Anglo Saxon Aloud

With the last post, the entire Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records is now available through this site. But Anglo-Saxon Aloud is not quite finished with Anglo-Saxon poetry. Over the next two or three weeks I will be posting spoken versions of Psalms 51-68, which I originally recorded as sung versions. I will not be removing the old sung versions, but will be adding a [sung] tag to them. When those Psalms are posted, the entire ASPR will be available in spoken form (I may return to the sung Psalms one day when I have better internalized the music of Psalmody).

There are also a few poems in Anglo-Saxon that are not in the Anglo-Saxon poetic records. I will be recording and posting these files as well. They are:

A44 Instructions for Christians
A45 Cnut’s Song
A46 Godric’s Prayer I and II
A47 The Grave
A48 Distich on Kenelm
A49 Distich on the Sons of Lothebrok
A50 Psalm 17:51
A51 Metrical Psalms 90:16 – 95:2
I hope to have all of these (most of which are extremely short) recorded, edited and posted, along with Psalms 51-68, before February 21, which will be the two-year anniversary of this site.

Then, after the poetry is done, I may take a break before moving on to posting some Anglo-Saxon prose. I may begin with the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Reading of the Day” or first may record some homilies or perhaps the Sermo Lupi: I haven’t decided yet.

Because I don’t think “The Shire” has internet access, I will not be able to post on Thursday or Friday. You can get your fix of Anglo-Saxon Aloud from the archives, or buy a copy of Anglo-Saxon: Greatest Hits here.

Changes to Anglo-Saxon Aloud

I’ve become unhappy with how the recordings of my singing the Psalms have been coming out. The fact is, I don’t have the right kind of voice for singing these, they don’t sound good, and it takes an enormous amount of time to edit them into the form they are in, which still isn’t that good.

So I am going to change course.

I will post the rest of the Paris Psalter (Psalms 68 through 150) as spoken rather than sung recordings. Then I will go back and re-post Psalms 50-67 as spoken recordings.

That will give us the entire ASPR recorded and available on the web (I will put together a “Complete ASPR on CD,” but it will be expensive, unfortunately). I’ll then probably add a few poems that aren’t in the ASPR, such as “The Grave” and “Instructions for Christians.”

Then, I will simultaneously work to record the Psalter with one of my students who <em>is</em> a good singer for this type of music, and add some prose (starting with the Sermo Lupi, and maybe doing a “Daily Reading from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” project).

At the same time, I have begun work on a CD, to sell, of poems in Old English, my own translations in Modern English, and a brief talk on each poem. I hope to have this done by the <a href=”http://www.alongexpectedparty.org/”>Long-Expected Party</a> event in Kentucky in September (though that may be too ambitious). Right now this is a “greatest hits of Anglo-Saxon poetry plus other poems that Drout likes” project: Dream of the Rood, Wanderer, Seafarer, Wife’s Lament, Husband’s Message, Fortunes of Men, Gifts of Men, Maxims, some riddles, Maldon, Brunanburh, Cædmon’s Hymn … I’ll see how it works out; I’d like this one to be just one disk.

See many of younz at Kalamazoo… Friday, 11:00 in Valley III near registration.

Anglo-Saxon Aloud will be on hiatus for a couple of days until I get over a little case of laryngitis.

I’m just getting over a cold and hoarse voice, and I’m off to give a lecture, so I am going to postpone recording and posting The Dream of the Rood, probably until Tuesday, June 5.   This is one of the most beloved poems in the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, and I want to be able to give it the kind of a reading that it deserves.