De Profundis – Arvo Pärt

Today’s selection is Arvo Pärt’s setting of “De Profundis”. The performance is by the The Hilliard Ensemble (David James counter tenor; John Potter tenor; Paul Hillier baritone; David Bevan bass) with Christopher Bowers-Broadbent on organ & Albert Bowen on percussion.

After today, Robert Frost’s Banjo will be on hiatus through the month of February. The next post should be up on March 1st.

Thanks as always for your interest; it is much appreciated.




Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:The Pillars of Creation: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the famous Pillars of Creation, revealing a sharper and wider view of the structures in this visible-light image.

Astronomers combined several Hubble exposures to assemble the wider view. The towering pillars are about 5 light-years tall. The dark, finger-like feature at bottom right may be a smaller version of the giant pillars. The new image was taken with Hubble's versatile and sharp-eyed Wide Field Camera 3.

The pillars are bathed in the blistering ultraviolet light from a grouping of young, massive stars located off the top of the image. Streamers of gas can be seen bleeding off the pillars as the intense radiation heats and evaporates it into space. Denser regions of the pillars are shadowing material beneath them from the powerful radiation. Stars are being born deep inside the pillars, which are made of cold hydrogen gas laced with dust. The pillars are part of a small region of the Eagle Nebula, a vast star-forming region 6,500 light-years from Earth.

The colors in the image highlight emission from several chemical elements. Oxygen emission is blue, sulfur is orange, and hydrogen and nitrogen are green.

A number of Herbig-Haro jets lengthened noticeably (in the 20-year interval between the two Hubble images.

Object Names: M16, Eagle Nebula, NGC 6611

Published by: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)