551 - Recordare



After the vivid spring colors of the last days, let’s get a little more muted, shall we? I have been on St. Marx Cemetery today. It was a gray, windy day, with only traces of sunshine very late in the afternoon. This cemetery is out of use since 1874, but it is open to the public and it boasts the grave of none lesser than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In reality, only 17 years after his death nobody knew where he was buried any more, and I guess the place marked today is as authentic as the average Saint’s relic, but as with Saints, this has never stopped people believing.

I was rather late, only three quarters of an hour before closing time at 5pm, thus I didn’t even bother looking for Mozart. I was looking for the angels.

Angels? Yes, angels. Statues of angels are very common on old graves in Vienna. Of course they get much photographed and therefore this image is hardly original, but actually I don’t care. If I did, I would have to stop photographing in Vienna at all, and not only in Vienna, actually in every place where people photograph, which probably comprises 150% of the beautiful places in this world πŸ™‚

The Song of the Day is the “Recordare” from Mozart’s “Requiem”. Of the six or seven versions that I have, I have chosen Jordi Savall and his orchestra “Le Concert des Nations”, but I guess this does not matter as much as it matters with baroque or earlier music. On YouTube you may hear (among others) the Symphony Orchestra of Ljubljana under Vladislav Tchernushenko, and they do it quite as well.


There are 5 comments

Stacey Huston   (2008-04-17)

Beautiful post. I love the composition thanks for sharing

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Ted Byrne   (2008-04-17)

Hmmm... I see you are quarrying in a graveyard. And the piece with which you have emerged is exquisite... No... make that angelic.

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April   (2008-04-17)

How intriguing...

I was so busy trying to figure out what kind of strange lichen or plant was growing on that tree or rock, that I didn't even see the angel for the longest time!

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Bill Birtch   (2008-04-17)

So, I'm not the only one who took background for foreground. I also spent a couple of moments in total confusion and it was only when I left the image and then returned that I got it right. Interesting, and, now that I see it for what it is, great pic.

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andreas   (2008-04-18)

Interesting. For me it looks so plainly obvious, but then: I framed it πŸ™‚)

I guess there will be more of that. From time to time I like to go to the graveyards. They're wonderful places in Vienna, full of decaying baroque splendor, and they're literally tranquil places of peace. Of course it's a clichΓ©, but so are flowers and landscapes πŸ™‚

Thanks for watching.

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