\nFor a long time I had a banner on the Agonblog’s header with three graphics running across. The third graphic was a snippet of a title page for an art song: Franz Schubert’s “Seligkeit.” (In English: “Bliss” or “Blessedness.”)\n<\/p>\n
\nHow dearly, dearly I love this song. Its first two verses wistfully contemplate the joys of heavenly life: joys beyond accounting, endless dancing and singing and recitation of Psalms. The lilting waltz is so easy and sweet one has no trouble at all imagining translucent 19th-Century Viennese twirling to its rhythm in some celestial ballroom.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn the last verse, however, the airy but pious waltz transforms into lighthearted, prankish laughter. The young man singing about heaven has second thoughts. If a certain girl would favor him with a meaningful glance, he’d just as soon forget about heaven, and stay earthbound forever.\n<\/p>\n
\nMore than a hundred years later, Ira Gershwin cut a rug nearby to Schubert’s when he wrote these lyrics:\n<\/p>\n
\nMethus’lah lived nine hundred years
\nMethus’lah lived nine hundred years
\nBut who calls dat livin’ when no gal’ll give in
\nTo no man what’s nine hundred years\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWho indeed?<\/p>\n
Nietzsche<\/a> once asked, “Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?” Apparently Franz Schubert, the Gershwin brothers, and Frank Loesser<\/a>, for three.<\/p>\n
<\/hr>\n<\/p>\n
\nSeligkeit’s lyrics, in the original German and in English translation are available here<\/a>. Various recordings of the song can be found for download here<\/a>. There is a lovely rendition in this young soprano’s<\/a> online repertoire. And, if you find yourself in the market for Seligkeit, I recommend starting with Elly Ameling<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For a long time I had a banner on the Agonblog’s header with three graphics running across. The third graphic was a snippet of a title page for an art song: Franz Schubert’s “Seligkeit.” (In English: “Bliss” or “Blessedness.”) How dearly, dearly I love this song. Its first two verses wistfully contemplate the joys of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beauty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theagon.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theagon.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theagon.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theagon.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theagon.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theagon.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theagon.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theagon.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theagon.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}