Friday, September 08, 2006

Music: '7 hogs on a windy day'

A wonderful quote in The Icon and the Axe, James H. Billington's cultural history of Russia, from the court of Tsar Alexei I Mikhailovich Romanov, who ruled in the 17th century when western polyphony was beginning to replace traditional Orthodox hymnody in and around Moscow. He writes
The overlapping of old and new sounds at the court of Alexis was linkened by his English doctor to "a flight of screech owls, a nest of Jackdaws, a pack of hungry Wolves, seven Hogs on a windy day and as many cats. ..." (147)
Billington's citation is to Samuel Collins, On the Present State of Russia (1671). Wikipedia has a brief biography of Collins, which I'm inclined to trust.

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