Two absolute beauties via our bud KT, she of the Saturday Pet Thread, among other fine and wonderful things. First, Dame Judy Dench demonstrates why she’s considered one of the all-time greatest actresses, with a spellbinding from-memory presentation of a sonnet by the greatest writer of all time.
Judi Dench was on Graham Norton last night to push her new book about her life and work with Shakespeare. After making the point we quote Shakespeare daily without knowing it, this happened: pic.twitter.com/CIhP39b4Bs
— Justin Sherin (@wychstreet)
The entire spectrum of human emotion evoked in one gorgeous stroke of pure artistic genius, right there. The way Shakespeare shifts gears from the darkling pits of despair right to transcendent, unleavened joy at the lines “Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising/Haply I think on thee, and then my state…” is as pluperfect an example of the power and sweep of the English language—as well as both Shakespeare’s and Dame Judy’s command of it—as can possibly be imagined. If this sort of thing touches your heart as deeply as it does mine, you may find the room you’re in to be a lot dustier than you realized by the end of the vid. Graham Norton really says it all with his final word: “WOW!”
Next, Camille Saint-Saëns shows why he’s probably the all-time greatest of what’s known in some quarters as the Progressive Era of orchestral-music composers with his immortal Dans Macabre.
Many, many thanks to KT for posting these uplifting links for us.