The Later Art (1879-1904) of William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) to Vivaldi

YouTube ^

[Sans-Culotte]

The image I posted was just one I pulled of the internet. However, I do have a framed version that I bought from the Boston museum catalog over 20 years ago. My print is also bluish like the internet image.

I bought it framed from the museum and the outer dimensions of the frame are about 28"x44". How big was the actual painting?

I originally bought Christmas cards with the image of Mary and the baby and the sphinx and we liked it so much we bought the print of the entire picture.

[mairdie]

28 1/4 x 50 1/2 in

https://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/1525259/resize%3Aformat%3Dfull;jsessionid=556B90A992BF0669E5E985FE1152C12D

The picture that MFA shows on their website seems betwix and between ours. So my phone camera might have been going more yellow to adjust for low light.

[ml/nj]

Hard to believe I don't remember this. I wonder if it was out on loan. I love Bouguereau. Here's one that hasn't been posted yet:

I gave a framed reproduction of this painting to my daughter after she gave birth to my first grandchild. Now it hangs in my granddaughter's bedroom.

ML/NJ

[mairdie]

I LOVE that story. It’s a favorite of mine, too.

1880-MN-Institute-of-Art-William-Adolphe-Bouguereau-1825-1905-French-Temptation

What I do is name all the pictures with the date of creation first. Then I sort alphabetically so I can do a chronological viewing in the video.

This is the first time I added museum names to the file names. He was EVERYWHERE and it was fascinating.

[YogicCowboy]

Another excellent compilation.

Thanks for the Vivaldi. I have sung many masterworks since 2004, too many composers to recount, but singing Vivaldi’s choral works remain my favorite.

[mairdie]

I think of voice as one of the best instruments. My memories of high school and college choirs are some of my favorites. Husband loves classical music, but hates voice, so I lost mine from disuse. One of my regrets. I still battle with him when I use voice as an audio track on my videos. So wonderful to know others love that instrument, too. Van Gogh green with envy that you’re singing. Was just listening to O Magnum Mysterium and remembering.

[YogicCowboy]

Voice is the original instrument. Instrumental music, per se, in the Renaissance was largely derived at first from vocal lines: chant and harmonies.

Which O Magnum Mysterium? Lauridson or de Victoria (or some other)?

Lauridson is more popular nowadays, but de Victoria is one of my favorites to sing and hear. It is unusually challenging and interesting in the bass line. (Bass parts are sometimes either monotonous or jumpy, but often not melodic.)

[mairdie]

de Victoria

The-Boys-of-St.-Pauls-Choir-School
Christmas-in-Harvard-Square

I was a coloratura soprano. The bass part was such fun that when singing it outside a choral setting, I always sang that part, too, when I could.

Our choral nun was trained in Rome and also composed. Hated pigeons. We won a number of Chicago competitions. She had a room with a cathedral ceiling and punishment for minor infractions involved cleaning her venetian blinds. I tried voice lessons with her for awhile, but she was terrifying. Had me singing while breathing at a candle. We sang bent bonelessly at the waist when we had colds. And she managed to talk our Latin teacher out of her Steinway Grand when the woman died. Good memories.

[YogicCowboy]

Thanks for that response. Music makes memories. I assume, being a coloratura, you got your share of solos. It sounds like it was challenging but rewarding.

I learned to sing harmony by chance as an adult; I got dragged into the church choir since I was always around while in youth ministry, and they had only one “tone deaf” male. That church happened to have a real choral conductor, trained by a world-famous one. She had me singing harmony by the end of the second rehearsal, where others in my youth had all failed utterly, and I had given up entirely on singing after my voice changed.

It was much later (at 44) that I studied it seriously, and got into bona fide ensembles. Good (interesting and enjoyable) bass parts are few and far between.

Although I have sung in very elite groups, I am not the very best chorister, but being a basso profundo, most ensembles want me, if only so they can do Russian literature (e.g., Chesnokov, “Duh Tvoy blagiy”). I am not as low as an authentic Oktavist, but I can can sing a B1 or Bb1 cleanly and audibly.

Of all the discrete pieces and major works I have sung, probably my two favorites are this “O magnum mysterium” and “Ave verum corpus” by Mozart.

[mairdie]

No solos. Just a phenomenal choir with good complicated pieces. The other piece I’d like to hear again was an Easter piece. I keep bumping into a bible verse when I search for the words. What I remember was

hath dealt bitterly
hath dealt bitterly with me
call me now no more naomi
from today call me mara

It’s very low. Catholic girls’ school, so Maureen Tobin would have been our soloist. I should email her and see if she or our soprano soloist remember.

[YogicCowboy]

I will try to find it. My close friend runs the music program at her Catholic church, and is very knowledgable. If I cannot find it, she may. Check back...

[YogicCowboy]

Here is my best candidate (until I can speak to my friend):

Theodore Dubois, “The Seven Last Words of Jesus Christ” [Latin, 1867; English, 1899].

The opening solo is for soprano, and appears to match your description.

If you go to either of the below sites, then you should find a detailed delineation of the piece:

http://wheatwilliams.com/2012/03/studying-the-libretto-to-theodore-dubois-the-seven-last-words-of-christ/

http://www.fbcmalden.org/about-us/special-events/seven-last-words-christ-theodore-dubois-1867/

[mairdie]

THAT’S IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Infinite thanks! Now I can try to look up a recording. Fantastic!

[YogicCowboy]

I’m glad. It looks like a Good Friday oratorio.

[mairdie]

Which is right before Easter. Can’t believe we would have celebrated just the downer. Just found a lovely Chinese version sung in French.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K_nzI8h_qU

And a lovely O Magnum

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

[BunnySlippers]

Thanks for the pictures!

[mairdie]

My great pleasure. Mary

[YogicCowboy]

Thanks for those links.

I did a lot of quartet and double quartet singing for Christmas in the past. We called them “Rent-A-Carols”; it was how we raised funds to tour Europe and compete there. They included some fancier pieces and arrangements, along with standard SATB carols.

Since it was a high-end ensemble in Silicon Valley, we got lots of gigs. We were hired by Google once for their campus Christmas party, but mostly by smaller companies - technology or business, or private parties for millionaires in their mansions. Always in concert attire, of course.

Balance was always an issue, so there was someone in charge of scheduling the gigs, and making sure each quartet was balanced in terms of voices - blend and volume.

I never sang a piece like this in quartet before, nor have I ever heard it done by one. It sounded better than I would have expected.

Of course, we sometimes would sing such in practice quartets, again for balance, but not in an actual performance.

That was Robert Shaw’s key to his enormous success: He made them sing everything in practice quartets. If they could do that balanced, then the whole choir would be balanced.

(Amazingly, Shaw did not sing himself, and only played some guitar. He was not much of a musician per se, but he created the American choral tradition.)

[mairdie]

Anytime you want a video of images made to an audio track of your group, let me know.

[mdmathis6]

I was in an acapella choir at college in upstate NY. Your postings touched off a wave of nostalgia We sang a version of O Magnum Mysterium but it wasn’t the Lauridsun...I’ve not been able to find a recording of the one we sang though Ican still recite a lot of the bass line from pitch memory.(My ear was what got me into the choir in the first place) I don’t do much singing anymore but I still have the ear....I can tell at a distance if it my IV pumps are going off vs’s another nurse’s from their pitch...generally our feeding pumps have two pitches... a c and a csharp and I remember a nurse asking one day..”i wonder which pump is going off...I replied “your is. the c sharp is in room 23 and the c natural is in room 27”**...which it was when she checked it. My love of has helped me in my nursing jobs in lots of ways over the years.(**relative to A440hz)