"Updated" stagings
Valfer
performance I attended twenty years ago. Here are some thoughts on the
subject taken from an old master:
- The number of operas created in the fifty- year period from 1925 to 1975
which have remained in repertory is infinitesimal compared to those composed
between 1875 and 1925. -
- This is mainly due to changes in the attitudes of the composers and
librettists. While composers in previous times were content to work within
the confines of the style prevalent in their day while introducing
innovation, more recently, composers are fixated on creating a completely
new musical environment in their work, many times losing all contact with
that most vital element in performance - the audience. -
- Librettists now tend to concoct works which explore contemporary trends
of psychology, sociology, and politics to the extent that drama takes a
secondary role at best. The libretto thus becomes either a treatise on
whichever intellectual pursuit the author chooses, or a journalistic item
coated by a thin veneer of dramatic action. This alienates the audience,
therefore making bad theater. Drama should include, not exclude the
audience. -
- Composers are attempting to set to music libretti so cerebral that they
defy the basic premise of music, which is to appeal to the senses. This
conflict serves to defeat even the best efforts in opera composition. -
- Present day producers are faced with the dilemma of a scarcity of viable
contemporary works and an unexplainable urge to use opera as a vehicle for
presenting the issues of the day. This urge rubs against the grain of what
ingratiated opera to its audiences for over three centuries - the allure of
the exotic, sensual and distant, in other words, human drama. -
- Lacking the contemporary works they crave, directors many times choose to
tailor the production to their personal concept, thus creating performances
which are anachronistic and many times contrary to the spirit of the
creative artist. -
- It is interesting to note that drama such as created by the ancient Greek
quite readily adapts to changes in the times. This is because characters
such as Electra, Oedipus, Iphigenia, Antigone and the like, are not fixed in
time and are not constrained by anyone's pet theory on this or that. They
are distillations of what makes us human. Being a mirror, not a picture(or
worse, a photograph), they can be accepted as contemporary by any
generation. By contrast, works created today many times become dated from
the instant of their creation -
Not having consulted with the lecturer, I should leave him nameless, but at
the same time, I must thank him for sharing his considerable wisdom with
many students through the years.
Thank you, Mr. Y!
Valfer
Karen Mercedes
operatic and non: It's got no good tunes in it! Nary a "Dove sono", "Mal
reggendo", or "Nessun dorma" to be found in the many (often deservedly)
seldom-revived or altogether-forgotten operas by Zandonai, Zemlinsky,
Henze, Busoni, Wolf-Ferrari, Stockhausen, Orff, Ginastera, etc. But then,
modern opera audiences - at least, the segment that mouths off a lot about
the artistic viability of an opera (vs. just liking or not liking it) -
pretends to be highly suspicious of 20th century operas that actually
contain good tunes in them. They either accept such operas with strong
qualifications: de Falla's LA VIDA BREVE, for instance, is "acceptable"
because it incorporates a traditional Spanish folk-sensibility, and it's
okay to have tunes in operas that are overtly folk-influenced. The problem
comes when an opera has a good tune and there's no excuse for it except
that the composer liked to write a good tune rather than the microtonal,
atonal, minimilist, nihilist, or other "ist" garbage that was fine as a
revolutionary musical exercise in the first decades of the 20th century,
but which since then has really become the last refuge of talentless hacks
who probably couldn't craft a good tune if Madison Avenue paid them big
bucks to do so, because frankly they have all the musical sensibility of a
back-hoe (and far less than the back-hoe operator). So the rarified snobs
of 20th century opera reject the likes of Menotti and Douglas Moore out of
hand (What? An actual discernable melody? How dare they? And their operas
are labelled "derivative" or "trivial" and the composers are labelled
the operatic equivalents of Andrew Lloyd Webber, who also had the sheer
audacity to write music that could actually be remembered and hummed by
audience members after they left the theater. Much better to sit through
an agonizing, teeth gritting, nail-pulling, nausea-inducing twenty
five hours (which is how long WOZZECK *seems* to be when one is trapped
in the opera house torture chamber and assaulted by it) of Berg, Busoni,
or Schoenberg. There are some plays that work much better as plays,
without the agonizing noise...oops, "music"...thank you very much.
Even among the handful of 20th Century operas that have endured in the
"canon", it's easy to suspect that the operas remain there either because
of their DRAMATIC rather than their musical appeal (e.g., Lulu, Wozzeck,
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, etc.), or simply because they were written by
composers of such stature that insecure operagoers feel they might be
laughed at if they were to actually express their true opinions of the
works. On the other hand, it's perfectly socially acceptable to ignore the
operas of less "important" composers like Cui (who?), or by Delius (the
best parts of whose operas are, unfortunately, the instrumental bits),
Holst, Bliss, Smyth, Boughton, and Vaughan Williams - all of whom had the
added handicap of being British, and thus their operas could be dismissed
with impunity as "narrow and provincial" even if they were far more
appealing and listenable than some of the dreadful "canonical" junk by
"bigger name" composers (the only exceptions to the "If it's British, it's
dismissable" rule being Purcell (and then, really, only one of his
works has achieved more than "appealing novelty" status) and Britten, who
managed to avoid British provincialism altogether in his Stravinsky-esque
musical sensibility and intense sense of drama (and even he had his
"clunkers". OWEN WINGRAVE, for example). Sadly, since Britten English
opera has again reverted to relative obscurity, helped not at all by the
self-indulgent academicism of Michael Tippett, the limited minimalist
palette of Peter Maxwell Davies and the sheer unlistenability of Harrison
Birtwistle (just to name a few egregious examples of British operatic
mediocrity). Or am I overlooking a sudden surge of revived interest in
and respect for the operas of Arne and Balfe? Why don't I
think so? It's always been telling to me that the greatest "English"
composer by many people's estimation was an early 18th century German who
wrote all his operas in Italian).
And then there are the cases of fatally flawed and frankly bad operas
written by composers who have also written (reasonably) one or more good
operas; the neglect of these bad operas is simply merited: e.g., Debussy's
RODRIGUE ET CHIMENE, Poulenc's LES MAMELLES DE TIRESIAS, Barber's ANTONY
AND CLEOPATRA, Charpentier's JULIEN (not that LOUISE is anything but a
minor novelty of limited appeal), and quite a few seldom-if-ever
revived operas by R. Strauss, Janacek, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Britten.
And, of course, a few of the operas are in languages that are unusual
enough in the opera world to make revivals (at least in the original
language, as modern opera snobbery demands) difficult to cast: for
example, operas by Nielsen, Szymanowski, Sallinen, and to some
extent even Janacek and Bartok. Until Danish, Czech, Polish, Finnish,
Hungarian, etc., join the five major operatic languages (Italian, French,
German, English, and Russian), operas in other languages will continue to
be novelties, regardless of their musical and dramatic merit.
KM
............................
NEIL SHICOFF, TENORE SUPREMO
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Own Website
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ I sing hymns with my spirit, +
+ but I also sing hymns with my mind. +
+ - 1 Corinthians 14:15 +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
HelenMynrd
sharing your thoughts with us......I find it most interesting and
informative.......Love and keep singing.!....HelenM
Lis K. Froding
much of what you say, btw.
Lis
Bernard Gould
What style should composers adopt to make
them populist.Surely this road leads to a bland
wasteland and is anti art.This is precisely what happened
in authoritarian regimes, state lead sterile populist art.In
a democracy, the artist, must feel free to pursue their own ideas, populist
or not.
The fact that Verdi was populist, is because he was of his time, his
traditional settings are now an anachronism, the
musical idioms of the nineteenth century are also rooted in the distant
past.
Verdi in a letter to Ricordi
"Everything is fine!Ovations and encores don't mean anything unless the cash
box is full,it means a lot of people are going to the theatre,it means the
work
is "worth while" The fact that ten performances of Boccanegra brought in
very little makes me very unhappy"
On this reading is Lloyd Webber the Verdi of our time, perish the thought
!!
Bernard
/
What style should composers adopt to make them
populist.If this was the criteria art would become a bland
wasteland
Valfer <val...@msn.com> wrote in message news:#uyV6p#$AHA.184@cpmsnbbsa07...
Daniel Kessler
Karen Mercedes wrote:
> And, of course, there's that problem that plagues a lot of modern music,
> operatic and non: It's got no good tunes in it!
Maybe not "good tunes" but there is some compelling and dramatic music that
can grow on the listener in works such as "Wozzeck," "Lulu," "Dr. Faust," and
"Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" as an example. I rather believe that today's
sophisticated audience is beyond the "good tunes" example used here.
>
> .....Even among the handful of 20th Century operas that have endured in the
> "canon", it's easy to suspect that the operas remain there either because
> of their DRAMATIC rather than their musical appeal
Hold on! Can one really separate the music from the dramatic in these works?
> and then there are the cases of fatally flawed and frankly bad operas
> written by composers who have also written (reasonably) one or more good
> operas; the neglect of these bad operas is simply merited: Poulenc's LES
> MAMELLES DE TIRESIAS,
I certainly don't regard "Mamelles de Tirtesias" as a bad opera or to be
dismissed as "fatally flawed" and it is coming back to the Met repertory soon.
> .....and quite a few seldom-if-ever
> revived operas by R. Strauss, Janacek,
Well, "Capriccio" of Strauss has made the "boards" in a surprising number of
houses and the only three works of Janacek not yet "on the boards" are
"Broucek," "Vixen," and "House of the Dead." Maybe, in time, they will find
some currency and thanks to Janacek, Czech is showing up in a lot of houses
when his works are done and a possible spillover is the revival of Dvorak's
"Rusalka" which has showed surprising strength recently.
NBPalmer1
Both these show up quite often in Europe, and there have been several revivals
of each here in the UK in recent years.
Incidentally on Tuesday this week I was at the firsr performance of a new
production of "Intermezzo" by Richard Strauss, which took place quite close to
London. It was very well played and received. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but
have been to only three other performances of it before. I hope this heralds a
revival
A copy of a press review is pasted in below
NICK/London
THE ARTS: Affectionate slice of life from the Strauss household OPERA
GARSINGTON:
Financial Times; Jun 28, 2001
By ANDREW CLARK
Of the many words Hugo von Hofmannsthal was inspired to write as a result of
his long collaboration with Richard Strauss, few were more revealing that his
description of the composer's wife. Pauline Strauss was "a bizarre woman, with
a very beautiful soul au fond; strange, moody, domineering, and yet at the same
time likeable". These words came to mind during Garsington Opera's performance
of Intermezzo on Tuesday, because they are an accurate description of Christine
Storch, the centrepiece of Strauss's "bourgeois comedy".
The correlation between Christine's fictional personality and the real-life
woman described by Hofmannsthal is no coincidence. They are one and the same
person, because Intermezzo is an autobiographical opera of the frankest kind.
Christine is a portrait of Pauline Strauss, Intermezzo the portrait of a
marriage: a stormy marriage, to be sure, but au fond a loving, stable and
extremely productive one, because without Pauline, Strauss would not have had
the foundation for a life of such uninterrupted creativity. Nor would he have
discovered the real-life inspiration for such characters as Herodias, the
Dyer's Wife, Aminta, Danae and, yes, Christine.
It's small wonder that Intermezzo was the one opera during their long
collaboration on which Hofmannsthal refused to collaborate. The idea was too
personal, too banal. Here was a slice of life from the Strauss household - with
Pauline's tantrums painted in music, a role for the composer's card-playing
cronies, even a walk-on part for their little boy. Only the name was changed,
from Strauss to Storch. Is Intermezzo a parody? Or just embarrassing kitsch?
It's neither. It's an affectionate tribute to an impossible woman, couched in
the rhetorical flourishes and conversational expansiveness of a great composer.
The greatness of Intermezzo lies not in the accuracy of Strauss's portrait.
That was the easy part. No, it stems from his knack of keeping us guessing
whether it was a serious portrait or tongue-in-cheek. The answer, of course, is
both. Strauss knew how maddeningly moody and melodramatic Pauline could be. He
could portray those traits with wicked humour only because he knew, like
Hofmannsthal, that she had "a very beautiful soul au fond". That enabled him to
round out the portrait in music of warm sincerity, for the benefit of those who
could only see the harridan.
Garsington is to be congratulated for keeping the momentum of its Strauss
series so fresh. The production team is the same as before, but there's no
sense of deja` vu. Intermezzo allows David Fielding fewer indulgences than
Strauss's mythological settings, and he tailors his staging accordingly.
Costumes and props are strictly in period, characterisations shrewdly observed.
The trademark comic-strip set works exceedingly well, even if it doesn't allow
the sort of changes envisaged by Strauss, to the obvious disadvantage of the
scene at the Prater. There are plenty of good jokes, including a hilarious
enactment of the Vienna-Garmisch train journey. The final tableau - part
Christmas box, part wedding cake - is acoup de theatre that crowns the
evening's achievement.
Yvonne Kenny's Christine is wholly believable, despite some problems with the
top of her voice. She represents an attractively middle-aged but highly strung
woman, who compulsively fusses, bosses and over-reacts but also has a
vulnerable side; a soprano who can make sense of the pathos in Strauss's music;
a "beautiful soul" who treats the reflective scena midway through Act One as a
foretaste of the Four Last Songs.
But Garsington's biggest find this year is Tom Erik Lie, a Norwegian
bass-baritone with something of Strauss's tall, easy presence. Here is the
infuriatingly unflappable man that Pauline/Christine surely saw in
Strauss/Storch, with a crisp voice that draws the music off the words. Jeffrey
Lloyd-Roberts's Baron Lummer, an overgrown schoolboy in tweeds, creates his own
aura, and the rest of the cast is impressively even.
Elgar Howarth keeps the music on a tight rein: the interludes could do with a
richer bloom, but balance is flawless. A conversation piece like this should
really be sung in the language of the audience, but the new surtitles work
well, and German diction is idiomatic. Cue for a Garsington Meistersinger?
Andrew Clark
Copyright: The Financial Times Limited
Matthew B. Tepper
news:3B3C7BFB...@pop.cybernex.net:
> Maybe not "good tunes" but there is some compelling and dramatic music
> that can grow on the listener in works such as "Wozzeck," "Lulu," "Dr.
> Faust," and "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" as an example. I rather believe
> that today's sophisticated audience is beyond the "good tunes" example
> used here.
If good tunes and dramatic situations were all that were necessary, then
Thomas Pasatieri would be a major opera composer today.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Top 3 worst UK exports: Mad-cow; Foot-and-mouth; Charlotte Church
Ancona21
can grow on the listener >>
So can fungus.
Ancona
Leonard Tillman
music, operatic and non: It's got no good tunes in it!
Maybe not "good tunes"
" but there is some compelling and dramatic music that can grow on the
listener in works such as "Wozzeck," "Lulu," "Dr. Faust," and "Lady
Macbeth of....."
--- _Can_ "grow on", but not all that likely to...on the
majority of opera-goers who still care greatly for beautiful music, and
what fine voices can do with it!!
Best, LT -
"The death of a friend is like
the loss of a limb" - German proverb
david melnick
arguments that were used against Wagner.
And then there's the case of Beethoven, whose melodies consist of only
a few notes, all on one or two chords. That stupid, stupid Fifth
Symphony, built in a purely mathematical way, like Berg. No emotional
effect at all. Bor...ring, eh? And the "false" entrance before the
recapitulation of the first movement of the Eroica. You can't do that!
It's in two keys at the same time -- it's soooo not beautiful. Nobody
could like it! If you keep writing music like that, the audience for
symphonic music will disappear. And that Op. 131! Well, what do you
expect from a deaf guy!
Cheers,
David
thierry morice
> And, of course, there's that problem that plagues a lot of modern music,
> operatic and non: It's got no good tunes in it! Nary a "Dove sono", "Mal
> reggendo", or "Nessun dorma" to be found in the many (often deservedly)
> seldom-revived or altogether-forgotten operas by Zandonai, Zemlinsky,
> Henze, Busoni, Wolf-Ferrari, Stockhausen, Orff, Ginastera, etc.
Listen more attentively. Or just listen with an open mind (though it
seems difficult for you). You'll find tunes. Not Dove sono or Nessun
Dorma, of course, for they are already available, but other ones. And,
trust me, there is a huge difference between Zandonai and Orff ...
Ads for Wolf-Ferraro, listen to Il Segreto di Susanna thinking it is
by somebody you haven't already classified as "junk". You'll be
surprised ... if you want to, since it seems you're only looking for
what you already know.
< snip the rest of the diatribe ... Probably she had a bad time at the
dentist's>
> Much better to sit through
> an agonizing, teeth gritting, nail-pulling, nausea-inducing twenty
> five hours (which is how long WOZZECK *seems* to be when one is trapped
> in the opera house torture chamber and assaulted by it) of Berg, Busoni,
> or Schoenberg. There are some plays that work much better as plays,
> without the agonizing noise...oops, "music"...thank you very much.
Nobody compels you to listen to what yxou don't like. But, trust me, a
great performance of Erwartung remains an unforgettable event. For you
not, of course, since you've decided it's junk. So remain at home and
listen to Pavarotti's Nessun Dorma, you'll feel more comfortable. But
allow me to ask whether art is only made to feel comfortable.
The Karen Mercedes's of the time dismissed Manet as surely as you
dismiss Berg. History has made the rest...
> Even among the handful of 20th Century operas that have endured in the
> "canon", it's easy to suspect that the operas remain there either because
> of their DRAMATIC rather than their musical appeal (e.g., Lulu, Wozzeck,
> Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, etc.)
The fact you remain stubbornly insensitive to the 20C music doesn't
mean everybody does. Time hasn't stood still since Puccini. Using the
same recipes can maybe ensure a quick immediate fame, but doesn't
bring the thing any father. Many 18C composers made "a la maniere de"
Handel, many 19C composers tried to make Rossini after Rossini ... it
never works.
> On the other hand, it's perfectly socially acceptable to ignore the
> operas of less "important" composers like Cui (who?)
Cui (1835-1918) hardly a 20C composer, or what?
> or by Delius (the
> best parts of whose operas are, unfortunately, the instrumental bits),
for your taste, not mine ...
> Holst, Bliss, Smyth, Boughton, and Vaughan Williams
the same as it is "perfectly socially acceptable" to ignore the operas
by Myslivecek, Salieri, Paer, etc... You haven't proved anything,
here.
> all of whom had the
> added handicap of being British, and thus their operas could be dismissed
> with impunity as "narrow and provincial" even if they were far more
> appealing and listenable than some of the dreadful "canonical" junk by
> "bigger name" composers
answering prejudice by prejudice (or is you calling "junk" the entire
20C operatic production anything else?) again doesn't prove anything.
>the only exceptions to the "If it's British, it's
> dismissable" rule being Purcell (and then, really, only one of his
> works has achieved more than "appealing novelty" status)
Which one? Dido? Fairy Queen? King Arthur? Three works I saw staged
recently (and, among them, yes, Dido is the only opera, the others
being semi-operas or masques).
> and Britten, who
> managed to avoid British provincialism altogether in his Stravinsky-esque
> musical sensibility and intense sense of drama (and even he had his
> "clunkers". OWEN WINGRAVE, for example).
Who hasn't got any?
> It's always been telling to me that the greatest "English"
> composer by many people's estimation was an early 18th century German who
> wrote all his operas in Italian).
Ever heard of Semele?
> And then there are the cases of fatally flawed and frankly bad operas
> written by composers who have also written (reasonably) one or more good
> operas; the neglect of these bad operas is simply merited: e.g., Debussy's
> RODRIGUE ET CHIMENE,
for this time, I agree. The neglect is deserved, since this opera
wasn't finished and I doubt Debussy ever thought of having it
performed.
> Poulenc's LES MAMELLES DE TIRESIAS, Barber's ANTONY
> AND CLEOPATRA, Charpentier's JULIEN (not that LOUISE is anything but a
> minor novelty of limited appeal), and quite a few seldom-if-ever
> revived operas by R. Strauss, Janacek, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Britten.
Janacek's Katya Kabanova, Jenufa, Vec Makropulos, and to some extent
Cunning little Vixen are part of the repertory of every major house,
now. Wake up!
> And, of course, a few of the operas are in languages that are unusual
> enough in the opera world to make revivals (at least in the original
> language, as modern opera snobbery demands) difficult to cast: for
> example, operas by Nielsen, Szymanowski, Sallinen, and to some
> extent even Janacek and Bartok. Until Danish, Czech, Polish, Finnish,
> Hungarian, etc., join the five major operatic languages (Italian, French,
> German, English, and Russian), operas in other languages will continue to
> be novelties, regardless of their musical and dramatic merit.
>
So, what's the point, here?
English as a major operatic language just because you've decided so,
although there are less operas performed in English as original
language than in Czech worldwide?
Czech, Polish etc... banned because you don't care to understand them?
Szynamowski, Bartok, Dvorak, Janacek survive it you want it or not.
And if you're not at ease with the lesser fame of English composers,
don't blame it on the more famous "exotic" ones who've entered the
"hall of fame" earlier and never left it.
happy listening without prejudices (the better way to enrich your
knowledge).
thierry.
Leonard Tillman
-Just goes to show, yet again, that what _in theory_ might not be that
appealing to the ear, - might turn out with quite unexpected
results!!
- But, theory or not, Beethoven (a "deaf guy" ) somehow had the
_innate_ musicality to impart (the admittedly subjective) melodic charm
to virtually every composition, ...perhaps defying theory!
( BTW, though that "5th", you mentioned, - and the even _more_
popular "9th" remain to most, his best-loved symphonies, and VERY
deservedly so, - I am personally _addicted_ to the "7th" .....and
most of all - the "6th", the "Pastorale"....can never hear them often
enough!!)
Best, LT
Mark D. Lew
Karen Mercedes <dal...@radix.net> wrote:
> [...] Sadly, since Britten English
> opera has again reverted to relative obscurity, helped not at all by the
> self-indulgent academicism of Michael Tippett, the limited minimalist
> palette of Peter Maxwell Davies and the sheer unlistenability of Harrison
> Birtwistle (just to name a few egregious examples of British operatic
> mediocrity).
Have you heard any of Judith Weir's works? I am in about 75% agreement
with you about modern tunelessness, but I've liked most of Weir's stuff
that I've heard. I especially loved her "Heaven ablaze in his breast",
based on Hoffmann's Sandman (though that was partly due to the excellent
staging I saw).
In the past five years, neo-romanticism has come to dominate new opera, at
least here on the West Coast. Everything being written now is, if not
tuneful in the Puccini-or-before sense, at least lyrical.
I think melody is on a comeback since the mid-1990s. Of the new works I've
seen in the past five years, two were predominantly tuneful in any sense of
the word, three others have included some hummable tunes, and two were in
that sort of hummable-but-monotonous minimalist style.
mdl
Mark D. Lew
<gm...@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
> This is precisely what happened
> in authoritarian regimes, state lead sterile populist art.In
> a democracy, the artist, must feel free to pursue their own ideas, populist
> or not.
Is that really true? It seems to me that historically music (and art in
general) has done better under less democratic rule.
mdl
Britta
>the only three works of Janacek not yet "on the boards" are
>"Broucek," "Vixen," and "House of the Dead."
My problem, of course, is that I don't know what "on the boards" means.
(Does it have something to do with the New York Metropolitan [The Only
Opera House In Existence In The Entire World]?)
I personally have seen all three of these operas several times. They are
performed often here in Europe.
BTW, I'll give you twenty Lucias for one Z Mrtveho Domu.
Just my opinion, as we say in Bavaria (but obviously not wherever
Karen Mercedes lives).
Britta
Britta
a very intelligent post, containing the following phrases:
>Listen more attentively. Or just listen with an open mind (though it
>seems difficult for you).
>allow me to ask whether art is only made to feel comfortable.
>The fact you remain stubbornly insensitive to the 20C music doesn't
>mean everybody does. Time hasn't stood still since Puccini.
>Janacek's Katya Kabanova, Jenufa, Vec Makropulos, and to some extent
>Cunning little Vixen are part of the repertory of every major house,
>now. Wake up!
>English as a major operatic language just because you've decided so,
>although there are less operas performed in English as original
>language than in Czech worldwide?
>
>Czech, Polish etc... banned because you don't care to understand them?
>Szynamowski, Bartok, Dvorak, Janacek survive it you want it or not.
>happy listening without prejudices (the better way to enrich your
>knowledge).
Thank you, Thierry, and bravo. I thought these remarks were worth posting
a second time.
Britta
REG
course, but I'm not sure we've really addressed the issue in this group -
and so I've retitled the thread with my chracteristic modest and sang freud
to see if others would like to respond to the question: Does musical art
(either on the performing side or composition) do better for some reason in
an oppressive regime or society than in a more liberal laissez faire
society. I have my own thoughts, but would be interested to see what others
make of the rather broad question.
"Mark D. Lew" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:markdlew-ya0240800...@news.earthlink.net...
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
current repertoire", but I agree - we Americans DO seem to
think "if it's not being done by the Met, it's no longer
done", which is CERTAINLY not true! (And I, personally,
have seen "Cunning Little Vixen" at least twice "live" -
although one was a production by USC's School of Performing
Arts, the other the NYCO on tour, back before L. A. had its
own opera company, so neither was recent.)
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
REG wrote:
>
> Mark - this is a really interesting comment - we've all seen it before, of
> course, but I'm not sure we've really addressed the issue in this group -
> and so I've retitled the thread with my chracteristic modest and sang freud
> to see if others would like to respond to the question: Does musical art
> (either on the performing side or composition) do better for some reason in
> an oppressive regime or society than in a more liberal laissez faire
> society. I have my own thoughts, but would be interested to see what others
> make of the rather broad question.
I believe it does, to some extent. Might that be because it
takes more determination (and skill) to outwit the hierarchy
of an oppressive regime? Producing works that say what you
want to say, yet get past any imposed censorship relatively
unscathed? I should think it would concentrate one's
efforts considerably, when one's "critics" have the power to
throw one in prison, not just write scathing revues! In
this country (U.S.) mostly the government couldn't care less
- if it supports the arts at all.
Edward A. Cowan
> As for Wolf-Ferrari, listen to Il Segreto di Susanna thinking it is
> by somebody you haven't already classified as "junk". You'll be
> surprised ...
(NOTE: A couple of typos corrected in the above citation...)
Another delightful Wolf-Ferrari opera is _I quattro rusteghi_,
apparently heard with some frequency in Italy, known also in Germany as
_Die vier Grobiane_. I have an old Cetra-Soria recording of the work...
--
E.A.C.
Matthew B. Tepper
news:markdlew-ya0240800...@news.earthlink.net:
> Is that really true? It seems to me that historically music (and art
> in general) has done better under less democratic rule.
In spite of my first thoughts, that makes it the perfect time for me to
compose a Nixon opera, then!
Bernard Gould
during the cold war, a policy to free the Soviets
from western influence and so called "Degenerate
Art " in Germany two examples to be going on with.
Bernard
Mark D. Lew <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:markdlew-ya0240800...@news.earthlink.net...
Mark D. Lew
> [quotes from Thierry's post snipped]
>
> Thank you, Thierry, and bravo. I thought these remarks were worth posting
> a second time.
Really? I felt exactly the opposite. The lines you highlighted for
requoting corresponded very closely to the lines which I felt were uncalled
for.
Karen posted a strongly worded essay detailing how she doesn't care for
most 20th century opera. Obviously this is her personal opinion, and
obviously she has based it on a moderate amount of familiarity with the
works she criticizes.
No doubt there are others on this group who completely disagree with Karen
about this music, and they can be expected to post their rebuttals about
the music in question, and indeed that is what several posters did.
You and Thierry, however, have gone a step further -- suggesting that
Karen's dislike of 20th century music proves:
- that she needs to listen to it more carefully;
- that she does not have an open mind;
- that she is insensitive;
- that she is prejudiced; and
- that she seeks to impose her tastes on others.
None of these accusations is warranted. Karen has listened to the music,
and she has decided she doesn't like it. For most styles of music, if
someone makes such a decision, we accept that it is a matter of taste. But
for some reason, with 20th century music (and with Wagner), if someone
expresses a dislike of it, all its advocates come out to tell her that
she's stupid and needs to listen harder.
Just my opinion, of course, but I think that kind of arrogant, insulting
attitude is disgraceful.
mdl
Valfer
of the problem. In one hand, we have good composers trying too hard to set
horrible libretti to music, i.e. Delius, Poulenc, Debussy, etc. On the
other, we have pretentious composerd trying to "educate" the audience with
their arid, overly contrived, bereft-of-melody "music." In his age of
imbeciles, a mediocre composer setting a trite libretto will find his work
staged by the big houses, while score full of melodic invention and sincere
drama will be rejected as old-fashioned. Thank God for the few exceptions
to this we have seen in the past fifteen years.
Valfer
david melnick
> expresses a dislike of it, all its advocates come out to tell her that
> she's stupid and needs to listen harder.
I, too, respect Karen's position. I just balked at the no-catchy-tunes part, because
I find that over the years, I am able to find tunefulness in places I never thought
I would.
I agree that it's useless to say "Just listen again" to someone who has listened and
found a certain work or composer or era wanting, but speaking only for myself, I
have learned to like works that I was simply unable to hear before.
Oddly, I never needed to "learn" modern and contemporary visual art or literature. I
was attuned to them from first exposure, and they often spoke to me at least as
directly as older art. That also happened, as I remember, with Stravinsky's Rite of
Spring, which my brother and I persisted in listening to on our little 45 player for
months while our father fulminated about "cacophony" off in the living room.
In general, though, music, which I first learned from basic 18th and 19th century
repertoire, had to lead me forward slowly. I remember first hearing Bartok quartets
and finding them "unsolvable." Now, to my ears they are full of user-friendly tunes
and motifs. There was a time when I thought Bruckner symphonies, on the rare
occasions when I bothered to listen to them, were just big masses of sound without
reason. Now I know them to be classically organized, composed of heart-tugging
melodies and conveying an overwhelming emotional charge.
And when the first LP of Lulu came out and I listened in a booth at my favorite
record store, I didn't hear it as music but as some weird concoction that bore no
resemblance to any of the operatic glories I had grown quickly to love in my early
teens. Needless to say, I didn't spend my limited funds on the album! In those
years, I was more the type for records of A, B (though that included Barbiere and
Boris as well as Boheme) and C -- and D(on G), F(lu), M(eist), P(ag), R(ig) and T
(Tra and Tro). There were foretastes of other glories in aria and duet records, but
it was decades before I ever encountered Lulu again. By then I was ready, and I
discovered what IMO is a musical masterpiece (and not just a dramatic one, though
that, too).
In my earlier post about this topic, passion begat sarcasm, and I agree that Thierry
Morice may have crossed a certain line in his. However, I do want to plead for
listening without prejudice. I think the works that lack inspiration usually die off
anyway (though as we know from the bel canto and baroque revivals, things change).
Every debate has at least two sides. To come out of the closet with my personal
prejudice, I love verismo opera, but when I hear a contemporary opera that hasn't
advanced harmonically beyond the turn of the last century -- or even one with a
veneer of more "modern" sounds but without a modern soul -- I find it to be dead in
the water.
Sincerely,
David
Britta
mark...@earthlink.net schrieb:
>
>> I thought these remarks were worth posting
>> a second time.
>
>Really? I felt exactly the opposite. The lines you highlighted for
>requoting corresponded very closely to the lines which I felt were uncalled
>for.
OK, here are some lines from Karen's post. If I understand her correctly,
she's talking about the music of, among others, Berg, Busoni and Schoenberg.
>microtonal, atonal, minimilist, nihilist, or other "ist" garbage
>the last refuge of talentless hacks
>all the musical sensibility of a back-hoe
>agonizing, teeth gritting, nail-pulling, nausea-inducing
>agonizing noise...oops, "music"...
Do you like these quotations better? I don't.
You know, Mark, I have a lot of problems with some of the so-called 'bel
canto' repertoire. Bellini, for instance, is a hard slog for me. But I
don't call it garbage. I figure the problem is with me, not with Bellini.
I keep attending performances of Bellini operas. I try to understand why
people around me are so thrilled with it. I listen to people talk about why
they like it. Bellini (and several others) doesn't do it for me yet, but
I keep hoping I'll make the breakthrough some day. The problem is with me,
not with Bellini. I don't dismiss him as a talentless hack.
(I don't know what a back-hoe is, either, but I imagine I'm happier
not knowing!)
cheers, Britta
Britta
>
>Britta, I think "on the boards" as used here means "in the
>current repertoire"
Thanks. I figured that's about all it really could mean. But from my
point of view, these operas *are* in the current repertoire, thus my
question about whether 'on the boards' refers only to the repertoire
of one particular company.
cheers, Britta
benjo maso
"Britta" <britt...@hotmail.com> schreef in bericht
news:9hkma...@drn.newsguy.com...
You forgot "the rarified snobs of 20th century opera" , "insecure operagoers
feel they might be
laughed at if they were to actually express their true opinions of the
works" and "the dreadful "canonical" junk by
"bigger name" composers".
It's obvious that Karen can't or won't understand that a taste for modern
20th century opera's can be genuine. Perhaps sometimes it isn't. But I can
assure her it is usually as sincere as her own taste for "tuneful" works.
Take for instance Amsterdam. Fifteen or twenty years ago opera was a
moribund instituiton in spite of a repertoire based on well-known works of
Verdi, Mozart, Puccini, Bizet, etc. Getting tickets was the easiest thing in
the world: the house was only full when singers like Joan Sutherland
performed. Right now when almost al stagings are updated and the repertoire
is heavely leaning to modern 20th century works (for instance Janacek is
more often performed than Puccini; and Schoenberg's Moses und Aron was the
biggest hit in the last years) it's blooming. In spite of the fact that the
capacity of the new opera house is much bigger than it was, it's almost
always packed. Why? Social nobbery? Cultural insecurity? Fear to give a true
opinion? Or maybe, maybe because there enough operalovers in Amsterdam (or
Brussels, or Frankfurt, etc., etc.) who like it so much that they are
prepared to pay a lot of money te see it?
Benjo Maso
ArthurIIsheds
Ancona21
Brussels, or Frankfurt, etc., etc.) who like it so much that they are
prepared to pay a lot of money te see it? >>
Europeans . . .
Ancona
Matthew B. Tepper
mj1.aol.com:
><< maybe because there enough opera lovers in Amsterdam (or Brussels,
> or Frankfurt, etc., etc.) who like it so much that they are prepared
> to pay a lot of money to see it? >>
>
> Europeans . . .
And we can pretty much blame them for opera in the first place!
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
said in private e-mail, I place you and Karen among the
"members" here who are exceptionally well-qualified to post
on many subjects (by reading and/or education) and who
actually make at least part of their living from opera
(unlike most of us). Whether or not we always agree, no one
can say you have no well-grounded basis for your opinions!
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
expensive to take a European vacation just to hear operas -
and singers - we never hear in this country!) Also, define
"a lot of money" - although the Staatsoper in Vienna charges
about the same as the Met, opera in many European venues is
much more affordable (to the "natives", too) than it is
here! (...And even in Vienna, I think - it's just that, not
being able to attend regularly, and being on vacation, I
chose to purchase the "best" seats, when I went there.)
Valfer
with authority whan I say that the first has wonderful musical moments
surrounded by dreadful half-hours of "conversation", while the only saving
grace of the second is the vicarious pleasure some audience members may get
from a good eyeful of the soprano's breasts (if she deigns to show them).
As to "today's sophisticated audiences", the only thing I can say is that
they stay sophisticated until someone points out that the king is naked, if
you know what I mean. As a performer, I feel the need to entertain my
audience and to give them an enjoyable experience. If I had to "grow on the
listener", I would feel like a fungus.
I find it fascinating that opera houses trip on each other to produce operas
written in Czech, while ignoring the very worthy and rich Spanish
repertoire. I don't know how many Czech speakers there are in the U.S.A.,
but I could venture a safe guess that they are substantially fewer that the
Spanish speakers. I accuse these companies of the most egregious snobbism
for this.
I agree completely with Karen. Call me a plebeian jerk if you will. I
don't care.
Valfer
"Daniel Kessler" <dkes...@pop.cybernex.net> wrote in message
news:3B3C7BFB...@pop.cybernex.net...
>
>
> Karen Mercedes wrote:
>
> > And, of course, there's that problem that plagues a lot of modern music,
> > operatic and non: It's got no good tunes in it!
>
> Maybe not "good tunes" but there is some compelling and dramatic music
that
> can grow on the listener in works such as "Wozzeck," "Lulu," "Dr. Faust,"
and
> "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" as an example. I rather believe that today's
> sophisticated audience is beyond the "good tunes" example used here.
>
> >
> > .....Even among the handful of 20th Century operas that have endured in
the
> > "canon", it's easy to suspect that the operas remain there either
because
> > of their DRAMATIC rather than their musical appeal
>
> Hold on! Can one really separate the music from the dramatic in these
works?
>
>
> > and then there are the cases of fatally flawed and frankly bad operas
> > written by composers who have also written (reasonably) one or more good
> > operas; the neglect of these bad operas is simply merited: Poulenc's LES
> > MAMELLES DE TIRESIAS,
>
> I certainly don't regard "Mamelles de Tirtesias" as a bad opera or to be
> dismissed as "fatally flawed" and it is coming back to the Met repertory
soon.
>
>
>
>
> > .....and quite a few seldom-if-ever
> > revived operas by R. Strauss, Janacek,
>
> Well, "Capriccio" of Strauss has made the "boards" in a surprising number
of
> houses and the only three works of Janacek not yet "on the boards" are
> "Broucek," "Vixen," and "House of the Dead." Maybe, in time, they will
find
> some currency and thanks to Janacek, Czech is showing up in a lot of
houses
> when his works are done and a possible spillover is the revival of
Dvorak's
> "Rusalka" which has showed surprising strength recently.
>
>
>
>
Opaffic
>don't care.
>
>Valfer
That makes three of us.....do I hear four?
Opaffic
tresbirri
<20010630151936...@ng-mr1.aol.com>:
>
>>I agree completely with Karen.
>That makes three of us.....do I hear four?
No. At least, certainly not from my direction.
tresbirri
tresbirri
<hmn%6.6583$ck5.6...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>:
>> Europeans . . .
>And we can pretty much blame them for opera in the first place!
Matthew, believe me, we are very aware of our guilt. We are suffering
appropriately.
saluti, tresbirri
tresbirri
<1evsfl9.1no5b2tba7jd4N%eac...@anet-dfw.com>:
>Another delightful Wolf-Ferrari opera is _I quattro rusteghi_,
>apparently heard with some frequency in Italy, known also in Germany as
>_Die vier Grobiane_. I have an old Cetra-Soria recording of the work...
This is one opera (there are many), I can not imagine it in translation.
The Goldoni text is interesting and charming because of the dialect.
Have you heard this opera in German? I would be interested to hear of
your impressions.
saluti, tresbirri
Edward A. Cowan
I know what you mean about the dialect. At least that Cetra-Soria set
has an Italian (actually, Venetian) and English libretto. I have never
heard this opera sung in German. Perhaps some other person here has had
that experience...
--
E.A.C.
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
stuff tend to agree (largely) with Karen. They may SING the
more esoteric stuff _ after all, it IS opera (of sorts) and
only the firmly established can afford to pick and choose
(if they want to work). But everyone is allowed to have
their preferences, and I think most singers are inclined to
prefer works with melody and beautiful music (even though
their definitions of that may vary widely).
Matthew B. Tepper
news:9hlo8...@drn.newsguy.com:
Italy in particular should suffer for producing that phony who is now
making major bucks but can't even find somebody to shave him.
Aris
"Matthew B. Tepper" <oyş@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:9Iz%6.9420$eL5.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...> > oyş@earthlink.net ha scritto nel messaggio
> ><hmn%6.6583$ck5.6...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>:
> >
> >>> Europeans . . .
> >
> >>And we can pretty much blame them for opera in the first place!
> >
> > Matthew, believe me, we are very aware of our guilt. We are suffering
> > appropriately.
>
> Italy in particular should suffer for producing that phony who is now
> making major bucks but can't even find somebody to shave him.
>
refer Mr. Bocelli to your own barber?
Aris
tresbirri
>Italy in particular should suffer for producing that phony who is now
>making major bucks but can't even find somebody to shave him.
No, no, Matthew, you are mistaken. Mr. Gergiev is not Italian!
saluti, tresbirri
Leonard Tillman
making major bucks but can't even find somebody to shave him.
No, no, Matthew, you are mistaken. Mr. Gergiev is not Italian!
saluti, tresbirri"
--- ROTFL-etc.!!!
Also, I have always found that little tonsorial task - best
done to - and by - oneself (not referring, of course, to AB)!!
Best, LT -
"The death of a friend is like
the loss of a limb" - German proverb
Matthew B. Tepper
news:9hmnvt$ncs$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net:
Hoping for 2005, and you're not invited. I'm still whipping the scenario
into shape before having my librettist get down to the bulk of the work; it
helps to have an overall plan, you know. There is, for example, the major
logistical problem of getting the lead off the stage every now and then so
this won't be an endurance test like, say, Prokofiev's _Fiery Angel_.
Due to a fortuitous online connection via a relative, I *may* soon have one
of my preferred principal singers on board, which will lend credibility to
the project as I try to get backing.
There are about a half-dozen music sketches already notated and much more
mentally twirling around besides. If I can get the Act II waltz sequence
firmly sketched in the next few months, and maybe one or two solos or
duets, I will then have something to show; and the principal conductor of a
well-known secondary opera conductor has already agreed to look at it.
> And why not refer Mr. Bocelli to your own barber?
Because I don't know where she is, now. Last summer, Doris told me that
she had a new boyfriend and that things were going very well for them.
"Besides," she added, "he has a really nice ass." I replied, "Then you two
are perfectly matched." The next time I went to the Supercuts where she
had been cutting my hair, she was gone. Someone there said, "Oh, Doris
moved away to live with her boyfriend." It must have been a big step for
her, since she had lived in the same building all her 30 years.
So anyway, Doris fled the scene and I simply haven't had a chance to ask
our mutual friend David if he's heard from her. I went back to that
Supercuts and got some decent work from Maria, but it just wasn't the same.
I have since moved and last week I went to a different Supercuts, where
Dina tried to talk me into some bizarre shag cut and I had to insist on my
usual very conservative cut (since I was going to a formal dinner).
Finding somebody to do my hair very difficult for me because it is such a
personal matter, almost like choosing a doctor. So once more I'm in a
state of flux until I find somebody here in the Valley that I like.
And if I *had* a barber currently, you can bet I wouldn't send Bocelli to
him or her!
Matthew B. Tepper
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
and fortunately Signor Bocelli is not yet a resident of
L.A..
Aris wrote:
>
> "Matthew B. Tepper" <oyţ@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:9Iz%6.9420$eL5.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> > tresbirri <tres...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> > news:9hlo8...@drn.newsguy.com:
> >
> > > oyţ@earthlink.net ha scritto nel messaggio
Matthew B. Tepper
mustache I've been sporting for the past twelve years?
"Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)" <evg...@earthlink.net> wrote in
news:3B3F78CE...@earthlink.net:
> Since you're so interested, Aris, Matthew is clean-shaven -
> and fortunately Signor Bocelli is not yet a resident of
> L.A..
>
> Aris wrote:
>>
>> "Matthew B. Tepper" <oyş@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>> news:9Iz%6.9420$eL5.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
>> > tresbirri <tres...@hotmail.com> wrote in
>> > news:9hlo8...@drn.newsguy.com:
>> >
>> > > oyş@earthlink.net ha scritto nel messaggio
>> > ><hmn%6.6583$ck5.6...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>:
>> > >
>> > >>> Europeans . . .
>> > >
>> > >>And we can pretty much blame them for opera in the first place!
>> > >
>> > > Matthew, believe me, we are very aware of our guilt. We are
>> > > suffering appropriately.
>> >
>> > Italy in particular should suffer for producing that phony who is
>> > now making major bucks but can't even find somebody to shave him.
>> >
>> Speaking of phonies when do you expect to finish your opera? And why
>> not refer Mr. Bocelli to your own barber?
>> Aris
--
Oisk17
>Or maybe five? You notice, the people who actually SING the
>stuff tend to agree (largely) with Karen.
Six. But I am not a singer. Just a poorly educated listener whose artistic
sense clearly belongs in a different century...I am one of those referred to
(unflatteringly) in Gilbert's lines (from Patience)
"Be eloquent in praise of the very dull old days which have long since passed
away.
And convince 'em if you can that the reign of good Queen Anne was Culture's
palmiest day.
Of course you will pooh-pooh whatever's fresh and new, and declare it's crude
and mean,
For Art stopped short in the cultivated court of the Empress Josphine."
Regards,
Paul ( I believe I posted those lines once before here.)
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
face I didn't even think about it! But unlike Signor
Bocelli, you never look in need of a shave, which was really
what I meant.
"Matthew B. Tepper" wrote:
>
> Clean-shaven? You mean you have never noticed the Pierre Monteux-style
> mustache I've been sporting for the past twelve years?
>
> "Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)" <evg...@earthlink.net> wrote in
> news:3B3F78CE...@earthlink.net:
>
> > Since you're so interested, Aris, Matthew is clean-shaven -
> > and fortunately Signor Bocelli is not yet a resident of
> > L.A..
> >
> > Aris wrote:
> >>
> >> "Matthew B. Tepper" <oyţ@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> >> news:9Iz%6.9420$eL5.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> >> > tresbirri <tres...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> >> > news:9hlo8...@drn.newsguy.com:
> >> >
> >> > > oyţ@earthlink.net ha scritto nel messaggio
Matthew B. Tepper
"cool," or doing what some damn publicist might try to tell me.
"Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)" <evg...@earthlink.net> wrote in
news:3B4008D1...@earthlink.net:
> Yes, now that you mention it - it's so much a part of your face I
> didn't even think about it! But unlike Signor Bocelli, you never
> look in need of a shave, which was really what I meant.
>
> "Matthew B. Tepper" wrote:
>>
>> Clean-shaven? You mean you have never noticed the Pierre Monteux-style
>> mustache I've been sporting for the past twelve years?
>>
>> "Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)" <evg...@earthlink.net> wrote in
>> news:3B3F78CE...@earthlink.net:
>>
>> > Since you're so interested, Aris, Matthew is clean-shaven -
>> > and fortunately Signor Bocelli is not yet a resident of
>> > L.A..
>> >
>> > Aris wrote:
>> >>
>> >> "Matthew B. Tepper" <oyş@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>> >> news:9Iz%6.9420$eL5.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
>> >> > tresbirri <tres...@hotmail.com> wrote in
>> >> > news:9hlo8...@drn.newsguy.com:
>> >> >
>> >> > > oyş@earthlink.net ha scritto nel messaggio
Mark D. Lew
> You know, Mark, I have a lot of problems with some of the so-called 'bel
> canto' repertoire. Bellini, for instance, is a hard slog for me. But I
> don't call it garbage.
If you did call it garbage, I wouldn't object. If someone else then told
you that, because you think it is garbage, you are closed-minded and don't
understand it, I would object to that.
mdl
tresbirri
<20010701235949...@ng-mm1.aol.com>:
>Six.
Count again, Paul. Opaffic asked for four, and I refused. Evelyn then
called herself five.
I who find much to admire in contemporary music, and great beauty in such
classics as Wozzeck, Moses und Aron, or Doktor Faust, refuse again to
be counted on the list which supports statements referring to the music of
Berg, Schoenberg and Busoni as 'garbage' or 'agonizing noise.'
I am sorry that Karen is unable to find the beauty which I find in this
music. Probably there is other music which she loves more than I do,
and in those cases she is the fortunate one and I am not.
I respect anyone's personal preferences and taste. I find it sad and
small to refer to something which another person loves as 'garbage.'
saluti, tresbirri
Mark D. Lew
(Divamanque)" <evg...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Bravo, Mark. From her postings here, and things she has
> said in private e-mail, I place you and Karen among the
> "members" here who are exceptionally well-qualified to post
> on many subjects (by reading and/or education) and who
> actually make at least part of their living from opera
> (unlike most of us). Whether or not we always agree, no one
> can say you have no well-grounded basis for your opinions!
I was under the impression that Britta is professionally involved in opera,
but whether she is or not, I don't think that matters. On this particular
topic, I happen to think that I'm right and she's wrong, because ... well,
because I'm right and she's wrong. But certainly not because I'm better
qualified to have an opinion. (For that matter, with regard to Britta, I'm
not at all convinced that I'm more well-read or better educated.)
As I've had to tell David M on other threads, I think this whole notion of
"I'm a singer, so I know better than you do," is bunk, and I wish people
would stop claiming it in my behalf.
--
In article <3B3EAB17...@earthlink.net>, "Evelyn Vogt Gamble
(Divamanque)" <evg...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Or maybe five? You notice, the people who actually SING the
> stuff tend to agree (largely) with Karen. They may SING the
> more esoteric stuff _ after all, it IS opera (of sorts) and
> only the firmly established can afford to pick and choose
> (if they want to work). But everyone is allowed to have
> their preferences, and I think most singers are inclined to
> prefer works with melody and beautiful music (even though
> their definitions of that may vary widely).
For what it's worth, I took Karen's side with respect to the implications
that she is close-minded, etc. Regarding actual preference for the
different style of music, I'm not on either side.
A look at my attendance habits seems to bear that out. Of the 19 operas
I've seen performed this year (excluding any that I performed in), nine
were written after 1930[*], and three of those were premieres.
mdl
[*] Later than that, I think, but I'm on vacation so I don't have my books
on hand to double-check. The one I'm not sure about is Hindemith's HIN UND
ZURÜCK.
tresbirri
<markdlew-ya0240800...@news.earthlink.net>:
Thank you, Mark, you have stated the problem very clearly. I am entirely on
the side of Britta (and Thierry) in this. I see the situation exactly
opposite.
If you call Bellini or Berg garbage, I will object strongly, and yes, I
will consider you closed-minded.
Interesting!
saluti, tresbirri
Ancona21
Count again, Paul. Opaffic asked for four, and I refused. Evelyn then
called herself five. >>
I'll make it six.
Ancona
At sixes and sevens about this thread
Skip
"Ancona21" <anco...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20010702121328...@ng-fy1.aol.com...
Opaffic
Is seven or eight still available?
Yay!!!! There's hope....
Opaffic
Skip
"Opaffic" <opa...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20010702144740...@ng-df1.aol.com...
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
tresbirri wrote:
>
>
> I who find much to admire in contemporary music, and great beauty in such
> classics as Wozzeck, Moses und Aron, or Doktor Faust, refuse again to
> be counted on the list which supports statements referring to the music of
> Berg, Schoenberg and Busoni as 'garbage' or 'agonizing noise.'
I rather think Karen's dislike of Schoenberg does not extend
to the Gurrelieder (sp?) which are really quite lovely (and
accessible), and have some nice music for mezzo. Webern,
also, wrote some very lovely, "traditional" lieder, early on
in his career. The problem with making the sweeping
statements most of us so often do, here, is that we
oversimplify, and threfore sound much more dogmatic than we
really are. (Just as I've so often railed against "updated
staging" in general, without adding "except for....." those
updates I've seen that I felt WORKED.)
Karen Mercedes
and "popular" (hoping to appeal to the masses).
Of course a composer should be true to himself/herself and his/her own
artistic vision.
My suspicion is, however, that many composers are NOT true to their
artistic visions exactly because they are afraid of seeming "populist".
Frankly, I do not think the human body is "wired" to automatically - and
in some cases, even after extensive conditioning - accept non-tonal music.
There is a reason tonal music was around for several millenia before
anyone decided it was something to be shunned, outgrown, deconstructed,
etc.
I do not believe that what Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, and their disciples
were doing - or even intended to do - was to create a new, natural musical
form. I believe they were indulging in artificial musical exercises to
prove a point to their fellow musical academicians. I do not believe they
ever intended their musical R&D to be understood or appreciated, let alone
enjoyed, by the musical audience at large.
This thread originated as part of the larger, ongoing discussion of why
modern opera isn't very popular. I think that's part of a larger-still
discussion of why CLASSICAL MUSIC is shrinking in popularity. And I think
the answer lies in exactly the kind of academic musical snobbism that
labels any kind of music that was composed to actually appeal to audiences
rather than to "instruct", "challenge", "improve", or - in actual fact -
alienate them. The fact is that Verdi WAS popular in his own lifetime.
Perhaps not populist, but popular. He wasn't trying to shove a radical new
and alienating musical idiom down people's throats, like a foul-tasting
medicine, then ridiculing them for gagging on it. He wrote music that (1)
expressed his own musical sensibilities and (2) just happened to also
appeal to the musical sensibilities of others. Why was this?
Could it have been that Verdi, unlike too many of today's composers, was
being completely HONEST in his self-expression. If his musical tastes
leaned toward the highly melodic with a 3/4 beat, he was not only
unashamed to reveal those tastes, he absolutely wallowed in them. And so
did his adoring audiences.
Would that today's composers would be more honest about their own musical
"wiring" and more considerate of their audiences'. Opera is meant to be an
ENTERTAINING medium after all. If it also instructs, that is a byproduct:
it should not be the main intent (just as it shouldn't be the main intent
of ANY performing art). I know just enough about what is taught in
conservatories - especially in composition programs - to suspect that a
lot of the atonal academicism that endures among today's composers is
LEARNED compositional behaviour. If you wear an ill-fitting pair of shoes
long enough, your feet will eventually become distorted into that shape
(and you'll get corns, spurs, bunions, and possibly eventually cripple
yourself).
Would that today's composers could forget 99% of the crap they learn in
conservatory, and tap back into their childlike, NATURAL, inborn musical
sensibilities when writing. What would result, I am sure, would not only
be a far more honest self-expression, it would also have a far greater,
and more enduring, popular (not populist) appeal.
KM
............................
NEIL SHICOFF, TENORE SUPREMO
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Own Website
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ I sing hymns with my spirit, +
+ but I also sing hymns with my mind. +
+ - 1 Corinthians 14:15 +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Opaffic
The problem with making the sweeping
>statements most of us so often do, here, is that we
>oversimplify, and threfore sound much more dogmatic than we
>really are.
Very well said, Evelyn, thank you for that. My agreement with Karen's statement
was a generality....of course there are many exceptions. I guess I tend to keep
my posts on the terse side and can sometimes misrepresent myself.
Karen Mercedes
> mark...@earthlink.net (Mark D. Lew) wrote in
> news:markdlew-ya0240800...@news.earthlink.net:
>
> > Is that really true? It seems to me that historically music (and art
> > in general) has done better under less democratic rule.
>
> In spite of my first thoughts, that makes it the perfect time for me to
> compose a Nixon opera, then!
>
Does Nixon really rate more than one opera?
Karen Mercedes
judgement on any opera. Indeed, I have a "rule of three": I listen to
every work at least three times before "passing judgment". And those works
that, after three attempts to "get" what their about, continue to elude
me, I set aside for five years or so to see if my changing taste/life
experience, etc. will "transform" the operas for me over time. With some
operas the immediate repeated exposure works. With others, the "time
engineering" works. And with others, nothing works. Schoenberg and Berg -
I've listened to them again and again over the years, and they remain as
revolting to me now as they were when I first heard them 20 years ago.
And then, some operas actually lose their appeal to me over time. I may
fall immediately in love with a piece on first hearing, and even continue
that love affair after repeated exposures. But five years later, or ten,
or 20, I may find I can no longer stomach an opera. This, no doubt, also
due to my own changed sensibilities, maturity, etc. PARSIFAL is such an
opera. I adored it at 15. I can't bear to sit through it now. Go figure.
And, there is a difference between being able to find the proverbial
needle in a haystack - the one or two little melodies that bring
desperately needed relief to an otherwise unmelodious onslaught. There are
a handful of good tunes in Barber's VANESSA, for example. That hardly
means the opera had a melodic sensibility comparable to that of, say,
SUSANNAH or THE BALLAD OF BABY DOE.
I also equate the kind of highly self-conscious academic "mathematical
formula" approach to composition that Berg indulged in with the "automatic
writing" method of Burroughs. Any composer who allows a mechanical system
to govern how he writes music (vs. simply using that system as a tool and
framework in which to express his emotions, message, or whatever else is
driving him to write in the first place) is not an ARTIST, in my opinion.
He is an engineer, and while I surely appreciate good engineering (it's
nice to have one's car run reliably), it's hardly going to move me to
tears, anger, laughter, or anything else, except possibly an appreciation
of the arbitrary cleverness of the engineering process. It certainly isn't
going to make me admire the results of such an emotionless, mathematical
system. Because if the results are at all appealing, that appeal will be
highly suspect to me, because I will (1) doubt that the results were at
all what the composer intended; (2) doubt that the results are any more
artistically valid than a Shakespeare play produced accidentally by an
infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters. Alban
Berg is the ultimate example of an infinite number of musical monkeys
banging away to produce exactly what one would expect, given that monkeys
do not know how to type or write.
Karen Mercedes
> Having performed both "Capriccio" and "Mamelles de Tiresias", I can speak
> with authority whan I say that the first has wonderful musical moments
> surrounded by dreadful half-hours of "conversation", while the only saving
> grace of the second is the vicarious pleasure some audience members may get
> from a good eyeful of the soprano's breasts (if she deigns to show them).
I'm beginning to think that part of what colours our operatic taste is
whether we are purely listeners, or whether we are also singers. I have to
admit that my preference (strong, indeed) for melodic operas is because I
have a singer's sensitivity to just how odious it is to have to perform
music that was written with little comprehension of/concern for the human
voice or the human emotional sensibilities. "Music" that consists of
nothing but large leaps through strange intervals, exceedingly high or low
extremes of range, loud or soft extremes of dynamics, bizarre hypersonic
speed arhythmic patterns that resemble nothing so much as Dick Cheyney's
pre-implant heartbeat, and entire operas which the composer has very
carefully crafted to make absolutely sure that the listener (let alone the
singer) couldn't possibly predict one single note in a 200+ page score
based on the note preceding it is NOT worth singing OR listening to, IMO.
Frankly life is too short, and there's too much other great music out
there, to waste my time on it, even for pay. I've reached a point in my
musical existence where I refuse to be complicit in imposing this arcane,
artificial, self-consciously and self-indulgently composed musical spew on
audiences who deserve much better.
Karen Mercedes
> Italy in particular should suffer for producing that phony who is now
> making major bucks but can't even find somebody to shave him.
I just had a very evil thought. Someone should give the man a straight
razor and let him shave himself.
Skip
tone idiom)
To me, music without melody, is like a painting without color.
Some of this stuff is so bizarre you have to question the composers mental
state. I find most of this stuff awful.
"Karen Mercedes" <dal...@radix.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.SV4.3.96.101070...@saltmine.radix.net...
Britta
>I am entirely on
>the side of Britta (and Thierry) in this.
Wow. Just when you least expect it....Young Lochinvar comes out of the West.
Grazie, caro maestro. A girl is always grateful for a cavalier.
>I see the situation exactly
>opposite.
>If you call Bellini or Berg garbage, I will object strongly, and yes, I
>will consider you closed-minded.
>
>Interesting!
It's very interesting and more than a little worrying. This has aroused
some rather strong reactions in a handful of posters, and what dismays me
is that up to now the fronts are very clearly divided: Europeans on one
side, Americans on the other. I don't like this. Actually I hate it.
It seems to me that we're not arguing at all about modern music, or about
anyone's right to like or dislike any sort of music. We're disagreeing
about Karen's way of expressing her dislike. Is it possible that Americans
are just more exaggerated (or, Europeans are more reserved) in their
way of expressing an opinion? There, I've just ventured the sort of
generalization which I ordinarily dislike. But it seems significant that
the lines here are so clearly drawn.
Is it really true -- I'm asking you Americans -- that you can say, for
instance, "Alban Berg is garbage" (I know Karen didn't say that, I'm
exaggerating, OK?), and everyone will understand that what you really mean
is "I don't like most of Alban Berg's music"? To me, and obviously to
several other Europeans here, a statement like "Alban Berg is garbage" is
absolutely incredible. It's just.....well, it's just not possible to say
that. It's an "Affront," a deliberate and hostile insult. And it shows
that the person saying it is being deliberately offensive, and is really
prejudiced and......closed-minded.
Hey, Karen (although you seem to have disappeared), I'm sorry. I think you
only meant to express a sincere opinion, and you made some good points.
I'm sure you didn't intend to be the cause of an international brouhaha.
Storms in teapots. We live in small countries here. We're very close
together. We're trained to speak softly.
Britta
PS In case anyone is wondering about me --- yep, mixed parentage. One
American, one (Jewish, since that seems to be important here) German.
Lived in Europe all my life, grew up bilingual. But I am definitely German and
not American. America is still a mystery to me. There's a reason why I read
rmo, it's a constant source of revelation.
Britta
>The problem with making the sweeping
>statements most of us so often do, here, is that we
>oversimplify, and threfore sound much more dogmatic than we
>really are.
Thanks, Evelyn, this is really great. In another post I just made I've
tried to expand on this. But you've said it beautifully in just a few
words.
regards, Britta
Britta
an unbelievable post, demonstrating her total inability to comprehend
anything that has happened in music in the last hundred years, and
culminating in the preposterous statement:
>Alban
>Berg is the ultimate example of an infinite number of musical monkeys
>banging away to produce exactly what one would expect, given that monkeys
>do not know how to type or write.
And just ten minutes ago I said I was sorry that she had become the
center of a silly argument. I take it all back and I'm going to bed.
Ich nehme alles zurück und behaupte das Gegenteil!
Britta, disgusted beyond words, in any language
REG
because that is what you saying comes down to, at least as far as serious
music is concerned - and of course, since taste figures into such
conclusions, we are all entitled to our own taste. I myself have a great
deal of difficulty with Schoenberg - not because it is not tonal in the 19th
century sense, but because I find in it very little inspiration. However, I
find myself almost incredulous on a personal level that you don't cotton to
Berg, who is IMHO one of the finest composers of the last century; I like
some Webern, but find him a bit more arid and intellectual than the passion
of Berg. I am not sure whom you think are their "disciples", and I wonder if
you do yourself.
What I object to strongly, and find disingenuous in your argument, is
reaching from you dislike (or lack of understanding) of serious music in the
last century, to a tendentious kind of ad hominem argument that these
composers themselves (and their "disciples") were indulging in "aritifical
exercises" and that they did not intend to have their music be understood.
This is, frankly, a crock....on what possible basis can you conclude this
about three such disparate personalities (and their epigones) were
disingenuous.
Isn't it YOU who are being disingenuous? The fact is that you don't "get it"
for whatever the group of composers are, but rather than admitting it as a
limitation in your taste or understanding (and we all have these
limitations), you need to find a way to really libel (not in the legal
sense) their bona fides.
And of course you do so by idealizing Verdi - who was trying to do his own
"thing" in a different historical period, with different means, and a
different vocabulary available to him. You make the most unsupported and
internally contradictory statements about whether an appreciation of "tonal"
music - a term whose breadth you seem unable to appreciate - being "wired"
into the human body - a conclusion that would shock not only a great part of
the work that has never accepted our tonal scheme, but betrays a great
ignorance of the development of tonality. Of course, until fairly recently
in history the lex taloni (an eye for an eye) was quite well accepted as a
basis of justice, and perhaps you would have been there at Magna Charta
saying, "Wait, don't sign that thing - it's not the way we're wired".
There is of course a right we all have to opinion, including ignorant (in
the technical sense, not as a value judgment) opinion as you voice in this
posting; but to go beyond the mere expression of a jejuene attitude to a
convincing position requires something more than the mere expression of a
rather vapid point of view.
"Karen Mercedes" <dal...@radix.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.SV4.3.96.101070...@saltmine.radix.net...
REG
to Karen's expression of her dislike..what I object to is Karen's imputation
of insincerity to people who try very hard to express themselves through
"modern" (sic) music. Even worse, actually, is the suggestion that people
who write in a musical idiom that Karen understands are more "sincere" that
Berg was. It's kind of like saying that Norman Rockwell was a more sincere
artist that Kokoscka (sp?).
"Britta" <britt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9hqq9...@drn.newsguy.com...
david melnick
Karen Mercedes wrote:
> Would that today's composers could forget 99% of the crap they learn in
> conservatory, and tap back into their childlike, NATURAL, inborn musical
> sensibilities when writing. What would result, I am sure, would not only
> be a far more honest self-expression, it would also have a far greater,
> and more enduring, popular (not populist) appeal.
(1) OK, but you would probably call what I improvised on the piano when I was
13 "atonal." That's what my father called it, and after a few months, he
forbade me to continue. Thus ended my childlike, "natural," and inborn (though
it must have come from my mother's side :-) ), impulse toward honest
self-expression through composition. (That same year, he also said I'd never
be an Italian tenor, and how right he was!)
(2) I totally respect your position as a declaration of taste, Karen, but I as
I read your arguments I see counterexamples popping up everywhere, which is
what prompted my juvenile and probably rude original response about Beethoven
what seems like a long time ago. This time, what comes to mind is the
"mathematical" Magic Flute, the sequence of numbers of which proceeds through
the circle of fifths. I feel the opera's greatness comes in consonance with
this delightful fact, not despite it. Also, I personally feel that the
"mathematical" aspects of Bach's approach to composition make listening to,
and especially playing, his music all the more inspiring. Then there is the
duet for two violins by Mozart that my dad and I used to play, which requires
that the music be placed between the two violinists and the single line read
"upside down" with respect to the other's part. That's going beyond anything
Berg ever did!
I often wonder what would have happened if Berg et al. had come on like
Strauss, i.e., not foregrounding compositional techniques when introducing
works, but simply presenting them, finely performed, and letting it be known
that their composers would be happy if people talked about their emotional
content, not their musical strategies. Perhaps their audience would not have
been restricted to loyalists to start with and would have grown to include
people who otherwise would listen only to "emotional" romantic works. My own
feeling is that, e.g., Lulu is a supremely romantic opera.
That said, I acknowledge your impetus in decrying the way composition is
taught, given the inevitable fossilization of any "instruction manual" in
subsequent generations. (Even here, I don't trust my own generalization as I
think of Bruckner seeking out Schubert's old counterpoint teacher for
lessons!)
Sincerely, David
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
Karen Mercedes wrote:
>
> There is a reason tonal music was around for several millenia before
> anyone decided it was something to be shunned, outgrown, deconstructed,
> etc.
But Karen, define "tonal". You seem to be speaking
primarily of diatonic music, and if we are to judge by
"primitive" music (which would probably be most closely akin
to music from "several millenia" past) it is seldom
diatonic! And what about the music of India, the Middle
East, the Far East? The pentatonic scale of Oriental music
may not "offend" a diatonic ear, but what about the systems
that use quarter tones? (I admit, those simply sound "out
of tune" to my diatonically trained ears, but can we
discount it simply because it is not part of our Western
European culture? Or discount contemporary "main stream"
composers for trying to incorporate those techniques into
their work?) Like you, most of what's considered really
"modern" music leaves me totally unmoved, but I don't think
all the people who claim to hear beauty in it are lying, or
deluding themselves. (It may sound like "garbage" to ME, but
I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.)
> I know just enough about what is taught in
> conservatories - especially in composition programs - to suspect that a
> lot of the atonal academicism that endures among today's composers is
> LEARNED compositional behaviour.
There's something in what you say - I remember my college
art department, and all the non-representational and
surrealistic stuff turned out by students who were never
taught to draw properly. Picasso, Braque, et al used
distortion intentionally, but Picasso could be the finest of
draftsmen when he chose. There's quite a difference between
deliberate distortion and just plain poor drawing ability!
(And there are cases where the old adage "those who can, do;
those who can't, teach" does hold true - in the performing
arts, it's hard to "fake" it, but when you get into the
creative end, "originality" can too easily substitute for
absence of talent, especially in Academia.)
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
one!)
Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)
david melnick wrote:
>
> I often wonder what would have happened if Berg et al. had come on like
> Strauss, i.e., not foregrounding compositional techniques when introducing
> works, but simply presenting them, finely performed, and letting it be known
> that their composers would be happy if people talked about their emotional
> content, not their musical strategies. Perhaps their audience would not have
> been restricted to loyalists to start with and would have grown to include
> people who otherwise would listen only to "emotional" romantic works. My own
> feeling is that, e.g., Lulu is a supremely romantic opera.
I think you just put your finger on what both Karen and I
object to in much contemporary music! It's much too
cerebral and, in my personal opinion, if you have to EXPLAIN
what you are trying to do with your music, you have already
failed! Plenty of composers in the past (whom we now
revere) were not instantly accepted by audiences, when they
tried new things. The difference was, they simply kept on
writing music as they wished - they didn't feel they had to
"explain themselves", or formulate theories to account for
their departure from previously accepted "rules".
Karen Mercedes
This is exactly was trying to say when I suggested that Berg, et al, had a
self-conscious, artificial approach to composition, and when I likened
their approach to *engineering* rather than artistic creation. I do a lot
of "engineering" when I work on my vocal technique. But I wouldn't dream
of parading my vocalises in front of an audience and calling them art. Nor
would I dream of writing long treatises explaining the technical process
behind a particular performance I gave. By the time music reaches the
performance-ready stage, the *technique* is a given; it's not worth
discussing. Ditto the "technique" of composition. A WORTHY composition
does not have to be explained, justified, etc. If Berg really believed in
his art, he wouldn't have felt so threatened by his detractors that he
felt he had to explain and justify it. He would have done what Stravinsky
appears to have done after the Paris "revolt" against THE RITE OF
SPRING. He would have chuckled at the obtuseness of much of the listening
public, and kept right on writing.
REG
sure what that means about composers of the 20th century. It is not only in
musical composition that the relationship of the artist to the materials of
his or her art has changed. The same change has occured in writing, in
painting, in dance, in all of the performing and non-performing arts. There
can be no question that James Joyce WROTE in a self conscious manner....does
that mean his art is less than the art of Danielle Steele? You can try to
read Joyce without a gloss, but you are not going to get as much out of it
if you do. In painting and sculpture, the artist is often now conscious, and
makes us conscious, of the connection between the materials of composition
and the "message"....the list goes on and on, and it seems unnecessary to
elaborate. Serious art of all kinds in this last century was to a large
extent self reflective... you can like that or no, that is one's privilege,
but what KM has done which has the maturity of a 12 year old is to say that
because SHE doesn't get it, or doesn't like it, there must be a problem with
the creators' sincerity
This is worse than philistinism...it is a reduction of everything serious
in art of the last century to the sensitivities of a sentimental and
uneducated middle class sensibility...Karen would take the same ignorant
position vis a vis Robbe-Grillet, or Beckett, or even some film-makers, if
she were aware of them, which she seems not to be. Fundamentally, a lot more
people care about Berg than about Karen, or Neil Shicoff, and the world of
art will go on well enough without her tiny prejudices and need to cast
aspersion on others.
"Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque)" <evg...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3B412A35...@earthlink.net...
Matthew B. Tepper
fy1.aol.com:
Say, why is everything either at sixes or at sevens?
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Top 3 worst UK exports: Mad-cow; Foot-and-mouth; Charlotte Church
Matthew B. Tepper
> This thread originated as part of the larger, ongoing discussion of why
> modern opera isn't very popular. I think that's part of a larger-still
> discussion of why CLASSICAL MUSIC is shrinking in popularity.
I sincerely think that is a scurrilous fiction perpetuated by the media --
which also just happen to be owned and/or controlled by the producers of
mass entertainment.
Matthew B. Tepper
> On Sat, 30 Jun 2001, Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
>
>> mark...@earthlink.net (Mark D. Lew) wrote in
>> news:markdlew-ya0240800...@news.earthlink.net:
>>
>> > Is that really true? It seems to me that historically music (and art
>> > in general) has done better under less democratic rule.
>>
>> In spite of my first thoughts, that makes it the perfect time for me to
>> compose a Nixon opera, then!
>>
>
> Does Nixon really rate more than one opera?
When the only one thus far exhibited fails to hold him to account for
either Watergate or for his part in the Vietnam War, a further work which
does exactly that is *urgently* needed.
Oisk17
>
>Say, why is everything either at sixes or at sevens?
But have you lived hitherto, free from breath of slander?
Not while C*TE is around!
On topic, perhaps Britta is on to something when she comments on an American
tendency to insult that which we do not like. I myself have been known to
refer to certain popular music as subway noise. I would not call the modern
works I have heard (I have seen very few; I don't buy tickets for them)
garbage. What I have heard before I have given up and changed the radio
station, (rather like looking at Jackson Pollak's work, and then moving quickly
to the other part of the museum) I have found distinctly unpleasant.
That said, I really hate to be on the other side of an argument from Tresbirri
and Britta...
Regards,
Paul
Aris
"Britta" <britt...@hotmail.com> wrote
> Is it really true -- I'm asking you Americans -- that you can say, for
> instance, "Alban Berg is garbage" (I know Karen didn't say that, I'm
> exaggerating, OK?), and everyone will understand that what you really mean
> is "I don't like most of Alban Berg's music"? To me, and obviously to
> several other Europeans here, a statement like "Alban Berg is garbage" is
> absolutely incredible. It's just.....well, it's just not possible to say
> that. It's an "Affront," a deliberate and hostile insult. And it shows
> that the person saying it is being deliberately offensive, and is really
> prejudiced and......closed-minded. >
I am an American who finds much to admire in the music of Berg, Bartok,
Hindemith, Honneger, Schoenberg, Webern and other twentieth century
composers. Cathecting a particular piece of music is such a mysterious
process that I would not question anyone's failure to do so. But neither
would I dismiss any piece of music as utterly meretricious.
Aris
orphee
>
><Pine.SV4.3.96.101070...@saltmine.radix.net>, Karen schrieb:
>
>an unbelievable post, demonstrating her total inability to comprehend
>anything that has happened in music in the last hundred years, and
>culminating in the preposterous statement:
>
>>Alban
>>Berg is the ultimate example of an infinite number of musical monkeys
>>banging away to produce exactly what one would expect, given that monkeys
>>do not know how to type or write.
Dear Karen,
would you say that we all who adore Alban Berg's masterpieces are also monkeys!?
I accept that you don't love this music. To understand this genre it needs a
certain education im music.
From Orphee who is very disappointed to read such stupid opinions in this
group, which I always considered to have a higher level of knowledge and
intelligence that Karen & co shows in this post.
>
>And just ten minutes ago I said I was sorry that she had become the
>center of a silly argument. I take it all back and I'm going to bed.
>
>Ich nehme alles zurück und behaupte das Gegenteil!
>
>Britta, disgusted beyond words, in any language
Liebe Britta,
gehen wir doch in den Biergarten, sonst halt ich dieses daemliche Geschwätz
nicht mehr aus.
Oans, zwoa gsuffa!
Orphee
Eric Jennings
orphee wrote in message <9hrus...@drn.newsguy.com>...
<snip>
To understand this genre it needs a certain education in music.
<snip>
This strikes me as being as bit elitist and along the same lines as for
example the Tate gallery paying thousands of pounds for a pile of bricks. If
you look at it and think 'what a waste of money' then you're simply
betraying your ignorance. If, however, you'd been to art school you'd easily
see how important a piece of work it is, delineating as it does the
conscious struggle between form and idea, the opposition of light and mass,
a certain striving towards coherence that defies boundaries etc etc and any
other meaningless gobbledegook you can think of, all of which is certain to
set art critics nodding sagely.
I'm sorry, I just don't get atonal or minimalist music. Its just noise. My
loss, I'm sure.
Cheers
Eric
Eric Jennings
to about age 13. The teacher would play something and ask what key it was
in, what time signature, how many beats in the bar and I would never have a
clue. However, I loved the music - the first tiem I heard the ride of the
valkyries particularly sticks in my mind.
Maybe that's the problem (or at least MY problem) with 'modern' music, you
have to have "certain education in music" whereas you don't for Verdi,
Puccini, Mozart etc.
Cheers
Eric
Leonard Tillman
many of my _very favorite_ posters taking sides on this, - and the
whole matter AT THIS POINT becoming massively _personal_ ,
- I'm noticing the inevitability of just ONE
thing: each of us will probably walk away from this with their
_opinions_ intact ( but, I'm afraid, maybe not their _feelings of
rmo-comeraderie_!!).
Best, LT -
"Use what talents you possess;
the woods would be very
silent if no birds sang there except those
that sang best". - Henry Van Dyke
Mark D. Lew
Karen Mercedes <dal...@radix.net> wrote:
> My suspicion is, however, that many composers are NOT true to their
> artistic visions exactly because they are afraid of seeming "populist".
> Frankly, I do not think the human body is "wired" to automatically - and
> in some cases, even after extensive conditioning - accept non-tonal music.
Are you trying to suggest that the human body IS wired to accept tonal
music? I don't think the evidence supports that view.
> There is a reason tonal music was around for several millenia before
> anyone decided it was something to be shunned, outgrown, deconstructed,
> etc.
History does not back you up here. "Tonal music", in the sense you're
discussing here, has NOT been around for millennia. The history of Western
music clearly shows a gradual trend of increasing complexity in harmony.
You only need go back about 200 years to find that the added 6ths, 7ths and
9ths, which are routine in popular music today, were considered discordant.
Go back about 500 years and the 3rd was considered a discordant interval.
There are plenty of examples, both historical and current, of music which
developed naturally outside of contact with the mainstream of Western
music, and in this non-Western music we find tonalities which do not match
our own standard scale. True, there are certain general patterns that seem
universal, but these patterns are far broader than the sort of "normal"
harmony and tunefulness that you seem to be positing as natural, and to a
large extent these patterns are not exclusive of the atonal music you
object to.
Putting these two observations together, a pattern emerges. A human
being's sense of what sort of music sounds "normal" is strongly influenced
by what sort of music he or she has been exposed to. From the starting
point of the current standard of normality, a certain amount of variation
is perceived as non-standard but still acceptable. Some of these
variations may, in turn, become accepted as standard for a later
generation. Thus, cultural standards may gradually evolve in a direction of
greater complexity. The recent move toward atonal music fits easily into
this larger historical pattern.
--
A point worth mentioning, which you seem to be missing, is that plenty of
composers DO write music which is tonal and tuneful in the sense you mean.
The issue is not that such music is not being written, but rather that in
most (but not all) subcategories of classical music - including opera -
such music is not well received. As a result, composers inclined toward
"tonal" writing tend to gravitate to other genres. Those who persist in
opera (and there are many) find little success.
There is little demand for "tonal" writing in contemporary opera. Most
people in the opera world fall into one of two categories: either they are
the sort of people who like the "atonal" sound (this includes most
academics and experts, whose support goes a long way toward getting the
larger commissions for large-scale new works), or they are the sort of
people who are happy to hear the standard works over and over and don't
care for anything new "tonal" or not (this includes the bulk of the general
opera audience). There's really no place for a composer who wants to write
a new piece in the style of Verdi; those who don't like it don't like it,
and those who do like it would rather hear real Verdi.
mdl
Mark D. Lew
> Is it really true -- I'm asking you Americans -- that you can say, for
> instance, "Alban Berg is garbage" (I know Karen didn't say that, I'm
> exaggerating, OK?), and everyone will understand that what you really mean
> is "I don't like most of Alban Berg's music"?
I am only one American, and I don't presume to speak for my fellow
citizens, but that is exactly how I would understand it. If someone says
"Alban Berg is garbage", it is patently obvious to me that the person is
expressing an opinion. Adding a disclaimer like "I feel that..." or "in my
opinion" is simply superfluous.
The person is perhaps expressing his opinion with more exaggeration and
forcefulness than necessary, but it is an opinion nevertheless. I do NOT
read in such a statement any implication that others are required to also
feel that Alban Berg is garbage.
>To me, and obviously to
> several other Europeans here, a statement like "Alban Berg is garbage" is
> absolutely incredible. It's just.....well, it's just not possible to say
> that. It's an "Affront," a deliberate and hostile insult. And it shows
> that the person saying it is being deliberately offensive, and is really
> prejudiced and......closed-minded.
I would agree that the speaker is being deliberately offensive (but not
hostile). I definitely do not agree that he or she is prejudiced or
closed-minded. (It may well be that the speaker *is* closed-minded, but it
is not implied in the sentence alone.)
In Karen's case, I think her post made clear that she has in fact listened
to quite a bit of this music, and has formed her opinion according to what
she heard. To me, that is neither prejudiced nor closed-minded; it is
simply a matter of taste.
When others like you respond to say that her statements are unacceptable,
to me it sounds like you are trying to deny her right to a different
opinion (though in retrospect, I see that's probably not what you meant).
mdl
Mark D. Lew
(Oisk17) wrote:
> That said, I really hate to be on the other side of an argument from Tresbirri
> and Britta...
Ah bah. If you don't enjoy going up against someone you admire and
respect, where's the fun?
mdl
Mark D. Lew
> an unbelievable post, demonstrating her total inability to comprehend
> anything that has happened in music in the last hundred years, and
> culminating in the preposterous statement:
Ah, see, Britta, you Europeans are also capable of exaggeration. Karen's
post is not unbelievable, nor does it demonstrate a total inability to
comprehend anything that has happened in music in the last hundred years.
Rather, it is quite credible, and it demonstrates an inability to enjoy
Alban Berg's music and a lack of interest in continuing to try.
mdl
Mark D. Lew
<!sk...@nospam.com.nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> To me, music without melody, is like a painting without color.
> Some of this stuff is so bizarre you have to question the composers mental
> state. I find most of this stuff awful.
But what is melody? Anyone will say "I know it when I hear it", but to
find a working definition which is non-subjective is extraordinarily
difficult.
mdl
Leonard Tillman
this stuff is so bizarre you have to question the composers mental
state. I find most of this stuff awful."
"But what is melody? Anyone will say "I know it when I hear it", but to
find a working definition which is non-subjective is extraordinarily
difficult.
mdl"
--- To the point of virtual impossibility ( at least in the
present stage of human evolution)!!
Skip
composers you have a pretty good idea of what melody is, compared to other
composers who lack it. It's not too difficult to explain something written
in 12 tone series is not very melodic. There are certain formulas in music
that work to create what most people would consider melody, when these
formulas change, the sound changes and it becomes less melodious. What it
comes down to is simple to me, if I have to hear something 10+ times to
remember the melody, to me, it's just not melodic.
"Mark D. Lew" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:markdlew-ya0240800...@news.earthlink.net...
der_ei...@usa.com
have so few operas of the last 75 years achieved a place in the
repertory? Why are the operas of 20th century composers less "popular"
than those of composers from the extended-19th century?
Perhaps one way to look at this--beyond any discussion of the
qualities of the music--is that it reflects changes in the choices of
entertainment put before the public. Is it just coincidental that this
so-called "decline" of opera has coincided with the rise of film?
Movies have many of the elements that opera has: compelling human
drama, spectacle, big emotions--even music that underlines and
comments on the dramatic situation. Like opera, film is a feast for
the senses. And on top of it all, it's cheaper to see a movie than go
to an opera.
It is interesting to me that the operatic repertory became "fixed"
just around the same time that movies became the dominant form of
popular entertainment. There used to be a popular clamor for opera.
Perhaps a large part of what used to be a larger opera audience
migrated to the movies, shifting that popular clamor away from opera
and to movies. (I don't think it's *quite* as simple as this. But what
I want to suggest is that the entertainment habits of the last 100
years changed dramatically, primarily due to mechanical reproduction
and the creation of mass markets. Today we are so used to being
entertained whenever we want--putting on a CD whenever we want to hear
it, or turning on the TV or a video when we want to watch
something--that we may forget that entertainment 100 years ago was not
this continuous on-demand-type stream, but a discontinuous, loosely
related set of local events. It could take years for an opera to be
presented in the principal cities of Europe and the United
States--compare that to a film, which opens in hundreds of cities on
the same day.)
So perhaps composers haven't driven away audiences; perhaps the
audiences left on their own when other (cheaper, more accessible, more
aggressively marketed) choices were presented to them.
I don't propose that this is the entire solution to the riddle. There
are a lot of other factors to consider. But I do want to throw this
idea in, to see whether others have considered it as well.
der_einaugige
Leonard Tillman
in the style of Verdi; those who don't like it don't like it, and those
who do like it would rather hear real Verdi.
mdl"
--- That'll remain uncertain - as no composer in recent memory
has shown any Verdiousness (should have said "Verdiosity"), and it
doesn't seem on the verge of happening, any time soon!!
Leonard Tillman
in the style of Verdi; those who don't like it don't like it, and those
who do like it would rather hear real Verdi.
mdl"
Karen Mercedes
research in this, but the research I have done into the performing arts
proclivities of the American and British publics from about 1890-1920
would tend to support the opposite. Opera was seen then as elitist and
expensive. The "average Joe" (lower and middle class) went to the music
hall and musical theatre extravaganzas like THE ARCADIANS and CHU CHIN
CHOW (the Andrew Lloyd Webber spectacles of their day), but not to the
opera, nor to classical concerts and recitals.
Outdoor band concerts were a different matter - these were done in parks
and were generally free of charge, and did expose the "average Joe" to
classical compositions. But few of those exposed in such a way had the
fiscal means to pursue a newfound love of classical music, even if they
had the inclination. This is what made Edison's invention of recording
technology so revolutionary: for the first time ever, it brought classical
music, including opera, within the easy fiscal reach of anyone who could
afford (1) a gramophone, (2) the discs to play on it. At least, this
extended the reach of classical music well into the middle classes, if not
to the poorer working classes.
And 100-150 years earlier, opera was even less within the popular reach,
except for the occasional opera "reduction" performed in the provinces
along with ballad operas, comedies, and "reduced" Shakespeare plays. The
"average Joe" of 1780 London simply didn't attend the opera - the opera
house was the realm of the upper classes and social climbing wannabees
(and there were no opera houses in the Colonies at that point), monied
students, etc. The "average Joe" much preferred to go to a country dance,
or to stay home and sing hymns with family members. Pianofortes and even
spinets were also well beyond the financial reach of most families below
upper middle class and genry ranks. A fiddle, flute, or possibly guitar
might be affordable, but the taste in music very much tended towards hymns
and folksongs (the "pop" music of the day). A large percentage of the
population probably hadn't even heard of Mozart, let alone heard any of
his works.
tresbirri
<Pine.SV4.3.96.101070...@saltmine.radix.net>:
>Frankly, I do not think the human body is "wired" to automatically - and
>in some cases, even after extensive conditioning - accept non-tonal music.
>There is a reason tonal music was around for several millenia before
>anyone decided it was something to be shunned, outgrown, deconstructed,
>etc.
But, Karen, this is really not accurate. What you now call 'tonal music' was
not at all around for several millenia.
>I do not believe that what Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, and their disciples
>were doing - or even intended to do - was to create a new, natural musical
>form.
I limit myself to Berg, because Wozzeck, which you have mentioned
several times, is an opera I love very much. Berg's purpose was not to
create a new musical form. His purpose was to set a play which fascinated
him to music. He was inspired first by the drama, and later by the
possibilities, through the many scenes and interludes, 'viel und vielerlei
Musik zu machen'. Viel und vielerlei Musik --- I love this phrase.
He began composing the opera with a free tonality -- yes, this is also a
kind of tonality! -- and later added the tone-row (also a kind of tonality!)
as a unification. To unify the many separate scenes more, he presented
them in very clear musical forms and structures.
>I believe they were indulging in artificial musical exercises to
>prove a point to their fellow musical academicians.
I believe that you do these composers an injustice. All of Berg's careful
thought and structuring serves the drama, the expression of the text.
>I do not believe they
>ever intended their musical R&D to be understood or appreciated, let alone
>enjoyed, by the musical audience at large.
Please, what is R&D?
In another post you have mentioned that Berg sometimes discussed his
methods of composing with members of the audience before the opera was
performed, as a sort of introduction to the evening. This is of course a
very common practice in many theaters still today, and introductory talks
are given to interested audience members before performances of Carmen
or Tosca, just as before performances of Wozzeck or Moses und Aron. Berg
always ended these talks by asking his audience to forget, while they
watched the performance, everything he said in his analysis, and simply to
experience the opera (drama) for itself.
>He [Verdi] wrote music that (1)
>expressed his own musical sensibilities and (2) just happened to also
>appeal to the musical sensibilities of others.
Yes! Exactly like Alban Berg.
>Could it have been that Verdi, unlike too many of today's composers, was
>being completely HONEST in his self-expression. If his musical tastes
>leaned toward the highly melodic with a 3/4 beat, he was not only
>unashamed to reveal those tastes, he absolutely wallowed in them. And so
>did his adoring audiences.
Ah, and he also knew exactly how to construct an opera for the tastes of
the public. So many arias, the right combinations of ensembles, at least
one rousing chorus..... Verdi, the genius, was *very* aware of public
tastes, and how to satisfy them while following his own musical development.
In this he was more successful than Berg. But one was not more honest
than the other.
>I know just enough about what is taught in
>conservatories - especially in composition programs - to suspect that a
>lot of the atonal academicism that endures among today's composers is
>LEARNED compositional behaviour.
Yes, of course you are right. First one must learn to compose with what
you are calling 'tonality'. One begins often with Bach chorales. To
write a four-part chorale in the 'tonality' that Bach used, this is very
difficult. Do you understand? ALL 'compositional behaviour' is
'learned'.
>If you wear an ill-fitting pair of shoes
>long enough, your feet will eventually become distorted into that shape
>(and you'll get corns, spurs, bunions, and possibly eventually cripple
>yourself).
I am telling this to my wife every day, but she never listens to me....
>Would that today's composers could forget 99% of the crap they learn in
>conservatory, and tap back into their childlike, NATURAL, inborn musical
>sensibilities when writing. What would result, I am sure, would not only
>be a far more honest self-expression, it would also have a far greater,
>and more enduring, popular (not populist) appeal.
Eh, I remember the sounds my children made when they were singing, or
experimenting with notes on the piano! Their natural, inborn musical
sensibilities --- I used to run away!
cari saluti, tresbirri