The Rhythm Of Tides

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 1997-07

Label: Redgold Records

Recorded live by the BBC at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre in London, Friday 11 October 1996. Broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on 19 April 1997.

The original title of this show was suggested by a line from the Lusiads, by the great sixteenth century Portuguese poet Luís de Camões – por mares nunca dantes navegados. This epic poem tells of the exploits of the first voyages of discovery at the end of the previous century – through seas never navigated before. Many of the themes of The Rhythm of Tides are derived from this poem, the events they relate, and Camões’ own colourful life.

Though he was proud of Portuguese achievements, Camões’ own attitudes were by no means triumphalist or jingoistic. Four centuries later another celebrated Portuguese writer wrote a series of poems in parallel to the Lusiads – a reflection on the outcome of those early adventures, but also a critique of contemporary events. The poem was O Canto e as Armas (The Song and the Arms – an ironic twist of the first line of another well-known epic, Vergil’s Aeneid); the writer was Manuel Alegre.

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