Sat, Oct 20, 1973
Basil Bunting, English poet from Northumberland on the Scottish border, reads his poetry. Introduction and commentary on Bunting by actor Patrick MacNee. Bunting was the last in the generation of Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and W. B., Yeats, all of whom he knew well. Here he is seen sitting before a coal fire in a local pub, walking the moors of his beloved Northumberland, wandering through a medieval town, reflecting on the world around him and, most importantly, reciting his poetry. For as he says, "Poetry lies dead on the page until it is heard." Bunting recites from his long poem "Briggflats" and other of his works, including "What the Chairman Told Tom".
Sat, Dec 29, 1973
A performance of George Crumb's song cycle "Ancient Voices of Children" by the artists for whom he composed the work: the great mezzo-soprano Jan De Gaetani and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, conducted by Arthur Weisberg. The texts are fragments of larger poems by Federico García Lorca. Footage of the performance is interspersed with images created using a video synthesizer, and there is also interview footage of Crumb discussing his work.