tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63928047128749578322024-03-12T16:53:17.838-07:00Loving Oz and the US (thoughts on Australia and America)Gordon Kalton WilliamsGordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.comBlogger301125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-67207993506610204842016-03-30T10:58:00.002-07:002016-04-07T00:32:31.322-07:00Letter from LA<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Letter from LA<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some things
I have discovered since the last time I posted:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
the same period that I began reading Kevin Starr’s series of Californian histories
and continued my usual round of musical and other activities, I also finally
visited Yosemite and the gold country and other Californian sights. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Late afternoon from the meadow</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">As Kate and
I, and our Australian friend, Julia, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">travelled down the coast from San Francisco, a
theme of the sea emerged. In Monterey, where John Steinbeck wrote </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Cannery Row</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, I discovered that California’s
first constitution was drafted here, at Colton Hall, in Spanish as well as
English. Congress’s ratification of that constitution in 1850 made Califo</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">rnia a state. So, California’s bilingualism is foundational,
not just a curious feature of PA announcements on public transit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Curving
down California’s magnificent coastline sent me back to a CD of </span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Dharma at Big Sur</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, the John Adams
piece that opened Walt Disney Hall in 1998. I read with recognition Adams’
program notes which describes ‘the edge of the [US’s] continental land mass.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> On the Atlantic coast, the air
seems to announce [the continental edge] with its salty taste and briney
scents. Coming upon the California coast is a different experience altogether.
Rather than gently yielding ground to the water the Western shelf drops off
violently, often from dizzying heights, as it does at Big Sur, the stretch of
coastal precipice midway between Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. Here the current
pounds and smashes the littoral in a slow, lazy rhythm of terrifying power. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
time, unlike on previous occasions I’ve listened to the piece, I hunted down one
of Adams’ sources: Jack Kerouac (as Californian a writer as you’ll ever find) and
read his ode to the Californian sea, that ‘billion yeared rock knocker’. <i>Big Sur</i> came to mind again as I sat in
Walt Disney Hall In November, listening to the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s first
performance of last year’s Pulitzer Prize-winner, <i>Become Ocean</i> by <i>another </i>Adams
- John Luther Adams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Los Angeles Philharmonic’s programs are among those I approach with genuine
excitement. There always seems to be such a judicious balance between the
familiar and novel. And perhaps this appreciation is shared by much of the rest
of the audience. One phenomenon I’ve noted while living in LA is that audiences
tend to stay for the new work after interval.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
program paired <i>Become Ocean</i> with Beethoven’s
Violin Concerto. The concert was a study in grandeur. Granted, Beethoven’s
grandeur is achieved with spacious melodic exploration of a vast tonal layout; Adams’s
with expertly crafted swells of orchestration. Adams’ work is certainly a
listening experience, but perhaps more: a potentially life-changing experience.
The title comes from a line of verse composed by John Cage in honour of the
music of his friend (John Luther Adams’ mentor), composer Lou Harrison:
‘Listening to it, we become ocean.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<pre><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There are three big climaxes in this piece as the sections of two orchestras merge. </span></pre>
<pre><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">At first, listening </span><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">superficially, I thought of the piece as big washes, but that didn’t </span></pre>
<pre><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">explain the monumental power of it. </span><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">There was so much life teeming beneath the surface. </span></pre>
<pre><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">These surges are made up of complex sequences </span><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">of repeating patterns. </span></pre>
<pre><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘It’s Minimalism!’ you think, but Minimalism raised to an elemental level.</span></pre>
<pre><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></pre>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Alex
Ross describes the piece better in his review of the Seattle world premiere in an
edition of <i>The New Yorker</i> in 2012,
but I’d share with him the sensation of ‘<i>coming</i>
away reeling’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Californians
can’t claim this Adams exclusively for themselves, though. Yes, he studied at
CalArts out at Santa Clarita, in one of Los Angeles’ northern valleys, but he
established his career while, famously, a citizen of Alaska. And <i>Become Ocean</i> was written at his new home
in Mexico’s Sonoran Desert. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Adams
describes his music as an exploration of environment. I read that he is writing
a ‘desert’ piece next. It’s a tantalising thought for me, a one-time denizen of
the driest continent on earth, ‘that great America on the other side of the
sphere’ (in Hermann Melville’s designation for Australia in chapter 26 of his
greatest novel).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Nantucket,
New Bedford…Long Island’ - the geographical references in <i>Moby Dick</i> belong to the US’s other coast, the one that the Northern
Californian Adams describes above as full of ‘salty taste and briney scents’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nevertheless
the LA Opera’s production of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s adaptation of
Melville’s novel, which we saw at the end of November, continues my
months’-long circling of the sea. Funnily enough, I thought of <i>Moby Dick</i> when we stopped by the beach
at Piedras Blancas on our way down the Californian
coast and saw the hundreds of elephant seals that have returned to these
beaches now that the days of sealing (and whaling) are largely over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
story of Captain Ahab’s obsession with hunting down the great white whale that
tore off his leg years before the tale starts, is a perfect subject for opera, when
you consider that opera is best served when dealing with broad emotions. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘At last,’ I thought while watching this, ‘a successful,
contemporary traditional opera’, by which I meant one that was singable and
aptly paced, with Heggie’s rhythmic and tempo decisions worthy of Verdi, and a
libretto (by Scheer) that deserves to be sung. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
did occur to me, however, that a Broadway producer (that is a producer from <i>New York</i>’s Broadway) might be able to trim
30-40 minutes from this piece. Not every supporting character needs so many
moments to shine. In the end what’s important is Ahab and how his obsession leads
to destruction of his ship and the traumatising of Ishmael who escapes to tell
the tale.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like
the Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Opera has a wide range of programming ideas. I
caught up with the Opera’s new Public Relations director, Fran Rizzi, for a
coffee during the month of November and talked about LA Opera’s full range of
activities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like
so many other classical music companies in the world these days, Los Angeles
Opera is heavily committed to outreach. There are educational programs in the
LA Unified School District; a whole zarzuela program ‘that goes out into the
community on a monthly basis’ (acknowledging Los Angeles’ Spanish-speaking
population). And there are experimental productions at Redcat. I’m sorry that I
missed Halloween’s screening of the 1931 film <i>Dracula</i> with accompaniment played live by Philip Glass and his
ensemble at the Ace Theater downtown (in what was once Chaplin, Griffith, Pickford
and Fairbanks’ United Artists’ building).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
LA Opera has particular challenges. First off, there’s traffic: You might have
to take opera to the public before they’ll feel encouraged to drive hours to
Downtown. That’s why the company simulcast the season opener of the Woody
Allen/Franco Zefirelli double bill of <i>Gianni
Schicchi</i> and <i>Pagliacci</i> to the
pier at Santa Monica; for all those people on the Westside who are reluctant to
go east of the 405 after 4pm. There’s the Downtown itself. The city has
certainly become safer at night. But Grand Avenue, where the Dorothy Chandler
Pavilion is located, is not yet a charming pedestrian precinct. The Broad, the
new contemporary art museum housing the personal collection of Eli and Edythe
Broad (endowers also of Plácido Domingo’s Chair at the opera) and down the road
from Disney Hall and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, might change that. It ‘has
been a game-changer for this sort of concentration of culture, an anchor,’ says
Rizzi. ‘You see, at any time of day, a line that wraps around the block at the
Broad. And those people, those hipster young people, are the people who need to
be here to see opera and see the Phil and see all of the pieces and parts of
what has really become a cultural center.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Rizzi
has been at the Opera six months. ‘My job,’ she says, ‘is to tell our story. We
are looking at all those education programs and how to bring them all together
in a way that is organised around: “what can you do with LA Opera? Can you
perform? Can you bring it into your school? Can you just learn more about it?”’
The Santa Monica event was free, but ‘it was ticketed’. That way the Opera can
tell if people migrate from the coast to the city. Rizzi also supervises the
Opera’s social media enterprises. ‘We can see people reading our blog, joining
us on social. Our blog readers may not be easy to match with sales because they
may not yet have bought a ticket. But we can see the waves of interest.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
LA Opera may in most respects - and at its principal home, the Dorothy Chandler
- be a traditional opera company. But it is concerned with bringing in the
community, ‘those folk from the beach’ in Rizzi’s words. It still does big
traditional works like Bellini’s <i>Norma </i>which
I saw in a production by Anne Bogart at the beginning of December and followed
up next day with YouTube searching for its excellent singers, including Angela
Meade and Morris Robinson. But it is also branching out into other sorts of
productions and wondering how to bring those back to port. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
what of The Industry, LA’s experimental opera company? Over the years they’ve
staged operas in light industrial areas (<i>Crescent
City</i>, in which the sets were really giant art installations in an old
Atwater factory) and at the iconic Union Station (the audience for <i>Invisible Cities</i> moved among peak-hour commuters
listening to the opera on Sennheiser headphones). This year’s offering, in
November, paid tribute to the idea that Angelenos spend a lot of time in their
cars. It attracted a lot of attention on social media throughout the world and I
even sent the trailer to a lot of people outside this country:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LivzsddPn-Q<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hopscotch</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> was billed as a
‘car-opera’. Could you have anything more quintessentially Los Angeles? The
action took place in 24 cars on three routes. Paying audience-members would get
in at one of the eight stops along their chosen route that encapsulated another
chapter/or outtake in the over-arching story of Luccha, Jameson and Orlando.
The scenario, devised by The Industry’s Artistic Director, Yuval Sharon, was
basically one of changing relationships but we weren’t necessarily meant to
follow the developments sequentially or get a complete picture.
Audience-members travelling with the numerous singers who ‘doubled’ the
principal parts and their accompanying musicians could get to know the tale
much in the same way as we become acquainted with a new city, piece by piece
until forming some sort of overall impression.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Being
that rarity - a Los Angeles pedestrian - I watched the opera down at the Arts
District, the bohemian area sprouting up in the midst of one of the
traditionally seedy parts of the city, in the Hub built by faculty members of
SCI-Arc (the Southern California Institute of Architecture). The live action
taking place in the stretch limos which served for performance spaces was
beamed to 24 monitors arranged in a circle around the Hub’s pavilion. It was a
mistake to ‘channel-surf’ the first time I saw the piece. I couldn’t get any
bearing. I actually got most out of the opera on a second viewing by
surrendering to the idea that I would not find a tale that spoke to me in
traditional terms of mounting conflict, but by actually following a route (and
doing some prior research) and locating the next section’s monitor with the aid
of coloured string (mine was red) stretching across the roof of the pavilion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
said, I enjoyed <i>Hopscotch</i> without
paying as much attention to the plot, words or music as you’d expect. Yes, I
noticed musical highlights - Omar Torrez’s guitar playing, the duets in Marc
Lowenstein’s chapter ‘The First Kiss’, and the beautiful finale by Andrew
Norman when the pavilion becomes a drive-thru and the whole cast and musicians and
their drivers converge dreamlike (is that the point?). And certainly the fact
that sections of the production were in Spanish lent the whole a certain
‘encantamiento’. But mostly what made the opera enchanting for me was the
tribute to Los Angeles, particularly at this convergence, as the Hub’s monitors
froze on city landmarks and the setting sun etched purple lines in the crevices
of the Verdugo Mountains visible from the Arts District. It’s interesting that
my favourite review of the opera was that of the <i>Los Angeles Times</i>’ architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, who
rightly described the co-ordination of 126 singers, actors and instrumentalists,
24 cars and their drivers, and numerous technical crew, as ‘logistically miraculous’.
I actually love Sharon’s productions as multi-dimensional (and multi-media: you
can still see elements of <i>Hopscotch</i>
on the Web) portraits of LA, with music a more-than-usually-prominent element. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So
much for the past few months which also saw meetings with Mark Cleary, the
Sydney-based founder of Short+Sweet who
is introducing this ‘biggest little play festival in the world’ to Hollywood,
and was followed by a trip down to San Diego, where Kevin Starr tells me,
Spanish navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo dropped anchor on 28 September 1542. There
we heard former Victorian College of the Arts department head, Donna Coleman,
and a trio comprising Roger Wilkie (John Williams’ sometime concertmaster) and
Australian-born cellist Antony Cooke play music by Connecticut’s Charles Ives,
his Yale teacher Horatio Parker, and Brahms from Hamburg, on another sea. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Such
has been the whirling swirl of the past few months. As Californian governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger once said, when he was an actor: ‘Hasta la vista, baby’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gordon
Kalton Williams, © 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This article first
appeared in December 2015 edition of </span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Podium<i>, the newsletter of Symphony Services International<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-88036589856553403572015-09-28T18:02:00.002-07:002015-09-28T18:02:57.954-07:00Suppe - Light Cavalry Overture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="sname"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .3pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">Continuing my series of program notes:</span></span></span></h2>
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<span class="sname"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .3pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Franz von
Suppé (1819-1895)<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<span class="sname"><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .3pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Light Cavalry</span></i></span><span class="sname"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .3pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">:
Overture<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<span class="sname"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Possibly the first piece of classical
music I heard was this overture in a Combined Brass Bands concert in the
Melbourne Town Hall in the 1960s. At the time, the music of Suppé was popularly
thought of as ‘classical’. But was he too lightweight? It is still fairly safe
to say that Suppé’s music is rarely found in major Subscriptions programs, as it
is tonight.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="sname"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But maybe Suppé is worthy of more
serious consideration. He was one of those brilliant musicians often to be found in theatres in the
German-speaking world in the 19th century. Born to a Czech mother and father of
Belgian extraction in Split on the Dalmatian coast, Suppé was raised as an
Italian. He studied law at Padua University but after his father’s death, </span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">went
with his family to Vienna, where he studied music with, among others, Seyfried,
a former pupil of Mozart. Suppé was an all-rounder. Even after his first
conducting appointment (at the Josephstadt Theater in Vienna in 1841), he sang
in <i>The Elixir of Love</i> in Ödenburg in
1842. (<i>The Elixir</i>’s composer,
Donizetti, was a distant relative.) And as a conductor, Suppé was famous in
Vienna for a gimmick in which he took snuff before conducting each of his
famous overtures so they’d begin with a big sneeze! But it is as a composer that
he is best remembered...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And as a composer of superb, attention-getting
overtures. The introduction to <i>Light
Cavalry</i>, an operetta composed in 1866, is a case in point. It is a
marvellous example of the sort of overture often classified as <i>pot-pourri</i>, a collection of distinct themes
bridged by short connecting passages. The different ideas occur one after the other.
Here: a sequence of stirring fanfares in military band orchestration; a
dramatic whirling dance-like segment, then the overture’s most famous ‘quote’ -
the cantering theme announced by trumpets. This ‘canter’ is developed slightly
and leads to a brief clarinet cadenza, after which is heard a more doleful
segment, like the slow section of a Hungarian dance (Hungary would have been on
the minds of many Viennese just prior to the advent of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire). Then the canter returns and finally the fanfares, with thrilling drum
roll accompaniment. This is real ‘sit up and take notice’ music, fulfilling
perfectly the function of an overture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But ‘overtures to what?’ asks Richard Traubner in
his book, <i>Operetta: A Theatrical History</i>.
Should Suppé’s operettas be better known? Perhaps Traubner is right. Suppé’s <i>Die schöne Galathee</i> (a setting of the
Pygmalion story) still has some currency on the German-language stage and <i>Fatinitza</i> and <i>Boccacio </i>have entries in <i>Gänzl’s
Book of the Musical Theatre</i>. Suppé was more than a musical lightweight or,
rather, no less important for being entertaining. As one of the composers who
achieved a successful Viennese response to the operettas of Offenbach and ended
up composing operettas that often rivalled those of Johann Strauss II, Suppé
could rightly be called, as he is by Traubner, ‘the father of Viennese
operetta’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gordon Kalton Williams, © 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-32365577796674125472015-07-17T13:22:00.000-07:002015-07-17T13:22:20.880-07:00The Animals of the Bush orchestra<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Found this again the other day - a proposal I made to some orchestras back in 2010. I was told that kids wouldn’t find it interesting. I don’t know. I</span>’ll park it here for the moment.<br />
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<i><u><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Animals of the Bush Orchestra - </span></u></i><u><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Proposal<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<u><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The story</span></u></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">THE
ANIMALS OF THE BUSH ORCHESTRA<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Returning from a country tour,
the orchestra is stopped by a flooded river, a mile wide at its narrowest point.
The only way across is for the musicians to leave their instruments and get in a
few flimsy boats.<br />
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At night the creatures of the forest come out and find the instruments. Not
knowing what they are, they discover that they make sounds and start improvising
on them. Over several nights they work at this, until they come up with some
very strange music - reeds played on trumpet bores, mallets across euphonium
bells...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A local entrepreneur hears the bush creatures’ orchestra
and decides to present them to the world. The animals feel that it may be
advantageous to be given a ‘human’ voice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Next day, the members of the orchestra turn up to retrieve their instruments. They’ve
had to travel far and stay the night, but that night they hear the strange
music. They befriend the creatures, but tell them that’s not the way you play
their instruments. They show them ‘how it’s done</span>’ – instrument by instrument
and then as an ensemble. But good as it is, that’s not the music the creatures
like, and they slink away crestfallen.<br />
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The musicians go back to their jobs. The entrepreneur comes back to the bush,
but can’t find the animals. The concert is off. The musicians feel bad. <br />
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They return to the bush with the entrepreneur and replacement instruments in
tow. Together with the animals*, they devise a concerto for bush band and
orchestra and put on a concert the like of which has never been heard before.
Further afield, animals are inspired to make their own instruments with the
woods, gourds and leaves around them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">*including members of the audience<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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GKW, 2010<br />
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<u><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Pluses of this story<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This story provides an environmental context for a story which will expose
audience members not only to the standard orchestral instruments, but
alternative sound sources and sound-production techniques. It provides a sense
of drama and magic and has a happy ending.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">At 40 minutes, the work will be suitable as
a stand-alone touring product, but could also serve as one half of a
family-style concert. It has a double educational value in drawing upon bush
ecology to ask audience members to think about their unique species.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">While having an Australian flavor, it is
expected that the work can also attract overseas audiences. The work will be an
Australian ‘Peter and the Wolf’ that travels as far around the world as the
Russian model. An additional option for
overseas users of the story could be to substitute native animals from their
own ecology – for instance, skunks for possums and alligators for crocodiles in
a US context. Both options would be
available to orchestras interested in purchasing the product.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The project will provide a challenging
exercise for a composer who must come up not only with new instrumental
techniques, but different configurations of a standard orchestra to match the
differing performance venues of the various orchestras.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Forces/resources/other creative dimensions</span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The work will require a narrator, but no
additional performing personnel beyond that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Though in the story the orchestra
demonstrates how to play their instruments by playing a piece of standard
repertoire for maximum contrast with the bush music, it is expected that the
composer will provide this standard piece in two complements (large and small).
Thus the work can be performed by small chamber ensemble as well as double
woodwind/double brass. It will be necessary to have at least one of each
woodwind and brass however to demonstrate orchestral colour. It is expected
that the ‘bush instruments’ will be played by the orchestral musicians
experimenting with their own instruments, though, as an additional educational
attraction for school groups or families, audience members can make their own
bush instruments as preparation for attendance at the show. They could be invited to play these
instruments at an appropriate time in the performance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Further creative dimensions include the
possible use of back-projection, whether illustrations or photography. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Audience participation<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The work will be designed to incorporate
audience involvement. Audience members may be invited to make the ‘night
sounds’ of the outdoors, vocal effects (eg. the ‘orchestras’ touring song’), or
even the accompanying instruments made from ‘the woods, gourds and leaves
around them’. This is an area to be developed in consultation with the composer
and would be optional for the orchestra to choose to utilise or not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-28866113972687334352015-05-30T15:26:00.000-07:002015-06-09T19:20:47.066-07:00Vasks' Distant Light (Violin Concerto)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: red;">Continuing my series of program notes:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Pēteris
Vasks (born 1946)</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Distant Light </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>(Violin
Concerto, 1996-97)</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">For
35 years now, the orchestral repertoire has
been replenished by Eastern European and Baltic composers. Latvian Pēteris Vasks became
known in the West in the 1980s, and the prestigious German publisher Schott
contracted him in 1990, the year before Latvian independence from the Soviet
Union. Vasks was born on 16 April 1946. He studied double bass in Latvia and
Lithuania and performed with important Latvian ensembles before turning to composition.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">US
radio presenter Daniel Stephen Johnson has said, ‘the rough outlines of Pēteris
Vasks’ work and career might have a familiar ring to them: born in Soviet
Latvia, Vasks endured government repression not only for his aesthetics but for
his Christian faith, and emerged in the late 1970s with a pared-down
compositional style heavily influenced by sacred themes.’ Endurance of the
human spirit against the brutality of a monolithic oppressor might describe the
Symphony No.1; later works sometimes put us in mind of the sacred music of
Estonian Arvo Pärt, but the influence of earlier models, the Poles Lutosławski
and Penderecki endures, particularly in moments of ‘indeterminacy’. Vasks’ later
works are concerned with broader questions of the soul (he is the son of a
clergyman). Some works are offered almost as artefacts of faith that we can
escape the self-annihilation inherent in our hostile relationship with nature.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Distant
Light’ was first performed by Gidon Kremer (its dedicatee) and the Kremerata
Baltica at the 1997 Salzburg Festival. On a more prosaic level, this most
‘ethereal’ of violin concertos was inspired by reading Kremer’s autobiography, <i>Childhood fragments</i>. Vasks realised that
he and Kremer had, unknowingly, gone to the same school. ‘“Distant Light” is
nostalgia with a touch of tragedy. Childhood memories, but also the glittering
stars millions of light-years away.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
work has its own unique single-movement structure. Beginning with atmospheric
sounds (the soloist, for example, is asked to play an arpeggio of unspecified,
‘bird-like’, harmonics), the work soon introduces a broad, lyrical melody. The passion
rises (and it is possible to talk of passion in Vasks’ music), and then the
soloist launches into the first of three cadenzas that will define the
structure. Out of glacially-moving lower strings, a new lyrical section emerges
and builds toward a folk-like dance (with glints of waltz) leading to the
second cadenza. After more dance-like music, silence - and then slow music
resumes. The aspiring lyricism of this work is won against genuine intrusion of
drama; there are what sound like apprehensions of alarm and then the most
intense of the cadenzas takes place, before the brief, lumbering return of
dance music. Recollection of the opening melodic material suggests that we may
have been listening all this time to a highly-interesting arch structure; the
return of atmospheric sounds supports this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Nostalgia
with a touch of tragedy’ partly explains the emotional appeal of this work. But
it could also be explained by the prevailing singing style ‘through which I
express my ideals’. Overall, Vasks asks listeners to hold out against the
darkness and focus on the ‘distant light’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gordon
Kalton Williams, © 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: red;"><i>This note first appeared on 29 May 2015 in a concert program of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, one</i></span></span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: red;"><i><span style="color: red;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> of orchestras associated with Symphony Services International (</span></span></i><span style="color: red;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">http://symphonyinternational.net/)</span></span><i><span style="color: red;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">. </span></span></i>Please contact me if you would like to reprint this note in a program booklet. If you would like to read more of my notes on this blog please see:</span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">James MacMillan's Viola Concerto, published 4 May 2015</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Andrew Schultz's <i>August Offensive</i>, published 28 March 2015</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Tan Dun's <i>Nu Shu</i>, published 15 March 2015</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Edward Elgar's <i>Froissart</i>, published 2 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Aaron Copland's <i>A Lincoln Portrait</i>, published 3 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Franz Waxman's <i>Carmen-fantaisie</i>, published 6 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Jan Sibelius's <i>Oceanides</i>, published 8 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Richard Wagner's <i>Tristan and Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod</i>, published 12 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Aaron Copland's <i>Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson</i>, published 18 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">John Williams' <i>Escapades</i>, published 22 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Thomas Adès's Violin Concerto<i> Concentric Paths</i>, published 26 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">J.S. Bach's Cantata: "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott", BWV.80, published 28 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Beethoven's 5th and 6th Symphonies, published 29 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wagner's </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Götterdämmerung</i> (Immolation Scene), published 31 July 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Liszt's <i>Tasso</i>, published 2 August 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Stravinsky's <i>Les Noces</i> orchestrated by Steven Stucky, published 8 August 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Liszt's <i>Hamlet</i>, published 15 August 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Scriabin's Piano Concerto, published 18 August 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Christopher Rouse's <i>Der gerettete Alberich</i>, published 27 August 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Richard Strauss <i>Der Rosenkavalier</i> selections, published</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, published 30 August 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">'Traditional terms' - an interview with John Adams, published 5 Sep 2013</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;">Berlioz' <i>Waverley Overture</i>, published 9 Sep 2013</span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Tchaikovsky's <i>Fatum</i>, published 17 Sep 2013</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Wagner, arr. Henk de Vlieger <i>A Ring Adventure</i>, published 29 Sep 2013</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Richard Strauss, <i>Salome</i>: Last scene, 11 Sep 2013</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Shostakovich Ninth Symphony, published 13 Oct 2013</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Wagner's <i>Flying Dutchman</i> Overture, published 21 Oct 2013</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Shchedrin's <i>Carmen Ballet. </i>published 25 Oct 2013</span><br />
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-11280657344092077692015-05-21T13:53:00.001-07:002015-05-23T18:49:28.706-07:00'Think like Thalberg': lessons from Hollywood for classical music<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
I moved to Sydney in 1987 I got to know the city by memorizing its coves and
bays. In Los Angeles since 2013, I’ve memorized where the studios are located.
After all, locals often think of Los Angeles and Hollywood synonymously. Paramount
is only a $10 cab fare away; Warner Bros is in the Valley. But in another sense
I’ve learned a different geography. What I would call ‘classical music’s
verities’ stand out more vividly now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Where the studios are located'. Fox and Paramount lie in this
direction; Warner Bros and Universal are over the first hill. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
had at first considered writing an article entitled ‘What Classical Music can
learn from Hollywood; what Hollywood can learn from Classical Music’. I was
going to include such ‘pearls’ as: ‘You’re never finished’. Film scripts, for example,
are multi-coloured documents inserting rewrites way beyond the first day of
shooting; how does that compare with classical music’s sketch, short score,
orchestration..? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘It
Takes a Village’ (apologies to Hillary Clinton) occurred to me while sitting in
our local cinema, the Vista, at the junction of Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards
(where D.W. Griffith filmed the silent epic <i>Intolerance</i>
in 1915 before the roads were paved) and realizing that the audience was
sitting through 15 minutes of end-credits. Such appreciation for everyone’s
work! Classical music may have gotten over the idea of the lone genius starving
in the garret. But in Hollywood you find the ‘sort of collaboration that once
yielded cathedrals’, says Billy Mernit, a story-analyst whose classes on
dialogue I’ve taken. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
distance I’ve travelled through this landscape also makes me sensitive to
arguments about ‘New Music’. I’m reminded of a former piano teacher who said
that when he came back to the piano after a long spell at the harpsichord all
he could hear were the piano’s hammers. These days I notice the ‘shoulds’ in
the programming debates. Companies<i> should</i>
program New Music; people <i>should</i>
listen to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Maybe
it’s a worry that our classical music scene doesn’t seem to have a big-enough
audience for the most future-bound music of our tradition but I wonder if there
is another way of looking at this. Los Angeles suggests to me there is.
‘Should’ just isn’t in the vocabulary of anyone in the Green Room of ten million
people that is Los Angeles County.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
guess people have been worrying about the decline in audience-appreciation for
our modern repertoire since Henry Pleasants bemoaned the loss of singable
themes in <i>The Agony of Modern Music</i>.
Oliver Rudland wrote in a recent edition of <i>Standpoint</i>
that composers stopped writing tunes because they lost their Christian faith. I
don’t even think they have to write tunes (!). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
my favourite analysis is that of Richard Taruskin who, in a 2004 edition of <i>The Musical Times</i>, focussed on the idea
(fallacious in his mind) that all that matters in a piece of music is the
artist’s making of it (their ‘poiesis’), regardless of the audience’s capacity
to hear. Taruskin traced what he called ‘the poietic fallacy’ back to 19<sup>th</sup>
century critics like Alexander Serov or Franz Brendel (remember them?), but in Schoenberg’s
atonality and 12-tone music he felt that the audience had really been abandoned.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
know Schoenberg tried to help audiences comprehend his new music by emulating
classical forms. But the classical forms couldn’t serve their previous
clarifying purpose once a composer’s means of punctuating them (Tonality) was
lost. That’s not a catastrophe, except that at some point after 1910 you could
often detect an idea that composers didn’t have to worry themselves if the
audience was left behind. The composer’s principal, if not sole, job was to
extend the musical language; it was the audience’s problem if they were
bewildered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Most
of the cuts were in the First Act’ says screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, of the
Clint Eastwood film <i>J. Edgar</i>,
‘because <i>we didn’t want the audience to
get ahead of it</i>.’ [italics added] ‘Subtext helps your audience to
participate. <i>It’s fantastic if your
audience knows a bit more than your characters</i>,’ [italics again] says Billy
Mernit. What do these seemingly contradictory statements suggest? A filmmaker
is constantly shifting their audience’s understanding, and the audience is
granted enough of the basics to play along? I decided to collar Mernit, since I
know him, and put some questions to him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Billy
Mernit is a former songwriter who has had his songs covered by people like Judy
Collins and Carly Simon. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">These
days he’s a story analyst for Universal Pictures, and is best known for his
textbook, <i>Writing the Romantic Comedy</i>.
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mernit
gets to see and comment on each of the seemingly interminable drafts a
screenplay goes through before the cameras roll. How important is consideration
of audience to the film work?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘The
general rule of thumb is that with most writers, first draft is for you. Second
draft is where you start to take into consideration who it’s for and who might
respond to it,’ he says, when I catch up with him in the sculpture garden at
UCLA, where he does some teaching. ‘In the Hollywood studio system it is <i>almost scientific</i>. One of the first
questions any executive asks of a project is “what’s the demographic?” “who’s
the intended audience?” “how do we expect to sell this thing?” because it’s in
the studio system that you’re dealing with major money.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘And
by the way, back in the Silent Era, in the early days of Hollywood, a lot of
the stuff that is now sort of codified, in its nascent form was responding to
audience. In some of the earliest Silent Movies, like Chaplin two-reelers,
audiences were going “give us more of that. We love that.” And only when the
audience created the demand for things, did Hollywood say, “Hmm, if we put a
woman in the picture with that comedian we’ll expand our audience” - things
like that.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So,
could I take another Clintonian expression and turn it into one of my ‘lessons’
- ‘It’s the Audience, Stupid’?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Well,
the slight confusion in the question, the thing that’s being conflated is
...it’s creator versus producer, meaning a creator may not be thinking of the
audience; a screenplay might be a very personal endeavour. But the<i> producers</i> of a screenplay are thinking
audience first and foremost.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘I
don’t want to be too glib about this because if you’re a story analyst who’s
worth what they pay you, on a certain level there’s this naive, fundamental
“does this get me excited?” You have to have a personal response to it. And
that, by the way, goes with producers as well. You don’t necessarily get into
producing unless you have a great love for movies, like a good story and want
to be involved. So I’m responding as a human being, that’s the litmus test. If
it grabs me and I’m thinking “I’ve gotta keep turning these pages”, I am the
audience; with the producer’s hat on. I don’t think of things in terms of what’s
commercial or not. It’s more “is there something in the story that speaks to some
kind of audience beyond myself?” Everything should be personal, of course, and
the most personal projects are quite often the most impassioned and unique,
right? but it’s a communicative medium.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A
producer like 1930s whizkid Irving Thalberg (the model for F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s ‘last tycoon’) thought that the success of a movie was arbitrated
solely by the audience, director Billy Wilder’s ‘wonderful people out there in
the dark’. I wonder if the classical music fear of giving so much consideration
to audience response is that we would lose out on masterpieces?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Says
Mernit: ‘Well, it’s not like Mozart or Verdi or Vivaldi were writing extremely
esoteric masterpieces that were being foisted on an unsuspecting public; they
were using the popular vernacular. But the crucial difference is that Hollywood
is not attempting to make the general public watch a Godard movie. You can have
a Best Picture winner like <i>12 Years a
Slave </i>and it’s something that people can relate to, whereas much modern
classical music - unless it’s Minimalist - is very difficult for most audience
members to even hear. It’s as if you were making a movie with a strange lens on
the projector.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
find myself wondering if classical music would ever get to this level of
deference to the public. After all <i>A
Composer’s Cohort</i>, an article on the Opera America website, says, ‘...try
not to worry about the reception....Whether the audience likes your piece is
arbitrary but informative.’ I can’t help feeling that not only would this be a
strange abdication of skill in the movie world which is premised on predicting
hits (and often does), school teachers wouldn’t say</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, ‘I have no idea at what point I lose my students’ nor
would sales personnel concede, ‘I have no idea when I’ve lost the buyer.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And it’s not as if classical music
was always in such an unknowing position. A classical composer knew that if you
put an A minor chord after a G while you were in the key of C, an audience
would experience interruption. Wagner knew that if he kept withholding
resolution of the ‘Tristan chord’ we in the audience would lean in with
yearning. And I’m convinced Tchaikovsky set his audience up so that they would
burst into applause at the end of the march in the ‘Pathétique’ and feel all
the more excruciatingly the wrench into the <i>Adagio
lamentoso</i> which in fact ends the symphony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Do classical music writers want to second-guess
the audience? Do they want positive reinforcement of their vision that badly? I
wonder what would happen for contemporary repertoire if the practitioners began
to ‘Think like Thalberg’; if classical music had its equivalents of film
producers, people in orchestras who could stand between a CEO and a Director of
Artistic Planning, a CAO (Chief Artistic Officer) if you like, with the authority
to say, ‘Look, the audience feels you’ve got ten minutes more music than
thematic material. I saw them fidgeting at the preview we set up to test their
responses.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These are just some of the thoughts
that have come to me from immersing myself in a different artistic milieu. But
to come back to an earlier promise, what can Hollywood learn from classical
music? I said above I was thinking of writing about each artform’s lessons for
the other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So far I only have one, but it’s
big, and fairly reaffirming. Paradoxically it’s something about form. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In <i>Save the Cat</i>, probably the most popular
screenwriting text of today, the book that every second aspiring screenwriter
working on WiFi in Starbucks has sitting by their elbow, the author Blake
Snyder says ‘Act II begins on page 25. No, please. Don’t argue’. Yes, but I
will. (By the way, since screenplays are formatted so that one page equals one
minute of running time, this is even more restrictive than it sounds.)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI5sFDhUzWvYSxGRVsAwXOOT_3hewOqAWNcHpi4FqbFqGhmw7qJcoiOCN4cYnsb50RFmNE3twyGOe0ZSC0EUxeRktBSIlO1Lp8fiZnZbPprOga16Wr5cd31vnkWhAtGIZMTZflY6mo7_c/s1600/IMG_8602.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI5sFDhUzWvYSxGRVsAwXOOT_3hewOqAWNcHpi4FqbFqGhmw7qJcoiOCN4cYnsb50RFmNE3twyGOe0ZSC0EUxeRktBSIlO1Lp8fiZnZbPprOga16Wr5cd31vnkWhAtGIZMTZflY6mo7_c/s320/IMG_8602.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Every second person working on a script. Actor Joey Marino studies a screenplay while working in Bru
Coffeehouse, Los Angeles</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Classical
music wouldn’t buy this. Classical Sonata Form, for example, is a 3-Act
structure. It was a screenwriting teacher, Sydney’s Linda Aronson, who made me
think about this. Classical Sonata Form contains exposition, development, and
recapitulation. There are certain goals it must satisfy but look, there is a
world of variation in the way Haydn, Beethoven, Mahler, Shostakovich and others
even closer to our time went about it. Classical music proves you don’t have to
be rigidly formulaic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
screenwriting may not be as schematic as I think. I put this to Billy Mernit. ‘It
gets moved around a lot,’ he says. ‘The A-teamers are not slaves to those kinds
of restrictive formulas really.’ And then I think of <i>Pulp Fiction </i>- three acts functioning traditionally but out of
real-life chronological order, containing enough that’s familiar for an
audience to appreciate what’s fresh. Yes, even as I continue to try to learn
from classical music, Quentin Tarantino (<i>Pulp
Fiction</i>’s screenwriter/director) proves you can create an innovative
masterpiece that is also popular.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gordon Kalton Williams<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">©
2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This article
first appeared in the 7 May edition of Symphony Australia’s </span></i><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Podium<i> under the title:</i> A Different Geography:
how LA has affected my musical thinking<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-58957762647320746352015-05-12T10:26:00.001-07:002015-05-20T15:03:36.506-07:00The Little Blueprint? - thinking about Librettos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;"><i>In the early 2000s, I wrote the libretto for a musical adaptation of T.G.H. Strehlow's </i>Journey to Horseshoe Bend<i>. The novel is an account of a young boy and his family's attempt in 1922 to flee their home in remote, inland Australia and get to the coastal city of Adelaide where his desperately-ill father can receive medical attention. As the family travels through Australia's desert regions, the boy Theo becomes aware of his missionary father's mortality even as their Aboriginal guides awaken him to the totemic significance of the landscape. The work that Andrew Schultz and I wrote, based on Strehlow's novel, therefore blends Aboriginal lore, language and vocal-style with the European orchestra and European choral tradition. </i></span></span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">As I have again been thinking about the nature of libretto-writing
lately, I thought I’d reprint this article which first appeared in 2007 in the Manchester
University Press/Open University publication: </span></span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">Music, words and voice: A reader</span><i><span style="color: red;">.</span><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></h2>
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<i><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-weight: normal;">The Little Blueprint? – an amplification of the meaning of ‘libretto’ </span></u></i></h2>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A lyricist once couldn’t help himself when he heard someone whistling a
Tom Jones hit. ‘I wrote the words,’ he skited. Annoyed at being interrupted,
the whistler said, through clenched teeth, ‘I wasn’t…whistling…the words.’ Does this sum up the problem for lyricists,
and by extension librettists? Should we expect people to pay more attention to
the words?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Actually,
you’ll get a much better sense of what makes a libretto if you see it as more
than merely ‘the words’, or the ‘words on the page’. In its largest sense a
libretto is a suggestion to the composer of what s/he should achieve
dramatically. That’s not to say that a libretto can’t possibly have its own
reading pleasures. Many of the examples below are drawn from the libretto for
Andrew Schultz’s and my </span><span lang="EN-AU"><i>Journey to Horseshoe Bend</i></span><span lang="EN-AU"> which to a greater-than-usual extent
betrays its origins in a book, the book of the same name by T.G.H. Strehlow<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.
Of course </span><span lang="EN-AU"><i>Journey to Horseshoe Bend</i> </span><span lang="EN-AU">(</span><span lang="EN-AU"><i>JHB</i></span><span lang="EN-AU">) is not an opera either, and it could be
instructive to wonder why not. But a libretto, whether to an opera, oratorio or
cantata, should only really be fully assessed alongside the music that it leads
to.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-AU">When colleagues of mine derided the
libretto of <i>La traviata</i> as ‘terrible
writing’ I suspect they had mistakenly judged it as armchair reading or
playscript. But were they reading it for the aurals and visuals suggested by
the text, that is, testing to see if it contained what Verdi called ‘scenic’
words? Were they reading it to see what musical product Verdi could make of it?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-AU">I sense that much of the underestimation
of libretti relates to an overestimation of the importance of words in theatre.
Being able to write good dialogue does not necessarily make a good playwright.
This is to miss the other essential dimensions that make good theatre. It’s
probably best not to think of words as the basic unit in a libretto either.
What’s more important is something bigger – a physical action, a use of the
space, a psychological beat – albeit all with musical resonance. You can of
course suggest action and shape with any number of words. To produce something
as refined as 20 pages of libretto requires precision and control as well as
powers of suggestion.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Is Piave’s libretto to <i>La
traviata</i> really so poor? It sets up strongly contrasting characters in
strong situations reflected in different settings. It provides good
opportunities for contrasting music, but guaranteeing a forward flow. This text
may be sparse – and when you read it aloud you get through its transitions
quicker than spoken dramatic development should let you - but the point is it
is text waiting to be sung, action waiting to be set to music. When performed
it is complete. Librettist and composer have contributed. They were both
creators; they were each other’s first audience.</span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It should be said that <i>Journey to
Horseshoe Bend</i> was the result of a true collaboration. While Andrew and I
didn’t do each other’s jobs, we discussed the work for a good two years, shared
ideas, felt comfortable making suggestions about either libretto or score and
mostly found ways to incorporate each other’s suggestions, even if there were
initial doubts. There was a vigorous to-and-fro.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">--<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Opera reformers have often started with the words. Wagner’s theoretical
text, </span><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Oper und Drama</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;"> promoted a
relationship between words and music. Wagner is thought to have backed down
when he came to write <i>Tristan und Isolde</i>,
under the influence of the philosopher Schopenhauer, who had put music on a pedestal.
We have in <i>Tristan</i> and Act III of <i>Siegfried</i> moments of pure sound,
melismas on single syllables even, which the younger Wagner had derided. The
music clearly comes first – or does it? After <i>Oper und Drama, </i>as Jack M Stein pointed out years ago in <i>Richard Wagner and the Synthesis of the
Arts,</i> Wagner wrote an essay called <i>Beethoven</i>,
in which he lit on another opposite partner to music, what he called
‘pantomime’.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;"> It was music and
<i>action</i> that he paired in <i>Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg</i>, the
other work (besides <i>Tristan</i>) that he
took time out to write before returning to the <i>Ring</i> and the dramatic high pressure of <i>Götterdämmerung</i>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">We have here a clue to what else the libretto is besides a ‘little
book’. It’s a little springboard for musical action. The libretto is, in
addition to words and perhaps more importantly, the larger plot movements,
sequence, scenes, mise-en-scène, characters, numbers, a suggestion of duration,
proportion and pace. It might even hint at a compositional scheme. J.D.
McClatchy (<i>1984</i>, <i>An American Tragedy</i>) tells of how he first presented a libretto <i>A Question of Taste</i>, to William Schuman,
who said ‘they [the words] don’t do anything for me.’</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> McClatchy tried
to point out that ‘the image in line 3 links up in line 6,’ but Schuman cut him
off: ‘I told you it [the libretto] didn’t do anything for me.’ McClatchy went
back and introduced a new character to add a tenor voice, formulated more
solos, duets and choruses, and thought less ‘of the dramatic unfolding and more
of the musical progression.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Early on in the creation of <i>JHB</i>
(at libretto stage) I developed a sense of musical numbers that Strehlow’s work
could be broken into. This partly determined the means of making the adaptation
from T.G.H. Strehlow’s 220-page novel. Bringing the chorale <i>Wachet auf</i> in as soon possible meant
fast-forwarding through the first 22 pages of Strehlow’s text. Indeed the first
pages of Strehlow’s book were rethought to provide musical opportunities –
sunrise, chorale, travelling music. Andrew and I discussed the idea of the
three significant stopping places in the novel (Henbury, Idracowra and
Horseshoe Bend) being ‘camps’ or points of rest, defining three Acts, or the
parts of a broadly ternary form. Notwithstanding the fact that Andrew agreed
early on that the work would be through-composed (and this accounts greatly for
the inexorability of the work’s progress to Pastor Carl’s death), I am
convinced that thinking the libretto in terms of set numbers also helped
crystallise the moments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The first draft of the libretto for <i>JHB</i>
is very like prose, a cut and paste from the novel to work out what more to
cut. The cantata was initially conceived as a work for narrator, chorus and
orchestra. To study the various drafts is to follow the course of a piece of
writing towards the status of a libretto. Of course our <i>JHB</i> doesn’t become a fully-staged opera, but subsequent drafts took
on more musico-dramatic aspects. At first there was no boy soprano Theo, and
passages such as the third scene’s night journey through the desert oaks were
conveyed more prosaically:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h5>
<i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Journey to Horseshoe Bend</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt;">, scene 3 - 1st draft<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[4]</span></u></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></h5>
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<span lang="EN-AU">CHORUS</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Friday, 25 October.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NARRATOR</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘It was half past two next morning when
Theo was wakened by the sudden blazing of the restoked campfire and the
talking of Njitiaka and Lornie, who were rolling up their blankets (87).’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">They broke camp ‘and the van moved away
from the cheery blaze of the campfire into -’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NARRATOR
& CHORUS</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"> -
‘the moonlit sandhill silence (87).’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-AU">Processional
(Brittania Sandhills) music: the ‘sighing of casuarinas’. Sandhill music.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NARRATOR</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘The resinous scent emanating from the
bulging tufts of spinifex…was not as overwhelming in the cool night air as it
had been in the heat of the previous evening; but it nevertheless pervaded
the whole atmosphere with the unmistakable menace of its aroma. For here as
elsewhere in the Centre this resinous fragrance drew attention to the deep
loneliness and the dangerous waterlessness of the huge inland sandhill
regions (87).’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘[The] continual sighing of the magnificent
desert oaks in the soft night breeze indicated the extraordinary length to
which their jointed needle-like leaves had grown (88).’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Theo thought of the <i>iliaka njemba</i>, the emu-like phantom that terrified Aranda
children.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘The black forests of desert oaks, whose
moon-silvered crests were shimmering so brightly, kept on exciting Theo’s
intense admiration (90);’ ‘Talpa, not taia,’ said Njitiaka, correcting Theo’s
western Aranda word for ‘moon’….He pointed out some of the prominent sites.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘NJITIAKA’<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Nakua potta kuka [ ], raka kngara [ ]</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NARRATOR</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Gradually the dark eastern horizon
became tinged with grey. The blurred and shapeless tree forms began to reveal
their limbs with increasing clarity. The eastern sky became overspread by a
reddish-yellow tinge, and finally the spinifex tips on the crests of the
sand-dunes began to glow in the first rays of the rising sun….the sudden
burst of warmth that accompanied its full revelation foretold that the
day…would be, in local terms, a “real scorcher” (90).’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-AU">CHORALE<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">CHORUS</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">(<i>O
Sacred Head sore wounded</i>) [1st verse]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Aka tjantjurrantjurrai,
Ilkaartapartangai....<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NARRATOR</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘About midday they reached the end of the
Brittania Sandhills (97).’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Njitiaka pointed out a dune which
overtopped all other sandhill crests by scores of feet – </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt;">And suddenly the sense of climax is interrupted, and
we are still travelling…<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-AU">It was only later that much of that
information was transformed into a duet between Njitiaka and Theo, raising the
dramatic, and at the same time, musical profile of the work. As the frequency
of Theo and Njitiaka’s exchanges increased so action took over from narrative:</span></div>
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<i><u><span lang="EN-AU">Journey
to Horseshoe Bend</span></u></i><u><span lang="EN-AU">, scene 3 - final version</span></u></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">T.G.H</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">It was half
past two next morning when I was wakened by the sudden blazing up of the
restoked campfire.<i> </i>Njitiaka rolled
up the swags and untethered the donkeys.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Keme-irreye
tangkey ngkerne lhetyenele!<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">T.G.H.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">And we moved
away from the cheery blaze of the campfire into the moonlit sandhill silence.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.15pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Unte irnterneme
urnpe lhanhe? Lhanhe yurte-ipne urnpe. Unte irterleretyeke kwatye kweke ware
nemenhe nhanerle.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.15pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">THEO</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Spinifex tufts
- </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Kicked up by
donkeys -</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Have such an
odour, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">a certain
smell? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
Strange,
lonely, dry;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Moonlight,
sandhills, silence</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Werlethenaye
werinerle irrkepe ngketyeke ingkwarle mpareme. Ilpele thwerte-nirre ngkeleme.
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">THEO</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Desert oaks,</span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Sighing,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Their long
needles swishing,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Sighing,
crying, calling…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">(<i>pointing it out</i>) Pmere ngkweke lanhe,
Kwatye pmere. Karte ngkwekeneke pmere.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">THEO</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Kwatye?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ya, pmere
ngkweke</span></span></h2>
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<span lang="EN-AU">THEO</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Your home?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Leyeke pmere. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">THEO</span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Taye
parrtyeme</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<span lang="EN-AU">The moon is
shining -</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-weight: normal;">Terlpe!<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span lang="EN-AU">THEO</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">What?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-AU">Terlpe</span></i><span lang="EN-AU"> parrtyeme!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">THEO</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-AU">Terlpe</span></i><span lang="EN-AU"> parrtyeme?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Showing
our way<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Unte arrtye irrtne ilmeletyeke? Lanhe
renye ‘terlpe’ itye ‘taye’.<i>
(Dismissively) </i>Western Aranda!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">THEO</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-AU">Terlpe</span></i><span lang="EN-AU"> larnnga-larnnga…</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Awa!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">THEO</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Shadows,
moonlight, sandhills<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Terlpe imerneme nwerneke.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">You’ll notice that in the first draft
there was the suggestion of another chorale to be used in the musical texture.
The repertoire of chorales was reduced as work proceeded. Andrew rightly sensed
that too many chorales would create an excess of material to shape while having
to stick to our brief for the duration of the work. But it is important to note
that these decisions came out of discussions at the libretto-writing stage.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It has been said that music has a degree of persuasiveness that words
can only aspire to. The completion of the chorale at the end of <i>JHB</i> is more moving than a mere spoken
rendering would be. Music can even, handily sometimes, lead us up the wrong
emotional path. So what do we miss if we don’t know the words?</span><span lang="EN-AU"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">At the end of <i>Das Rheingold</i>,
there is a shimmering and swelling in the music which finally blazes forth in a
proud, even harsh, assertion of triumphal power. The Gods are finally crossing
the rainbow bridge into their citadel Valhalla. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This is the most wonderful example of pure, unalloyed
‘rubbing-the-loser’s-nose-in-it’ victory. An audience may even hate themselves
for feeling excited, associating Wagner’s music with Nuremberg Rallies and
sheer unconscionable arrogance!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">But the thing is: the ‘Entry of the Gods into Valhalla’ can only have
this meaning <i>when you’ve paid no
attention to the storyline</i>; when you’ve ignored the dramatic context.
Because when you finally hear this passage in the theatre, or at least as part
of the music drama, to use Wagner’s term, you realise that the gods are
entering a kingdom that has been doomed; that Wotan and the other gods are
blind, as Loge says, ‘to the end towards which they are heading’. He <i>says</i> it, but we even see them step over
the dead body of Fasolt or freeze momentarily at the sound of the Rhinemaidens
keening below. It is the most spectacular example of irony in the history of…
well, what is it? Music or Drama? But one thing’s for sure. You need the drama
to ‘get’ this irony. The combination of both elements <i>together</i> creates an emotional nuance that libretto and music
wouldn’t be able to achieve on their own. And it’s not just Loge’s words that
fulfil the whole condition of undermining. We have just watched two hours of
Wotan tieing himself in knots, back-pedalling and swindling. You can twig, even
without selecting the subtitle option on your DVD.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">True, we can be mightily swayed by music, but even misinterpreting
depends on knowing what is conveyed by the sounds. Never having read the
surtitles at the beginning of <i>Madama
Butterfly</i>, we may overlook Pinkerton’s bastardry (the fact that he is
calculating the length of the marriage contract) because the opening of this
opera is what romantic music sounds like to us; <i>we know from a thousand contexts</i>. Do we know enough about Inuit
music to know what is moving in it? The opening bars of <i>Tristan</i> – what do they mean? Without the context – in this case 100
years of tonality – do we know that a minor 6<sup>th</sup> in 19<sup>th</sup>
century Romantic music denotes yearning? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Context is all important. In <i>JHB</i>
I was able to convey the outcome of the story of the crow of Mbalka; how he was
drowned by the rain women of Erea, in few enough words to allow the music to
continue unimpeded, because the story had been previously established.
Super-structure. Context. And sequence!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Thinking any of this has much to do with the beauty of the words is a
bit of a furphy. The words in fact should probably be as simple as possible.
The score can pinpoint the exact shade of emotion; the libretto has an
anchoring, orientating primacy. Be
careful of being too flash.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I find John Adams and Alice Goodman’s <i>Nixon in China</i> exceptionally, even movingly clear, so it may seem
churlish to pounce on this next example. But I remember being impressed by
certain lines in Act I, the chorus singing:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h4>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-weight: normal;">The people are the heroes now</span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">The heroes pull the peasants’ plow</span></h4>
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I thought ‘what a nice Shakespearian
duality’, and one that you could deduce easily sitting in the theatre. It was
only when I read the libretto that I discovered that it was ‘Behemoth’ who was
pulling the peasant’s plough. It’s nice poetry, but I couldn’t help but feeling
sorry for the poor audience-member sitting in the theatre trying to decipher ‘behemoth’
as the word being defined by that particular combination of vowels?</div>
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And on top of that in opera you’ve
got the particular challenges to clarity posed by polyphony, melisma, and
sopranos. Best to make sure the story’s clear from your large structure, and
set up strong, dramatic, character-driven situations that convey a larger
message. You’ve got to make sure that the conflicts and crises of the plot have
safely been established and resolved.</div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Of course, a successful libretto should provide the composer with
musical opportunities that enhance the dramatic flow. It is an absolute
masterstroke in the libretto of Verdi/Boito’s <i>Otello</i> to begin with Shakespeare’s second act and therefore give
the composer and the drama a storm to start with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Journey to Horseshoe Bend</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> fast forwards
through the preparations and background to the journey to light on a chorale
which arises, as if spontaneously from the voices of the Ntaria women. The
first pages draw from the novel to create a couple of musical situations –
sunrise and chorale. It was a libretto-stage decision to leave out T.G.H.
Strehlow’s impressive ten page description of the massacre history of
Irbmangkara, even though it may be the most virtuosic piece of writing in the
book. We had to get moving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">A libretto is a blueprint for musical
action. If the job has been considered well enough, the composer can sit down
and see the musical form inherent in the material. The libretto is good insofar
that you can judge by the intelligence of its suggestion of actable music:
momentum, weight, musical numbers (who sings what), purely musical segments,
and, at the level of detail, what I call its ‘play with specificity’. </span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">JHB</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> is a cantata. It
is <i>meant</i> to be a concert work. This
was the result of a number of decisions taken at the libretto stage. If <i>JHB</i> had been fully sung it would of
course have been twice as long, but speech allowed us filmic pacing, a
directness and spontaneity; to move quickly through concepts that don’t
normally make it into opera. We were aiming for a certain richness and at the
same time intelligibility. We rejected the idea of the narration being sung in
recitative (although recognising that the narrator fulfilled some of the
function of an Evangelist in a Bach passion), partly to broaden the work’s
appeal, but also because we needed another speaking role to pair with Njitiaka.
Nevertheless, it is worth testing this theory of libretto writing by examining
the proximity of each cantata scene to completely dramatised opera. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Scenes 3 and 4 are arguably the most
fully-dramatised. Strehlow’s descriptions of conversations between Theo and
Njitiaka as they travel at night through the sand-dune country are turned into
duet. In scene 4 Carl’s struggles with his faith, described in third person by
T.G.H. Strehlow in his novel, are turned into an aria with responding chorus.
This aria is juxtaposed with a cinematic cutaway to Theo’s ditty-like listing
of sights around Idracowra station. I particularly love the melody that Andrew
came up with when he arrived at what I considered the heart of the scene, and
perhaps of the philosophy of the work: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">But God cannot be known<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Nor made to answer men.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">No use in us demanding<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The meaning of our pain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Action and music? In <i>Journey</i> the ongoing movement of the
music was complemented by verbal pointers to direction: ‘…25 miles to the north
west rugged Rutjubma…’; ‘…already moving through the…saltbush flat which spread
south…’; ‘…turned in a more easterly direction...’</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Njitiaka gives
many of the directions. But these examples are taken from TGH, the narrator.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Journey to Horseshoe Bend</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> stayed a cantata
in some ways to preserve the flavour of Strehlow’s original novel. But that meant
particular problems. One of the big hazards for libretto writing is leaving too
much ‘on the page’. I say that having written a wordy libretto, and having
early on tried to force Andrew into setting TGH’s denser and slower-moving
sentences. This example is from the third draft. The party have arrived at
Horseshoe Bend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h6>
<i><span lang="EN-AU">Journey to
Horseshoe Bend</span></i><span lang="EN-AU">, scene 6 – 3rd draft</span></h6>
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<span lang="EN-AU">CHORUS
(<i>continuing under</i>)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Horseshoe Bend is the eye of a flame</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Horseshoe Bend is the eye of a fire</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">T.G.H.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Horseshoe Bend had been remarkable for
its cruel heatwaves for as long as human memory went back.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Atua Rubuntjaka janha ntoaka. Pota urbula
arei. Itne uralalanga.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">T.G.H</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">(<i>Translating</i>)
Everywhere the Rubuntja men vomited they left black pebbles whose heat
essence is evoked to this day in freezing weather.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">CHORUS
(<i>continuing under</i>)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Horseshoe Bend is a fiery place</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">A land of burning cliffs</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Nana pmara uraka. Nakua ngapa nama. Era
ura taka, altjiraka.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">CHORUS
(<i>continuing under</i>)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Horseshoe Bend is a fiery place</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">A land of burning cliffs</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Nana pmara uraka. Nakua ngapa nama. Era
ura taka, altjiraka.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">CHORUS</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Of searing plains</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">T.G.H</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">(<i>As
if translating for Njitiaka</i>) ‘The main totemic sites in the region were
all associated in some way with fire or with the scorching heat of the summer
sun. Worst was Mbalka, the home of a malicious crow who had flitted over the
landscape at the dawn of time, lighting fires.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">CHORUS</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Fire </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Exploding spinifex</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Shrieking over sandhills</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Shooting from branches screaming</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Writhing from mulga, like pillars of </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Fire,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Crackling torches of flame</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">(<i>Continuing</i>)</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Erea tara rana rranthaka, rana
lakarlalaka…</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">T.G.H.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">(<i>Translating</i>)
At last, two rain ancestresses from Erea surprised the crow and drowned him.
The lake of fire became a sea of water. Clouds of steam hissed up from
sizzling tree stumps and charred stumps.</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Listen to the music as it is now and you
can hear that TGH’s and Njitiaka’s words would have impeded the flow. As a
solution Andrew went ahead and composed music for this scene using only bits of
the text. Only after the music had been freed in this way did I go back to make
sure that the characters told the same story in telegraphic form. </span></div>
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<h6>
<i><span lang="EN-AU">Journey to
Horseshoe Bend</span></i><span lang="EN-AU">, scene 6 - final version</span></h6>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span lang="EN-AU">NTARIA
LADIES CHOIR (<i>very quietly</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Kaartai, nurna-nha wurlathanai (<i>Father, hear our prayer</i>)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">CHORUS</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Horseshoe Bend is the eye of a flame</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Horseshoe Bend is the eye of a fire</span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
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<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-weight: normal;">Urte
Rubuntja ntwe-irrke nhakeke.</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">T.G.H.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">The Rubuntja men vomited over there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-weight: normal;">Perte
urrpwerle raye… <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">T.G.H.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Yes, the black stones.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-weight: normal;">Itne
metyepenhe…</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-weight: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">T.G.H</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">They’re from fire?</span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">CHORUS</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Fire </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Exploding spinifex</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Shrieking over sandhills</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Shooting from branches screaming</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Writhing from mulga, like pillars of </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Fire,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Crackling torches of flame</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Horseshoe Bend is a fiery place</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">A land of burning cliffs</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Nhanhe metyeke pmere.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">T.G.H.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">This is fire country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA</span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-weight: normal;">Ngkape
nhakele…<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: .5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">T.G.H.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">That
crow over there…</span> </div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: .5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">NJITIAKA<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">metye itekele,... </span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: .5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">T.G.H.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">He
set all this country alight… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: .5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">NJITIAKA<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">itekele
ntgkerrnhe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoFooter" style="tab-stops: .5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">T.G.H<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">in
the beginning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-AU">CHORUS</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Horseshoe Bend, etc…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A libretto needs to be able to turn on a dime. While composing, the
composer may ring up and say, ‘I need eight syllables in the following rhythm’.
The librettist knows s/he has to tie up three or four plot points in that space
as well. There is so much more to appreciate if the libretto is examined hand
in hand with the music. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I mentioned before the play with specifity. The relationship between
text and music is far more fascinating than a side by side comparison would
suggest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Andrew often says that the music is the poetic element, and that’s
true. But well-placed words can enhance a poetic moment. ‘The smell of
rain-soaked earth fills the air…’, sings Theo, as his final notes ring out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-AU">I have myself tried to explain the
relationship between music and text in terms of the text being the noun and the
music the verb, but sometimes the text, acting as context, can be adverb. And
sometimes the music is the noun. Andrew’s chorale harmonies and counterpoint
give reality to <i>JHB’s</i> Lutheran
setting. Is the libretto here the adjective? Can the music be the subtext
revealing the <i>text’s</i> true concerns?…<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Journey to Horseshoe Bend</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> ends with a
storm. Music does storm beautifully. It can convey a storm without a word in
sight. Think Beethoven, Rossini, Britten. Think <i>Otello</i>. But it’s important for the audience in <i>JHB</i> to know that that storm <i>confirms
Theo’s decision to make his future in Central Australia by corroborating for
him the reality of a storm that took place in the mythological era at the
beginning of time</i>. That’s the reason for the verbal exchanges between
Njitiaka and TGH at the beginning of the third part (the arrival at Horseshoe
Bend), and for this exchange towards the end:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">NJITIAKA: Kwatye ngkarle arpenhe petyeme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">TGH: More clouds?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA: Itne renhe nyenhe inetyeke.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">TGH: Those rain-women get that crow always.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-AU">NJITIAKA: Ngampakala. Finish him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which brought all the elements to a point, <i>after</i> the score was completed - after
Andrew had been set free to follow the course of the dramatically-generated
music.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" title="">[11]</a></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">--</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A libretto may mask a great many decisions. It needs to be thin. But
one decision taken at the libretto stage can say heaps. Strehlow spends many
paragraphs </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;">describing Pastor Carl’s character.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;"> We needed an
authoritative voice. As a bass-baritone Carl had for me associations with a
Wotan or a Boris Godunov and in that one decision was all that we needed to say
about that ‘rockplate’ clergyman who threw the murderous Constable Wurmbrand
off the mission property and who stood in the path of a party of Kukatja
avengers. I remember being fascinated by the changed significance that could be
achieved merely by assigning words to different characters. Imagine the quite
different cast of meaning if you assign the chorus’s words: ‘But God cannot be
known…’ to one of the other parts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-AU">All this information can be encompassed
by the libretto. And some of a libretto’s achievement may literally be
invisible, left to the composer or left out. It may only be realised on stage
(another’s job). But let’s go back to the libretto as words, since that is the
level on which the debate is usually waged.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-AU">The libretto is important. The words are
significant. The librettist J.D. McClatchy’s name was left off the CD cover for
<i>Emmeline</i> (composer: Tobias Picker). I
would have been peeved. And librettos and programs and texts can push composers
in directions they might not have explored if left to their own devices. I
think of the soundtrack to <i>Bullitt</i>
and compare it with Lalo Schifrin’s more recent recording with the West German
Radio Big Band<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.
To me the version made to showcase the music lacks the rhetorical pointedness
of the soundtrack. It seems to lack the gestural definiteness, seems less
urgent.<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Could it be that ‘text’ (the action) forestalls a converging on purely musical
elements, a narrowing of meaning? And yet so often we read in annotations: ‘The
composer sensed rightly that the music was coherent in its own terms, and did
not need the added literary explanation,’ or ‘We may disregard the program. For
the work stands as music.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Charles Rosen speaks of music’s ‘emancipation from the word’ in a
recent<i> New York Review of Books </i>article
on Richard Taruskin’s <i>Oxford History of
Music</i>; and of how that emancipation enabled sophisticated absolute
structures.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> True, but are
they better or worse than texted musical works; there is a pleasure to be had
from the way the words and music mesh and collide in Pitjantjatjara chant, for
example. Perhaps annotators should accord the libretto and its relationship to
the music the same subtlety of understanding that they plead for in relation to
absolute music. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">But to come back to the words, because I dispute (even discounting
larger plot movements, sequence, scenes, mise-en-scène, characters, numbers, a
suggestion of duration, proportion and pace) that the <i>words</i> are inferior or weaker carriers of meaning.<i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A colleague once cited <i>Some
Enchanted Evening</i> to me as an example of the primacy of music: it’s the
music that we carry away from the performance.<i> </i>Now I guess we don’t go out whistling the words, but even if you
only know the first lines of hundreds of songs, the general sense and situation
reinforces the message to be taken from the melody, harmony, pace and orchestration,
and I doubt if music would be as meaningful if judged, as Stravinsky may have
wished, ‘powerless to express anything other than itself’. After all, what is <i>Some Enchanted Evening </i><u>in</u><i> </i>musical terms: tonic chord with a
melodic turn on the fifth followed by a downward drop, the sharpened fourth in
the turn undermining stability; that turn repeated followed by an upward lift
to the leading note, but this time with the harmony shifting underneath to the
dominant; the turn again, this time followed by a lift to the tonic, but with a
sharpened fifth underneath preparing the way to a supertonic 6/5 harmony...</span> Certainly the harmony creates an urging forward and there is a poignancy often
found in Richard Rodgers’ chordal progressions one step beyond the harmonically
obvious, but does that fully explain the emotional resonance? <span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> I suppose my words prove the lack of music</span>’s poetry. But I still think you
at least need to know that the song is about an enchanted evening where you may
meet a stranger across a crowded room; what any of us would bring to that love
at first sight; words and sentiments that <i>preclude</i>
being set to a ‘rumpty-tumpty’ melody.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">But don’t take my word for it. Get an audience of Americans to stand
with hands over their hearts and sing: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">To Anacreon in heav’n, where he sat in full glee,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A few sons of Harmony sent a petition,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">That He their Inspirer and Patron would be;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">When this answer arrived from the Jolly Old Grecian:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Voice, Fiddle, and Flute,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">no longer be mute,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I’ll lend you my Name and inspire you to boot,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">And besides, I’ll instruct you, like me, to entwine<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-AU">The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s Vine.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">and I bet not a single one of them would shed a tear, no matter how
good the tune, at the original words of the drinking song that became - <i>The Star-Spangled Banner</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Gordon Kalton Williams<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Open University, ©2006<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;">This article first appeared in <i>Music, words and voice: A reader</i>, edited by Martin Clayton and published by Manchester University Press, ISBN: 978-0-7190-7787-6 <b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Reproduced by kind permission.</span> </span></div>
<h6>
<span lang="EN-AU">Acknowledgements</span> </h6>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Andrew Schultz</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">The Strehlow Research Centre </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Katherine D. Stewart</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Natalie Shea</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Siobhan Lenihan</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">James Koehne</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> Strehlow, T.G.H. <i>Journey to Horseshoe Bend</i>, Angus &
Robertson, Melbourne, 1969. Quotes by permission of the Strehlow Research
Centre, Alice Springs Australia</span> </div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> Stein, Jack M <i>Richard Wagner and
the Synthesis of the Arts</i>, Westport, Conn. 1973</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> See Alenier, K ‘A Poet’s Distraction: Interview with J.D.
McClatchy’, <i>Scene4 Magazine</i>, Sep
2005, http://www.archives.scene4.com/sep-2005/html/infocussep05.html</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> Figures in parentheses after statements refer to page numbers in
the novel, which were only removed late in the writing of the cantata.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> In inverted commas because
we had still not settled on having a separate character </span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> ‘</span>Aka tjantjurrantjurrai’ (O Sacred Head now
Wounded) No.75, p.169, <i>Arrarnta
Lyilhintja Lutheran Worlamparinyaka</i> (Arrarnta Lutheran Hymnal), Finke River
Mission Board, Alice Springs, 1997</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> Now with Doug Abbott’s Southern Arrernte corrections</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> If Loge had said, ‘They are <i>not</i> heading to their doom,’ you would
not have believed him. Any playwright knows that words cannot overpower
accumulated action. Or as psychologist Steven Covey would say: ‘You cannot talk
yourself out of what you have behaved yourself into.’</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> Consider also Andrew’s orchestral layout.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> To choose an example from popular musical theatre, <i>My Fair Lady</i>. Prof. Higgins convinces
himself he couldn’t care less about such an ungrateful wretch as Eliza
Doolittle who would run away and ‘marry Freddy. Ha!’ and then the <i>music</i> wells up, and says, ‘Who is he/are
you kidding?’ At this moment music brings the emotion (subtext) to the surface.
The idea may have been Frederick Loewe the composer’s, but the music is
suddenly text, doing the job of the narrative. The welling up is satisfying as
music and as an aspect of the story that has developed to that point.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> Sometimes music benefits from the nailing specificity of words. The
best-received performance I have heard of Schoenberg’s <i>Pelléas et Mélisande</i> was Will Humburg’s with the Sydney Symphony in
2005. He asked for surtitles giving the movement descriptions, eg “He finds
Mélisande weeping in the forest”. They cut through what I’ve often felt was a
lack of clarifying repose.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> T.G.H. Strehlow provides a huge amount of information about his
father on pp7-8 and 20 of the Angus & Robertson edition of his novel.</span> </div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> Schifrin, Lalo: <i>Bullitt</i>,
ALEPH Records 018, 2000</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> And yet, I saw John Williams conduct a workshop on film music at
Tanglewood in 1998. He showed the students that when they re-did the scene ‘and
this time, with horns in tune’, the whole scene lifted dramatically. The drama
and score are truly twinned.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn15">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/dell/Desktop/The%20Little%20Blueprint%20-%20meaning%20of%20libretto%20%5bwith%20bolds%5d.doc#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-AU"> Rosen, Charles ‘From the Troubadors to Frank Sinatra’: review of
Richard Taruskin’s Oxford History of Western Music, <i>The New York Review of Books</i>, 23 February 2006</span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: red;">If you enjoyed this, I have written elsewhere on the Strehlows in:</span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span><span lang="EN-AU"><i>Journey to Horseshoe Bend - ten years on, </i>28 May 2013 </span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;">http://gordonkaltonwilliams.blogspot.com/2013/05/journey-to-horseshoe-bend-ten-years-on.html</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><span lang="EN-AU"><i>Victory over death and despair in a bygone age</i>, 5 November 2012 and</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: red;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: red;"><i>Ah, Nathanael!</i>, 29 November 2012</span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-23737383128780144792015-05-04T10:15:00.000-07:002015-05-06T12:26:28.580-07:00James MacMillan’s Viola Concerto<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: red;"><i>Continuing my series of program notes:</i></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">James MacMillan (born 1959)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Viola Concerto<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-AU">I<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-AU">II<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-AU">III<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Ever since the BBC Proms premiere in 1990 of
<i>The Confession of Isobel Gowdie</i>, a
symphonic ‘requiem’ for a Scottish woman thought to have been executed as a
witch in 1662, Scotland’s James MacMillan has been one of the most sought-after
of contemporary composers. He followed up ‘Isobel Gowdie’ with the percussion
concerto <i>Veni, veni Emmanuel</i> for
Evelyn Glennie and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which received nearly 300
performances within ten years of its 1992 premiere.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Tonight’s work, first performed in January
2014 by Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra with its
dedicatee, Lawrence Power, as soloist, is the 18<sup>th</sup> of MacMillan’s
concertos. A second percussion concerto is on the way. Such is MacMillan’s drawing
power that the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is one of four orchestras around the
world that co-commissioned the work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">The strengths of MacMillan’s music come from two
sources according to British critic Michael White. One is his ‘great gift for
melody’. The other </span><span lang="EN-AU">is
that his music is driven by ‘an extraordinary
kind of fervour’ stemming from his religious and political beliefs<em>. </em></span><span lang="EN-AU">Other commentators may also
point out MacMillan’s absorption of influences ranging from the Polish
modernists Penderecki and Lutosławski (in his early years) to the local church
congregation in Glasgow for whom he has written (weekly) responsorial psalms
that can be taught before Mass.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">While early works tended to be
programmatic, MacMillan has become more and more interested in - proud even -
of the abstract nature of music. As he told the Southbank Centre’s Gillian
Moore, prior to the premiere of tonight’s work: ‘</span><span lang="EN-AU">At a fundamental level, music communicates
its beauties, its feelings through…organised sounds rather than words or images....music
gets into the crevices of the soul in a way that can be quite baffling to our
contemporary culture.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">MacMillan’s own comments on this work
(available on his publisher Boosey & Hawkes’ website) stick just to the
notes. He outlines a three movement structure in the traditional pattern:
fast-slow-fast, and sets out some markers that may be useful to first-time
listeners. Each of the movements contains elements of its opposite. The first
movement contains a brass ‘dance-like theme’ and ‘a terse little tune in
semiquavers’ for the soloist, but only after a slow introduction in which the
brass intone a cadence figure which becomes motivically important, </span><span lang="EN-AU">that is: ‘the energy of the first
movement is offset right from the beginning by something much more cantabile
and singing’</span><span lang="EN-AU">. Each of the sections of the song-like second
movement are headlined by a violent ‘outburst’. The last movement is obviously
‘joyful, humorous, and fast’, but there is a ‘tranquil’ middle section where
the soloist begins to declaim against a ‘cushion’ of two each of orchestral
violas and cellos (like a Renaissance viol consort). A solo flute nods towards
the influence of the Japanese <i>shakuhachi</i>.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">It would be a shame, though, for the
listener to tick off the structural signposts rather than let the proportions
be naturally felt, or enjoy MacMillan’s 21<sup>st</sup> century mastery of the
orchestral palette. MacMillan has previously commented on the number of great
concertos (serving great soloists) in the modern repertoire and the question of
the extent to which a composer should ignore or embrace the traditional form
(‘near perfection’ in MacMillan’s mind). Perhaps the listener could consider
how successfully MacMillan has added to this genre, and how wonderfully this
concerto adds to the not overly-plentiful solo viola repertoire.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Gordon
Kalton Williams, © 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="color: red;"><i>This note first appeared in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Australian premiere of MacMillan’s Viola Concerto on 1 and 2 May 2015.</i></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="color: red;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="color: red;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
</div>
Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-79049563564541515982015-04-24T13:20:00.004-07:002015-04-24T13:27:32.142-07:00To mark the centenary<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="color: red;">To mark the centenary of Anzac, I thought I</span><span style="font-size: small;">’</span><span style="color: red;">d re-publish this proposal for a symphonic concert drama that Andrew Schultz and I pitched to several organisations some years ago.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">An all-day long symphony of discord rang out, and
through it all strode Simpson, walking along next to his donkey, forever
singing and whistling as he held on to his passenger, scorning the danger, in
sweet defiance of all the explosions, the barking of rifle fire and the harsh
machine-gun chatter, clutching on to one small piece of reality, of nature [his
donkey], in a mechanised world gone mad all around him.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Tom Curran, <i>Across
the Bar<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h2>
<u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 11pt;">Proposal for
</span></u><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Simpson and His Donkey </span></u><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 11pt;">- Andrew Schultz and
Gordon Kalton Williams</span></u> </h2>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-AU">Simpson is
Australia’s ‘common soldier’. His story is recounted to unite Australians in a
common appreciation of the sacrifices made by our past generations of soldiers.
But there are some odd facts that confound the two-dimensional portrait presented
to the public – Simpson was English; he was a non-combatant (Field Ambulance),
and he decided on using donkeys in the field because, admittedly, they ran out of
stretchers on the first day of the landing at Anzac Cove, but donkeys possibly
reminded him of summer holidays as a donkey boy on South Shields beach in the
UK. In the terror of war Simpson reached back to childhood. So there are richer
aspects to the Simpson story than are apparent in the propounding of a
national myth – and let’s not forget: Australians invaded Turkey; <i>Kaba Türkçe</i> was spoken in the trenches
opposite. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNhOTn4Xf-9h9bZsJe0K5eNsKCZL_JsXu5ZNM6XIv7fzQOUNYltwJvP7CmR9yUYEvPABcgQG7ZoEOE0T_fOD45NFC54yiGJ0bIwdsjoENxGCwJw1yYuREAU-s-HRKyTsJQlzOrpQdfBWY/s1600/DSC00762.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNhOTn4Xf-9h9bZsJe0K5eNsKCZL_JsXu5ZNM6XIv7fzQOUNYltwJvP7CmR9yUYEvPABcgQG7ZoEOE0T_fOD45NFC54yiGJ0bIwdsjoENxGCwJw1yYuREAU-s-HRKyTsJQlzOrpQdfBWY/s1600/DSC00762.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sphinx, the iconic landmark at Gallipoli, as seen from the sea where the Anzacs landed on that first day in April 1915.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-AU">The sad fact is
that Simpson’s heroic deeds were eventually often dragooned to serve chauvinistic ends, and may in fact undermine Simpson’s true heroism, which was, in Inga
Clendinnen’s words: ‘staunchly maintaining civilian virtues in the face of war.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-AU">We’d like to
explore that full tragedy of his portrayal in another symphonic cantata,
following-up <i>Journey to Horseshoe Bend</i>
in scale and prospect, this time comprising orchestra and <i>children’s</i> chorus (and possibly soloists). Once again, we would
envisage some elements of staging and surtitles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This proposal came out of
Andrew’s idea for a children’s song cycle-cum-opera on Simpson and His Donkey
(Sydney Children’s Choir were enthusiastic). Including the SCC would bring up
instant opposites: innocence hitting the hard experience of war; metal vs flesh
- but also bowdlerisation vs fact. The subject suggests a surprising sonority
of war. Simpson died on the morning of the Turkish offensive, 19 May 1915 (in
fact, just after!). According to some reports, a band had been heard in the Turkish trenches
playing The Turkish March from Beethoven’s <i>Ruins
of Athens</i>! It would need to be substantiated but what musical suggestion there is in that!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">We’re suggesting a work which
traces Simpson’s career both in the three weeks he served on the Gallipoli peninsula
and in a public afterlife, framed by the expression of children. We’re saying
something about innocence, pressure, spin, good humour, civilian virtues,
military juggernauts, great odds. We’ll draw on a variety of sources (including
Simpson’s own letters), keeping to a dramatic sequence, though maintaining some
of the original idea of a song-cycle. Children’s story-telling may encourage
the use of pungent nursery rhymes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">No War Requiem, the emotional
complex will consist of close scrutiny of mythmaking, while at
the same time telling a tragic tale of a loveable larrikin. That said, we want a full gamut of emotions: tears
through laughter and laughter through tears – and not just for us. </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">‘</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Gözyaşlarınızı
dindirniz’ </i>(Dry your tears)<i> </i></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Atatürk told
ANZAC mothers when they visited the battlefield in the 1930s, for their sons now slept in the soil of a
friendly country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Gordon Kalton
Williams, ©30 Apr. 08<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
</div>
Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-76050465278440617562015-04-12T12:47:00.000-07:002015-06-07T13:40:10.041-07:00Red Chamber 2, 紅樓夢<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i style="color: red;">Further to my </i></span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">20 November 2012 </i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i style="color: red;">post on </i><span style="color: red;">The Dream of the Red Chamber</span><i><span style="color: red;">, I've come up with a shorter synopsis. I was wondering how short I could get it and still</span></i></span><i><span style="color: red;"> maintain the sense of larger
events circling the central love triangle, a sense of mounting
sequence, and yet still opportunities for ceremonial ('occasional') music as well as expression of the
overriding emotional story. There are elisions that might seem like
liberties to those who know the original but I thought I'd make them
in the interest of 'integration'.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Path of the
Jade</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
based on Cao Xueh-Qin’s <i>Dream of the Red
Chamber </i></span><span class="shorttext"><span lang="ZH-TW" style="color: #222222; font-family: "MS Mincho"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">紅樓夢</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Cast:<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jia
Bao-yu (‘Master Bao’), the boy with the jade <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Lin Dai-yu, (</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">‘</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Miss Lin</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">) his cousin, destined to be his bride </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Xue Bao-chai
(‘Miss Bao’), female cousin to the Jias and Wang Xi-feng <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jia
Zheng, Bao’s father <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Madam
Jia, Bao’s mother <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Grandmother
Jia, matriarch of them all <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wang
Xi-feng, the family’s female enforcer, a close cousin of the Jias <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Aunt
Hsueh, aunt to the younger Jias and Wang Xi-feng <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hsueh-pan,
male cousin to the Jias and Wang Xi-feng<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yu-tcun,
a poor young civil servant, distantly related to the Jias <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Drunk Priest <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Snowflake,
a servant girl <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Aroma,
a servant girl, Bao’s personal servant <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Goddess of Disenchantment <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Cousin
Qin-shi <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Prologue:
In a <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>tavern some distance from the capital Beijing, a poor
young civil servant named Yu-tcun meets a failed priest who tells him of Jia Bao-yu
(Master Bao), Yu-tcun’s distant relative, who was born with a piece of jade from the
Goddess of Heaven’s roof in his mouth. Though the Jia family’s fortune is not
what it was (and it is hoped that the heavenly boy Master Bao will arrest its steady decline),Yu-tcun
sees opportunity to exploit his tenuous connections with a still-distinguished
family. He and the priest reflect on the skill required to cushion life’s downward
plunges.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Act
I:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">No
expense has been spared at the Jia mansion for Cousin Qin-shi’s funeral. Maybe
a big funeral, showing proper respect for a relative, will persuade the gods to
restore the Jia crops, refill their rivers, and replenish their treasure chests.
Daughter-in-law Wang Xi-feng orders Snowflake, a servant-girl, whipped for coming
late on this 39<sup>th</sup> day of the 49-day ceremonies. Into this scene of
punishment arrive other relatives, and Wang Xi-feng is overjoyed to greet her Aunt
Hsueh and cousins Bao-chai (Miss Bao) and the oafish Hsueh-pan. The Hsuehs have fallen on
hard times and need help. The Jias will entertain them royally, though it means
stretching resources.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
their favourite part of the mansion garden, teenage lovers Master Bao and Lin Dai-yu,
escape the ceremonies and renew their childhood vows of love (Not much longer,
surely, until we’re married). Finding them, Miss Bao wants to see Master Bao’s famous
jade. Its poetic inscription matches that on Miss Bao’s amulet. Devastated,
Dai-yu knows that the rules of feudalism destine Miss Bao for Master Bao (Not much
longer surely until <i>they’re</i> married)
and she runs away, tearful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Attending
Wang Xi-feng, servant-girl Aroma says she approves of Snowflake’s whipping.
Dependent on the family for her livelihood, Aroma fears lax discipline and
decadence. Wang Xi-feng is also relieved to have this servant’s approval of the
lavish funeral for Cousin Qin-shi at a time of savage cutbacks to the servants’
rations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Lin Dai-yu reminds Master Bao that she had come down
from Heaven a Crimson Dew Flower grateful to Master Bao for watering her and giving
her sentient life. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Unable
to pacify Miss Lin who sees her dreams of marriage turn to dust, Master Bao turns to Miss Bao for comfort, but she is unsympathetic. A paragon of the old values
that guarantee family health and who regards Dai-yu as sickly, Miss Bao asserts the stability of feudal
tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Act
II<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
a dream, the Goddess of Disenchantment teaches her human relative Master Bao, the pleasures
of sex which will strengthen him through even a prescribed marriage. Master Bao wants
to try these out on Aroma. Believing that she was given to the Jia family for Master Bao’s use, Aroma is compelled to agree but she extracts from him promises to apply
himself and work on becoming a fit heir for the mansion. All livelihoods depend
on it!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirYj0dTpRJKag0V03b4J1DfYCFSDB0feorB63rlwmiSNlXBj3hU_47u7Zu6O8eGZvrcffy0j3HZwoZOU-VGBnjVBvek2lq0WqWwch9rIlfOv0HicFrcyXuJnwfr1Ev2KVZqKdeu65QRbU/s1600/Hongloumeng1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirYj0dTpRJKag0V03b4J1DfYCFSDB0feorB63rlwmiSNlXBj3hU_47u7Zu6O8eGZvrcffy0j3HZwoZOU-VGBnjVBvek2lq0WqWwch9rIlfOv0HicFrcyXuJnwfr1Ev2KVZqKdeu65QRbU/s1600/Hongloumeng1.jpg" width="309" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bao-yu's maid, Qinwen, (Aroma). Public domain. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Too
late! Bao’s father, Jia Zheng, thrashes him for neglecting his duties at a time
of declining wealth. Nursing his wounds, Master Bao discards the text he has been set
by his masters and finds unexpected comfort, instead, in The Great Text on the
Inherent Nature of Things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As
more of the family property is pawned, Grandmother Jia and Master Bao’s parents (Jia
Zheng and Madam Jia) worry about the need to restore the family’s former glory,
and of the suitability of Lin Dai-yu who has long been considered Master Bao’s destined
bride. Wang Xi-feng tells them of Master Bao and Miss Bao’s matching amulets (reported
by Aroma) and says she knows how to arrange a more auspicious marriage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Told
of his forthcoming marriage, Master Bao is overjoyed, but Miss Lin is in seclusion, sick
behind a closed door, when he comes to visit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Choosing
a date for the wedding, the family learn that their oafish guest Hsueh-pan has
been arrested for killing a waiter, but Grandmother Jia assures Hsueh-pan’s
cousin, their enforcer Wang Xi-feng, that the new magistrate Yu-tcun can be
leaned on. He owes his position to Master Bao’s father, Jia Zheng.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
wedding day can therefore go ahead as scheduled. Master Bao is persuaded not to visit Miss Lin who needs all her strength. The family toasts the prospering of their
dynasty. At the close of the sumptuous festivities, Master Bao raises the bride’s veil
to discover it’s Miss Bao. News is brought that Lin Dai-yu has died, as Master Bao
collapses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Act
III<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Walking
through the Grand View Garden, Wang Xi-feng sees the ghost of Cousin Qin-shi,
the spitting image of the Goddess of Disenchantment, who tells Wang Xi-feng
that her ‘treasured daughter’s funeral’ concealed the fact that she and her
father had an incestuous relationship. Snowflake’s sneers aside, Aroma, the
loyal servant, assures Wang Xi-feng that the apparition is a tribute to the
vigilance with which Wang Xi-feng protects the family. But Wang Xi-feng is
terrified by the vision. <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Meanwhile,
having pressured Yu-tcun, Master Bao’s father has been accused by the emperor of corruption
and ordered to appear at court. Master Bao’s mother and grandmother fearfully despair
that the family’s fortunes will never be restored. Wang Xi-feng is in no mood
for ‘waterworks’. She brings news that is both good and bad. Miss Bao is
pregnant but Master Bao has disappeared. He has left behind his jade. No sooner does
she reveal this news than she collapses dead at their feet, as Cousin Qin-shi’s
ghost intimated. It is small comfort when the oafish Hsueh-pan returns, having
been acquitted by the magistrate Yu-tcun who was paid off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Travelling
through the provinces to a remote governorship (the emperor’s punishment), Master Bao’s
Father sees a priest of the Goddess of Heaven who looks like Master Bao, but before he
can tell Master Bao about his son, Master Bao disappears. Bao’s Father reflects on the turn
of events that has seen him, a former favourite of the emperor, bereft and exiled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
nation resounds with bells announcing Grandmother Jia’s death. Returning to his
village, stripped of rank, an older Yu-tcun meets again the priest he met at
the outset of the story. The priest tells Yu-tcun that his latest instalment of
the Jia family story is one of guilt punished, virtue rewarded. It would have
required a mere nudge to produce a more favourable outcome. Yu-tcun agrees, but
corrects the priest’s naivety. He sees the potential for rise and fall
concurrently in all things. As they drink, Xue Bao-chai, back in Beijing, nurses
her healthy baby. Grandmother Jia lies in her coffin, awaiting sufficient funds
for burial. Madam Jia neglects household repairs while Aunt Hsueh dotes on being
a grandmother. The Hsuehs have taken to wearing the robes of the mansion’s owners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>Possible
doublings, if acted:</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yu-tcun/Bao-yu<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Drunk Priest/ Hsueh-pan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Snowflake,
a servant girl/ Father Jia Zheng<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dai-yu/
Goddess of Disenchantment/ Qin-shi</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">- GKW, April 8 2015</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">gordonsymphony@gmail.com</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: red;"><i>Other posts that might be of interest:</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">My first post on <i>The Dream of the Red Chamber</i>, 20 Nov 2012</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: red;">and my program note on Tan Dun</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="color: red;">s <i>Nu-Shu</i>, 15 Mar 2015</span></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-54535122787760495942015-03-29T12:13:00.001-07:002015-03-29T19:25:26.689-07:00Adams' good name (reprint from 2004)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><i style="color: red;">Having finally seen </i>Nixon in China<span style="color: red;"> <i>(in San Diego last weekend), I thought I'd re-publish this article thought it first appeared in Australian concert programs in 2004.</i></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><i>Adams’ Good Name</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">John Adams. It’s a good solid New England
name. An American is likely to think first of John Adams, the second president,
George Washington’s successor. But Australians are more likely to have heard of
the composer whose works have been increasingly performed in Australia in
recent years. We saw the Australian premiere of <i>El Niño</i>, his new ‘take’ on oratorio, at the Adelaide Festival in
2002, in a concert version directed by his regular collaborator Peter Sellars,
who had resigned as Festival Director months before. <i>Harmonielehre</i> was presented twice last
year by Australian orchestras: by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and by
the Sydney Symphony, who also in November 2003 gave the Australian premiere of <i>Guide to Strange Places</i>, the second of
two works by Adams they have co-commissioned. Adams came out for the Australian
premiere of <i>Naïve and Sentimental Music</i>
in 2000 and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra performed Adams’ <i>The Wound Dresser</i> in the Metropolis
series some seasons ago. Anyone who saw the reaction of a young audience to <i>Harmonielehre</i> in Sydney in 1999 will
realise that here is a living composer who can grab an audience like a
Beethoven.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">It’s kind of funny that Adams should have a
profile in Australia. His career is in many respects a <i>very </i>American story. Born in what our friends across the Pacific
refer to as ‘back East’, he had the upbringing of a typical east coast liberal
Democrat, indeed remembers shaking Candidate Kennedy’s hand during the New
Hampshire primaries in 1960. And of course northeastern USA is a kernel of
American music, birthplace of Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, not to
mention Charles Ives, whose music Adams honours in 2003’s <i>My Father Knew Charles Ives</i> – along with the music from his grandfather’s
dance hall at Lake Winnipesaukee, which he remembers from boyhood.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">There was Harvard, and then Adams, the
young man, went west. He worked as a storeman and at the San Francisco
Conservatory before becoming the San Francisco Symphony’s first New Music
Advisor and later Composer-in-Residence, where he worked with Principal
Conductor Edo de Waart (later to spend ten years as Chief Conductor and
Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony), who premiered <i>Harmonielehre</i> and even suggested the idea for the choral symphony <i>Harmonium</i> (premiered in Australia under
Hiroyuki Iwaki), and who recently gave the Australian premieres of <i>Naïve and Sentimental Music</i> and <i>Guide to Strange Places</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Adams seems to have embraced a particular
sort of Californian-ness. In a recent piece, <i>The Dharma at Big Sur, </i>premiered for the opening of Walt Disney
Hall in October last year, he links himself with Bay Area luminaries Lou
Harrison, Harry Partch and Jack Kerouac. California may not fully account for
the spirit of joy in his music – northern California is a world away from the
swimming pools and movie stars of southern California – but early on Adams
decided he would not go down the serial path which beckoned young graduates in
the 1970s. (If you go by statements by fellow minimalist Steve Reich, the
example of the Second Viennese School just doesn’t track with the land of Chuck
Berry and burgers.) Adams’ teacher at Harvard, however, had been Leon Kirchner,
a pupil of the inventor of serialism Arnold Schoenberg (who himself famously
ended up in California, playing tennis with Gershwin, while clinging
steadfastly to the aesthetics of ‘old Europe’), and it is Schoenberg and Adams’
ambivalence to his legacy that is one of the subjects of <i>Harmonielehre</i>, his great 1985 symphony.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Symphony? Adams is a second-generation
minimalist. While most composers disown labels, Adams was proud to own
‘minimalism’ when he spoke to me during pre-concert interviews in Sydney in February 2000; proud
even that it was an American invention. And why not? Minimalism, so simple and
repetitive as to drive some people loopy, has at least given back to classical
music the possibility of audiences being able to follow musical process. But
Adams has written few pieces in this quintessential minimalist vein. <i>Shaker Loops</i> (1983) is perhaps the only
one regularly played. Here again the title reminds us of Adams’ absorption in
American culture; as does his choice of texts. The words of Jack Kerouac do not
actually appear in <i>Dharma</i>, but the
poetry of Emily Dickinson appears in <i>Harmonium</i>,
and <i>The Wound Dresser</i> (1988) uses a
text by Walt Whitman set with a straightforwardness of line learnt from American songwriters like Gershwin or Richard Rodgers. On the Elektra/Nonesuch CD this
example of Adams at one extreme is coupled very tellingly with one of his most
beautifully-detailed minimalistic pieces, <i>Fearful
Symmetries</i>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">But what makes Adams ‘second-generation’ is
the way he has re-incorporated elements of the European tradition. <i>Harmonielehre</i> gets its title from the
textbook on standard harmony that Schoenberg was writing in 1911 at the time of
his launch into atonality, precursor of serialism. There are passages in <i>Harmonielehre</i> that remind one of <i>Verklärte Nacht</i> (<i>Transfigured Night</i>) or the highly chromatic late music of
Schoenberg’s mentor, Gustav Mahler. The arrival of Air Force One in the opera <i>Nixon in China</i>, produced at the 1992
Adelaide Festival, sounds like a cross between Phillip Glass and Wagner,
complete with a Siegfried’s Sword leitmotif. But deeper than surface references
is the re-evoking of cadential functions. Adams’ is not music that circles in a
detached Eastern abandonment of time; it builds up tension to be released in
massive climaxes. As a conductor, Adams found over the years that while
conducting Terry Riley’s <i>In C</i>,
arguably the founding piece of Minimalism, his versions starting getting faster
and more anxious. The second movement of his <i>Harmonielehre</i> deals with the Anfortas wound, describing a
characteristically European psychological state, but it’s possible that Adams
was grappling with an Anfortas Wound of contemporary music, how not to be
emotionally crippled by a musical tradition that must have an element of
intellectual grit. <i>Naïve and Sentimental
Music</i> (1997-98) was inspired by Friedrich Schiller’s 1795 essay of the same
name, exploring the difference between spontaneous and cultivated expression.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">For Adams is engaged. He deplores the term
‘CNN opera’ yet has found mythic resonance in stories we could find on cable.
He became interested in writing <i>Nixon in
China</i> when librettist Alice Goodman convinced him that it would be done not
as parody, but as some sort of 20th-century heroic opera. As it must: the work
looks at the one of the great meetings between East and West. He is currently
working on <i>Doctor Atomic</i>, another
opera, with the same collaborators, on the inventor of the atom bomb, J. Robert
Oppenheimer. Big subjects. His opera <i>The</i>
<i>Death of Klinghoffer</i>, based on the
hijacking by Palestinian terrorists of the <i>Achille
Lauro</i>, seems to keep on proving the painful relevance of art. It attracted
wide criticism during the first Gulf War, when it was felt to show too much
sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Projected performances of the extract <i>Three Choruses from Klinghoffer </i>were
cancelled by the Boston Symphony Orchestra after 9/11: the husband of one of
the members of the chorus had died on Flight 11, and grieving performers could
not give voice to some of the words. But at first the cancellation appeared to
be a free speech issue, exciting considerable newspaper discussion and outrage.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Adams has since responded to September 11
with a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece called <i>On
the Transmigration of Souls</i>, given its Australian premiere in Sydney
earlier this year. It is a disturbing work using for text the mobile phone
messages of victims and the words of the ‘Missing’ cards posted at the site. It
almost seems to be looking back from the other side of life, and is
paradoxically radiant and ethereal – though there is no gliding over the
specific last words of the Flight 11 flight attendant: ‘I see water and
buildings…’ One can only admire an artist who is prepared to step back into
this sort of emotional cauldron. Adams was a risky choice for the New York
Philharmonic to commission for this work, given the previous year’s
controversy. But also inevitable. As Vincent Plush said in <i>The Australian</i> in January: ‘For some years now, Americans have
looked to Adams as a kind of composer laureate, not yet the <i>paterfamilias</i> figure that died with
Aaron Copland in 1990, but one of the same stature, nobility of declaration and
clarity of purpose.’</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Gordon Kalton Williams</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Symphony Australia © 2004</span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red;"><b style="font-style: italic;">For further information I published a more recent interview with John Adams </b>(Traditional Terms) <b style="font-style: italic;">on 5 September 2013.</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-84599435113692848562015-03-28T09:17:00.003-07:002015-05-20T15:03:56.641-07:00August Offensive<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: red;">Continuing my series of program notes:</span></i><br />
<i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Andrew Schultz (born
1960)</span><em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">August Offensive,
Op.92</span></em><em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<br /></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">August Offensive had
its premiere at the ANZAC Day dawn service at Gallipoli, Turkey on 25 April,
2013. The work was commissioned by the Australian government’s Department of
Veterans’ Affairs as a part of the Centenary of Gallipoli Symphony project. The
project, directed by Chris Latham, has involved the commissioning of new works
by Australian, New Zealand and Turkish composers to eventually form a
full-length work for performance in 2015 - the centenary of the ANZAC landing.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">-
Andrew Schultz</span></em><em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">In terms of
Australia’s First World War observances the date that stands out is April 25th,
the date on which Australian and New Zealand troops (ANZACS) first landed on Turkey’s Gallipoli
Peninsula in 1915. But Andrew Schultz’s <i>August Offensive</i> takes its subject
matter from events later that year.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">By August, Anzacs and
other British imperial troops remained dug in to the cliffsides at Gallipoli, British
and French troops had a toe-hold on Helles Point on the southern tip of the
peninsula. The Turkish Offensive of 19 May had failed to push the Anzacs ‘back
into the sea’, and it was decided that the Allies should hazard another push inland.
The plan included diversions at Lone Pine and Helles Point and an attack at The
Nek (the climax of Peter Weir’s film, <i>Gallipoli</i>). The main force was to take
Chunuk Bair (Çonk Bayırı) and Hill 971 and secure the Turkish heights while the
British landed reinforcements and began climbing up from Suvla Bay. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTedScNwPFbWgHek_o26s1WRTkx01n-g1c7JG1Fwd5bsR2ENW0n9fyrGjrx8qa-IlpNORWuDabPHk-fkXg_fuOb1bQLnZd2mg4_dyNPKKROLt1RCaJ0AdtKjsskAXXI32k1dN-7rOzdN8/s1600/DSC00804.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTedScNwPFbWgHek_o26s1WRTkx01n-g1c7JG1Fwd5bsR2ENW0n9fyrGjrx8qa-IlpNORWuDabPHk-fkXg_fuOb1bQLnZd2mg4_dyNPKKROLt1RCaJ0AdtKjsskAXXI32k1dN-7rOzdN8/s1600/DSC00804.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Below the heights. Suvla Bay in the distance, to the north.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguEZZ-27J8v8EGVEW3y4AfcYaslIzZnpR7A1i7ipGSI2A6qrnEmj6Lxq32Og64T_WQhKDTod4fART-cYXPHtSBXl71d1j4LBzbmFXsXWaT4OwBZEq1Qi48jbwti5lwdHbtxiOFtVLcWV0/s1600/DSC00798.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguEZZ-27J8v8EGVEW3y4AfcYaslIzZnpR7A1i7ipGSI2A6qrnEmj6Lxq32Og64T_WQhKDTod4fART-cYXPHtSBXl71d1j4LBzbmFXsXWaT4OwBZEq1Qi48jbwti5lwdHbtxiOFtVLcWV0/s1600/DSC00798.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Atatürk lookout on the heights</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The plan
failed dismally. The attacks became unco-ordinated; some troops even got lost
in the ravines leading up to the heights. At the Nek within half an hour on 7
August, 234 men lay dead and 138 wounded in ‘an area no longer than a tennis
court’. While New Zealanders, with British units, captured Chunuk Bair, the
Turks forced the Allies off. First Lord of the Admiralty Churchill had predicted
‘a military episode not inferior in glory to any that the history of war
records...’ By 17 August, General Hamilton had to admit that this Offensive had
failed. Later in the month there were costly and ultimately fruitless attempts
to break out of Suvla, and these were the last major battles of the Gallipoli
campaign until the Allied withdrawal in December.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Adelaide-born composer
Andrew Schultz has written a number of works expressing horror at war and
violence. His 2001 opera, <i>Going into Shadows</i> deals with terrorism. <i>Beach Burial</i>
is a choral setting of Kenneth Slessor’s great World War II poem about the
makeshift burial of bodies washed ashore after a great sea battle. A lot is
wound into <i>August Offensive</i>’s unremitting seven minutes. You might note the
sound of the suspended cymbal - dry and crisp </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">‘like the sound of diggers digging on hard dry ground</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’. Having read the military history of the events, Schultz was struck by the constant digging that went on during the months on Gallipoli. The piece also begins and ends with a whistle blast - an idea taken from the trench whistles used to signal attack. So the piece is in some ways the battle scene. The technical-minded may hear polymetres but there is violence as well as lament for those events in August 1915 that cost so many young lives. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Gordon Kalton
Williams, © 2015</span><em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><i><o:p>This note first appeared in a program booklet for a Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra concert on</o:p> 27 March 2015. </i>Please contact me for permission to reproduce it.</span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-88449031014628778922015-03-15T13:51:00.000-07:002015-06-17T13:01:40.676-07:00Tan Dun's "Nu Shu"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><span style="color: red;">Continuing my series of program notes:</span></i></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Tan Dun (born 1957)</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women</i></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Tan Dun</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> is
well known to the world for his film scores: <i>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</i> (2000), <i>Hero</i> (2002) and <i>The Banquet</i>
(2006). Last year in Melbourne Tan himself conducted his <i>Pipa Concerto </i>and the <i>Triple
Resurrection</i>, a work which continues Tan’s interest in the combination of
film and music but this time with music prompting the visuals. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Born in Hunan
province, young Tan grew up in a world where modern China intersected with
indigenous traditions (shamans could communicate with the past and the present,
with leaves and stones). After working as a rice planter during the Cultural Revolution
and then in the Beijing Opera, Tan went to Beijing Conservatory and from there
to New York City where he studied composition at Columbia University with Chou
Wen-Chung a student of Edgard Varèse. </span>Now based in New York, Tan is perhaps the most
successful exponent of bringing non-Western cultures into orchestral music. This
partly reflects his personal biography, and is partly due to his broad concept
of counterpoint as reaching beyond sound to encompass the working together (or
meshing together) of sound and image, West and East, nature and culture, past
and future. <i>Nu Shu</i> is a case in point.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Nu Shu: The Secret
Songs of Women</i> originates in Tan’s discovery several years back that in the
village of Shang Gan Tang [<span lang="EN-AU">Shangjiangxh</span>] in his home
province there are women who have had their own means of communication since
the 13th century AD. ‘Nu Shu’ means ‘women’s writing’. Advice, messages,
instructional tales, life-lessons have been passed down in song form and
in a distinct form of writing from mother to daughter and sister to sister
these past 800 years. Nicknames for the script include ‘mosquito legs’
writing’ to distinguish it from the square shapes of Hanzi, traditional Chinese
writing. Tan prefers its other moniker, ‘music note writing’. The language has
been the province of women only (often written on intimate items, such as fans),
but is now under threat. Gao Yinxian, described by Tan as the most important
woman in Nu Shu village, died some years ago, and Tan Dun promised the
villagers that he would create an orchestral piece which helps position the
language in the future.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It would be better not to think of Tan’s <i>Nu Shu</i> as an anthropological record. His response to the <i>Nu Shu</i> culture is more poetic, but in
creating this work, filming and recording the songs, Tan developed a vast
archive that might assist in preserving the culture, an aim he regards among
his highest. It is somewhat ironic that a man has finally stepped into this
role.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The work sees an orchestral frame around traditional <i>nu shu</i> songs sung on film by women of
the village (including He Jinghua, Pu Lijuan, Zhou Huijuan, He Yanxin, Jiang
Shinu, Hu Xin, Mo Cuifeng, and Hu Meiyue) Tan’s use of film is true to his
concept of counterpoint, in this instance incorporating a counterpoint of time.
The ‘archival’ footage denotes <i>nu
shu</i>’s past; the orchestra its future. Tan gave considerable thought to the
medium which should serve as the bridge between these two dimensions and
settled on harp as being the most feminine instrument and one bearing likeness
to a <i>nu shu</i> written character. At <i>Nu Shu</i>’s first performance the harp solo
was played by Elizabeth Hainen, principal harpist of the Philadelphia
Orchestra, which commissioned the work along with Tokyo’s NHK Orchestra and
Europe’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Nu Shu</i> has a very poetic structure
which could be considered under the themes of women, weeping, rivers and song.
Tan sees the work in six parts (Prologue - Mother’s Story (parts 2, 3 and 4) - Nu
Shu Village (part 5) - Sisters’ Intimacy (parts 6, 7 and 8) - Daughter’s Story
(parts 9, 10, 11 and 12) and Epilogue (part 13)).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gordon Kalton Williams, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">© 2014</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: red;"><i><o:p>This note first appeared in a program booklet for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra</o:p>’s Chinese New Year concert, 28 February 2015. </i>Please contact me for permission to reproduce it.</span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red;"><i>Readers may also be interested in my proposed synopsis for an adaptation of the Chinese classic, </i>The Dream of the Red Chamber, <i>posted 20 November 2012 and the my briefer synopsis posted 12 April 2015.</i></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: red;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: red;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-44503623220688426872015-02-10T18:20:00.001-08:002015-02-10T18:20:47.952-08:00The Woman on our $100 Note - an appreciation of Melba<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1WwvPswyFE8iccOWpGz4-tNtn7H1odCObDGN1ZJ5VhhThd1gKF379uGaxIf-XDsGPJ3cs5JB9Hoj3UII5vO5KY50MllrL1Lj7kxutikDdUZeyV92V-YUmLJiXzzs8LMrv5puuVkLB5a8/s1600/Nellie_Melba_by_Henry_Walter_Barnett.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1WwvPswyFE8iccOWpGz4-tNtn7H1odCObDGN1ZJ5VhhThd1gKF379uGaxIf-XDsGPJ3cs5JB9Hoj3UII5vO5KY50MllrL1Lj7kxutikDdUZeyV92V-YUmLJiXzzs8LMrv5puuVkLB5a8/s1600/Nellie_Melba_by_Henry_Walter_Barnett.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Melba by Henry Walter Barnett</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In an age when so many Australians are
world famous it’s hard for Australians to understand just how famous Nellie Melba was
during the 25 years either side of the turn of the 20th century. As her
biographer Ann Blainey says, ‘In an era when no woman was prime minister, chief
justice, or head of a great church or financial house...Melba was - apart from
a few queens and empresses - perhaps the best-known woman in the world.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Born Helen Mitchell in 1861 in Melbourne,
Melba assumed her stage-name from the home town which was, in the year of her
birth, a wooden shanty-town in a far-off corner of the Empire. Her career,
however, took her to the world’s great opera houses and, via recordings and
pioneering broadcasts, to people all over the world. She was on familiar terms
with royalty.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">The story of Melba’s discovery is often
recounted. After receiving some grounding in vocal technique from Pietro Cecchi
who taught above Allan’s in Collins Street, she auditioned for Mathilde Marchesi
in Paris who, legend has it, ran from the room to get her husband saying, ‘I
have found a star.’ Thereafter Marchesi coached Melba in the <i>bel canto</i> style, making her one of its
greatest exponents. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Melba achieved her fame principally in the
French and Italian repertoire. Tonight’s excerpts are taken from two of her
greatest roles, Marguerite in Gounod’s <i>Faust</i>
and Ophélie in Ambroise Thomas’s <i>Hamlet</i>.
Few parts were written for her. Saint-Saëns created the title role for her in
his 1904 one-act opera <i>Hélène</i>. Melba
believed that Madam Butterfly was created for her though she never sang it, but
Puccini did coach her as Mìmì in <i>La
bohème</i>, which she sang in the Royal Opera’s first in-house production and
at the Monte Carlo premiere paired with Caruso. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">We must depend on recordings to get our own
impressions of Melba’s singing. Unfortunately recording techniques earlier in
her career gave only intermittent sense of the ‘starlike brilliance’ of her
tone that critics like W.J. Henderson spoke of. Her farewell concert at Covent
Garden in June 1926 was captured by a new electrical method she wished had been
around at the beginning of her career but there, finally, you can get a sense
of the richness contemporaries praised, although by this stage the 65 year-old
was concentrating on roles that favoured her middle range.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">It’s in the written word that we can still
get a sense of ‘Melbamania’, the mass clamouring that would greet her on trips
across America in her own railway car or to remote towns of Australia. Some might
have derided her as a snob (‘Sing em “muck”,’ she is supposed to have said when
Clara Butt asked for advice on her Australian repertoire), but she also made
sure she visited out-of-the-way places. Were these concerts inspired by
memories of Mackay in Queensland where she lived as a young woman? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Melba retained a great love of Australia.
Bringing opera to Australia as part of the Melba-Williamson seasons she saw as
patriotic acts. Her autobiography <i>Melodies
and Memories</i> (though probably ghost-written by Beverly Nichols) gives some
indication of her deepest longings. It begins with a description of the ‘long
white road’ leading out from Melbourne toward the ‘great Australian Bush’ and
the township of Lilydale, where she had built Coombe Cottage, her final ‘home
sweet home’ (to cite one of her favourite encores). Melba died in Sydney in
1931. Her memoir goes on to say that in Lilydale when she was a child ‘there
were no firm white roads over which motors speed by from a vast city, no
telephones straggling through burnt-up branches of the gum trees...’ Knowing
that, it’s astonishing how far she went in the wider world.</span></div>
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<br />
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<span lang="EN-AU">Gordon Kalton Williams, ©2014</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><i>This article first appeared in a program booklet published by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra</i></span></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-9475748758160826272015-01-13T13:12:00.001-08:002015-03-15T13:59:39.259-07:00The Pop of Vox: the rise of voice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGv8EApn83F8lkYdo_tWw3pXWkCZAulYwV18t3aODqsVDENuUmFMJyZFlSOe0i8aeG-fFIH-RDoD-SC0ZECP4KU60Qhu-xsyJbJaKP_8VYNWGwVvA-emK_P2tssgTWSIsyL2zwY4wh_pM/s1600/1G1A2293.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGv8EApn83F8lkYdo_tWw3pXWkCZAulYwV18t3aODqsVDENuUmFMJyZFlSOe0i8aeG-fFIH-RDoD-SC0ZECP4KU60Qhu-xsyJbJaKP_8VYNWGwVvA-emK_P2tssgTWSIsyL2zwY4wh_pM/s1600/1G1A2293.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">courtesy: Gondwana Choirs</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">March
2012: I was visiting the Savannah Arts Academy, a specialist high school on
Washington Avenue in that small Atlantic coast city. Artists from Sherrill
Milnes’ VOICExperience had just finished a demonstration of operatic arias and
duets. ‘Who would like to thank our visitors?’ asked the teacher. Up jumped four
teenage boys and launched into....No, you probably didn’t guess it: barbershop
quartets. David Starkey, General Director of Asheville Lyric Opera, was
standing next to me. ‘There’s a real resurgence of </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">a cappella</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> going on in America at the moment,’ he said, ‘especially
among young men.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Resurgence’
is kind of an understatement, I was soon to discover. The growth in the area of
what you’d specifically call a cappella is nothing less than amazing. There are
new groups and new a cappella festivals being announced, it seems, each week.
‘VoiceJam, a new contemporary a cappella competition & festival coming to
Northwest Arkansas April 10-11, 2015’, says an ad in a recent issue of one of
the a cappella magazines. And if we broaden out the definition of choral
singing to include choirs of all kinds, not limiting ourselves to young men,
the growth is phenomenal and international. It takes in Asia and Africa. Last
year, Britain’s <i>Stylist</i> magazine
reported that '[t]he number of 30-something women adding chorister to their CV has grown sharply over the last couple of years....new choir groups are springing up at a startling rate....[there are] now more than 25,000 choirs in the UK.' The reasons given by the <i>Stylist</i>’s interviewees for ensemble singing
ranged from ‘I would be far more stressed if I didn’t sing’ to ‘My job isn’t
creative. So I love the challenge...’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘There
is indeed a huge choral movement here now in Australia, mostly at an amateur
level’ says Lyn Williams, Artistic Director and Founder of Australia’s youthful
Gondwana Choirs, when I contact her. ‘Having said that, I have just accepted
hundreds of young people for our national Choral School in January. The young
men thing is also catching on around the world. It was led here in Australia by
Birralee Blokes. In the UK there are groups like Only Boys Aloud.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Living in America though, I’m aware of a particularly American slant to this
recent history. America has had a long tradition of unaccompanied, or sparsely
accompanied, singing. There was the debate over Regular Singing back in the
early 18th century. Reformers like Massachusetts’ Cotton Mather (credited with encouraging
the use of ‘spectral evidence’ in the Salem witch trials) wanted to get rid of
the irregular rhythms, unremittingly loud volume and necessarily extreme slow
tempos you have when the lines of a hymn are given out one by one to a
non-reading congregation. It was ‘indecent’ said his fellow puritans and, thus,
the proponents of ‘Regular Singing’ won out. But the great American symphonist
Charles Ives (1874-1954) idealised the degree of heterophonic individuality you
got from amateur singers and he quoted from composers of this and later eras in
works such as his Fourth Symphony, which makes use of the hymn, ‘Watchman’, by
Savannah church musician, Lowell Mason. Of course, American vocal music has
also been enlivened from another direction when you have the vocal traditions
of African-Americans infusing Gospel, which has kept alive the element of
rhythm in American concerted singing for more than two centuries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
I emerge, calm, from a compline service featuring Gregorian Chant at St. James’
in the City on Wilshire Boulevard and marvel at the connection with European
traditions in the midst of America’s second-busiest city and the glaring neon
of Los Angeles’ Koreatown. But I’m also aware that the rise in contemporary a
cappella has a lot to do with its ability to incorporate contemporary pop. Ever
since Deke Sharon was inspired by actor John Cusack’s use of a boom box in
1989’s <i>Say Anything</i> and discovered a
way to get voices to mimic instruments and percussion, a cappella has had a
wide-open repertoire. Contemporary college a cappella has become much more than
an extension of the glee clubs that arose on American universities in the
1860s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
it has become very cool. ‘This is, like, a thing now?’ says Beca (Anna
Kendrick) in Universal Studio’s <i>Pitch
Perfect</i>, the 2012 musical film about college a cappella competitions.
Beca’s Barden Bellas (an all-girl group) will eventually go voice-to-voice
against the all-boy Treblemakers at the national collegiate a cappella
championships (Hanna Mae Lee will be the Bellas' human beatbox). Sure the film is fiction, but it’s based on Mickey Rapkin’s book
of the same name, a non-fiction account of real inter-college musical
rivalries, rivalries which have swelled to phenomenal levels since the
mid-1990s, aided also by reality TV shows like <i>Sing-Off</i> and of course, series like <i>Glee</i>. Is it dorky, still?
Maybe, but cool people are involved. Mayim Bialik, Dr Amy Farrah Fowler
on <i>Big Bang Theory</i>, started a Jewish
a cappella group when she was studying to be a real scientist at UCLA.
Thousands of people from all walks of life all over the world take part in Eric
Whitacre’s virtual choirs on YouTube; the credits last as long as the musical
numbers. And since we’ve moved beyond contemporary a cappella once again, Jimmy
Fallon, host of NBC’s <i>The Tonight Show</i>,
has his own barbershop quartet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">For
young American men, singing has admittedly become - almost equal with football
- the best way to pick up girls. ‘I suspect the strength of the Australian
movement is as much about community as it is about music,’ says Lyn Williams. ‘The
various successful and influential televised programs based on choirs both here
and in the UK ( with Gareth Malone) have been centered on choirs as a vehicle
for positive social change: Jonathan Welch’s Choir of Hard Knocks [involving homeless and disadvanted people from Melbourne] and the Outback Choir [Michelle Leonard</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">’s children</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">’s choir, the subject of a documentary screened by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on 20 November about a children</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">’s choir in the most isolated and disadvataged region of New South Wales, "where sport is king and music education is non-existent"</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fafaf9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">]</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">.
Many other choirs have formed in their shadow,’ continues Williams, ‘so people
join community choirs because it simply feels good to sing and belong to
community. There are also groups such as Kwaya who sing together and then go to
Uganda and work with disadvantaged children.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What
significance does any of this ‘flowering’ have for orchestras? Conductor
Richard Gill recently told Radio 774’s Red Symons that singing, rather than
learning an instrument, was the best way to introduce children to music: ‘<span style="background: #F9F9F9; color: #111111;">If you give them a basis of singing
from the beginning, and they learn their musical literacy through singing, then
going to the instrument is far less problematic,’ he said.</span> ‘There are
many ex-Gondwana and obviously Sydney Children’s Choir choristers who are now
working as professional musicians or studying to do so.’ says Williams, who
conducts both. ‘Orchestras around the country including the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
and Australian Chamber Orchestra have ex-Gondwana choristers in their ranks.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What
I couldn’t find out, however, was whether there’s any research on the number of
choral participants who also subscribe to orchestras; if they’ve migrated to
orchestral attendance from choir; if ‘migration’ has increased as choral
singing has become spectacularly popular.<br />
<br />
It’s something to look deeper into, I guess, because I’d wonder why not.
Here is a potted history of orchestral music as I understand it. Harmony is the
principal element of music for the period which provides the bulk of the
orchestral repertoire. Harmony dominated until Wagner, Debussy and Schoenberg
pushed its expressive possibilities to an unsustainable limit. Then Stravinsky
turned our attention to rhythm. (Stravinsky went on in the direction of <i>The Rite of Spring</i>, not <i>Zvezdoliki</i>, you might say) After that, the
most popular music of the 20th century could often be played with three chords;
percussion was king.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
here in modern choral singing are people negotiating the acute dissonances in
Eric Whitacre’s music. Here are young guys, like <i>The Tonight Show</i>’s Jimmy Fallon, abiding by the rules of
‘circle-of-fifths resolutions’ as specified by the Barbershop Harmony Society.
There must be a way to bring all these lovers of harmony to the orchestral
concert hall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gordon
Kalton Williams, © 2014<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This article first appeared in the Dec 2014
edition of </span></i></b><b><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Podium<i>, published by Symphony Services International
(Sydney, Australia).<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-27079612412407380722014-12-15T13:34:00.003-08:002014-12-15T13:35:50.129-08:00Moments in an inexorable drama (Puccini's Tosca)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="hit"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Moments
in an inexorable drama – a spotlight on </span></i></span><span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Tosca<i>’s musical highlights<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Act I proper of Stewart Wallace and
Michael Korie’s 1995 opera <i>Harvey Milk</i>
begins with music that is recognisable as the brutal Scarpia motif from
Puccini’s opera <i>Tosca</i>. Why? Harvey
Milk, the assassinated San Francisco City Supervisor and gay rights leader,
loved opera and....well, <i>Tosca</i> is arguably
the opera buff’s opera<i> par excellence</i>.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Critics may dismiss <i>Tosca</i> but it’s a particularly successful piece of music theatre.
Its libretto is as economical as a screenplay. At the same time audiences have great
musical moments to savour. Trust Puccini to be able to detect the opera beneath
a dialogue-heavy play - Sardou’s <i>La Tosca</i>
of 1887. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I wouldn’t want to launch into an
appreciation of <i>Tosca</i>’s great moments
without first paying tribute to the swift and inexorable drama that Puccini and
his librettists, particularly Illica the scenarist, created from Sardou’s
well-made play. In operatic terms, Sardou’s play is too much - five acts,
historical minutiae, 23 characters... Illica began the task of condensing it, reducing
the number of characters and the number of acts. Together the Puccini team’s
version concertina-ed the action, ratchetting up the tension, and most
importantly making room for lyrical expansion (in other words arias and set
pieces such as love duets). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sardou’s play begins with the Sacristan
and Cavaradossi’s servant Gennarino (not in the opera) discussing Cavaradossi’s
habits. No stakes raised there! But Puccini’s curtain goes up on Angelotti, who
has escaped from the Castel Sant’ Angelo. Puccini can get to the first of the
opera’s ‘big numbers’ as quickly as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><i><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Recondita
armonia<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></u></i></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And this is Cavaradossi’s aria – <i>Recondita armonia</i> (How strange a thing
is beauty). Cavaradossi is painting a Mary Magdalene for the church where the
First Act is set. Unconsciously almost, Cavaradossi has modelled his Magdalene
on a woman who has been coming each day ostensibly to pray – the Attavanti, who
has actually been preparing an escape kit to conceal in the family chapel for
her brother, Angelotti. But Cavaradossi is in love with Tosca. How can he
admire the Attavanti’s beauty at the same time? Cavaradossi muses on the power
of art to merge all kinds of beauty. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The aria begins with one of the opera’s
most striking orchestral effects. Hushed strings leading to hurdy gurdy-like
swirls on flutes and clarinet. Lyricist Giacosa’s text consists of two verses
of five lines each, over which Puccini constructs his ingenious melody.
Cavaradossi’s musing is expressed in near-monotone, rising to a lyrical
outpouring as he compares the two women’s eyes. Puccini returns to the
ruminating single tones as Cavaradossi reflects on art, that ‘strange enigma’,
before surging again - focussed on Tosca - to a top note. ‘Recondita armonia’
is often sung in concerts; in the theatre you get to hear it counterpointed with
the Sacristan’s pious asides, a perfect example of how Puccini can use music to
delineate contrasting characters. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Sacristan leaves; Angelotti emerges
from his hiding place. Puccini’s Cavaradossi recognises him as ‘the Consul of
the former Roman republic’ and that is enough to establish him without Sardou’s
lengthy introductions. But Tosca arrives and Angelotti must make himself
scarce. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Act I Love Duet<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></u></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s a tribute to the dramatic flow of
this opera that many of the big numbers are also fully-fledged scenes, and can
be discussed as such. Such is the case with the love duet in Act I, four
lyrical sections interspersed with recitative. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The music settles as Tosca enters.
Though her theme is sweetly orchestrated – flute and pizzicato strings - she’s
jealous. Who was Mario talking to? Cavaradossi placates her and she talks (that
is, in recitative) about their meeting later that evening. Ascertaining his
happy expectation, she tells of her dream of a little house for the two of them
in the country. We are 15 minutes in, precisely at the point where Oscar
Hammerstein II later stipulated that the lead character in a show should have
an ‘I Want Number’. Puccini follows Giacosa’s rhyming scheme here (although quite
often, in this 20<sup>th</sup> century opera, he overrides it) and as she rises
to her highest point: ‘... palpitate/ ...albor,/ ...stellate! / ...amor!’,
Cavaradossi breaks in joking about how she ‘fetters’ him. But note, they rarely
sing together in this love duet – that’s one of the realistic (‘verismo’)
touches; after all, real people rarely speak at the same time. In another long
recitative, Tosca notices the portrait of the Attavanti as Magdalene.
Cavaradossi reassures her (‘Quale occhio’) that no eyes in all the world can
equal the ‘dark, fiery eyes of my Tosca’. They now sing in duet, although it’s
mostly dovetailing and interjection. Tosca leaves, calmer now that he’s sworn
his love, and Cavaradossi can get Angelotti from his hiding place. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Keep in mind
what’s happened here. There’s another love scene later in the opera (also another
tenor aria) and after the events of Acts I and II, they’re both of a more
piquant emotionalism. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Angelotti now
mentions that he fell victim to Baron Scarpia, police chief of Rome, and
Cavaradossi swears to defend Angelotti against the ‘dirty bigot’. A cannon shot
announces discovery of Angelotti’s escape. Cavaradossi has given Angelotti the
key to his villa. Swift contrasts abound: no sooner has Angelotti gone than the
Sacristan and pupils enter to celebrate Napoleon’s defeat at Marengo. This plot
beats like a modern script.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The children’s high jinks are quashed by
the arrival of Scarpia. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Act I Finale <o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">We now have
the set-up for what Mosco Carner described ‘as one of the most effective
act-endings in all opera’. Against the performance of a <i>Te Deum</i>, Scarpia gives vent to his twin lusts to see Cavaradossi executed and Tosca in his paws. It’s a real
inspiration, this finale. But Puccini researched thoroughly for it, seeking
from his friend Fr Panichelli </span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">the plainsong melody to which the
<em>Te Deum</em> was sung in Roman churches, the correct order of the
cardinal’s procession and even the costumes of the Swiss Guard. He even sought
a text that could give the chorus a murmuring effect under Scarpia’s exultation.
‘Adjutorum nostrum in nomine Domini’ - say it softly to yourself and you’ll
hear how skilfully Puccini guaranteed choral mumbling. <span class="hit">Interestingly, this is the only traditional
finale in the opera. It’s as if we leave behind old opera in Acts II and III.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Act II<o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Act II basically
consists of two large arcs: Cavaradossi’s interrogation and torture; and
Scarpia’s bargain and murder. It begins with Scarpia eating alone and considering
how he prefers violently conquering a woman than to have her meekly surrender.
H</span></span><span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">anded a copy of the libretto in 1895 and
asked to versify a monologue for Scarpia, Giacosa objected that, finishing the
first act with a monologue and beginning the second with another by the same
character ‘is a bit monotonous – apart from the fact that...[a] Scarpia acts;
he doesn’t explain himself in words’. Actually, Scarpia’s previous monologue
takes place in the context of an ensemble piece, but perhaps Giacosa was right.
Scarpia presents his credo in context later in this Act when he tells Tosca
how, when she sprang into her lover’s arms like a leopard, he determined to
have her (‘Già mi struggea’).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This act is even more of a dramatic
continuum than the first. Full-blown melodic moments emerge subtly from the
story as short-lived ariosi. </span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Puccini’s
librettists got rid of Sardou’s <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Act Two (preparation for the
cantata) and placed the performance of the cantata as background to the
Scarpia-Cavaradossi scene (Sardou’s Act III) giving Puccini a superb
opportunity for a quasi-realistic spatial effect – and irony - as the cantata
is performed outside Scarpia’s rooms during Cavaradossi’s initial
interrogation. </span><span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Tosca arrives after singing; Cavaradossi
has been led away for torturing. She tries to ignore his cries but eventually
reveals Angelotti’s hiding place and is allowed to see Cavaradossi. At news of
Napoleon’s victory at Marengo (the earlier news had been wrong), Cavaradossi
bursts into a paean to victory, another lyrical outbreak. As Cavaradossi is
taken back downstairs, Scarpia begins his pursuit. ‘Now let us talk like
friends together’, he sings, in the style of a nonchalant barcarolle. He tells
her she has the power in her hands to free Cavaradossi – and we know the price
he’s asking. Off-stage drums indicate the march of the condemned (a Puccinian sound-effect
driving the plot) and increase the urgency of what Tosca must decide. Now we
reach the only stand-alone aria in the entire act.</span></span><span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><i><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Vissi
d’arte<o:p></o:p></span></u></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘I lived for art; I lived for love.
Never did I harm a living creature,’ sings Tosca, wondering what she’s done to
deserve this predicament. This is one of Puccini’s most-famous numbers, ‘a
splendid piece,’ said Mosco Carner, ‘demanding of the singer a perfect <i>legato</i> and radiant, liquescent tone.’ Yet
Puccini came to regret its placement in the opera; it held up the flow, he
thought. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The words ‘Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore’,
sung to a celestially-descending phrase, actually form the introduction to the
aria. Tosca then weaves her confused thoughts (‘Daily I pray...why am I now
suffering?’) around the core melody which is mainly carried by flute and
cellos. ‘I gave jewels for the Madonna’s mantle,’ she goes on as violins,
violas and cellos underscore the main melody and she rises to an impassioned
climax. The aria is often greeted by applause in the theatre, but Puccini
inserts Scarpia’s chords, odiously ingratiating, as the villain asks, ‘Your
answer?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In exchange for Tosca’s favours, Scarpia
agrees to execute Cavaradossi but ‘as we did for Palmieri’. Tosca thinks he
means a simulation. Scarpia writes out a safe-conduct for Tosca and Cavaradossi
and as he gives it to her, she stabs him. Opera aficionados have argued over interpretations
of this scene for 113 years. In the 2011 Covent Garden production, the dying
Scarpia (Bryn Terfel) actually landed on top of Tosca (Angela Gheoghiu) and she
had to pull herself out from under him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Act III<o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Prelude<o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sardou describes the opening of Act III</span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> in
quite some detail in his stage directions. <span class="hit">How much more enjoyable is Puccini’s tone
poem – Puccini even made a special trip to Rome to test the realistic effect of
morning church bells from this spot. Here too is another example of Puccini’s
use of situational music. The score was essentially complete when he asked the
poet Luigi Zanazzo for some verses that would sound like a shepherd’s song of
the Romagna, an oasis of calm, text that ‘must have nothing to do with the plot’.
Toward the end of the prelude we hear an anticipation of Cavaradossi’s third
act aria. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><i><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">E lucevan le stelle<o:p></o:p></span></u></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Cavaradossi
asks for permission to pen a farewell to someone who is dear to him. Four solo
cellos ‘sweetly’ repeat the love theme from Act I.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Originally
Illica had written a paean to art and poetry here. Verdi was very impressed by
it, when he happened to hear Illica read an early version of the libretto in
Paris in 1894. But Puccini thought it had the wrong tone. Illica changed it to Cavaradossi’s
reminiscence of a happier time. Puccini’s choice of clarinet to lead the melody
makes it a particularly doleful recollection. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Tosca arrives
and tells how she killed Scarpia after he had written their safe-conduct.
Cavaradossi takes Tosca’s hands (‘dolci mani’) in his, and thus begins the
third act Love Duet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><u><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Act III
Love Duet<o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This too
unfolds in a series of lyrical sections ‘always interrupted at the right moment
by recitatives/ariosi in which the action moves forward’ (Carner). Tosca tells
Cavaradossi that his execution is to be a mock execution, and we now arrive at
the point where Ricordi, Puccini’s publisher, had his biggest disagreement with
the composer during the composition of the work for here, when Cavaradossi
tells Tosca that he ‘minded death only because he would have to leave her’,
Puccini inserted rejected music from an earlier opera, <i>Edgar</i>. ‘As it stands,’ huffed Puccini in reply, ‘[this “labour-saving
device”] seems full of the poetry which breathes out of the words....As for its
fragmentary character, that was deliberate..... In thought Tosca is constantly
returning to the need for Mario’s fall to be well simulated and for his
behaviour to appear natural in front of the firing squad.’ Tosca and
Cavaradossi now turn their thoughts back to their coming freedom and sing for the
first time in unison – ‘Trionfal, di nuove speme’ (World of love, shining with
promise). However, there’s no instrumental accompaniment, a detail which some
writers see as suggesting they know their high hopes are hollow; that the
execution will be for real <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">From here the opera proceeds quickly to
the end. Cavaradossi is shot, Scarpia’s body is discovered, and Tosca throws
herself from the ramparts. The orchestra thunders out a reprise of
Cavaradossi’s aria, reminding the audience of the saddest music of the Act.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These are the sort of moments that make
it onto ‘highlights’ recordings, but it may be worth asking what creates the clearly
perceptible unity of this work. Academic critics fault Puccini for not making a
more rigourous use of recurring musical motifs, but his motifs provide a
recurring web of themes which keep an audience in <i>Tosca</i>’s world and they do provide occasional psychological
complexity, as when Tosca talks of coming to Cavaradossi’s villa that night (in
Act I) and the ‘Angelotti’ theme reminds Cavaradossi that the fugitive is there.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, let’s think about the three big
parts which are the fortuitous result of thinning-out Sardou’s play. Aficionados
endlessly debate their favourite interpreters. <i>Gramophone</i> might speak of Carreras’s ‘poetic ardour’ and <i>Opera Today</i> might declare that ‘[Jonas] </span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Kaufmann’s
Cavaradossi is more in line with the strong....leading man’. You can even ask
‘Who was the best Scarpia?’ on Google and get answers such as ‘Sherrill Milnes “implacable”’.
Many remember the genial Tito Gobbi (once Melbourne’s King of Moomba) as the greatest
Scarpia. Gobbi himself talks about the great Toscas he sang beside in an
article he wrote for the Cambridge Opera Handbook. He and Callas didn’t just
sing, he says, they lived their parts. <span class="hit"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">US academic Joseph Kerman once dismissed
<i>Tosca</i> as a ‘shabby, little shocker’,
and musicologists may wish for more ‘motivic integrity’. But audiences hand
down another judgement. They tend to greet <i>Tosca</i>’s
conclusion - as the onstage ‘audience’ in <i>Harvey
Milk</i> greets it - with a chorus of appreciative ‘bravos’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gordon Kalton Williams, © 2013</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span class="hit"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: red;">(<i>A</i></span></span></span><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: red;">ustralian
librettist, Gordon Kalton Williams, is currently based in Los Angeles. This
article originally appeared in program booklets for Opera Australia’s
production of </span></span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: red;">Tosca<i>,
directed by John Bell.</i></span> <i> </i></span><b><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
</div>
Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-88778397186587031782014-10-28T16:23:00.004-07:002015-06-13T19:30:02.184-07:00Orchestras in our time and place: the League of American Orchestras conference, Seattle 2014<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Orchestras in our time and place: the League of
American Orchestras’ conference, Seattle,
2014</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">League of American Orchestra conferences
are inspirational affairs. It’s not just the wealth of sessions or the chance
to hear orchestras and ensembles you might not otherwise hear; it’s the chance
to run into colleagues, including former employees of Australian orchestras who
now work, say, in Atlanta or Dallas. Mostly, it’s those moments sitting in
crowded auditoria pinching yourself and saying, ‘I never realised the world of
orchestral music is this big!’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">This year’s conference took
place in Seattle where, according to Seattle Symphony Chair Leslie Chihuly,
‘Boeing engineers helped define air travel, Amazon and Microsoft have changed
the way we use technology, and Starbucks has popularised coffee culture’
(although Australian coffee connoisseurs probably won’t get overly-excited by
that last boast). Seattle is also legendary for being rainy with 226 cloudy
days per year (the dark green of a well-watered Pacific Northwestern forest
landscape is refreshing when you arrive from arid Southern California), but in
the three days of conference I attended, we experienced brilliant sunshine. From
the top of the Needle the city looked stunning with its volcano, Mt Rainier, seemingly
sitting in the clouds off to the right of the skyline.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Conference themes in the
years I’ve attended have hovered around the rumours of classical music’s
imminent death or inevitable decline. There is often an emphasis on the
importance of innovation. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Clearly, classical music has
issues to face, but I’ve never been convinced that innovation is a value in
itself. The Minneapolis conference three years
ago didn’t answer this question for me, but Seattle started to drill down. Perhaps the
conference title helped: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Critical
Questions, Countless Solutions</i>. One of the speakers, Alan Brown of the San
Francisco-headquartered management consultancy WolfBrown, summarised some of
the challenges orchestras now face: </span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">... music is now a visual experience for those who grew up
with music videos and now YouTube. With the migration of consumption from
physical media to streaming audio, we’ve witnessed an unprecedented <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">proliferation of choice</span>....Downloading
music and making playlists is <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">by far </span>the
dominant modality of music participation in the US. And billions of people
worldwide have grown accustomed to listening to music in random order, with an
algorithm as their DJ....thankfully, people are still showing up for live
concerts… </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, the rise of Asia
is another significant new feature in the classical music landscape and Seattle was the perfect
conference venue to consider Asian as well as indigenous ‘outreach’ (even if
that’s a word the Seattle Symphony has actually banished in favour of ‘partnership’
and ‘collaboration’). League president Jesse Rosen recalled Boeing’s Ron
Woodward observing in 1996 ‘that America
once looked from its eastern seaboard across the Atlantic to Europe
for its connection to commerce, to culture, and to heritage. But today... America looks from the shores of the Pacific,
with its independent and innovative spirit, to face towards Asia.’
Seattle now has one of the largest Asian
communities in America
with significant populations of Filipinos, Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese,
Indians and Cambodians. And Seattle
has a highly visible indigenous population. During the conference, we got to
hear an extract from the ‘Potlatch’ Symphony, a collaboration between the
Seattle Symphony and the local Duwamish people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The tone for the conference
was set at the outset in the keynote address by virtuoso flautist and founder
of ICE (the International Contemporary Ensemble), Claire Chase. Having started
her talk with a rivetting performance of Varèse’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Density 21.5</i>, she spoke of Varèse’s observation that ‘possible
musical forms are as limitless as the exterior forms of crystals’ and therefore
of the need to spark the ‘fire’ to tell different kinds of stories. To a large
extent, Chase’s address was an exhortation to create new economies, collaborative
models and definitions of community by which ensembles could ‘pulsate’ with
music’s life. When she started out in the world of commissioning and staging
new works with an ensemble of 15 Oberlin classmates there was, she said, no
decision that wasn’t creative ‘whether it was about marketing, fundraising,
budgeting, education, production, outreach, where to put the chairs at the
concert, or how to get people on and off stage between pieces...’ She reminded
us that everything we in the orchestral world are engaged with, is storytelling
- marketing, education, community building, ‘natural outgrowths of a burning
need...to make music for people and tell them stories.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">But does Chase’s brand of
guerilla music-making suit orchestras? Perhaps ICE can be ‘part 21st century
orchestra, rock band, circus troupe, startup’ but what about an ensemble of 100
people whose most rewarding repertoire, for audience and players alike, has not
been significantly increased in the past 50 years?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The conference’s final
speaker Alan Brown noted the gulf between Claire’s call to ‘“widen the space of
our imagination” with the realities of the conversations I’m hearing in breakout
sessions and in the hallways’ and the 2014 conference had the regular panels on
fund-raising and management (what perhaps might be called bread-and-butter
issues). But even here, the dominant theme, if there was one, was how to create
freer structures. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boards on Fire</i>,
presented by a Seattle-based consultant on NGOs Susan Howlett
(http://susanhowlett.com/), offered useful ideas on how to inspire trustees ‘to
raise money joyfully’ by finding time to get into meatier, more ‘generative’
issues, rather than be stuck, as usually happens, between strategic and
fiduciary agenda items. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Habits for
New Times</i> involved discussion of ways to allow decisions and ideas to
percolate up throughout an organisation, although as an Australian it surprised
me that the concept of Friday evening office-wide drinks came as something of a
novelty.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Perhaps the session I was
most looking forward to, given the theme and location of the conference (and my
own concerns), was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Collaborating with
Asian Communities</i>. After all Australia
doesn’t just look across the Pacific to Asia,
it’s in the region.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Only 20 or so people were
there to benefit from the advice of a panel including Seattle-based composer
Byron Au Yong; Pankaj Nath, vice president/relationship manager for JP Morgan
Chase, and Mayumi Tsutakawa, manager of grants to organisations for the
Washington State Arts Commission. What was clear though was that those who
attended had pondered long and hard the best way to collaborate. They agreed
that what must be found is ‘true collaboration’, in the words of another
panel-member Kelly Dylla (vice president of education and community engagement
for the Seattle Symphony), but as an audience member said, it was ‘way harder
than anything I’d imagined.’ Practical advice included making sure your board
represents the population make-up of your city. Byron Au Yong also advised
people to be realistic. His opera, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stuck
Elevator</i> was about people from Guangxi Province
in China,
‘but they won’t be the audience. They work 24/7. It’ll be their children.’ On
the plus side, a couple of attendees noted that ‘there are a lot of people who
get involved in music to remind them of home’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I guess it’s understandable
that only 20 people attended the session. Such collaborations have not yet
produced repertoire that’s guaranteed to reward listeners and players who are
used to the narrative richness of Mahler or Shostakovich or Brahms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">But that wouldn’t be any reason
to give up the quest. The important thing, surely, is to make sure these
collaborations are not one-offs and that orchestras continue to draw on everything
that influences classical music in the world at this time. If there was any
single take-away from this conference it might be that orchestras must continue
to strive, in the words of Jesse Rosen, to ‘be the orchestra of and for your
community, in this time, and in your place’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The word “orchestra,” in
ancient Greece,’
said Claire Chase, ‘meant “a dancing place.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">What if orchestras of the
21st century could revisit this most ancient part of their stories and be,
literally, an open space? A place where change is the norm, where even the permanent collection - what we call our canon - is questioned, argued, retold? A place that commissions twice as much new music as it repeats? And reaches twice as many schoolchildren as it reaches patrons? Or a place where the sphere of context, the very notion of public, is constantly widening? A place where the radical reimagining of how and for whom art gets made, is a daily practice? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I don’t know how much of that
can happen when people have day-to-day questions of survival to consider, but I
do believe that in the three years of League conferences I’ve attended the
suggested answers to those questions have gotten deeper and deeper.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Gordon Kalton Williams, ©
2014</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: red;"><i>This article first appeared in the mid-year edition of</i> The Podium, <i>published by Symphony Services International, Sydney. </i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-47076627241411562842014-08-15T08:43:00.003-07:002014-08-15T08:45:00.401-07:00Film locations galore<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A mere stroll from us is John Marshall High School, used in such
films as <i>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</i>, <i>Grosse Pointe Blank</i>,<i>
A Nightmare on Elm Street</i>, and<i> Raiders of the Lost Ark</i>.
The football field was used for the final scenes of <i>Grease</i>
('You're the One That I Want'...) <br />
<br />
The school is also named after the US's greatest Chief Justice,
who in 1832 (1832!!) recognised the Indian tribes as sovereign
nations (Worcester v Georgia).<br />
<br />
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</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9oYJznEsPNwMHyxHXO9GB03N4JVXY3z1njjDOl4HtslrgyOURKoipwsMLCe8T7Cr8Jiy7NAYiCtgV3IuvzDYQ-DsC2DY89LAZlQwI62119tinboFsT-4ZhwNIR6yxZMeHIsRz4Q0M_Tg/s1600/IMG_5204.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9oYJznEsPNwMHyxHXO9GB03N4JVXY3z1njjDOl4HtslrgyOURKoipwsMLCe8T7Cr8Jiy7NAYiCtgV3IuvzDYQ-DsC2DY89LAZlQwI62119tinboFsT-4ZhwNIR6yxZMeHIsRz4Q0M_Tg/s1600/IMG_5204.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-87303089252442200662014-08-15T08:22:00.000-07:002014-08-15T08:22:29.276-07:00"No worries"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When we first moved to Los Feliz, I was sitting in the Coffee Bean one day and a fellow customer asked if she could take the spare chair at my table. I said, "No worries," and she took it but then turned back:<br />
<br />
"Are you Australian?"<br />
<br />
"Was it the accent?" I asked.<br />
<br />
"No, it was 'no worries'," she said.<br />
<br />
Since then, in the last six months, I've heard Americans saying "no worries" several times. Is this how phrases catch on? Should I start saying, "No sweat" and see what happens? </div>
Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-68681601430061813632014-07-21T14:08:00.003-07:002014-07-21T14:10:07.267-07:00The Not Quite Tamed West <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Los Angeles River comes around Griffith Park from the San Fernando Valley (I admit I used the zoom to conceal the concreted banks...and couldn't do much about the wires).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjth084fFqC-T8CQ0urc6c_3c2SNZVOwGPd5i68XkCpDT85gwBUV2b3uc2SvmCf9H9in4NL-Mw6XOwCufxjwBWebxMaZKdazmVJnJM4Q3WRDPgETBUBHBIeMSeJsloERfFWQNDXpZcdM44/s1600/IMG_5197.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjth084fFqC-T8CQ0urc6c_3c2SNZVOwGPd5i68XkCpDT85gwBUV2b3uc2SvmCf9H9in4NL-Mw6XOwCufxjwBWebxMaZKdazmVJnJM4Q3WRDPgETBUBHBIeMSeJsloERfFWQNDXpZcdM44/s1600/IMG_5197.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
(Note to self: must do a more substantial blog again soon)</div>
Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-83825804384858018802014-06-25T11:42:00.001-07:002014-07-21T14:11:08.802-07:00Venturing to Ventura<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Only two hours up the coast from LA lies Ventura - <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLyqafdt2iBKD7vPvMvIdirEhi9y0GGtplcs2gqbKQ50ikuttbE045_gPz_Z8sW-BHTZ8rogo2T79-dmqjondflLOBb13aeUeFwH0uiptDc1epOeVNQLYwZDJ4FZ10RsyR9TrnhKcCPz0/s1600/IMG_5039.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLyqafdt2iBKD7vPvMvIdirEhi9y0GGtplcs2gqbKQ50ikuttbE045_gPz_Z8sW-BHTZ8rogo2T79-dmqjondflLOBb13aeUeFwH0uiptDc1epOeVNQLYwZDJ4FZ10RsyR9TrnhKcCPz0/s1600/IMG_5039.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
- the old 1782 mission town.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgyTkZv3LL87YJhUl0jCCr-frH0JacSRUZnGAYPAOMKHqQkDfcuo4J7hEnwlDIdzLNE2lfwE5QRuxtWmHHUDtVYbj8Fa7M5lc-BiSAH7DPxyNEXZyZtIKxO_Hgdz-bIZr78XAogC0lXSk/s1600/IMG_5017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgyTkZv3LL87YJhUl0jCCr-frH0JacSRUZnGAYPAOMKHqQkDfcuo4J7hEnwlDIdzLNE2lfwE5QRuxtWmHHUDtVYbj8Fa7M5lc-BiSAH7DPxyNEXZyZtIKxO_Hgdz-bIZr78XAogC0lXSk/s1600/IMG_5017.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Like so many Californian beachside town it's got its quaint old cinemas:<br />
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But how interesting is this? A Queensland Moreton Bay Fig planted here in 1874? What was the thinking behind this choice? It'd be interesting to read the 'minutes'.<br />
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"Birthplace of Perry Mason"?<br />
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That I can more readily understand.<br />
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Cheers,<br />
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-57469982768786688212014-06-12T11:33:00.002-07:002015-06-13T19:31:52.472-07:00Seattle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I went up to Seattle for the League of American Orchestras' conference headed, this year, 'Critical Questions/Countless Solutions', a great theme for a 21st century orchestral conference which I get to write about in the August edition of <i>The Podium</i>.<br />
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But my abiding image of Seattle itself, since I saw none of the famous rain, was the volcano on its outskirts. <br />
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and which here, from the Space Needle, looks like it's floating in cloud behind the city.<br />
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My article on the League of American Orchestra's conference appears in a blog dated 28 October, 2014.<br />
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-68748091041567539372014-05-16T14:39:00.000-07:002014-05-16T14:42:14.984-07:00Score reading in Studio City - Getting 'under the hood'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The cabaret room of Vitello's in Studio City (the
same suburb where Mack Sennett built his film lot in 1927; where The Brady
Bunch lived in the early 1970s) is not the sort of place you'd expect to find
composer activity on a Friday morning. But once a month, of a Friday, 50+ LA
composers meet there as members of the Academy of Scoring Arts. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
The morning comprises not only breakfast but Adventures in Listening, an</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span> hour's critiquing of each other's anonymously-submitted
demo-CDs, followed by The Ravel Study Group - an hour-long, bar-by-bar, stave-by-stave
study of orchestral scores. The last hour is always a guest. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the mornings I've been there, the guests
have included Mike Lang with his Trio, Tyler Bates who co-wrote the theme for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Californication</i>, Jonathan Wilson (maker
of guitarviols), Emmy-winner Richard Bellis (who won for his theme to Stephen
King's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It</i>) and Eddie Karam (who
worked with John Williams on the orchestration of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harry Potter</i> films after reconstructing the lost scores of Busby
Berkeley musicals for Williams and the Boston Pops at a week's notice).</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5X7wB6XyaedKH6LtW8-1tQ8j2Mj_uZi3Ut383B0bTq71omfyszSzh2FGa4Y4640jUXP4X1SRLX-Sn3fhCEv8coQ1Ss6qforE-7BBRlECupFNqWjKaAYJSPxsdAIaNkG8wsNlaqLawIs/s1600/IMG_3189.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5X7wB6XyaedKH6LtW8-1tQ8j2Mj_uZi3Ut383B0bTq71omfyszSzh2FGa4Y4640jUXP4X1SRLX-Sn3fhCEv8coQ1Ss6qforE-7BBRlECupFNqWjKaAYJSPxsdAIaNkG8wsNlaqLawIs/s1600/IMG_3189.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ron Jones leads a listening session</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Academy of Scoring Arts is a growing operation. There
are chapters in Seattle, Toronto, Portland (OR), San Diego, New York City and,
soon, Chicago. And the LA-based Academy has also begun hosting 'happy hours'
for film, music and media professionals and offers conductor masterclasses and
copyright seminars. I went along to a Friday morning session after hearing that
this group was aiming to maintain Hollywood's high standards in musicianship,
something I've been interested to find out more about since I arrived in LA a
year ago.</span></div>
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Some of the critiquing in the first hour is quite vigorous. 'If you know the producer
reads Emily Dickinson, sure', says convenor Ron Jones of one particularly
gentle passage of music. 'But most producers are AAARRGGGHHH. They drink too
much coffee. They meet you in Starbucks. Their eyes are like [he mimes eyes prised open.]' <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>'Be
careful of too much,' he later exhorts. 'Whatever plays, changes the
equation....If you've been using a lot of timpani, maybe change it to Gran
Cassa...'</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But the musicians comprising the Academy of Scoring
Arts are not aspirants. They're working composers and sound engineers -
credited and uncredited film, TV and video game composers,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>underscorers, jingle writers, the folk who
write the music for trailers (yes, there are such people), staff composers,
orchestrators, the people who sometimes have to make several pages of sketches
sound terrific overnight 'in time for a 10 o'clock downbeat'. In fact, the
morning is mostly about orchestrating: how to use the orchestra in the most
telling fashion in terms of the story to the highest level of musical excellence
to the greatest satisfaction of the players - to deadline! At the moment
they're studying <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star Wars</i>. They get
through about 12 bars per session. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">'This is why you need to study counterpoint' says
convenor Ron Jones, pointing to a passage in Williams' score and explaining why
a composer needs to give every player a line. 'You don't just stack stuff'. Jones,
who until recently wrote the music for the 75-piece orchestra that plays under
the cartoon series, <i>The Family Guy</i>, set up the Academy back in 2011 because
even composers in LA feel they need to keep honing their skills. 'Everyone in
this town is great,' he says, 'so if you're going to make a dent, you have to
be sharper....plus you want to connect with people. If you tried to ring
everyone in this room to have lunch, you'd kill yourself.' Del Engen, vice
president of the organisation, says another aim is to start getting directors
and producers thinking more about the music in their films, and that's the
reason for a monthly industry networking 'happy hour' recently launched at
Busby's on Wilshire Boulevard. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I asked Mark Smythe (a New Zealand-born composer and
former Melbourne resident) why he takes part. He's recently signed on to write
the music for Chris Sun's 'Aussie Horror' <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charlie's
Farm</i>. Isn't he busy enough as it is? 'Because I would not be so
arrogant as to think I had nothing more to learn,' he says. He also says he
loves the quotes. And Jones is full of them: 'Don't forget listener reaction is
also a "score".' Or, 'Doubling doesn't make it bigger.... when you
double everything all the time, you cancel things. You cause problems. But when
you see it's just a clarinet with the strings, all of a sudden it opens up.
That's Mozartean. Mozart was on a whole other plateau.'</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dara Taylor arrived in Los Angeles from Brooklyn, NY
about five months and has come to every meeting since. Why? 'We all know who
the "great" composers are.' she says. 'But with that knowledge we can
either quietly stew in jealousy or get under the hood and find real, applicable
reasons WHY they're great. I personally love being able to look at how John
Williams approached a certain flute motif and then find a way to incorporate
that technique in my own work. It expands my orchestration palette beyond what
I learned in school.' <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQbsDmeH771oZGZAa77yyd7oW1WXQ38lMT7CWsmOd4MdRCq5i1haOlkIX7CM6jblhC6N1V9K9e7qoWSQSqMcBU_uZoOpbCjc7MaQdjeTZJ2Cxwt9xgWXZTKLIzRRUwqPcbg5_jObbhoJA/s1600/IMG_3375.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQbsDmeH771oZGZAa77yyd7oW1WXQ38lMT7CWsmOd4MdRCq5i1haOlkIX7CM6jblhC6N1V9K9e7qoWSQSqMcBU_uZoOpbCjc7MaQdjeTZJ2Cxwt9xgWXZTKLIzRRUwqPcbg5_jObbhoJA/s1600/IMG_3375.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dara Taylor studies <i>Star Wars </i>on her tablet</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The thing that strikes me about the Academy of
Scoring Arts is they're studying the repertoire greats. 'I'm studying Ockeghem
because I read that Stravinsky was studying it when he wrote his late
masterpieces,' says Jones. 'My brother,' says Don Williams, percussionist
brother of the composer of <i>Star Wars</i>, 'rang me up the other night. He
says, "I'm looking at the second movement of Beethoven's 9th". He's
always going back to the originals.' </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The score study part of the morning is called the
Ravel Study Group after the first score they studied: Ravel's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daphnis and Chloe</i>. I've come too late to
participate in the two and a half years they spent on Stravinsky's<i> Rite of
Spring</i> (whose composer lived almost directly south across the Hollywood Hills
from here). Next up, they're thinking of Respighi's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pines of Rome</i>. But if it took the group two and a half years to get
through <i>Rite of Spring </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">and
they're only at bar 182 of <i>Star Wars </i>after several months</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pines of Rom</i>e might be a ways off. Of
course, it doesn't matter. The gems they pick out of a morning's 3-minute demos
or 12 bars of orchestral score intensify each participant's own awareness of
musical texture. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As I walk out onto Tujunga Avenue's restaurant strip
busy with lunchtime customers, I muse on the fact that in this capital of media
entertainment there are so many composers concerning themselves with orchestral
writing (and that includes emulating the nuances of human performance if
they've only got enough budget for a Midi). </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE_K0oYobM3j_ekARpNoPAlcdvxO1VYiFTZ2oK2dTnDz-DVdYMHYcn1_ho8DCjrvKpTOkqYiQzmQth9e4sMNEnSv-50D85NTx9K8tcDWEcxoekWY5BdCOAUxKyhTApvvlSp87PEm1SCsU/s1600/IMG_4259.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE_K0oYobM3j_ekARpNoPAlcdvxO1VYiFTZ2oK2dTnDz-DVdYMHYcn1_ho8DCjrvKpTOkqYiQzmQth9e4sMNEnSv-50D85NTx9K8tcDWEcxoekWY5BdCOAUxKyhTApvvlSp87PEm1SCsU/s1600/IMG_4259.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'As I walk out onto Tujunga Avenue's restaurant strip...'</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I'll probably never watch a trailer
or ad or cartoon again without listening more intently to the use of orchestra
as well. Of course, Beethoven didn't have modern media, but Stravinsky's
favourite TV show was <i>Daktari</i>. He'd possibly be happy that his influence
was spreading so far.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gordon Kalton Williams, © 2014</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>This article first appeared in the 1 May edition of </i>The Podium<i>, published by Symphony Services International, Sydney Australia.</i></span></div>
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-41404298418591861402014-04-21T11:11:00.002-07:002014-04-25T09:49:41.323-07:00Founded in a spirit of science<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A recent article in <i>The Global Post</i> headed 'Australia's war on science' reports that the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is bracing for a 20% budget cut in the Abbott government's forthcoming budget. The government has already announced that the Department of Environment will have its budget cut by $AUD100 million over four years resulting in the loss of a quarter of its staff.<br />
<br />
I'm quite happy to kick the Abbott government, but I think there's a broader concern here. The modern state of Australia was founded in a spirit of scientific enquiry. Cook journeyed to the South Pacific to observe the transit of Venus; an observatory was set up at Sydney Cove in the early days of settlement. I know from my own research that the writings of Spencer and Gillen were influential on Freud. But how many Australians know any of this? Can they name our Nobel Laureates? Do they know, as Green deputy leader Adam Bandt points out in that same article, that Australian researchers contributed to "the flu jab, the quantum bit, blast glass and Wi-Fi..."? As far as I know, there is no book on Australians' contribution to science.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPpPM3V3bxG4-1XbZBijOZ5v90_KLH-wa7JXobJBhIWccRwh-LPrpQiCZVOiPVPhvr9Du3H1vNQeeeUR60c8nZ4tOL_HXzuXf2Ri9SAnpdlRqFJaFnIjQh_u_yr2IqkKjIBLfIMd5cp5w/s1600/ObservatorySydney1874.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPpPM3V3bxG4-1XbZBijOZ5v90_KLH-wa7JXobJBhIWccRwh-LPrpQiCZVOiPVPhvr9Du3H1vNQeeeUR60c8nZ4tOL_HXzuXf2Ri9SAnpdlRqFJaFnIjQh_u_yr2IqkKjIBLfIMd5cp5w/s1600/ObservatorySydney1874.jpg" height="269" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1874 photograph of the observatory at Dawes Point, named after the marine who was charged with establishing an observatory in NSW. Dawes Point was originally to be named after the Royal Astronomer, Maskelyne</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Interestingly, last year, another Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz warned the incoming Australian government not to launch into massive cuts ('Australia, you don't know how good you've got it,' <i>Sydney Morning Herald</i> 2 Sep 2013 - http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australia-you-dont-know-how-good-youve-got-it-20130901-2sytb.html): "...substantial cuts to the government budget...would be a grave mistake, especially now. Recent experience around the world suggests that austerity can have devastating consequences, and especially so for fragile economies..." I guess, there's my 'kick'. But then, budget cuts are about the only tool conservative governments have. And Australians don't admire great thinkers.<br />
<br />
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-22712863299136548232014-04-07T07:28:00.002-07:002014-04-07T07:29:15.537-07:00Nothing, my Florestan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Another observation in the perennial argument over words and the music in opera:<br />
<br />
To those who say that music is more powerful I often say that no composer can match Abraham Lincoln's prose. Copland's Lincoln Portrait is okay, but he doesn't allow a single speech to dominate. And is there a composer in the world whose phrases could match the length of thought in Lincoln's letter to the bereaved mother, Mrs Bixby: "I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should
attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.
But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may
be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save."<br />
<br />
I would also note that the most powerful moment in many performances of Beethoven's Fidelio is not musical. After Leonore has risked her life at the end of a gun to save her husband, he turns to her and says, "My Leonore, what have you done for me?" In the German original there is an exchange of dialogue, but in Klemperer's 1962 recording her answer is reduced to "Nichts, nichts, mein Florestan." (It was nothing, nothing, my Florestan.) It needs no music right at that moment, it is throat-swallowingly moving, although then the duet ('O namenlose Freude') swells up.<br />
<br />
The odd thing is that in Bernstein's recording he omits this exchange and goes straight from the thwarted murderer Pizarro's exit to the duet. I have always thought Bernstein understood words (he composed some gems for Candide), but this is a real dramatic moment missed.<br />
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6392804712874957832.post-31734454775748216822014-03-26T09:08:00.001-07:002014-03-29T09:38:46.060-07:00The whole isle full of noises<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After a first two weeks in Hong Kong (doing a residency at the excellent Chinese International School) there are, granted, visual impressions -the dizzying heights of buildings hemmed in between mountains and harbour:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilq3kGIxUqD73nodBFKzNnUs54DObCFLB4uwWoAPDQ8VaJrzf6mh42QAvM4C4veNORUifudAmN06Qxpi4FbxVPI4xJYNeWCJAUTnwYSBKjbWK5toc1pIicNKbVon5-WyvpEl6d9cc4YHQ/s1600/IMG_4046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilq3kGIxUqD73nodBFKzNnUs54DObCFLB4uwWoAPDQ8VaJrzf6mh42QAvM4C4veNORUifudAmN06Qxpi4FbxVPI4xJYNeWCJAUTnwYSBKjbWK5toc1pIicNKbVon5-WyvpEl6d9cc4YHQ/s1600/IMG_4046.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Quite a hum down there. Hong Kong from Victoria Peak</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
the night lights:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4qBjJnhGFPJZrXLf6Dlubsmi4SSThTDJE6ytQVHeIFfGtCF1ITTkFDlMP7qsBXTEqBKA1Vqpin8q5LlVr_81QxFgzNKLYjyCbkKJrHgUH9-EbW7li_3wZdFL_KzjUEoFL-ix855-onHc/s1600/IMG_3663.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4qBjJnhGFPJZrXLf6Dlubsmi4SSThTDJE6ytQVHeIFfGtCF1ITTkFDlMP7qsBXTEqBKA1Vqpin8q5LlVr_81QxFgzNKLYjyCbkKJrHgUH9-EbW7li_3wZdFL_KzjUEoFL-ix855-onHc/s1600/IMG_3663.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
the poetry of the street names:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQoKF5H_b2Qy1OBUGBZ_7W_Q0tSwOQ8NP8rl3c2E9s2WCfH9LUgWpXJ2ALS6V09xMLHSn5DNQmPGIBb6lsg4LGGMhArq7O_kMQJ3TCBIG_0rVjTnOjOYpW5UUt7JpIqrDb-Cep64uAyO4/s1600/IMG_4086.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQoKF5H_b2Qy1OBUGBZ_7W_Q0tSwOQ8NP8rl3c2E9s2WCfH9LUgWpXJ2ALS6V09xMLHSn5DNQmPGIBb6lsg4LGGMhArq7O_kMQJ3TCBIG_0rVjTnOjOYpW5UUt7JpIqrDb-Cep64uAyO4/s1600/IMG_4086.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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and the little remnants of British-ness (like double-decker buses or trams):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo0C-F3Z4cvM3Ut3NwrftICE0KUpnjwF0RDBa1RCAYyTiE73kSffV0LkYXmU0RylopkVAYeKX6d33osqPLuEnoYoNf6vIHyaQ0eTyD_OKM7SPnRHqr55VDl2AhrUfnxD0LKdhlRYF5G4s/s1600/IMG_4004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo0C-F3Z4cvM3Ut3NwrftICE0KUpnjwF0RDBa1RCAYyTiE73kSffV0LkYXmU0RylopkVAYeKX6d33osqPLuEnoYoNf6vIHyaQ0eTyD_OKM7SPnRHqr55VDl2AhrUfnxD0LKdhlRYF5G4s/s1600/IMG_4004.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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But I also noticed the distinctive sounds.<br />
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For a start, it's another polylingual city. But what was the PA saying in the MTR? It was only after a couple of visits that I could tell: "Please. Hold. The handrail. Don't keep your eyes. Only on your. MOBILE PHONE."<br />
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And I arrived on a Sunday, Maids Day Off. The streets, parks, undersides of freeways were full of Filipino and Indonesian young women, the airwaves jammed with the sounds of thousands of women chattering away in Tagalog and Bahasa all at once.<br />
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Other little things I noticed? The slopes in this steep city are 'registered' (to make sure they're on someone's maintenance inventory, I guess). Cab drivers take a while to interpret the directions that a friend has written out in Hanzi and then go, "Aha". (The friend took a while working out how to write it, before saying "Aha" and writing it.) I'm guessing the characters are interpretable until put in context of all the others.<br />
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Of course, it wouldn't be me without noticing the natural beauty, which is most obvious on the southern side of the island.<br />
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I hope urban pressure won't force the authorities to 'reclaim' too much of the harbour on the northern side. I hope it will always be possible to remain impressed with this megapolis's charm.<br />
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Gordon Kalton Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225308800584134012noreply@blogger.com0