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New Fascination
Jun. 13th, 2007 09:25 pmRecently, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
epilimnion gave me a CD of the music from Gododdin, an avant-garde theater production that was the product of a collaboration between the Scottish industrial band Test Department and the Welsh experimental theater troupe Brith Gof. Sadly, neither group is still operating, but I am so happy that I have this recording. It's amazing stuff, scored for percussion, brass, a little bit of strings, singing, and spoken word (in both English and medieval Welsh). I just can't stop listening to it.
I found a video about the production - it's about an hour long but well worth the time. It has a lot of performance footage, but also interviews with members of Brith Gof and Test Department as well as commentary from a few history professors. The interviews provide some great insight into what the poem and production are all about and what Brith Gof was trying to express and convey. The footage of the production is fascinating - they did a remarkable job of combining an industrial/punk aesthetic with a real sense of the ancient and the timeless.
The Gododdin is an ancient Celtic poem commemorating the sixth century battle of Catraeth between 363 Celtic warriors and a few thousand Saxons. The Celts were utterly defeated, and The Gododdin is a series of elegies for the fallen warriors. Although the people and events recounted in the poem were from Scotland and Yorkshire, it was written in Old Welsh. The Gododdin also contains what may be the earliest known reference to Arthur. I've read a lot of The Gododdin online over the last week (in translation, of course), and I like it a lot. The style makes its age clear, but you can still hear the emotion:
Though he seized a wolf's pelt, without weapon, ever brave, in his bare hand,
From the battle of wrath and ruin he perished, Bradwen did not come back.
The end result of my fascination with all this is that I'm very inspired - I think I'm going to write a choral work based on The Gododdin. Although the Brith Gof/Test Department production certainly gave me the idea and the impetus, my intention is not to imitate it in any concrete way. The most I think I'll do is perhaps borrow some rhythms, and possibly aim for some of the same effects and emotions, in an extremely broad and general way.
epilimnion gave me a CD of the music from Gododdin, an avant-garde theater production that was the product of a collaboration between the Scottish industrial band Test Department and the Welsh experimental theater troupe Brith Gof. Sadly, neither group is still operating, but I am so happy that I have this recording. It's amazing stuff, scored for percussion, brass, a little bit of strings, singing, and spoken word (in both English and medieval Welsh). I just can't stop listening to it.I found a video about the production - it's about an hour long but well worth the time. It has a lot of performance footage, but also interviews with members of Brith Gof and Test Department as well as commentary from a few history professors. The interviews provide some great insight into what the poem and production are all about and what Brith Gof was trying to express and convey. The footage of the production is fascinating - they did a remarkable job of combining an industrial/punk aesthetic with a real sense of the ancient and the timeless.
The Gododdin is an ancient Celtic poem commemorating the sixth century battle of Catraeth between 363 Celtic warriors and a few thousand Saxons. The Celts were utterly defeated, and The Gododdin is a series of elegies for the fallen warriors. Although the people and events recounted in the poem were from Scotland and Yorkshire, it was written in Old Welsh. The Gododdin also contains what may be the earliest known reference to Arthur. I've read a lot of The Gododdin online over the last week (in translation, of course), and I like it a lot. The style makes its age clear, but you can still hear the emotion:
Though he seized a wolf's pelt, without weapon, ever brave, in his bare hand,
From the battle of wrath and ruin he perished, Bradwen did not come back.
The end result of my fascination with all this is that I'm very inspired - I think I'm going to write a choral work based on The Gododdin. Although the Brith Gof/Test Department production certainly gave me the idea and the impetus, my intention is not to imitate it in any concrete way. The most I think I'll do is perhaps borrow some rhythms, and possibly aim for some of the same effects and emotions, in an extremely broad and general way.
