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PREMESSA: LA SUPERIORITA’ DELLA MUSICA SU VINILE E’ ANCOR OGGI SANCITA, NOTORIA ED EVIDENTE. NON TANTO DA UN PUNTO DI VISTA DI RESA, QUALITA’ E PULIZIA DEL SUONO, TANTOMENO DA QUELLO DEL RIMPIANTO RETROSPETTIVO E NOSTALGICO , MA SOPRATTUTTO DA QUELLO PIU’ PALPABILE ED INOPPUGNABILE DELL’ ESSENZA, DELL’ ANIMA E DELLA SUBLIMAZIONE CREATIVA. IL DISCO IN VINILE HA PULSAZIONE ARTISTICA, PASSIONE ARMONICA E SPLENDORE GRAFICO , E’ PIACEVOLE DA OSSERVARE E DA TENERE IN MANO, RISPLENDE, PROFUMA E VIBRA DI VITA, DI EMOZIONE E  DI SENSIBILITA’. E’ TUTTO QUELLO CHE NON E’ E NON POTRA’ MAI ESSERE IL CD, CHE AL CONTRARIO E’ SOLO UN OGGETTO MERAMENTE COMMERCIALE, POVERO, ARIDO, CINICO, STERILE ED ORWELLIANO,  UNA DEGENERAZIONE INDUSTRIALE SCHIZOFRENICA E NECROFILA, LA DESOLANTE SOLUZIONE FINALE DELL’ AVIDITA’ DEL MERCATO E DELL’ ARROGANZA DEI DISCOGRAFICI .

JUDITH PINTAR
celtic harp : secrets from the stone

Disco LP 33 giri , 1985, Sona Gaia Productions / Narada , LP 123 , Germany

ECCELLENTI CONDIZIONI, vinyl ex++/NM , cover ex++/NM, sealed although open , including 12 pages insert “To be read aloud” a storybook with poems and stories written by Judith Pintar / inclusivo del fascicolo allegato di 12 pagine “To be read aloud” con poesie e racconti brevi  di Judith Pintar

L’arpa celtica, in versione melodica e “rinascimentale”, di Judith Pintar
ama immergersi nei miti antichi: Secrets From The Stone rievoca sonorità medievali per
In Defense of Guinevere e Dialogue Between The Sun And The Moon

Judith Pintar is a writer, musician, composer, recording artist, and
game author. She also has a PhD in Sociology, but she’s pretty much
done doing that professor thing.

• Interprete: Judith Pintar
• Etichetta:  Sona Gaia / Narada productions
• Catalogo: LP – 123
• Data di pubblicazione: 1985

• Supporto:vinile 33 giri
• Tipo audio: stereo
• Dimensioni: 30 cm.
• Facciate: 2
• Including 12 pages insert book  “To be read aloud”  / inclusivo del fascicolo allegato di 12 pagine “To be read aloud”, white paper inner sleeve

Track Listings

SIDE
1

SIDE 2

Celtic Harp: Secrets from
the Stone

Judith
Pintar’s first recording of original compositions for the celtic
harp was Secrets
from
the Stone (Narada, 1984). 
 The
compositions on Secrets
from the Stone were meant to accompany a
collection of short stories entitled “To Be Read Aloud”. These were published in
the liner notes of
the first  LP release in 1984, though subsequent
releases on cassette and CD later omitted them.  

The
story that is the basis for the title track is a poetic 
retelling of her own experience
as a romantic
eighteen-year-old hitchiking across Celtic Britain in search of
a harpmaker. The quest was a successful one. The music of Secrets from the Stone
was composed on a Telyneg
from the workshop of the renowned Welsh harpmaker, John Thomas of
Pembrokeshire, now run by his son Alun Thomas. 

Secrets from the Stone was recorded on a Tara
Harp built by Robinson’s Harp Shop in Mt. Laguna
California.

Secrets from the Stone (1984)

1. Secrets from the Stone

Bedd Taliesin
The
grave is unmarked and there are no signs to show tourists the way. Two
figures stride across a field of grazing sheep, away from the main road
that runs through the village of Tre Taliesin on the western coast of
Wales.

   
“Is this the right way, do you think?” one asks. The farmer who had
given the directions had been short with them.
“Hm,
what?” says the other. He doesn’t much care if they reach their
destination at all. The sun is high, the day fine, and from this high
in the hills they might glimpse the sea. But the first traveler isn’t
to be distracted as she pulls her companion along.
    “Is this it, do you think? It doesn’t
much look like a grave.”
    “Hm, what?”
    A
large flat rock is set into the hill. Closer inspection reveals that it
balances upon three smaller rocks embedded deeply into the ground. They
look ancient enough to have been a natural formation.
    “Here we are,” she decides, releasing
one long held breath. “Here we are.”
    But
the other, stretched out fully on the ground and blanketed by the sun’s
heavy gaze, is fast approaching his personal destination.
    “Oh,
typical,” she thinks, annoyed. But she immediately changes her mind.
Now she is alone, and standing in front of the grave of Taliesin, the
greatest bard in the long memory of Welsh legend and history.
    “Here
I am,” she says out loud. She isn’t sure what she expects to see, but a
ghostly visage dancing upon a misty moor would be nice. The sun is just
too bright. She despairs, sinking to the ground beside the stone.
    “You
see,” she explains to the air around her, “there’s some music in me
that wants out. And that’s why I’m here. To ask you – to try to find –”
She feels foolish. Taliesin plainly isn’t there.
    “What am I
doing?” she wonders, and is about to rouse her friend when she is
struck by a whim. Glad that no one is watching, she lays her ear flat
against the old, old stone.
    What she hears is the low slow
beating of its heart. She is captured and pulled into the stone, into
the darkness, into the web of time.
   
The Teller and the
Listener

    “Here
you are,” says a voice, pulling her out of the darkness and back into
the sunlight again. A man sits on the stone looking at her with a keen
and curious eye.
    “You are Taliesin?” she asks, for a
moment unsure. “Shouldn’t you be old?”
    He
laughs at her with the ease of a humor that has all the time in the
world. Then he stands up and gives a sort of half-bow. His voice is
deep and resonant:
   
    I was in many, a guise
    Before I was disenchanted.
    I am a gray-cowled minstrel:
    I lived for a time in the sky.
    I was a message in writing.
    I was an eagle.
    I was a coracle in the sea.
    I was a sword in the hand.
    I was a shield in battle.
    I was a string in a harp
    Enchanted nine long years…

    She nods her assent: “Yes, you’re
Taliesin. Thank you for bringing me here.”
    He sits down again upon the rock,
motioning her to sit beside him. 
    “You’re very welcome, except that I
didn’t bring you.”
    In
answer to her questioning glance he goes on. “The universe provides an
answer for any question truly asked. Most people ask but forget to
listen for the reply.”  His bright eyes sharpen and he
searches her
expectant face. “So you want to be a bard, and you want to know what
that means. When you tell a story you become more and less than what
you are. Part of you joins with your listener to share in a creation
that is real at the precise moment that it leaves your lips and reaches
the ear. No time passes between these happenings. The speaking becomes
the listening as the story becomes real in the listeners’
mind.“ 
    Suddenly
there is a cruit in his hand, a small rectangular harp, and his fingers
lose themselves in a quick melody that follows itself around and around.
    “The
movement of my hands corresponds to the words of a tale. The music is
the tangible creation of my heart and yours. What are we creating?”
    He
looks into her eyes and reads her through and through.  “If
you didn’t
love me now, I would know you weren’t really listening. The music
didn’t make you love me. It just asked the question, what is the bond
between us? I listened for the reply and caught it in your eyes. You’ll
see the answer too, if you look into mine.”
    His words invite her gaze, but courage
fails and she looks away.
Taliesin is on his feet and his eyes are sorrowful. “Never ask a
question if you are afraid of the answer.”
    Then
he is gone or, rather, he is no longer visible. His voice continues,
not sad any longer, now powerful and undeniable, a tempest, a gale.

The Chase

    “Suppose
that you are a child given the chore of stirring a cauldron of herbs,
ignorant as to their purpose. Three drops of the boiling liquid splash
onto your fingers. What do you do?”
    As he speaks she feels a
terrible burning on her right hand. Without thinking, she pops three
fingers into her mouth to ease the pain. Suddenly she is aware of a
cottage all around her, and the presence of a very angry woman. She
knows, as she stands sucking her burned fingers, that the drops from
the cauldron have changed her, have gifted here with wisdom and far
sight. Her sight tells her that the woman glaring at her is Ceridwen, a
witch.
    She gives thought to an escape. As soon
as a plan occurs
to her, the transformation is complete. Swift as a hare, in fact in the
shape of a hare, she flees the cottage. But close behind and in pursuit
is Ceridwen, shaped as a greyhound.
    Just as the dog is about to
overtake her, the hare leaps into a river and becomes a fish. Just as
quickly greyhound becomes otter. She barely has time to slip from the
otter’s bright teeth and claws to launch herself into the air as a
darting sparrow, when otter becomes hawk, swift and far-sighted. Poor
sparrow takes refuge in a place of mankind, a barn. In exhaustion she
becomes a grain of winnowed wheat, and thinking herself safe at last,
she relaxes into this anonymity.
    Then she hears the scratching and soft
clucking of a hen.
    “In
the form of a black tufted hen the witch Ceridwen swallowed me, a grain
of wheat, and gave birth to me nine months later.” Taliesin’s voice is
peaceful as he ends his tale.
    She finds herself back sitting upon the
stone, alone.
    There is a length of silence before she
gathers the courage to speak. “So which is your true shape?”
    She can hear his laughter all around
her. It is gentle now, a breeze.
    “Which is not true?”
    “But how can you be real if you have no
form?”
    “What
is the wind that has no shape? What is music? What is a word? You came
looking for Taliesin though he was dead, and found him. Then you
learned that he couldn’t be found. ”
    She knows this is a riddle, but the
meaning eludes her.
    “Just listen for the answer,” he says.
“You know it’s there.”
    Doing
as she has been bid, she presses her ear closely to the stone and hears
the low, slow beating of its heart. It captures her again and pushes
her back into her own world.
     The sleeping form beside her
stretches and yawns. “Are you about ready?”
    “In a minute,” she replies, desperately
trying to puzzle out the answers she had been given.
    But her companion is restless. “I don’t
see what’s so fascinating about an old grave.”
    “It’s
not a grave!” she snaps, and in that instant, she knows. She knows that
Taliesin, in form, has left the world, but that He, the power of music,
has not.
    She smiles at her friend. “Okay, let’s
go,” she says, and they do.
As
they walk across the Welsh hills and towards the sea, she listens for
the heartbeat of the stones beneath her feet and hums along with the
keening of the wind among the trees.