Lady One: The CD | Poetry & Poetry Anthologies

Breyten Breytenbach

Breyten Breytenbach crosses yet another border in his relentless creative voyage. The merger of his English poetry and music, where the one genre serves as vehicle to explore the other, is taken into new artistic territory by the collaboration of musicians the likes of Arno Carstens, Ernestine Deane, Tim Par, Paul Riekert, Ben Amato, Laurinda Hofmeyr, Concord Nkabinde, Barry Van Zyl, Schalk Joubert and Jean Marais. This is no ordinary combination of spoken poetry with background music. The music for each track was composed to unlock the rhythm and musicality inherently apparent in that particular poem. Breyten’s voice is used as an instrument in the musical arrangements. The end result is a complete oneness of music and poetry, entrenching practices of ancient cultures where poetry and music could never exist the one without the other. Lady One is published in attactive book form and contains the Breytenbach poems on which the musical tracks are based. 2001’s Mondmusiek, a music CD based on 16 of Breytenbach’s Afrikaans poems, was a huge critical success. It received a Geraas award for Best Esoteric Album. Both Mondmusiek and the Lady One Cd were produced by Albert du Plessis.