Allegri's Miserere from Memory

1770 A.D. Rome. The Sistine Chapel. It is Wednesday in Holy Week. Several hours before dawn, worshippers assemble in the famous chapel, adorned with the legendary frescoes of Michelangelo, for the Tenebrae service. Among them are an Austrian gentleman (the unique nature of this particular service draws visitors from all over Europe) and his teenage son. The service itself consists of a ritual extinguishing of candles, accompanied by readings, prayers, and musical settings of appointed texts. Most notable among these latter is a setting of Psalm 51 (Miserere mei, Deus - Have mercy upon me, O God) composed a century-and-a-half prior by Gregorio Allegri. An aura of mystique surrounds this musical work, reported to be an exceptionally beautiful and intricately polyphonic interplay between two choirs, totaling nine separate voices. So highly is it prized by the Roman Church, that transcribing or performing the music elsewhere is forbidden under the threat of excommunication.

The service proceeds. The glorious Miserere is sung, to the enraptured delight of all present, especially those guests who are hearing it for the first time. As the service concludes, a final lit candle is briefly hidden away under the altar and then reproduced, providing just enough light for the worshippers to find the exit. As they file out silently, the Austrian gentleman looks down with upraised eyebrows toward his son. In the dim light, the son returns his father's questioning glance with a precocious grin and a wink of the eye. Later in the day, back in their quarters elsewhere in the city, the boy takes pen to paper and transcribes, from memory, Allegri’s Miserere from beginning to end. The pair return again to the chapel for the Good Friday Tenebrae Service, the only other time in the whole year when the piece is performed. This second hearing furnishes opportunity for the boy to make the few additional mental notes he needs in order to perfect the transcription.

The father and son are, of course, Leopold and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was fourteen at the time. During their subsequent travels, they shared the transcription with a British historian, who took a copy home with him to London and published it the following year. When it became known who was responsible, the Pope, rather than excommunicating Mozart, instead heaped laudations upon the boy for his impish genius. The ban was lifted, and today Allegri’s Miserere is among the most highly regarded of a cappella choral works.

The Secret of Kells

Today being St. Patrick’s Day, I’m reminded of a plug I meant to give for a movie I saw for the first time a few weeks ago. The Secret of Kells is a delightfully animated film which involves a fictional story (populated by some quasi-historical characters) about the creation (and preservation) of the famed Book of Kells. The animation style is refreshingly and uniquely stylized in a way that pays homage to the artistry of the text around which it revolves.

As a rather interesting aside which I was unaware of prior to watching the film, a tall central siege tower, as is prominently featured in the movie, was indeed a feature of the Abbey of Kells, and possibly of other Celtic monasteries of the period. As my pastor pointed out to me in a conversation about the film, this fact lends a new dimension to these lines from the well-known Irish hymn Be Thou My Vision.

Be thou my breastplate, sword for the fight;
Be thou my dignity, thou my delight;
Thou my soul’s shelter, thou my high tower:
Raise thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Antonio Gotto: A Centenary Tribute

One hundred years ago today my great-great grandfather Antonio Gotto passed away, at age 103. Aside from a few additional family anecdotes that have been handed down, his obituary provides virtually all of the knowledge that my family has retained about our fascinating ancestor and his apparently colorful life and experiences. (Due to his extreme old age, his death was a matter of significant local interest, and his obituary, given below, appeared on the front page of the evening paper.)

The Nashville Banner, Wednesday Evening, March 13, 1912

Antonio Gotto, a stone mason by trade, and probably the oldest citizen of Davidson County, died at 9:45 o’clock this morning near Una [then a suburb of Nashville, today a community east of Murfreesboro Road, just south of Nashville Int’l Airport].

Mr. Gotto was a man of wide information and experience and he stood high among those who knew him, having the respect of all. He came to the United States from his native town, Genoa, Italy, while a young man, and entered upon his trade in this country. He was one of the skilled workmen employed on the present State Capitol, and he also worked on all the culverts and other similar work on the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway. He continued active work until about ten years ago, when he was forced to retire because of his advanced age and the ailments resulting therefrom.

Mr. Gotto had traveled not alone in this country but in Central America as well. While in the latter country in 1860 he witnessed the execution of William Walker by the Honduran Government.

January 8, 1912, Mr. Gotto was 103 years of age. His wife preceded him to the grave four or five years ago. Several children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Gotto, the sons being Willard, George, Ed, Nathan, and Joe [my great-grandfather], and the daughters, Alice Mrs. Eugene Gresham, Mary, Mrs. George Fox, Maggie and Mrs. Arthur Ridley.

Mr. Gotto was a citizen of Davidson Country for more than half a century, living at the home place near Una for fifty years. As an evidence of his activity even during his latter years, it is of interest to note the fact that Mr. Gotto, at the age of 94 walked from his home to Nashville and on to Belle Meade, and then back home. [That distance would be well over 30 miles, altogether.]

Mr. Gotto’s last illness lasted about two or three weeks, during which time those who watched at his bedside feared he would never survive his final illness. The death of this well-known citizen this morning showed that their fears were well founded.

In addition to a couple of photographic portraits of Antonio, my mother has a large (about 18" x 12") photograph of the old “Gotto home place” which was apparently taken sometime around the turn of the 20th century. The house was demolished in 1999, but I got permission to retrieve a few relics, including a couple of the smaller logs from the cabin portion, and two of the unique stained-glass window frames that can be seen here. I turned one into a mirror for my grandmother, and the other hangs in the front foyer of my home.

The King of Western Swing and the Duke of Lancaster

Today we celebrate the legacies of two vastly different men, born on the same date, centuries apart.

Bob Wills was born on this day in 1905, in rural Texas. (His birthday, incidentally, falls on the anniversary of the Fall of the Alamo, an association of which he was no doubt especially proud.) As the fiddle-playing, cigar-chomping, jive-talking frontman for his group The Texas Playboys, Bob pioneered what was eventually dubbed Western Swing: an innovative combination of country and western and big band jazz. The group was not only exceedingly popular, at times out-selling more mainstream acts such as Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey as they performed at large dance events all across the southern and western U.S., they were ahead of their time in a number of respects as well, most notably for their prominent use of amplified electric guitars (and mandolins). (The group’s sole appearance at the Grand Ole Opry, in 1944, caused a legendary scandal when they defied that organization’s ban on drum kits.) Some of the band’s greatest hits include: Maiden’s Prayer, New San Antonio Rose, Take Me Back to Tulsa, Home in San Antone, Faded Love, Bubbles in My Beer, and Basin Street Blues.

John of Gaunt was born March 6, 1340, the third surviving son of powerful British monarch Edward III. Though he never wore the crown himself, he nonetheless cast a very long shadow (literally as well as figuratively: the man was apparently about 6' 7" tall) over England and her subsequent history. His vast holdings made him the richest man in England during his time, and his colorful life included 3 marriages, an ultimately unsuccessful bid for the thrones of the Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Leon (claimed through his second wife), prosecution of several military campaigns in France, de facto leadership of England for several years (during a time when both his father and older brother, Edward, The Black Prince, were too ill to rule), patronage of Geoffrey Chaucer, and support for the proto-Reformer John Wycliffe. After his death, his son, Henry Bolingbroke deposed (and possibly murdered) John’s nephew Richard II to become King Henry IV. All subsequent English monarchs, down to the present day, are descendants of John of Gaunt.

In Shakespeare’s play Richard II, the dying John of Gaunt speaks these lines in an oft-quoted patriotic tribute to England:

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,. . .

Downton Abbey Paper Dolls from Vulture

Dang, I wish I had thought of this. Of course, I've only managed to see the first episode from Season One, but these are hilarious!

Lugete, O Veneres . . . Catullus Postcard No. 2

On a day already populated by so many “Venuses and Cupids”, it seems fitting to unveil this self-promotional postcard design, the second of a series of such inspired by the work of the classical Latin poet Catullus. (More background on both the project and on Catullus can be found here.)

This poem is a classic example of melodrama, though without any real hint of sarcasm: Catullus manages to convey genuine sympathy for the loss of the sparrow and the distress that it causes for his lady love, while at the same time, the reader can detect at least a faint curl of the lip and a wink of the eye that would seem to say: “Oh come on, already! Seriously?!”

For those familiar with the Scottish poet Robert Burns, Catullus has frequently been compared with him. The works of both, though nearly two millennia apart, display a correspondingly gentle (though playful) sensitivity, combined with a devotion to the quaint colloquialisms of everyday speech and conversation that the average person in their respective cultures could readily identify with. (This poem, by Burns, serves as a fine parallel example.)

Below is the full text of Catullus’ poem in Latin, followed by an English rendering in the style of Robert Burns by G. S. Davies, taken from A First Book of Latin Poetry (which is a really delightful volume, if you can manage to get your hands on a used copy).

Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque,

Et quantum est hominum venustiorum:

Passer mortuus est meae puellae,

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,

Quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.

Nam mellitus erat suamque norat

Ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem,

Nec sese a gremio illius movebat,

Sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc

Ad solam dominam usque pipiabat.

Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum

Illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.

At vobis male sit, male tenebrae

Orci, quae omnia bella devoratis:

Tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis

O factum male! O miselle passer!

Tua nunc opera meae puellae

Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.

Weep, weep, ye Loves and Cupids all,
And ilka Man o’decent feelin’:
My lassie’s lost her wee, wee bird,
And that’s a loss, ye’ll ken, past healin’.

The lassie lo’ed him like her een:
The darling wee thing lo’ed the ither,
And knew and nestled in her breast,
As ony bairnie to her mither.

Her bosom was his dear, dear haunt—
So dear, he cared na lang to leave it;
He’d nae but gang his ain sma’ jaunt,
And flutter piping back bereavit.

The wee thing’s gane the shadowy road
That’s never travelled back ony:
Out on ye, Shades! ye’re greedy aye
To grab at aught that’s brave and bonny.

Puir, foolish, fondling, bonnie bird,
Ye little ken what wark ye’re leavin’:
Ye’ve gar’d my lassie’s een grown red,
Those bonnie een grow red wi’ grievin’.

The New JCPenney Catalogs Are Here!!!

When I was growing up, JCPenney was the go-to retailer of my dear grandmother. The arrival of their tome-like seasonal catalogs tended to get her rather, shall we say, worked up. And the Christmas catalog—well, its appearance always caused a stir amongst the entire household, especially the younger members, as we pored over its pages, each individual dog-earing, initialing, and notating items of particular interest, confidently hoping to stake out our claim on a small-but-generous share of the unfathomable bounty displayed therein.

But alas, that was decades ago. Never in a zillion years would I have expected to be even mildly excited again about a JCPenny catalog. But when I saw the newly redesigned look sported by their February “book” on my parents’ coffee table this weekend, it was the Death Star, and I was the Millennium Falcon.

While not quite the debacle that Gap hurled itself into back in 2010, when they made an abortive attempt at re-branding via a logo redesign that relied heavily on crowdsourcing, JCP drew corresponding ire from the design community last year for using similar methods which yielded, if not quite so ghastly, undeniably mediocre results. But rather than slinking off, tail between legs, back to the familiar same-old-same-old (as its aforementioned competitor has done, for the most part) JCP clearly managed to regroup and press forward (not backward) with much better results, no doubt owing to much sounder methods (i.e. hiring some real designers to tackle the problem with proven craftsmanship).

The new logo is certainly very smartly iconic: the company’s initials, placed within an arrangement of red, (white), and blue squares, which unmistakably but not too heavy handedly evokes the U.S. flag. That’s clever enough, but what really impresses me is the comprehensive re-brand considered as a total package. Of course, the classic motif of the logo-derived square weaves itself into the overall design readily enough. But beyond that, I really enjoy the way this design pulls off the clean, uncluttered, sans-serif-dominated look without the cold, uninviting, and antiseptic blah! that contemporary devotion to that particular canon so often engenders. The strategic interspersing of ample white space with splashes of bright color, the inventive but radically economical use of a single typeface (Gotham!) in contrasting weights and sizes, and the thoughtfully balanced implementation of models, clipped-out objects, and product beauty shots, all combine to create an atmosphere that is both sharply clean and warmly inviting, reassuring in its lack of complexity and yet alluringly playful. And there’s just the right amount of friskiness, where it seems called for, without the crass, voyeuristic enticements that other major brands have aspired (or rather, de-spired) to.

A comparison of the print catalog and the website leads me to believe that the former was definitely driving the latter and received more attention. That’s not just a print vs. web sideswipe (though I am admittedly somewhat biased): I think the translation onto the web could have been better (rather too much white, and rather too caged-in, it seems to me), and there’s no reason why it couldn’t have worked in the other direction with equal success. We’ll see, maybe that angle will improve.

Apparently we don’t yet know who to credit for this handsome effort, but one thing is clear: as some companies continue to experiment with the notion of placing their brand’s direction in the hands of technology-spawned fads such as crowdsourcing and other on-the-cheap gimmicks, the results produced by an individual designer, or team of individual designers, with eyes trained carefully on the bigger picture as well as the details, continues to stand out, even amidst a consumer culture that all too often seems to have lost whatever ability it may have once had to distinguish between a thoughtfully executed master design and a hacked-up mish-mash. And they always will.

Is That Really Reggie Jackson?!

I was thumbing through an old (August, 2010) issue of Print today, looking for inspiration on a project, and ran across this short but laugh-out-loud hilarious article on the history of baseball card design, from the adept pen of Drew Dernavich, who also posted a follow-up here. Take a laugh break from whatever you're doing and enjoy.

Pencil Illustrations: Yosemite and San Francisco

Last month, I did a number of 5" x 7" pencil sketches based on photographs I took during my trip to California back in the summer of 2010. I gave the originals, matted and framed, out to my "Top Ten" clients as Christmas gifts. (Wanna be on my list next time around? Better send me lots of good work in 2012!) Here are some samples - the cream of the crop, if you will.

A Typographical Reading of Revelation

I just had to vent. I feel a little better now. Thanks for indulging me.
Carry on.

Cartographic Near-Perfection

Okay, I confess to being something of a map nerd. I have quite a few hanging on the wall of my basement/office-space. In fact, one of the highlights of my holiday season was that I finally got around to framing and hanging my 1979 National Geographic map of Medieval England, which I think is one of the best they've ever done.

A good map is rich in both visual interest and information. The cartographic tradition, at its best, weaves together a number of different strands that have always interested me greatly: illustration, design, history, the allure of the distant and exotic, and storytelling, to name a few. (I would have added “geography”, but suppose that would be rather redundant. And if your talking about celestial maps, which is a favored sub-category of mine, you could also throw in “astronomy”.) A map tells a story about the region it depicts—and I don't just mean the ones with all kinds of extra tidbits crammed into the marginalia, although, if handled expertly, that can be a nice approach (as with the England map, again). No, even a more “straight-forward” map tells a story, and tells it well, poorly, or (most frequently) just so-so, based on how it handles the information conveyed within the map itself: which features and details it emphasizes and which it downplays, and the methods it employs for doing so.

Solo cartographer David Imus painstakingly created a new map of the United States which was recently awarded Best of Show at a very prestigious cartographic exhibition. The map, as well as the creative process behind its creation, is a real testimony to the time-honored values of craftsmanship, careful—even loving—attention to detail, and profoundly thoughtful and insightful artistry.

Indeed, from a design standpoint, I am absolutely blown away by this map. Just like a painting by a great master, it’s obvious that it was meant to be appreciated both from far away and very close-up. I’ve also never seen a map that struck such a delightful balance between the natural and the man-contrived, celebrating both with equitable and complementary enthusiasm. Hats off indeed to David Imus, and also to Slate author Seth Stevenson, both of whom offer encouragement to me, quasi-Luddite that I am, as I plug along at my own ponderous pace, in my own quaint way, with my own little projects, occasionally asking myself how hard I really want to (or should want to) continue trying to keep pace with the contemporary world and its rather obsessive predilection for gussied-up novelty and bespangled gee-whizzery. (Not that it’s all bad, now—I fessed up to being a quasi-Luddite, but that is all. Case in point on this topic: I really do like interactive maps, and it’s only rigidly imposed self-discipline that keeps me from becoming a total Google Earth junkie.)

Anyway, I hope to acquire a hard-copy of Imus’ map for myself soon, which apparently can be done here. (At least on a good day, one hopes. As of this posting, the link wasn’t working, but I trust that will get ironed out soon.)

(Closing hint to my wife: Christmas is over, but my birthday is coming before too long!)

Chesterton and Calvinism

Having posted on G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy here before, I thought this insight from John Piper to be right on the money and worth sharing. No doubt there were folks who went by the appellation of “Calvinist” in Chesteron’s own day who were cranks, just as there are today. Notwithstanding, failure to distinguish the straw man or the caricature from the genuine article is a fault that even the most brilliant of men can commit. In Chesterton’s case, it is a most forgivable one.