December days: Art

[cjwatson]

miriammoules asked me about art.

I have to admit that my appreciation of what's normally called "art" without qualifiers is fairly limited. I'm happy to go and look at paintings or sculptures or similar and go "ooh", especially if there's some technical impressiveness or interesting allusion or something along those lines, and occasionally I find religious art uplifting or noteworthy, but it rarely grabs me as such.

I do like large-scale architecture: for instance, the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is perhaps the most amazing work of human hands I've ever seen.

My own artistic impulses are usually more in the direction of music. I'm a cantor at church ("one who sings well prays twice"), and I love taking part in choral singing on the rare occasions I can manage it although it's been a long time since I did so regularly; singing Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand in Ely Cathedral in 1999 was a stupendous experience. Back in the mists of time I was a pianist and a cellist as well, and I still have a go occasionally when I'm in a peaceful mood and have some spare time, but I'm a long way off performance standard nowadays. I still love listening to virtually anything on the cello, and there are days when I queue up Elgar's Cello Concerto on repeat - or for that matter anything by Apocalyptica!

This post is part of my December days series. Please prompt me!