His sorrowful exile from his beloved country inspired many of his best-known poems.
"Deor" bridges the gap between the elegy and the heroic poem, for in it a poet laments the loss of his position at court by alluding to sorrowful stories from Germanic legend.
You know lots of cousins here who hate cousins there because they are Communist believers, and you hear endless sorrowful tales from mothers who can't get their children out of Cuba.
Yet I feel a nagging sense of uncertainty that this will happen, and know I will receive angry, sorrowful messages from parents, governors, teachers and heads who share that doubt.
The Gorecki, a series of mournful Lento movements (its subtitle is "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs") from 1976, draws on the consonance and repetition of Minimalism and creates the impression of a river moving slowly to the sea.
At the end, both singers took on "Inútil Paisagem," a slow, sorrowful piece from Jobim's repertory, and lifted it delicately into a groove; Ms. Souza sang the Portuguese words and Ms. Allyson scatted around them until they were both improvising and feeding off each other's phrases.
The songs, all effortlessly catchy, shift beautifully from sorrowful to ebullient, and seamlessly fuse elements of doo-wop, country, blues, honky-tonk, and sixties pop.
"We wanted to extend the idea of how to bring comfort and rejuvenation and joy from sorrowful events," said Margaret Wolfson, the series' producer.
With his sad, crinkled eyes in a craggy face whose expression runs from sorrowful to bitter, Gene embodies the rugged can-do American spirit near the end of its tether but still undefeated.
