"Do not abandon me. Give me the needed gentleness to ease suffering"
On this Passion Sunday, Mark’s Gospel shows Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane while the disciples wait, or rather, sleep. Though the text of this prayer is Bourdèse’s, the image of Jesus desiring Calvary in order to ease suffering seems so organic and so appropriate for today.
The Temple of Brahma in Pushkar
The West has always had a fascination with the East, and in the Romantic period, “Orientalism” in the arts was a particularly strong trend. Hermann Bemberg’s Chant Hindou was quite popular as a result, though the music itself shows little to no eastern influence. Today, Bemberg would be called a one-hit wonder, Chant Hindou being his hit song.
A note on this recording: There are no indications in the music that the interludes in this piece should move along at a quicker pace than the rest of the music as they do here. I presume this is due to the 78 RPM disc on which it was recorded — in order not to go beyond the disc’s three-minute length, tempi were often incredibly quick, particularly in piano interludes.
There is no translation at recmusic, so I have submitted one. It appears below:
"O Mother, hear a suppliant child!"
This piece is, quite simply, a classic. The stillness and peace of this prayer to the mother of God are lovely and touching.
Though known primarily in its Latin version, that was not Schubert’s original, and in fact, he never added the latin text; it is an adaption. Schubert took the text from a translation of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake. The text is just as prayerful and meaningful, though, as the Latin, in my humble opinion, and needs to be heard and studied.
For those still fond of the Latin version, I won’t withhold the information 🙂
And for those that prefer the Bach-Gounod version — I hear you and will feature that work soon enough
An art song a day 