Come talk about fun and quirky words in the English Language. Posting is open to all members.
Requiem
So I had certainly heard the term requiem before, but it wasn't until I attended a performance of Mozart's Requiem over the weekend, that I learned that this word means rest. It makes sense because a Requiem was meant to be played at a funeral, i.e. the final rest.
Did you learn any cool words over the weekend?





I'm jealous! I can't remember the last time I saw a symphony (or anything close). A few years at least.
After a gajillion years of knowing about "knights errant" I finally looked up the word errant for an exact definition. "Wandering." I guess I always thought of it as being on a quest--which is correct--but calling it wandering seems more lonely.
I didn't know errant either. That's another good one that people have heard but probably don't "know".
And go to the symphony! It takes energy to get moving but is worth it.
Mozart's Requiem is beautiful, but one of my favorites is actually Andrew Lloyd Webber's.
Here's Pie Jesu. I've done the Alto part on this and it's one of my favorite parts of all time to sing. (Which is odd, since I'm Jewish and tend to avoid Christian religious music.)
I'll give it a listen. My Spotify calendar is open this afternoon. 😀
Thanks for the recommendation.
What is your opinion on religious music? I am not religious but I rather enjoyed the requiem. But I do tend to avoid modern Christian music.
I'm a cantorial soloist, so I sing quite a bit of Jewish liturgy. For modern Christian music, if it's something that you like, go for it? It's not really my thing for a lot of reasons. When it comes to historical music (I'm using historical rather than classical because classical refers to a specific time period in music history) it would be cutting my nose off to spite my face to discount a lot of church music. There's some really beautiful things that came out of the Church and have come out of the Church. I also can't deny that I like some Christmas music. In general, though, there's a lot of music I like better, both to perform and listen to. Jazz, musical theater, and comedy are my favorite genres. I also like barber shop and madrigals.
I have the same kind of opinion about great historical Christian music. And perhaps it comes down to quality. Not listening to Bach because he was Christian would be silly.
Not listening to your run of mill Gospel Singer may simply be because he or she isn't very good.
Yup, yup, yup to everything said. I'm a Christian and I still avoid much of modern Christian music. There are a few specific bands/singers with a few specific songs that both connect with me spiritually and are musically good, but for the most part it's mediocre at best. Seems to be written out of a sense of obligation to write a new, generic, repetitive worship song every month, instead of any sort of inspiration to express praise through art. Like anything else, done right it's great, but modern Christian music deserves its place of scorn because the songwriters are trying too hard to be religious and not trying hard enough to do what they're doing well.
I was nodding in agreement with your last sentence. I feel like this often applies to "patriotic" music as well.
Yeah. Sometimes it feels like they focus on pandering more than their craft.