mentioned. Trying to resolve the mystery, Tarasouleas asserts that "perhaps Revithi had two names, or perhaps for reasons unknown she was attributed the name of the Muse Melpomene". Wikipedia: Stamata Revithi

Polyhymnia (sacred poetry)

Muse of Rhetoric and of vocal Music, her name comes from the Greek poly (many) and hymnos (hymn), or from mnasthai (to remember). She is depicted with a flower or pearl crown, dressed in white, her right arm in the act of haranguing, her left hand holding a sceptre.

Postcard of a Statue of Polyhymnia

Polyhymnia

 by 

Hendrick Goltzius

, 

ca. 1592

"Polyhymnia (/pɒliˈhɪmniə/; Greek: Πολυύμνια, Πολύμνια; "the one of many hymns"), was in Greek mythology the Muse of sacred poetry, sacred hymn, dance, and eloquence as well as agriculture and pantomime. She is depicted as very serious, pensive and meditative, and often holding a finger to her mouth, dressed in a long cloak and veil and resting her elbow on a pillar. Polyhymnia is also sometimes credited as being the Muse of geometry and meditation. 

"In Bibliotheca historica, Diodorus Siculus wrote, "Polyhymnia, because by her great (polle) praises (humnesis) she brings distinction to writers whose works have won for them immortal fame...". She appears in Dante's Divine Comedy: Paradiso. Canto XXIII, line 56, and is referenced in modern works of fiction." Wikipedia: Polyhymnia

If all those tongues should sound to aid me now
Which Polyhymnia and her sister muses
Made all the richer with their sweetest milk,

It would not touch a thousandth of the truth
In singing of her saintly smile and how
It lighted up her saintly countenance.

 Paradiso. Canto XXIII,

Terpsichore (dance)

Muse of Dance. Her name means she who loves dance. She is depicted as a young woman, crowned with flower garlands, who dances and plays the harp.

source

"In Greek mythology, Terpsichore (/tərpˈsɪkəriː/; Τερψιχόρη) "delight in dancing" was one of the nine Muses, ruling over ballet and the dramatic chorus. She lends her name to the word "terpsichorean" which means "of or relating to dance". She is usually depicted sitting down, holding a lyre, accompanying the ballerinas' choirs with her music. Her name comes from the Greek words τέρπω ("delight") and χoρός ("dance")."  

In the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers feature film Swing Time (1936), Lucky (Astaire), when asked by Mr. Gordon, why he wishes to learn to dance, answers: "To flirt with terpsichory". He then proceeds to take a dance lesson with Penny (Rogers), culminating in a paired tap routine." - Wikipedia: Terpsichore

source

Thalia (comedy)

Muse of Comedy, her name derives from the Greek thallein (to bloom). She is depicted as a young woman crowned with an ivy garland, holding a mask and wearing ankle boots.

Thalia, Muse of Comedy, 1739 by Jean-Marc Nattier 

"Thalia (/θəˈlaɪə/; Ancient Greek: Θάλεια, Θαλία; "the joyous, the flourishing", from Ancient Greek: θάλλειν, thállein; "to flourish, to be verdant") was the Muse who presided over comedy and idyllic poetry. In this context her name means "flourishing", because the praises in her songs flourish through time.She was the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the eighth-born of the nine Muses. 

According to pseudo-Apollodorus, she and Apollo were the parents of the Corybantes. Other ancient sources, however, gave the Corybantes different parents. 

She was portrayed as a young woman with a joyous air, crowned with ivy, wearing boots and holding a comic mask in her hand. Many of her statues also hold a bugle and a trumpet (both used to support the actors' voices in ancient comedy), or occasionally a shepherd’s staff or a wreath of ivy." - Wikipedia: Thalia

Urania (astronomy)

Muse of Astronomy. Her name comes from the Greek ouranos (sky) and she is represented as a virgin holding a globe and a bar.

Flammarion, N.C. L'astronomia popolare, [1885].

"Urania (/jʊˈreɪniə/; Ancient Greek: Οὐρανία; meaning 'heavenly' or 'of heaven') was, in Greek mythology, the muse of astronomy and a daughter of Zeus by Mnemosyne and also a great granddaughter of Uranus. Some accounts list her as the mother of the musician Linus by Apollo, and Hymenaeus also is said to have been a son of Urania. She is often associated with Universal Love and the Holy Spirit. Eldest of the divine sisters, Urania inherited Zeus' majesty and power and the beauty and grace of her mother Mnemosyne."

"Those who are most concerned with philosophy and the heavens are dearest to her. Those who have been instructed by her she raises aloft to heaven, for it is a fact that imagination and the power of thought lift men's souls to heavenly heights." - Wikipedia: Urania

Calliope (epic poetry)
Clio (history)
Erato (lyric poetry)
Euterpe (music)
Melpomene (tragedy)
Polyhymnia (sacred poetry)
Terpsichore (dance)
Thalia (comedy)
Urania (astronomy)

California’s Climate Eradicates Euthanasia,
Melting Political Terrors, Thawing Uranium.

The wandering Epic Poet riding atop a Calliope. Kalliope, literally "beautiful-voiced," from kalli-, combining form of kallos "beauty" + opos (genitive of *ops) "voice"
Clio from kleiein, to celebrate, proclaim in History
Erato the erotic as in love and lyric poetry
Euterpe associates the root terpein "to delight, please" Eu is "good, well" = music
Melpomene from melpein "to sing." Tragedy as the song sung at the sacrifice of a goat
Polyhymnia meaning "much song or singing" Possibly a variant of hymenaios "wedding song," from Hymen, Greek god of marriage
Terpsichore from terpein "to delight" (from PIE root *terp- "to satisfy;" cf. Sanskrit trpyati "takes one's fill," Lithuanian tarpstu "to thrive, prosper") + khoros "dance, chorus"
Thalia from Greek Thaleia, "the joyful Muse," presiding over comedy and idyllic poetry, literally "the blooming one," fem. proper name from adjective meaning "blooming, luxuriant, bounteous," from thallein "to bloom," related to thalia "abundance," thallos "young shoot"
Urania from Greek Ourania, fem. of ouranios, literally "heavenly," from ouranos

The three Graces. Roman copy of the Imperial Era (2nd century AD?) after a Hellenistic original.
Restored for a large part in 1609 by Nicolas Cordier (1565-1612) for Cardinal Borghese.

Three Graces or Charities - the daughters of the nymph Eurynome and Zeus.

"AGLAIA (or Aglaea) was the goddess of beauty, splendour, glory, magnificence and adornment. She was one of the three Kharites (Graces) who often appears dancing in a circle with her sisters. Aglaia was the wife of the god Hephaistos and the mother of the four younger Kharites named Good-Repute, Praise, Eloquence and Welcome. She was also named Kharis (the Grace) and Kale (Beauty). 

"EUPHROSYNE was the goddess of good cheer, joy, mirth and merriment. She was one of the three Kharites (Graces). Her name derives from the Greek word euphrosynos "merriment". Usually, however, she appears dancing in a circle with her triplet sisters. 

"THALIA was the goddess of festivity and rich, luxurious banquets. She was one of the three Kharites (Graces) who usually appears with her sisters dancing in a circle.
Thalia's comes from the Greek word thalia, an adjectival term used to describe banquets as rich, plentiful, luxuriant and abundant. In this sense she was probably the same as Pandaisia (Banquet), a Kharis who accompanies Aphrodite in Athenian vase painting. Thalia's name also means "the blooming" in the sense of springtime greenery and blossoms (cf. the Hora Thallo)." From Theoi Greek Mythology

Aglaia (beauty, splendor, brilliant, “shining one”)
Euphrosyne (joy, mirth, merriment)
Thalia (abundance, festivity, feast)

Aglow, Euphoric, Thanks!

Francesco de' Rossi (1510–1563)  The Three Fates, 1550

The three Fates, Clotho at left spins, Lachesis winds in the centre
and Atropos tests tensility at right. 1558 Engraving

Three Fates or Moirae (“apportioners”)

Clotho (spinner of the thread of life)
Lachesis (drawer of lots)
Atropos (cutter of the thread of life)

Clothes Lachrymose, Atrocious!

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677) 

The three furies.

Dore

The Remorse of Orestes (1862) by William Frederic Bouguereau (1825–1905). 
The three Furies "furiously" pursue Orestes who has just stabbed his mother.

Three Furies (Erinyes), the Eumenides, or “kindly ones.”  

The Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitals into the sea. The Furies arose from the drops of blood, and the goddess of love, Aphrodite, from the sea foam.

Alecto (relentless pursuit - unnameable)
Megaera (jealousy, grudging)
Tisiphone (blood vengeance, vengeful destruction)

Alexander’s Mega T-shirts.

"According to Hesiod's Theogony, when the Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes as well as the Meliae emerged from the drops of blood when it fell on the earth (Gaia), while Aphrodite was born from the crests of sea foam. According to variant accounts, they emerged from an even more primordial level—from Nyx, "Night", or from a union between air and mother earth. Their number is usually left indeterminate. Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto ("unnameable"), Megaera ("grudging"), and Tisiphone ("vengeful destruction"), all of whom appear in the Aeneid. Dante followed Virgil in depicting the same three-character triptych of Erinyes; in Canto IX of the Inferno they confront the poets at the gates of the city of Dis." Wikipedia: Erinyes

OSSA 12 APOSTLES: The Twelve Apostles

The Twelve Apostles

This is the way the disciples run:
Peter, Andrew, James and John;
Phillip and Bartholomew;
 Thomas next, and Matthew, too.
James the less and Judas the greater
Simon the zealot and Judas the traitor



Simon, who is called Peter
Andrew, his brother
James
John, brother of James
Philip
Bartholomew
Thomas
Matthew
James, son of Alphaeus
Thaddaeus, Jude
Simon the Zealot
Judas Isacariot, son of James

OSSA 11 VIGILANTE: The Seven Canonical Hours

VoLTS NoVoCaine   VLTSNVC

The Seven Canonical Hours

Monastery of Christ in the Desert

Vigils Lauds Terce Sext None Vespers Compline


4:00 A.M. - Vigils (choral office in church) lasts about one hour.

5:45 A.M. - Lauds (in church) lasts about thirty minutes, followed by Mass.

Breakfast for guests in the Guest Breakfast Room from 7:00 - 7:45 A.M.

8:45 A.M. - Terce (in church) lasts about ten minutes.

9:00 A.M. - Work meeting for guests outside the Gift Shop. Work for All.

12:40 P.M. - End of work period.

1:00 P.M. - Sext (in church) lasts about ten minutes, followed by Main Meal in the monastic refectory.

3:30 P.M. - None (in church) lasts about ten minutes.

5:20 P.M. - Exposition and Eucharistic Adoration (in Church).

5:50 P.M. - Vespers (in church) lasts about thirty minutes.

6:20 P.M. - Light Meal until 6:50 P.M. in the monastic refectory.

7:30 P.M. - Compline (in church) lasts about fifteen minutes, followed by Nightly Silence.

OSSA 10 FOOL: Major Arcana of the Tarot

The Major Arcana of the Tarot

Rider-Waite

0 Fool
1 Magician
2 High Priestess
3 Empress
4 Emperor
5 Hierophant
6 Lovers
7 Chariot
8 Strength
9 Hermit
10 Wheel of Fortune
11 Justice
12 Hanged Man
13 Death
14 Temperance
15 Devil
16 Tower
17 Star
18 Moon
19 Sun
20 Judgement
21 World

OSSA 9 SOPHIA: The Five Intellectual Virtues

SOPHIA - S E N P T

SENse PiT

The Five Intellectual Virtues
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics


Theoretical

1. Sophia - wisdom
2. Episteme - scientific knowledge, empirical knowledge
3. Nous - reason

Practical

4. Phronesis - practical wisdom/prudence

Productive

5. Techne - craft knowledge, art, skill


Subjacent intellectual virtues in Aristotle:

Euboulia - deliberating well, deliberative excellence; thinking properly about the right end.
Sunesis - understanding, sagacity, astuteness, consciousness of why something is as it is. For example, the understanding you have of why a situation is as it is, prior to having phronesis.
Gnomê - judgement and consideration; allowing us to make equitable or fair decisions.
Deinotes - cleverness; the ability to carry out actions so as to achieve a goal.

EaSy GoD

OSSA 8 MUSIC: The Quadrivium

The Quadrivium - AGMA


The Quadrivium is the second half of the 7 Liberal Arts.

It consists of 4 elements: Arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy.

The overarching topic of the Quadrivium is the study of number and its relation to space and time.


Arithmetic: Number - as such number is a pure abstraction outside of time and space. This aspect of the Quadrivium deals with the different characteristics of each number

Geometry: Number in space - specific shapes can have a deeper meaning. This aspect relates symbolism and it is frequently used in architecture.

Music: Number in time - covers music in general and particularly the topic of natural harmonics

Astronomy: Number in time and space - covers the movement of planets in space and the natural harmonics between the planets when looking at the aspect of time (harmony of the spheres). This is the first time aspects of time and space meet with the abstraction of number thus it builds the foundation for science.

OSSA 7 THE NUMBER 3: The Trivium

The Trivium - GLR

The Trivium is the first half of the 7 Liberal Arts. Sister Miriam Joseph described the three parts of the Trivium thus:

Grammar is the art of inventing symbols and combining them
to express thought

Logic is the art of thinking

Rhetoric is the art of communicating thought from one mind to another, the adaptation of language to circumstance.

Another description is:

Grammar is concerned with the thing as-it-is-symbolized
Logic is concerned with the thing as-it-is-known
Rhetoric is concerned with the thing as-it-is-communicated.

Caveat:

Morphology - is the identification, analysis and description of the
structure of a given language’s morphemes and other linguistic units. In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language.

Phonology - is a branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in languages. The phoneme can be described as “The smallest contrastive linguistic unit which may bring about a change of meaning”.

Syntax - In linguistics, syntax is “the study of the principles and
processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages”

Semantics - Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, like words, phrases, signs, and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotation.

Syntax has to do with the form and order of words within the sentence.

Semantics has to do with the meaning.

CANTICUM 15 BEER: Let This Not Be a Love Song

[C] Left your house this morning
[F] Couldn’t wake you up
[C] Rode home in the rain and early morning light
[G] Trying to figure love

My shirts smelled like cigarettes and beer
Like I was wearing all of last night
My soul feels as empty as these morning streets
Trying to understand why we fight

[Refrain]

[F] But let this not be a love song
[C] Cause according to you I’d get it all wrong
[G] Just let this be a memory
[C] Of what once was [C7] between you and me

[F] O let this not be a love song
[C] Even I can’t bear to sing another one
[G] Just let this be a memory
[C] Of what once was [G] between you and [C] me

Tried to call you after I got up
Left a message on your machine
I don’t know why, didn’t mean to make you cry
Can’t you understand what I mean

Remember the Spanish Steps
Two bottles of wine and a loaf of bread
Running all night through our dreams
I loved every single word you said

[Refrain]

Went by your place this evening
After one too many beers
Knew everything I was supposed to say
It was all so goddamned clear

But you weren’t home and I kept drinking
Kept thinking about how good it once was
More good times than could fit in my mind
You’re the only one I’ll ever love

CANTICUM 14 CROSS: Cross in the Field

[Em] There’s a cross in the [D] field
[C] A sign on the door for [Em] me
[Em] Bones at the bottom of the [D] well
[C] You told me that you’d never [Em] tell

There’s a broken man covered in tears
An empty book full of all of his fears
Bones at the bottom of the well
You told me that you’d never tell

[Refrain 1]

[D] Write down all my prayers in blood
[C] I don’t ever sing of love
[G] Bind my soul to ancient bones
[D] And walk amongst you all [Em] alone

There’s a cross in the field
A sign on the door for me
Bones at the bottom of the well
You told me that you’d never tell

There’s a woman with a ring in her hand
Without a single memory of me
There’s a moment always caught in my mind
There was a time, there was a time

[Refrain 2]

[D] Stare into the ring of fire
[C] Lose my mind in all desire
[G] Write down all my prayers in blood
[D] I don’t ever sing of [Em] love

There’s a cross in the field
And the gods stand before you revealed
There’s a moment always caught in my mind
There was a time, there was a time

[Refrain 2]

CANTICUM 13 DUST: Dust is Dreaming in the Rose

See the burning face above me

Feel the burning fires below

Hand of God marking off each hour

Cutting deep down into the bone

Every day is getting longer

Every word is said so slow

Time is sleeping on the crosses

Dust is dreaming in the rose

You with your ring of judgement

Around the flesh and around the bone

You never told me where your soul went

I saw it creeping back into its hole

CANTICUM 12 MIRROR: Childhood Lost

Childhood Lost


In the corner of a window
In a shack out in the woods
There's a mirror in a spiderweb
A time we called childhood

Sliding out of the darkness
Is an old man called Regret
He sits beside that window
Just waiting until we forget

When we do he's ready
To wrap us in his words
To tell us dreams of easier things
How the world was so absurd

Slowly sliding his web around
To hold us tight in time
To wrap us up in innocence
Like there never was a crime

Silent desperation
Throws lies across those years
And every single nightmare
Is floating on our tears

That face we see in the mirror
Just couldn’t be our own
Through a crack in the window
The wind begins to blow

A childhood lost in ignorance
Is every old man's dream
Shadows fade to emptiness
In every old man's dream

About his life.

CANTICUM 11 BOOK: God Won't Leave Me Alone

O I've been drinking
All night again

O I've been thinking
About dying again

You won't forgive me
For my sins

You won't forget me
Again and again

God won't leave me alone
Even though he's broken all my bones

O I've been writing
A book of blood

O I've been fighting
Almost everyone

God won't leave me alone
Even though he's broken all my bones

MUSIC 6 AIRPLANE: Poème, Op. 25 by Ernest Chausson, 1896

Wikipedia: Poème (Chausson)

Poème, Op. 25, is a work for violin and orchestra written by Ernest Chausson in 1896. It is a staple of the violinist's repertoire, has very often been recorded and performed, and is generally considered Chausson's best-known and most-loved composition. 

Background 

Poème was written in response to a request from Eugène Ysaÿe for a violin concerto. Chausson felt unequal to the task of a concerto, writing to Ysaÿe: I hardly know where to begin with a concerto, which is a huge undertaking, the devil's own task. But I can cope with a shorter work. It will be in very free form with several passages in which the violin plays alone. 

It was commenced in April 1896 and finished on 29 June, and was written while Chausson was holidaying in Florence, Italy. 

He wrote three different versions of Poème: with orchestra; with piano accompaniment (later rewritten by other hands); and a recently discovered version for violin, string quartet and piano, a companion to his Concert in D for piano, violin and string quartet, Op. 21 (1892). The solo violin parts of these versions are identical except for one minor detail. The work is notionally in the key of E-flat, and lasts about 16 minutes. It was dedicated to Ysaÿe, who gave its early performances.

Genesis of the title 

Chausson initially called it Le Chant de l'amour triomphant, then changed it to Poème symphonique, and finally to simply Poème. The first two rejected titles are crossed out on the extant manuscripts. 

The original title came from the 1881 romantic novella The Song of Love Triumphant (Le Chant de l'amour triomphant; Песнь торжествующей любви) by the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, who lived on the estate of the famed mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot and her husband near Paris; all three were acquaintances of Chausson's. The Viardots' daughter Marianne was engaged for some time to Gabriel Fauré, but broke it off and instead married Alphonse Duvernoy. Turgenev's novella seems to mirror this set of relationships, and it may be that Chausson initially attempted to portray it in music. However, it is clear his final intention was to create a work without extra-musical associations. 

Early performances 

In the autumn of 1896, Eugène Ysaÿe, Ernest Chausson and their wives were holidaying at Sitges on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. At a party hosted by the Catalan painter Santiago Rusiñol, Ysaÿe and Chausson's wife on piano gave an impromptu sight-read performance of Poème; local townspeople who overheard it demanded it be encored three times. Present at the party were Enrique Granados and possibly Isaac Albéniz.
Poème's formal premiere was at the Nancy Conservatoire on 27 December 1896,[3][4] conducted by Guy Ropartz, with Ysaÿe as soloist. But it was not really noticed until Ysaÿe gave the Paris premiere, at a Colonne Concert on 4 April 1897. Chausson was overcome by the sustained applause, something he had not experienced in his career to that point.
Ysaÿe also gave the first London performance of Poème, a week after Chausson's untimely death in 1899. 

Publication 

Poème was published in May 1897, but not at Chausson's own instigation. His friend Isaac Albéniz submitted the score to Breitkopf & Härtel while he was in Leipzig on a concert tour. They were reluctant to publish the work, considering it "vague and bizarre" and of "extraordinary difficulty", and consequently would have "few adherents" (letter to Albéniz of 27 April 1897). They agreed to publish only when Albéniz undertook to pay for the costs of publication himself. He also gave Breitkopf 300 marks, which they were to send Chausson under the pretence of a royalty. Chausson never knew of Albéniz’s role in this episode, which was done solely to boost his confidence in his compositional skills (he did not need the money, as he had financial security through wealth inherited from his father). It was also a way for Albéniz to repay Chausson's support and encouragement of him when he was a struggling student in Paris. 

Orchestration 

The orchestration of Poème is solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, harp and strings. 

Structure 

The work starts Lento e misterioso. Subsequent tempo indications are Molto animato, Animato, Poco lento, Poco meno lento, Allegro, Tempo I and the work ends Tranquillo.
It does not follow any formal model but is rhapsodic and moody, with rising and falling tensions and an advanced harmonic style. It strongly reflects the melancholy and introspection with which Chausson was imbued from an early age. (He once wrote to his godmother about his childhood: "I was sad without knowing why, but firmly convinced that I had the best reason in the world for it".) 

Joseph Szigeti always believed "the typically Ysaÿean sinuous double-stop passages" in the exposition could not have been written without the inspiration - or, indeed, the direct involvement - of Ysaÿe himself. This was later confirmed by Ysaÿe, who acknowledged he wrote the double-stopping "over Chausson's framework".

MUSICA 5 SUNSET: The Trio in E-flat, Opus 100, D. 929 by Franz Schubert, 1827

From Wikipedia: Piano Trio No. 2 (Schubert)

The Trio No. 2 in E-flat major for piano, violin, and violoncello, D. 929, was one of the last compositions completed by Franz Schubert, dated November 1827. It was published by Probst as opus 100 in late 1828, shortly before the composer's death and first performed at a private party in January 1828 to celebrate the engagement of Schubert's school-friend Josef von Spaun. The Trio was among the few of his late compositions Schubert heard performed before his death.[1] It was given its first private performance by Carl Maria von Bocklet on the piano, Ignaz Schuppanzigh playing the violin, and Josef Linke playing cello. 

Like Schubert's other piano trio, in B-flat major, this is a comparatively larger work than most piano trios of the time, taking almost 50 minutes to perform. The second theme of the first movement is based loosely on the opening theme of the Minuet and Trio of Schubert's G major sonata (D. 894). 

The main theme of the second movement was used as one of the central musical themes in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. It has also been used in a number of other films, including The Hunger, Crimson Tide, The Piano Teacher, L'Homme de sa vie, Land of the Blind, the HBO miniseries John Adams and The Mechanic. It is supposedly based on a Swedish folk song "se solen sjunker" ("See, the sun is sinking") by Berg.

Structure 

The piano trio contains four movements: 

1. Allegro 

The first movement is in sonata form. There is disagreement over the break-up of thematic material with one source claiming six separate units of thematic material while another source divides them into three themes each with two periods. There is to an extent extra thematic material during the recapitulation. At least one of the thematic units is based closely on a theme in an earlier piano sonata. The development section focuses mainly on the final theme of the exposition. 

2. Andante con moto 

The second movement takes the form of an asymetrical-double-ternary form. The opening theme has been used extensively in popular culture.

Principal theme in the second movement 

3. Scherzando. Allegro moderato 

The scherzo is an animated piece in standard double ternary form. 

4. Allegro moderato 

The finale is in an uncommon form where Schubert layers the sonata form with the outline of rondo form. Schubert also includes in two interludes the opening theme of the second movement in an altered version. 

MUSICA 4 STRIPPER: Air on the G String: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 BY Johann Sebastian Bach, 1723

Wikipedia: Air on the G String

Air on the G String is August Wilhelmj's arrangement of the second movement in Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068. 

History 

The original orchestral suite was written by Bach for his patron Prince Leopold of Anhalt some time between the years 1717 and 1723. 

The title comes from violinist August Wilhelmj's late 19th century arrangement of the piece for violin and piano. By transposing the key of the piece from its original D major to C major and transposing the melody down an octave, Wilhelm was able to play the piece on only one string of his violin, the G string. 

Later, a spurious story was put about that the melody was always intended to be played on the G string alone. 

Recording 

The Air on the G String was the first work by Bach ever to be recorded. This was by the Russian cellist Aleksandr Verzhbilovich and an unknown pianist, in 1902 (as the Air from the Overture No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068).  

Part of Air on the G String's melody was incorporated into Procol Harum's celebrated 1967 Worldwide hit, A Whiter Shade of Pale.

From Revision: J S Bach: Orchestral Suite in no.3 in d major, bwv 1068

The suite as a whole is perhaps most famous today for its second movement, the Air. In the 19th-century arrangement by August Wilhelmj in C major, it is widely known as the 'Air on the G-string' as the melody line can be played wholly on the lowest string of the violin, the G-string. This is often played in a highly Romantic style, with much vibrato. There have been other versions; French jazz pianist Jacques Loussier’s version was used in a cigar advert. 

Its lyrical melody acts as Baroque version of a wordless, instrumental aria, which unfolds slowly, almost infinitely so. The air’s long opening semibreve, as a rhythmic device, can give the impression of eternity. But it is the walking bass that provides the forward momentum; the C# and A in bar 1 act as passing notes in the bass. The incessant quaver movement acts to unify the piece as well as to provide momentum, giving great balance of mood throughout the piece. The texture is not nearly as dense as the preceding overture, but it retains much of its polyphonic texture; the second violin and viola both have melodic fragments that answer the phrases in the main melody, creating an effect of antiphony. 

The melodic construction makes great use of suspensions, which provide moments of harmonic tension within the air. The first one comes as bar 1 gives way to bar 2; the F# becomes dissonant with the changed harmony in bar 21, but is resolved by bar 23. However, in the intervening beat the melody is decorated by semiquavers on B, G, and an appoggiatura on F# just before the resolution of this 7-6 suspension to the E. There are many such highly decorated suspensions in the music – the viola has ones in bars 3 and 4; the second violin in bars 5 and 6. The decoration also extends into ornamentation, some of which Bach has written out and prescribed, but much of which can be added by the players in line with Baroque performance practice.

The air is structured within a binary movement framework: 

section A: bars 1-6
section B: bars 7-18
But its tonal plan allows it to maintain great interest:
bar 1 - D major
bar 2 - A major (hinted at via dominant; the E major chord acts more like the tonic’s secondary dominant, as the bass G# is quickly cancelled by G in bar 2)
bar 3 - E minor
bar 4 - D major (the chord of E minor acts a pivot chord to return to the tonic)
bar 5 - A major (establishing the binary form; the G before the repeat changes the A major to an A dominant 7th to lead back to the D major)
bar 7 - E minor
bar 9 - B minor (establishing the relative minor)
bar 11 - A major
bar 13 - G major (via the A dominant 7th chord acting as secondary dominant; starts sequence)
bar 13 - A major (sequence continues, increasing tension)
bar 14 - B minor (sequence continues, further tension)
bar 14 - E minor (final stop of the sequence)
bar 15 - G major (a typical move of Bach to refer to the subdominant before returning via the dominant chord to…)
bar 17 - D major 

The melodic sequence of bars 13-14 serves as a modulating sequence, and increases tension via its chromaticism, progressing from the dominant in first inversion to the tonic in each key. It also marks some contrast, as the sequence is ascending, whilst much of the rest of the piece uses descending melodies and bass lines. Again, the walking bass shares these features with the texture as a whole, acting as a microcosm; however, its constant quaver movement provides some continuity, despite the rate of harmonic change increasing from a steady 2-chords-per-bar to a 4-chords-per-bar in the sequence.