Tales of song and sadness

My recent listening has included Tales of song and sadness newly-released on the Dutch Pentatone label.  This captures performances by the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Cappella Amsterdam, under the direction of Daniel Reuss, as well as contributions by Sour Cream and of course Frans Brüggen. Centrepiece of this programme is Andriessen’s May. This was commissioned by the musicians of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century to commemorate the death of Brüggen, but eventually turned out to be Louis Andriessen’s swan song as well. Conceived as a double tribute commemorating the demise of two giants of Dutch music culture, Frans Brüggen and Louis Andriessen, this lament for what we have lost has recently taken on a disturbing wider relevance.

My recent reading included  A Fortune Teller Told Me by the Italian writer and traveller Tiziano Terzani. Although written in 1995 Terzani's musings are eerily relevant today, as this extract shows:

What a fantastic combination of stars there must have been in the fifth century before Christ! So many great spirits, all born at the same time: Sophocles, Pericles, Plato and Aristotle in Greece; Zoroaster in Persia; Buddha in India; Lao Tse and Confucius in China. All, more or less, in the space of a hundred years. Today many more people are born, but not a single one who can measure up to those. Why? Is the reason in the stars? 

Who born in the twentieth century will be remembered five hundred years hence? Donald Trump? Nigel Farage? Vladimir Putin? Elon Musk? Boris Johnson? Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerberg? 

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