Okay, this is too fun of a story to pass up. Apparently, Katharina Wagner, the great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner thought it would be a great idea to “spice up” the opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
And, oh, did she make it interesting.
The opera was modernized by having an arts league, with theater designs and film directors, as well as making Walter the knight a graffiti artist!
The audience members were not pleased with this and booed at her when she went up onstage to give her inaugural speech as the director of the Bayreuth Festival. Audience members in past years also booed Peter Schneider due to his conducting of Tristan und Isolde.
Yeah, I guess the kind of people that are actually going to go to the Bayreuth Festival don’t want to see that kind of thing. Old opera goers stuck in their ways. And younger people are probably not going to shell out the big bucks for a Wagner opera. So this might be where Ms. Wagner went wrong. Hell, I would go see it, but I’m not your typical opera goer. I like Katherina’s sass, but I imagine her great-grandaddy rolling in his grave.
I read musicological texts like some people read The National Inquirer or People magazine.
Mozart wrote a song telling a woman to lick his a**!
Was Vivaldi shacking up with a much younger woman?
Schumann was crazy and his best friend was in love with his wife!
Did Schubert get syphilis from that prostitute or that maid?
Yes, these are the types of things I look for in musicology textbooks. My hands rub together with fiendish glee and I shriek with a hallowed laugh. All those composers were rock stars of their time. Anyone who ever feels intimidated by classical music shouldn’t. All those men and women were just as base and human as the next person.
While we’re on the subject, let’s talk about opera. Opera has the most asinine plots I have ever seen. Some guy trying to get under some girl’s petticoat while pretending to be some other guy while she’s trying to make her husband think she’s cheating on him. Stuff like that. Don’t be intimidated by opera either. The music is sublime and complex, sure, but the plots are no better than a plot in a soap opera.
I love classical music to death. I hate to see people not enjoying it because they think some stuffed shirt wrote it or is promoting it. Take back the night! Classical music is for everyone. Mozart, in all his frivolity, would love you for it!
I realize the title of this post sounds musicologically irreverent. But that’s the point on Meet the Composers! Anyhow, during a piano lesson one day, my teacher said that Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms were like the Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher of their day. And I agreed. Clara Schumann was a beautiful and successful woman 15 years Johannes’ senior. And Johannes Brahms (at least in his younger years) was quite the babe. Of course, Clara was married to Robert Schumann, and was on very friendly terms with Johannes. Johannes Brahms befriended both Clara and Robert when he visited one day with his compositions and asked to have Robert’s opinions on his compositions. After that, they were lifelong friends. Read the rest of this Composition »
I have volunteered my time for a year and half at a local radio station here in Madison, Wisconsin called WORT 89.9 FM. I currently host a show for entitled Other Voices which emphasizes women’s contributions to classical music. And those contributions are myriad. There are women composers, performers, conductors, technicians on classically-based electronic music, librettists, and the list can go on. I absolutely adore classical music. It is my life’s passion. And I am a total feminist. So being a host on this show seemed fantastic.
Did I mention I have to get up at 4:30am every other Monday to do it? Whew. I only have a couple of things to complain about on that one. Read the rest of this Composition »
I have complained about the film Immortal Beloved enough to write a post on it and finally just shut up!
Okay, my first order of business is the fact that the “Immortal Beloved” was probably some married aristocratic woman whom Ludwig had become infatuated with and wrote this mushy letter to. Of course, he never gave the letter to the said Immortal Beloved, but just wrote it to give it off his chest and continue pining over women well out of his social and marital league! Beethoven had always been infatuated with women out of his league, and the Immortal Beloved was probably no different. The fact that Beethoven was like this is not even interesting enough to base a movie off of. And the fact that the movie made the Immortal Beloved his sister-in-law whom he absolutely hated is simply absurd and unbelievable.
There were far more interesting things about Beethoven then his lame romantic life. For instance, the Heiligenstadt Testament - the very famous unsent letter to his brother concerning his deafness and his contemplation over suicide - is a much more interesting topic. Also, the fact that Ludwig was so controlling and unbearable as his nephew Karl’s caretaker is another very interesting topic. A movie about Beethoven could have dealt more so with issues concerning his family, which was very dysfunctional, his deafness and how he dealt with it, his seeming impetuousness to nobility and his close friends and family, and finally, the very nasty relationship he had with his sister-in-law and nephew.
Immortal Beloved did do justice to the relationship Ludwig had with Karl. The movie did that well. I did also like the scene where Ludwig was running away from his violent and drunken father and dipped himself into a lake while his heavenly 9th Symphony was playing and culminated while he was looking up at the night sky.
Also, the movie had a very awkard flow to it. There were some oddly edited scenes throughout the film. And, the music often did not go with the feel of certain scenes. For example, when a throng of soldiers were running through the countryside while maiming and raping, a very lovely and happy piece of music was playing?!
I did like the acting of Gary Oldham and Isabella Rosellini, though. I have always been convinced that Colin Firth would make an excellent Beethoven, as he has that indifferent and arrogant attitude going on in pretty much every movie he’s been in.
Anyways, I’ve said enough.
I am a Mozart Freak. No doubt about it. I am also an atheist. For a few years, I couldn’t justify to myself why exactly I’m an atheist. I know I believe in natural materialism, and that everything in this universe can be traced back to natural causes. There’s no reason to interject the supernatural when there’s often a better explanation… waiting to be found.
But, I always thought this sounded too much like my husband. He is a very opinionated atheist, and proud of it. I don’t have a strong emotional attachment to the idea of natural materialism. I was brought up religious and attended 13 years of Catholic school. It makes sense to me but it does not move me. On the other hand, Mozart moves me deeply. Read the rest of this Composition »
A single manuscript page of a Mozart Mass was found in Nantes, France. The score did not bear Mozart’s signature, but Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Austria, said Thursday that there is no doubt this was written by him, as he had a very characteristic writing style.
I’m pretty psyched about this! Geez, at times like this, I wish I had $100,00 to throw around. Poverty sucks….
Anyways, the Nantes library speculates that this Mass is expected to have its first performance in January of 2009. Famous Mozart specialist Robert Levin from Harvard University will have a go at it and complete the orchestration.
From a very young age, I remember thinking classical music concerts were penultimately boring. I love classical music to death and I think it is a very worthwhile pursuit and something to dedicate one’s life to. Hey, I even plan to have my ashes scattered over Mozart’s grave at St. Marx Cemetary in Vienna, Austria. Nevertheless, classical music concerts are not terribly fun to go to.
The term “sacralization” comes from making a place or experience sacred, as if a museum or a classical concert were the same as going to a church. You have to sit there in utter silence, with a dozen to several hundred other souls who have to sit through a two-hour concert (save intermission). You can’t talk, cheer (only at the end of certain pieces or at the end of the performance) or move your body very much, stultifying the entire musical experience. And I must say, most music is not that awesome for one to have to sit and ponder its profundity and structure. Unless it’s Mozart’s or Verdi’s Requiem, or any number of dramatic and wonderful classical pieces, I don’t like sitting for two hours through a piece that is pretty, but okay. Read the rest of this Composition »
The Abduction from the Seraglio, or, The Abduction from the Harem/Brothel was Mozart’s first important German opera. Of course, Mozart had done other operas in German, but this was his first big-hit. The Abduction from the Seraglio was brought into play partly by the success of Idomeneo, King of Crete in Munich, and also from the determined efforts of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II; Joseph II wanted to establish a German opera in Vienna, probably because of the snobbery of having operas in languages other than one’s own home language! No, actually, Viennese audiences preferred the musically sophisticated Italian opera to the usually crudely conducted German plays whose dialogue was interspersed with simple little songs. (Remind anyone of The Magic Flute!) Read the rest of this Composition »
Hildegard von Bingen was a fascinating historical figure. She was an exceptional woman and a noted polymath. A polymath is a person with encyclopedic knowledge who excells in almost anything she/he pursues. She was a mystic and visionary of wondrous proportion, a composer, an artist, an herbalist, an author, a counselor, a linguist, a naturalist, a scientist, a physician, a philosopher, a poet, and an activist. She is the first known composer with an existing biography. One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, has been called the first form, and possibly the origin, of opera. She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, poems, and the first surviving morality play.
She was an 11th century Renaissance woman! I would also add that Hildegard was a feminist icon to that list, but that would be adding a modern concept to an ancient time. Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to assume that Hildegard herself knew how intelligent and powerful she was in a time when women’s scope was so narrow.
Hildegard von Bingen, also known as Blessed Hildegard or Saint Hildegard, was a German abbess of a large convent in 11th century Germany. She was placed into a convent by her family as a young girl and was known to have intense visions at a very early age. Hildegard’s first recollection as a youth was about a vision, where she propounded upon a vision she had with such detail, that her family and community were amazed. Her visions were recorded by an anchoress named Jutta (who was her teacher) and her lifelong secretary and scribe, Volmar. Hildegard described her visions as fantastic and luminous. According to well-known neurologist Oliver Sacks, her visions are a classic example of extraordinary imagery preceding a migraine. Dr. Sacks says in his book, The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, that Hildegard’s “visions were instrumental in directing her towards a life of holiness and mysticism. They provide a unique example of the manner in which a physiological event, banal, hateful or meaningless to the vast majority of people, can become, in a privileged consciousness, the substrate of a supreme ecstatic inspiration.”
She composed music based on her visions. Her known compositions - that is, the ones that still physically exist - are numerous considering how little we have from the Middle Ages period. Her compositions vary in subject matter, ranging from 43 antiphons, 18 responsories, 4 hymns and 7 sequences, 2 symphonies (for virgin and widows) and three unique pieces (Alleluia, Kyrie and O viridissima virga) for a total of 77 works.