{"id":591,"date":"2015-12-09T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T22:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catesings.org\/?p=591"},"modified":"2015-12-09T09:00:12","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T22:00:12","slug":"advent-calendar-day-11-el-cant-dels-ocells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/2015\/12\/09\/advent-calendar-day-11-el-cant-dels-ocells\/","title":{"rendered":"Advent Calendar Day 11 &#8211; El Cant Dels Ocells"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was going to post this song later in the week, but given my accidental Basque theme, I couldn&#8217;t resist adding some Catalan to the mix.\u00a0 This piece is a traditional Catalan carol which I found by accident when looking for a different bird-related carol in honour of my sister-in-law&#8217;s birthday tomorrow.\u00a0 (Happy pre-birthday, Tan!)\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to find a perfect arrangement of this one, but I think my favourite one is this one, sung by a Catalonian boys\u2019 choir. I love their soloist, and the gentle harmonies of the arrangement.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Escolania de Montserrat: Vivancos&#039; El cant dels ocells\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/w4aBKQ2PxKk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If you are partial to a more operatic \/ romantic version of this piece, then here\u2019s a version in English, sung by the Robert Shaw Chorale. Lyrics are below. It\u2019s rather a lovely translation, but obviously the demands of scansion kept it from being a very literal one. There is, however, a pretty good translation on <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/El_cant_dels_ocells\">Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Carol of the Birds (&quot;El cant dels ocells&quot;)\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3JxAinCY6Eg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;When in the Eastern skies the wondrous star did rise and fill the earth with splendor, came birds in joyful throng to sound their dainty\u00a0song in a carol sweet and tender. Hosanna to the child and to his mother mild, full reverently to render!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The kingly eagle came to praise his holy name in mighty proclamation. The sparrow then replied, &#8220;tonight is Christmastide, a night of jubilation.&#8221; Then robin redbreast sang , &#8220;now death has lost its sting, in Christ is our salvation.&#8221;\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The nightingale sang sweet, the lovely babe to greet, in Mary&#8217;s arms he&#8217;s lying. The cuckoo and the quail flew over hill and dale in admiration vying. The barn owl&#8217;s eyes were dim, such radiance blinded him, and homeward he went flying.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And if you\u2019d just like an instrumental version on cello with pretty pictures of birds, try this one. It\u2019s pretty gorgeous.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"El Cant dels Ocells\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9bZp3CO0cEA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Except that actually, that last one has a bit more to it than that. \u00a0 I didn&#8217;t realise this when I started hunting for bird-related carols, but this particular song &#8211; and particularly the version by Pau Casals &#8211; became emblematic of both peace and of Catalonian independence.\u00a0 You can read what he had to say about it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.paucasals.org\/en\/-PAU-CASALS-United-Nations-speech\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>(Nope, I wasn&#8217;t expecting politics on this blog either.\u00a0 Sorry.\u00a0 But it was turning into a rather large elephant in a very small room, and not acknowledging it seemed worse&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was going to post this song later in the week, but given my accidental Basque theme, I couldn&#8217;t resist adding some Catalan to the mix.\u00a0 This piece is a traditional Catalan carol which I found by accident when looking for a different bird-related carol in honour of my sister-in-law&#8217;s birthday tomorrow.\u00a0 (Happy pre-birthday, Tan!)\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,14,104,139,206,230,559,567,616],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advent","tag-advent-calendar","tag-catalan","tag-classical-music","tag-el-cant-dels-ocells","tag-escolania-de-montserrat","tag-pablo-casals","tag-pau-casals","tag-robert-shaw-chorale"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}