Vita Sackville-West reads from her poem The Land

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  • Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
  • Now something completely different. Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) reading from her most famous poem The Land. Recorded by Columbia in 1931 for the International Education Society. Wonderful voice and especially good sound for 1931. Check the Wikipedia entry for her. She lead an extraordinary life.

КОМЕНТАРІ • 61

  • @anisargentina
    @anisargentina 7 років тому +66

    OMG! I can't believe I'm actually hearing her voice, I feel blessed! Now I just need to hear Violet Trefusis's voice ♥

    • @barbarablue2571
      @barbarablue2571 4 роки тому +3

      Same here with Woolf

    • @michaelsullivan1097
      @michaelsullivan1097 2 роки тому

      @@barbarablue2571 ua-cam.com/video/E8czs8v6PuI/v-deo.html

    • @paulinek9764
      @paulinek9764 2 роки тому +2

      Especially as people have said what a lovely voice she had, including Vita. There must be some recordings, as she broadcast for the Free French during WW2.

    • @glamourofyesterday
      @glamourofyesterday Рік тому

      @@barbarablue2571 There is one here! Just search The recorded voice of Virginia woolf and you find it :)

    • @elepinkgold3792
      @elepinkgold3792 11 днів тому

      Me but with Virginia's

  • @katebrennan471
    @katebrennan471 8 років тому +27

    Thank you for posting this, I always wondered what her voice was like. I do like her writing, she taught herself Italian and spoke French too. Being a woman she couldn't inherit he beloved Knole; perhaps if she was another class she would have been a Suffragette, but then she wouldn't have been forgiven her relationships with women as easily. I think her unusually beautiful.

  • @labz77
    @labz77 9 років тому +26

    She walks among the loveliness she made, Between the apple-blossom and the water - She walks among the patterned pied brocade, Each flower her son, and every tree her daughter.

  • @melodymaker9317
    @melodymaker9317 6 років тому +20

    I'm fangirling a bit about this, I can't believe that's how Vita sounds like. Legend!

  • @aryehfinklestein9041
    @aryehfinklestein9041 6 років тому +12

    How wonderful to hear the great Vita's voice! Hers is certainly an upper class, aristocratic accent...but one which is not heard any longer precisely. There's a recording of Virginia Woolf, her friend, reading and her accent is similar. Accents - of whatever class - evolve over the generations. This a real treasure. Thankyou for posting.

  • @PaulHaigh072
    @PaulHaigh072 13 років тому +12

    I find it difficult to believe that people talk of the mediocrity of her verse. She was an accomplished poet, although epic and therefore probably too long winded to be popular. Her garden and gardening journalism are high points to which all should aspire. And, lest we forget, she left one of the greatest memoires of all time. Fascinating to hear that kind of voice again, clipped in places we'd now expand, and those wonderful long O's. Like hearing great granny again.

  • @fleurt1
    @fleurt1 14 років тому +9

    I have just finished reading A Portrait of A Marriage, the most passionate, extraordinary book ever and so it is such a joy to hear her voice, and what a rare recording! Thank you so much for postying this.

  • @SparkyPokana
    @SparkyPokana 8 років тому +13

    Thanks SO much for posting this. It is amazing to hear her voice for the first time. What an accent.

    • @lynd7081
      @lynd7081 5 років тому +1

      SparkyPokana ..but she has no accent whatsoever, that is Queens English.

  • @merrihew
    @merrihew  16 років тому +8

    I can die happy, I made the London Times!

  • @4caeruleus
    @4caeruleus 17 років тому +5

    What some hear as a dreary catalog of plant life is an evocative, subtly composed recitation of garden vignettes which gardeners of a certain type will deeply appreciate. Take up gardening for a few decades and then come back and listen again: there's more here than a list of plants.
    Sackville-West was famous for her garden? Her Sissinghurst (developed in partnership with her husband Harold) is widely regarded as one of the greatest horticultural achievements of the twentieth century.

  • @voila79595
    @voila79595 16 років тому +5

    Fantastic! What a treasure. Such a queenly voice. Twas to be expicted. O! The Liand, the Liand, the Liand!
    Thank you. Seriously, this is very rare and much, much appreciated.

  • @bogoas81
    @bogoas81 12 років тому +7

    Well she was a member of one of the grandest aristocratic families in England's history - with centuries of Dukes, Earls, Lord Treasurers, Lord Chamberlains and Lord Lieutenants. So it's only to be expected that her way of speaking would sound extremely upper-class, given that was exactly the milieu in which she was raised. I don't see how snobbishness comes into it - she wasn't putting it on. And how is this accent any more ridiculous than a cockney accent, for example?

    • @sidsaucer
      @sidsaucer 6 років тому +2

      Vita was initially home-schooled by governesses and later attended Helen Wolff's school for girls, an exclusive day school in Mayfair, according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vita_Sackville-West

    • @lynd7081
      @lynd7081 5 років тому +3

      She speaks queens English, she has no accent.

    • @samuelhodder6846
      @samuelhodder6846 3 роки тому +1

      @AUA-cam User True, but Vita herself certainly had an aristocratic upbringing.

  • @ruskinyruskiny1611
    @ruskinyruskiny1611 5 років тому +3

    She was no ordinary person.

  • @theinkbrain
    @theinkbrain 15 років тому +4

    love your gentle teasing sense of humour. vita, i think, for all her seeming more english than the english, ran temperamentally truer to her spanish blood. i wish her letters to violet had been saved...

  • @vidakat2007
    @vidakat2007 7 років тому +4

    It is lovely to hear to her read her own poetry in her distinctive way. Thank you for sharing.

  • @bobbicarmitchell1447
    @bobbicarmitchell1447 8 років тому +4

    this is just amazing. thank you for posting this

  • @brucewayne909
    @brucewayne909 14 років тому +2

    @zoey8072 she was very fluent in french ( her mother ( also named victoria sackville -west was raised in france ) ...I'm currently reading Vita by Victoria Glendinning & there is no reference to her ever learning spanish

  • @barbarablue2571
    @barbarablue2571 4 роки тому +2

    This is a miracle!!! It's like have her here again! Amazing poem

  • @Cr8ive453
    @Cr8ive453 Рік тому +1

    Visited Knole today trough the love of Orlando and suddenly everything made sense, located at Seven Oaks and all the oak trees that surround it! Had never heard her voice, what a treasure

  • @EdwardAveyard
    @EdwardAveyard 12 років тому +3

    Yes, it sounds completely different. I don't think that anyone speaks exactly like this nowadays. The closest would be the novelist Diana Athill. I think that she's in her 90s now.

  • @anulaaksonen9854
    @anulaaksonen9854 10 років тому +3

    Kiitos, Vita, rohkeudesta, se rohkaisee meitä sinua seuraavia sukupolvia. T. Rakkain terveisin ystävä Suomesta.

  • @transformingArt
    @transformingArt 17 років тому +1

    Wonderful Recording! By the way...do you have many of this kind of 'Audio Book' recordings on 78s?

  • @merrihew
    @merrihew  15 років тому +1

    Well let's see. About 20,000 records and maybe 35,000 sides each lasting about 4 min. With setup time, adjusting, etc, I might be able to do one side in 10 minutes. 35,000 sides x 10 min. =350,000 min. = about 58,000 hours. The average work year is 2000 hrs. So it would take me 29 years!!! 78's are VERY durable - more so than LP's and CD's.

  • @katymiles5682
    @katymiles5682 2 місяці тому

    What a voice - so clear and commanding. This, with her sense of adventure, and of course, her legs, no wonder so many people fell in love with her

  • @swirlandtwirl5417
    @swirlandtwirl5417 4 роки тому +1

    I thought it was sexy but yeah she was in to Virginia...

  • @4caeruleus
    @4caeruleus 17 років тому +1

    Oops! Sorry for spreading confusion. Both excerpts read here are from The Land, the second one from the section titled "Spring". The Land has a 1927 copyright. The companion poem The Garden (copyright 1946) also has a section titled "Spring": I had the two "Spring" sections confused.

  • @juliewheatly1249
    @juliewheatly1249 4 роки тому +1

    Oh how I love to listen to this geared it so many times what a beautiful hypnotic voice she had just like her has a person .I have never known anyone like her love her to bits thanks for sharing this

  • @DonWood
    @DonWood 9 років тому +1

    Having read the book I read these comments and dont feel I want to spoil what for me was a special book

  • @vita1950
    @vita1950 13 років тому +1

    I am greatly indebted to this amazing gesture. Words fail.
    With undying gratitude....

  • @DonWood
    @DonWood 12 років тому +1

    wow I am reading the Land at the moment and find this fantastic

  • @merrihew
    @merrihew  17 років тому +1

    Yes, I have a few.

  • @jitkasuarez
    @jitkasuarez 5 років тому

    I am so thankful for this upload. I never thought I'd actually find a recording of her voice on youtube, but I know she worked at the BBC and wondered if anything might be available. Well, her voice is not how I imagined it. This sounds like a a very pretty and plump, little English granny. Adorable! My nephew asked me today, if I could have any superpower what would I have? And because I'm obsessing over Vita, again, I said I'd be a time-traveller! This video has also piqued my interest in her poetry, so once again, much gratitude for this!

  • @bhonzonbongco5810
    @bhonzonbongco5810 7 років тому +1

    nice poetry, happy Birthday

  • @merrihew
    @merrihew  16 років тому

    You can (with an adapter - from RadioShack) connect from the speaker output of your computer to the aux. input of a stereo receiver. Then from the stereo line out (or tape out) into whatever. There may be a more sophisticated way but others will have to tell you.

  • @robertmajors6910
    @robertmajors6910 Рік тому

    Thank you

  • @RB-xj9kr
    @RB-xj9kr 2 роки тому

    Are there copies of Vita’s recordings for the BBC? Podcast-like?

  • @diannebbbbb
    @diannebbbbb 14 років тому +2

    Oh - to only see her too

    • @mt.shasta6097
      @mt.shasta6097 2 роки тому +1

      Dianne Benson, The Glendinning biography says she made one television appearance on the BBC. I can't find it, though.

  • @tristambeow
    @tristambeow 16 років тому

    saw a reference to this clip in the Times Literary Supplement, july 08, no. 5494. beats reactions to two girls one cup any day.

  • @benjaminnorris4998
    @benjaminnorris4998 2 роки тому

    She sounds just like Harriet Walter.

  • @JoJo-fi7nq
    @JoJo-fi7nq 2 роки тому

    wow! thanks SO much for posting this

  • @nicolefernandez5579
    @nicolefernandez5579 3 роки тому

    can i ask where you got the vinyl from?

  • @OlyBliss
    @OlyBliss 3 роки тому

    Wow this is amazing thanks for sharing!

  • @chemical93girl
    @chemical93girl Рік тому

    Thank you so much for this!

  • @4caeruleus
    @4caeruleus 17 років тому

    The Introduction written by Nigel Nicolson (son of Sackville-West) to a 1989 republication of these poems by publishers Webb & Bower makes the claim that The Garden was composed during the period 1939-1945. If this recording really was made in 1931, it proves otherwise.

    • @SeeHearCandies
      @SeeHearCandies 2 роки тому

      The Garden and The Land are two different works. The Land was published around 1927, The Garden much later.

  • @danb7601
    @danb7601 6 років тому

    Adore Vita's work, but I've never understood the appeal of spoken poetry, it just doesn't work.

    • @mt.shasta6097
      @mt.shasta6097 2 роки тому

      Dan B, but this is Vita Sackville-West's own beautiful voice. Everyone probably would rather read a poem than hear one, but this is a most remarkable piece of history. Poor Vita--she thought she had a poor reading voice. It's magnificent, and not at all manly, as I had feared. Her written works are outmoded today, but we have her voice for posterity. And this, her best poem.

  • @lush-retina
    @lush-retina 15 років тому

    THANK YOU!

  • @barbaracf5707
    @barbaracf5707 6 років тому

    So Byronesque

  • @patriziabonini3745
    @patriziabonini3745 5 років тому

    Thank you

  • @jodallion
    @jodallion 11 років тому

    well said.