Raphael - Madonna, Antonio Vivaldi - Mandolin Concerti, Rainer Maria Rilke - Little Tear-vase, Robert Louis Stevenson - Where Go the Boats?

Here is the fourth and final Madonna by Raphael we'll be studying this term - there are many more painted by Raphael if you want to study more of them you could search Google Images - Paintings by Raphael.  How is this painting like the others?  How is it different?

Our music by Antonio Vivaldi this week is Mandolin Concerti.
I've got a CD of Vivaldi music home from the library and we are enjoying listening to it during meals.  

We also read I, Vivaldi by Janice Shefelman this morning.  It's a children's picture book with lovely paintings.  Gives a great introduction to this composer.  I enjoyed it along with them, and I noticed my 17 year old looking at the paintings when I was done reading.

The children also listened to a story CD - "Vivladi's Ring of Mystery" a tale of Venice and violins.  They seemed to enjoy it (I haven't listened to the whole thing myself).  This is the fourth title in the critically-acclaimed series by CLASSISCAL KIDS,  Other titles include "Beethoven Lives Upstairs", "Mozart's Magic Fantasy" and "Mr. Bach Comes to Call".  It has over two dozen excerpts, including Vivaldi's well-loved Four Seasons. 


I was thinking about our poet, Rainer Maria Rilke and the fact that his poetry is actually translated so it perhaps loses something in the sounds of the words that he would have chosen, but the meaning is beautiful and seems to me a bit ethereal. 

                           Little Tear-Vase

 Other vessels hold wine, other vessels hold oil
inside the hollowed-out vault circumscribed by their clay.
I, as smaller measure, and as the slimmest of all,
humbly hollow myself so that just a few tears can fill me.

Wine becomes richer, oil becomes clear, in its vessel.
What happens with tears?-They made me blind in my
glass,
made me heavy and made my curve iridescent,
made me brittle, and left me empty at last.

And a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson from A Child's Garden of Verses - 

 Where Go the Boats 

Dark brown is the river, 
   Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
   With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,
   Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating--
Where will all come home?

On goes the river
   and out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
   Away down the hill.

Away down the river,
   A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
   Shall bring my boats ashore.