Song of the day?

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Another nice and sunny day, another piece of dancing music, though this time of a completely different cultural origin. This dance is Precoumbian in origin, based on the musical traditions of the Nahuatl-speaking people, the former Aztecs, which survived the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The reknown performer of Precolumbian music, Xavier Quijas Yxayotl, and associates perform an "Aztec" dance called "Tezcatlipoca y Fuego (to the Smoking Mirror and Fire Serpent)" performed in honor of the Aztec deities Tezcatlipoca and Xiuhcoatl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vacnAwt61cs
 
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Before listening to this music a short introduction to music archaeology should prove necessary. It is really rare to find notated music from before the Middle Ages. As far as I know (and I am a layman in this regard), while Ancient Greek notated music is still comparatively found aplenty (most from Graeco-Roman Egypt) other notated musuc from ancient times is exceedingly rare. There are but a few Hurrian pieces of notated music and but one known for each the Sumerian, Ancent Egyptian, and Ancient Roman culture. Even if notated ancient music is found, there is still debate on how to read the notation (cf. the Hymnus Nemesis I posted a few days ago). This is but a facette of music archaeology. It is about playing reconstructed ancient music, based on surviving notation or what contemporary texts and archaeological artifacts tell us about musical practice, sometimes completed with regard to better known musical practice from successor cultures. The music is played on original (rarely) or reconstructed historical instruments, at times also on closely related modern day traditional instruments. Texts sung are often historic but without surviving notation. All in all the practice of music archaeology is less about how the music of a culture or time period really did sound like but more about how it could have sounded like according to all that we know. Although such music is thus not necessarily authentic (safe for pieces with surviving notation, though limitations do exist) it is as close as possible and more importantly, it is what music was at all times: beautiful.

The piece of music I chose today is reconstructed Ancient Egyptian music by Michael Atherton. This piece, "Khet" (the physical body) Part 1 (song)", features an Ancient Egyptian love song from Papyrus Chester Beatty 1 Recto.

Classical music ahead!
Era: Antiquity (reconstructed Ancient Egyptian music)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fif3zRVMATc
 
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"137" - Brand New
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsczmwJfPIo
"“137” is a philosophical account of the end of the world via nuclear annihilation. It portrays the carelessness with which mankind seems to treat conflict in the era of mutually assured destruction and yet another nail in the coffin of the narrator’s religious faith – the very idea that a benevolent creator deity would purposefully give humanity the ability to destroy itself so completely.

Despondency ensues, as god doesn’t seem to care about the moral ramifications of the conflict or its insane justifications; only that death is assured and that humans should simply “learn to love the bomb”, a phrase deriving from the subtitle of director Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 anti-nuclear war film, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

The title refers to the radioactive isotope Caesium-137, of which there was no trace in the Earth’s atmosphere or in nature before the first nuclear detonation. Ever since the introduction of nuclear weapons and reactors, trace amounts of the isotope have rapidly spread across the planet."
 
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Seeing as we have Good Friday (at least still here in Germany) my choice of music is Easter-themed. To be exact it is Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Op. 36, the "Russian Easter Festival Overture".

Classical music ahead!
Era: Romantic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4e8CvxV4Ho
 
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Today I chose a love song again. "Tant m'abelis" by Berenguier de Palou from the early 12th century is a typical troubadour song where the singer praises his beloved lady to whom he is committed while following the rules of courtly love. It is sung in Old Occitan, the Medieval form of the Occitan language still spoken today in Southern France which was the language of the troubadours. This piece is musically performed by Ensemble Unicorn.

Classical music ahead!
Era: Medieval

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDmK4dragIQ
 
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Today is the first time my post follows my own post, but oh well...

My choice of the day is "C'est dans la ville de Bytown", a folk song from Quebec attested from 1914. This French-language love song based on a melody first attested in Amsterdam in 1620 and still danced in Belgium tells about the love between a French-speaking Québecois Canadian and an English speaking Canadian girl from Ottawa. It is musically performed by The Boston Camerata.

The text, if translated into English, is the following:

"It is in the town of Bytown (i.e. Ottawa),
Where the Englishmen reside (2 x)
There are three beautiful girls
Who are perfect in their beauty,
The youngest is my mistress
Whom my heart had known to charm."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7btI9dn4hI
 
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And me again. Today I have chosen the German folk song "Spinn, spinn meine liebe Tochter" whose melody comes from the Lower Rhine in 1863 and whose text is taken from the poetry collection "Des Knaben Wunderhorn". The piece is sung by soprano Anneliese Rothenberger accompanyied by the Chor der Bayerischen Staatsoper (choir of the Bavarian state opera). I like this song for its slightly naughty text which I have transladed below, literally, though the rhymes are lacking in English:

"Spin, spin my dear daughter, I will even buy you shoes."
"Yes, yes, dear, dear mother, buckles along with it, too.
I cerainly cannot spin, my finger is aching and hurts and hurts and hurts me so much."

"Spin, spin my dear daughter, I will buy you a dress."
"Yes, yes, dear, dear mother, not too tight and not too loose.
I certainly cannot spin, my finger is aching and hurts and hurts and hurts me so much."

"Spin, spin my dear daughter, I will buy you a husband."
"Yes, yes, dear, dear mother, he befits me well.
By now I can spin, no finger is aching and hurts and hurts and hurts no longer."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqEoc3QWTQU
 
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@Nick_Asano: That's curious! I always test the links after posting them and it worked just fine. I tested the link again and it still works for me. Could be that the song is accessible in limited regions only. Here the link to a slightly different version by another interpreter which I hope will work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo5vAh505Ho
 

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