Saturday, October 05, 2013

Bella Akhmadulina

From high atop Peredelkino,  a dacha complex situated just to the southwest of Moscow, Russia., it's time once again for Sadko's World of Music. The role of Sadko today is being played by Ilya Ehrenberg . Scooter the Wonder Dog will not appear today. He is on vacation. Instead the role of Chuck the Woodchuck will be played by Hans Himler. The role of the Bobbsie Twins is being played by  Anna and Vanna Netrebko. The role of Ken Moss is being played by the entire population of Armenia.  In the third half of the program, the role of Lenny the Listener will  be played by Bulat Okudzhava.  Our featured great Russian writer today is Izabella Akhatovna "Bella" Akhmadulina  10 April 1937 – 29 November 2010  was a Soviet and Russian poet, short story writer, and translator, known for her apolitical writing stance. She was part of the Russian New Wave literary movement.She was cited by Joseph Brodsky as the best living poet in the Russian language.
Despite the aforementioned apolitical stance of her writing, Akhmadulina was often critical of authorities in the Soviet Union,and spoke out in favour of others, including Nobel laureates Boris Pasternak, Andrei Sakharov, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.She was known to international audiences via her travels abroad during the Khrushchev Thaw, during which she made appearances in sold-out stadiums. Her death was in 2010 at the age of 73
Valentina Ponomareva – A naposledok ya skazhu (At the end I'll say) (arr. V. Ponomareva): A naposledok ya skazhu (At the end I'll say) B. Akhmadulina – Gypsy Romances From Russia
Angus & Julia Stone – Bella  – A Book Like This
The Avett Brothers – Bella Donna  – The Second Gleam
Jason Mraz – Bella Luna  – Mr. A-Z
Canti amorosi. Archiv Produktion, 1975. Caccini, G. Belle rose porporine. Peri, J. Bellissima regina.-- Turco, G. del.   Occhi belli.--Galestani, V. Damigella tutta bella. Nigel Rogers, tenor; Colin Tilney, harpsichord or positive organ; Anthony Bailes, chitarrone; Jordi Savall, viola da gamba; Pere Ros, violone; sung in Italian.
Bella Akhmadulina, Memory of Dead Poets
Ezio Pinza, bass. Odyssey, [1972] Ponchielli, A. Bella cosi madonna, from La Gioconda (with Risë Stevens) Ezio Pinza, bass; Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Emil Cooper and Fausto Cleva, conductors; sung in Italian
Bella Akhmadulina, "По улице моей который год..."
Leontyne Price sings Mozart operatic and concert arias. RCA Red Seal [1969] Bella mia flamma, K. 528. Leontyne Price, soprano; New Philharmonia Orchestra; Peter Herman Adler, conductor.
The Garden by Bella Akhmadulina///music Shostakovich Piano Concerto no.2

I went out to the garden—but in garden,
the word, lies lush luxuriance.
As gorgeous as a full-blown rose, it
enriches sound and scent and glance.

The word is wider than what surrounds me:
inside it all is well and free;
its rich black soil makes sons and daughters
of orphaned and transplanted seeds.

Seedlings of dark innovations,
O garden, word, you are the gardener,
who to the clippers gleam and clatter
increase and spread the fruits you bear.

Set within your free-and-easy
space are an old estate and the fate
of a family long gone, and the faded
whiteness of their garden bench.

You are more fertile than the earth:
you feed the roots of others crowns.
From oak to oakwood, Oakboy, you are
hearts mail, and words—the love, the blood.

Your shady grove is always darkened,
but why did a lovelorn parasol
of lace look down in embarrassment
in the face of hot weather coming on?

Perhaps I, who quest for a limp hand,
redden my own knees on the stones?
A casual impoverished gardener,
what do I seek? Where do I tend?

If I had gone out, where would I really
have gone? Its May—and solid mud.
I went out to a ruined wasteland
and in it read that life was dead.

Dead! Gone! Where had it hurried to?
It merely tasted the dried-up agony
of speechless lips and then reported:
all things forever; only a moment for me.

For a moment in which I could not manage
to see either self or garden clearly.
I went out to the garden was what I wrote.
I did? Well, then, there must be

something to it? There is—and amazing
how going to the garden takes no move.
I did not go out at all. I simply wrote the way I usually do,
I went out to the garden . . .

Di Stefano, Giuseppe, 1921  The soul of Naples  Epic, 1965?] Addio, mia bella Napoli   Neapolitan songs performed by Giuseppe di Stefano, with orchestra; Iller Pattacini, conductor.

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