Saturday 11 September 2010

Piety and Perotin

Current addicted to Perotin: the composer, not the allergy-relief medication! (actually, that's Piriton.. but close enough!)
It must have seemed like an extraordinary leap to go from plainchant to Perotin's exuberance, and possibly something 'not quite proper' about it for many of the people who heard it: Perotin is seriously sexy! Certainly not 'pious' music as we might conventionally conceive of it: http://open.spotify.com/track/7AjFKGLkO0mlhnRt9nNVAZ

I find that interesting. I'm not sure about the place of piety in religion, particularly Catholicism: my favourite catholics have been remarkably un-pious, or at least lived sinful lives to the full!
Is piety an idealisation? Can you be truly human and be pious? Or is it a 'strategic lie' to gain trust? Or is piety simply an 'emptying' which embraces everything (including sensual pleasure)? I think I would prefer that...
Improvisation (not very good) done on my keyboard at the ALT-C conference, which was very good in the end (although I wasn't enjoying it when I did this!)

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