A couple of arts-related items y’all might find interesting.
- Governor and Mrs. Patrick were spotted at Boston Lyric Opera‘s season-opener on Friday night: Puccini’s much-beloved “La bohème.” Reports the Globe:
Governor Deval Patrick and his wife, Diane, spent their “date night” at the opening of the Boston Lyric Opera’s “La Bohème” as guests of their neighbors, BLO board member Tom Gill and his wife, Jody. The governor cut out from a pre-show dinner at Aujourd’hui a little early so that he could meet the performers, including sopranos Alyson Cambridge and Kimwana Donor. Others at the Shubert Theatre included architect Graham Gund and his wife, Ann, and arts patrons Hod and Cassandra Irvine.
- And in the shameless self-promotion department, I’m singing this Friday evening (Jordan Hall, 8 pm) in Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” You’ve almost certainly heard parts of Carmina, even if you don’t recognize the title — it’s constantly being excerpted in TV and film scores, advertisements, etc. It’s really fun to listen to — and the texts are about as racy as anything you’ll ever hear in a concert hall. (Here’s a pretty good translation.)
Also on the program are two fascinating and not well-known anti-war pieces, one by Kurt Weill, and one by the Italian anti-fascist composer Luigi Dallapiccola. Here’s the Weill text — the piece is called “Legend of the Dead Soldier”:
It was the fourth year of the war
And peace seemed a distant hope
But the soldier goes on and completes his chore
And dies a hero’s death.
War had not breathed its final breath
The king felt remorse for his crime
He truly regretted his soldier’s death:
It seemed far before his time.
As summer spread over field of graves
And the soldier already slept
Army doctors came in waves
And over the graveyard swept.
Without as little as a shrug
The doctors continued their route
And with sanctified shovel they dug
The fallen soldier out.
The doctor examined the soldier well
A carcass from head to toe
And his diagnosis was swell:
He was fit and ready to go.
Swiftly they took him away
The night was a beautiful blue
For those whose helmets were off,
The stars of the homeland sparkled anew.
A fiery schnapps went down his throat,
Poured into his rotten corpse
Two nurses were hanging on either side
As well as a half-naked whore.
The smell of the soldier was rotten indeed,
The pastor came quickly, pray-tell
Brought with him frankincense and the creed
To battle the awful smell.
The music sounded with oompah-pah
A march with laughs and cheer
The soldier does as he was told
Throws his legs up in the air.
The soldier might fall into the mud,
And that would be truly bad
Two first-aids next to him strut
To hold and support the lad.
Colored in black-white-and-red,
They carried his shirt in front
The colors were evenly spread
To cover the stinking dung.
A man in tails with swollen breast
Walks at the front and very fast
As a German he always does his best
His sense of duty is unsurpassed.
Thus they traveled and broke out in song
The rotting soldier in arm
And he limply staggered along
Like a snowflake in the storm.
The cats and dogs cry out and dance
The rats squealed so loud it was painful
They do not want to belong to France
Because that would be so shameful.
The throng came through many a town
Village women watched the display
The full moon shone and the trees bowed down
And everyone shouted hurray!
With “oompah-pah” and “Fare-thee-well!”
With wife and dog and priest!
Like a drunken monkey straight from hell:
Here’s the soldier, the deceased.
As they traveled through town after town,
The soldier was not to be seen
They had gathered all around
Oompah-pah and hurrah was their scream.
So many of them screamed and danced
And hid the soldier from view
Only the stars could catch a glance
From above they observed the zoo.
Surely morning comes dark and cold
And night draws its very last breath
But the soldier did as he was told
And died a hero’s death.
(Poem by Bertolt Brecht; translation by Carola Emrich-Fisher)
If you’re interested, there are discounted tickets available at the Cantata Singers’ website (discount code “CH08”), or at BosTix.
… to Carmina is awesome when you the texture of the full orchestra around you and full choir behind you. Do you guys have the full percussion compliment? Many times groups can’t find enough people for all the parts. I know for one of the tunes it calls for three glockenspiels. Also… are your vocal parts using that weird “Orff” time signature notation (3/half note rather than 3/2 for example)?
We’re doing the 2 piano and percussion version (which is also by Orff). David Hoose (our conductor) wrote out some harp parts for added color, since we have harps for the Dallapiccola. And yes, my score has the weird notation.
… I think three or four guys, but it really needed seven if I remember correctly. Even when we did it with the full orchestra we were short one or two as I remember. Not the most challenging of parts, but when you’re sitting in the middle of and are contributing such a key component to such a large texture, it is the closest that a timpanist can get to being a choir member. When I used to have students I would often encourage the percussionists (especially those who aspire to be great timpanists) to join a chorus. Since most percussion instruments are ‘solo’ in timbre, it is a rare opportunity for a percussionist to get the feeling of (and learn skills from) being in the middle of a texture (and yet being somewhat ‘soloistic’ in timbre).
do you get to be the cooked goose? 😀
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I love Carmina Burana. But as you indicated, O Fortuna* is shamelessly quoted in everything from war movies to jello commercials. It becomes tiresome. Hopefully the concert will familiarize folks with the rest of the piece, which of course is a delight.
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*I’ve always wondered whether that bit or “Mars, the Bringer of War” from Holst’s “The Planets” was the most heavily sacked musical subdivision. Mars gets around too.
Since the trailer for a movie is usually made before the final score is recorded, they tend to pick background music for the trailer from a fairly short list of old chestnuts. O Fortuna works well for any epic pre-modern scene. particularly a battle.
Sadly, no – the tenor is the cooked goose. But I get to be the drunken abbott. Almost as good!
well, we can’t all be roasted swans. 😉
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personally i can hardly keep myself quiet when the chorus breaks into “Were diu werlt alla min“. In the car, I don’t. 😀
…the opening to Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathrustra.
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Maybe you are too young to remember this, but several decades ago, a pop singer in the US desecrated the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. I was appalled.
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Alle Menschen werden Brueder, Tochter aus Elysium…
Check this out!
… of course the disco version of number 5 mvmt 1.
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Also 2001 probably did sully Zarathrustra. It was loaded with enough cultural baggage because of 2001 that the effect on the listener that was intended was probably contaminated with that baggage. It probably still is since that cultural baggage has been reinforced since the movie in various advertisements and pop-cultural references.
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Its like the trombone gliss. At one point it could be used by composers to great effect, but since its contextualized use in early jazz, the technique now comes to the ear with some jazz baggage. I wonder what it would have been like to listen too before it had such context.
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Also, if you ever get the chance, check out the original 2001 score by Alex North that was never used in the movie.
of course the disco version of number 5 mvmt 1
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but as far as I’m concerned…
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Also 2001 probably did sully Zarathrustra
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…sully? Not really. It actually was a masterful use of Also Sprach Zarathustra to advance the theme of the movie.
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Gott ist tot, Gott bleibt tot, und wir haben ihn getoeten
“It actually was a masterful use of Also Sprach Zarathustra to advance the theme of the movie.”
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I totally agree. Problem it created a strong cultural association that I doubt the composer would have wished. Cultural associations affect strongly how things are heard. They can be taken advantage of (such as Central Park in the Dark‘s quoting of Hello by Baby), but when they occur after the fact it can twist the original intent.
But I feel that Strauss distorts Nietzsche! The sunrise that opens Also sprach Zarathustra is wonderful writing, but it is not martial.
… it doesn’t effect the average reader of Nietzche, the way the cultural baggage affect a listening of Strauss.
…Nietzsche’s point was not martial; it was an expression of revelation. As was the opening of Strauss’s tone poem. And as was the opening of 2001.
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I seriously do not understand what The sunrise that opens Also sprach Zarathustra refers to; the opening to Also Sprach Zarathustra come with Zarathustra coming down from his self-imposed exile on a mountain abbey. When he got to the bottom of the mountain, that was when he had the revelation Gott ist tot.
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The original German is actually quite simple to read. And the above is in the first 10 pages or so of the print edition.
Paragraph 1 last clause and beginning of paragraph 2:
There follows a long address to the sun. Sunrise and sunset are key metaphors of this passage. It may be simple to read German but apparently you haven’t read it in a while.
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Zarathustra is not just about god being dead either. In fact, the deadness of god does not appear in the opening address to the sun.
…the end of section two, to get to “god is dead” http://www.gutenberg…
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The theme regarding darkness and the light that you are referring to is obviously a metaphore of just that–the darkness (when Zarathustra emerges from the supposed holy man’s cave) and the light (when Zarathustra discovers that he does not need the holy man’s faith to be a rational being). That is the theme of the metaphore.
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BTW, you have to be very careful when reading Nietzsche’s works. After his death, many of the works were bastardized by his virulently anti-semitic sister, who took control of his papers.
There are two more performances of Valley Light Opera’s The Mikado at Amherst High School, 8:00 pm Friday and Saturday. (I’m in the chorus.)
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Carmina Burana is indeed awsome to sing or just to hear — I got to do much of it in Northfield Mount Hermon’s Concert of Sacred Music last May.
If you live in a Town, and don’t have an election night party to attend, here’s the perfect place to be.
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The lovely and left-leaning Follen Angels will be performing tonight at 8:00, Scullers Jazz Club in Boston. (Well, the drummer is a Jewish Brookline Republican – an oddity well worth the price of admission alone.)
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Have a beautiful Blue evening!
…we have several copies of Carmina Burana, and we’ve watched it performed live in Munich.
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BTW, my favorite Weil Lied is That Old Bilbao Song from Mahagony. It’s creepy.
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I’d have to do some research: I’m not sure if the Three Penny Opera was by Brecht&Weil, but Die Moritaet von Mackie Messer is also creepy.
Cantata Singers is doing a season devoted to Weil’s music.
Brecht & Weill all the way.
…I had known that some of the Moritaet was not available from most translations. Your Wiki link confirms that. Scroll down to
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Denn die einen sind im Dunkeln
Und die andern sind im Licht
Und man siehet die im Lichte
Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht
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There’s an english translation on the page. But I believe that the translation is much too kind.
…is anyone interested in doing Side By Side By Sondheim? Or would that be too expensive (royalties, you know)? Or too New Yorky?
Many years ago, I put a tape (remember those?) of Carmina Burana in my alarm clock. Nothing will bring you back from slumberland like a big honkin’ D with a gong.
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Big wheel keep on turnin’, indeed.
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WF
To run that song into the dirt.
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“O Fortuna” is my track of choice when passing out tests. Other favorites include “Sabre Dance” for any type of racing activity, and “Ode to Joy” on the last day of the year.
…but I prefer Borodin’s Pelovtsian Dances (sp?).
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BTW, if you want to hear a piece of symphonic structure played on a single instrument (the piano), check out Schubert’s Wanderer-Fantasie.
Alkan has a symphony for piano. An especially odd delight is his reduction of the first movt of the Beethoven 3rd Piano Cto to one piano. The cadenza, as one would expect from Alkan, is big and complex but as a special treat it quotes the finale of the Beethoven’s fifth symphony.
…the interesting thing about the Wanderer-Fantasie is that Schubert’s music was completely original. The second interesting thing is that Schubert himself was unable to play it. (Shameful plug) the best version that I’ve heard of it was by Alfred Brendel, probably the 2d best pianist in recent decades after Rubinstein*.
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30 or so years ago, I lived with a fellow who was an excellent pianist. (He was the one who led me to Brendel.) I bought him a copy of the music to the Wanderer-Fantasie and even he could not play it, even with me turning pages.
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*When I lived in CT, I actually saw Rubenstein at Carnegie Hall. I was fortunate enough to get tickets to the “keyboard side.”