MEANDERING MONDAY – #ROW80 REPOST FROM 3/27/2013 - “A YOUNG PERSON'S GUIDE TO THE OPERA”

THIS IS A REPOST FROM 3/27/2013 AND I TRULY ENJOYED WRITING THIS! I HOPE YOU ENJOY READING IT AND LEARN A BIT ABOUT OPERA AND SOME CRAZY HISTORY ALONG THE WAY! :D


Young Person's Guide to the OPERA

Young persons today have lost sight of the fact that opera used to be the 19^th century's version of “Jersey Shore.” Well, kind of. Persons in operas did all sorts of outlandish things that just were not done in polite company. Actually, this analogy doesn't play out well, because all of the shit that goes on in “Jersey Shore” pretty much goes on in real life. Never mind.

Anyway, opera was THE form of entertainment back in the days before television and iPods and all of that, so composers and librettists were hell-bent on coming up with some pretty outrageous stuff to keep the hoi-polloi amused. In Italy, Puccini ruled and he wrote some beautiful stuff. Between Puccini and Guiseppe Verdi, Italian opera was well represented.

The Germans on the other hand, had a few problems. One of them was the Kaiser. Kaiser Wilhelm was a bit odd. He, uh decided, much like Stalin did in Russia several decades later, that he would decide what was acceptable for German audiences. Never mind that the Germans had been raised on the Aesir and Ragnarok and were already of a Berserker mentality. There was a problem with his favorite composer, who later became Hitler's favorite composer. Herr Richard Strauss lived long enough to achieve this dubious distinction, but Strauss really didn't give a fig what Wilhelm, or Hitler or Göebbels thought and went on to compose operas that were, ah, indeed in questionable taste.

The other is that for sheer crazy, German opera just can't be beat. Before Richard Strauss, we had Richard Wagner, whose magnum opus is the “Ring Cycle,” 20 hours of mayhem. Incest, death, destruction, war, 20 questions with dragons, trolls, witches, stupid but good looking heroes, Brünhilde, Rheinmaidens, Välkyrie, Valhalla, topped off by Götterdammerüng. A very happy batch of operas indeed, called "Das Ringen der Nibelungen," or "The Ring Cycle." I'll let Anna Russell describe it for us.

This set the stage for Richard Strauss who thought wholesome stuff like Salome, during Kaiser Wilhelm's reign, prior to WW I - and who was a bit of a stuffed shirt about morals in public, but behind closed doors? One of his ministers would drop dead during some bacchanal or other while wearing a pink tutu - would be perfect for operatic treatment. Herr Strauss was an awesome composer, but he had not clue one about anything socio-political during his long life. He thought it was a swell idea to collaborate with Stefan Zweig as his librettist during his stint as Reichsminister of musik for the Third Reich under Josef Goebbels. Herr Zweig was Jewish and living in London. Herr Goebbels was pissed about it and Strauss was lucky not to get a one-way ticket to Dachau.

Well, during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm, who was a notorious blue-stocking, Strauss thought it would be a hella idea to do an operatic treatment of “Salome.” D'you remember this story? Antipas marries Herodias so he can get at her daughter Salome. John the Baptist is locked up in Antipas' prison under the palace. Salome gets a gander at John, as he squabbles over theology with some pharisees and goes all googly-eyed over him, but John spurns her for the harlot-in-training that she is. Antipas wants to see Salome dance, but she's all like, “Ewwww.” Herodias is rather annoyed at both Antipas and John, spiteful bitch that Herodias is, and she tells Salome to dance for Antipas, because Antipas will give her whatever Salome asks for, and she should ask for John's head.

Herodias is sick and tired of Antipas mooning over both Salome and John the Baptist. Antipas is afraid of John, as John is a man of God and keeps saying all this scary stuff from his cistern. So, Salome says, “Okay, A, I'll hip-hop for ya” and does the “Dance of the 7 Veils.”

  This is a more modern treatment, but the staging is so well-done, I chose this.

Once done, she asks for the head of John the Baptist and the evil deed is done. Next comes perhaps the most unbelievably hellish passage in music imaginable, as a huge hand rises out of the cistern bearing the head of John the Baptist. (Unfortunately, this is a bad edit, and you get part of her love/death song to Jokkanaan).

Antipas is horrified, but the nightmare is not yet ended. Salome proceeds to roll around on stage with the severed head of John the Baptist and sings the most glorious song of love that is also horrifying, but beautiful. 

So, Antipas has her put to death by the Roman guards. Curtain falls.

Great stuff! Seriously, this is music I grew up listening to and played, so even though my ears are by no means jaded, one can see why I am pretty tolerant of today's Rammstein-like groups and less than thrilled with precious music like Mozart. I love Haydn. Haydn took chances and is wonderful. Enough digression.

Strauss went ahead and debuted this opera without the Kaiser's approval. The Kaiser's favorite minister later died wearing a pink tutu at some function or another. So much for propriety; the Kaiser had a really bad year; the Archduke Ferdinand of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire was assassinated shortly thereafter, and the Kaiser's year was about to get REALLY bad.

I played in Opera Tampa for 12 seasons, so I have plenty of rich material to draw from. We did mostly Italian opera. Maestro Coppola (the same family that produced Francis and Nic Cage) summed it up this way: “Anyone can play a Goddamned German opera. It's just 1, 2, 3, 4. In Italian opera there are so many rubatos and tempi changes it requires so much artistry. You are all here because you were hand-picked. Be proud.” Tyrant. I miss it. Maestro wasn't necessarily wrong, although in his waltzes, Richard Strauss affords lots of rubatos in the Viennese style. You may have picked that out in the "7 Veils." For the record, I LOVE playing Richard Strauss; supremely challenging and he pushes orchestras to the limits. In "Ein Heldenleben," (A Hero's Life" with him as the hero) during it's debut, one of the first violinists complained to him that a certain passage is unplayable. He casually looked over the score and said, "Don't worry, it's unplayable in the flutes, too." It is in the violas as well. Let's end this with one of the funniest Bugs Bunny cartoons ever.

Probably one of the best Wagner treatments I've ever seen. I played with the Warner Brothers Orchestra, after jumping ship from the Disney folks up in Detroit, many years ago. Man, did you have to play your ass off, but it was a HELL of a lot more fun! 

#IWSG – SEPTEMBER, 2016 CHECK IN – HOW DO YOU FIND TIME TO WRITE IN YOUR BUSY DAY?

This is a really great question because, my other muse, music has come roaring back into my life, and this is what I've been focusing on for a while. Rehearsals started up again for the Tampa Bay Symphony with some wonderfully interesting music, in Dvorak's 8^th Symphony, Edward MacDowell's “Woodland Suite” and Richard Strauss's Horn Concerto; the not-inconsiderable string parts for any of us by any means. Strauss enjoyed writing neo-Romantic music and writing it as difficult as he possibly could. Once, a flute player was complaining to Herr Strauss that a passage in “Ein Heldenleben” (A Hero's Life) was unplayable. He looked at the part, and then looked at the score to see that the 1^st violins had the same passage. “Liebchen, do not worry," he said, "it is unplayable in the 1^st violins, too.” When I lived in Michigan and basically lived in my car, driving from symphony to symphony, we played that thing in the Lansing Symphony. There is a “battle scene” and if any viola player played more than 2 out of four correct 16^th notes in the entire passage, I'd be surprised. The thing sounded like chaos, but it didn't sound any better played by the Cleveland Orchestra. Strauss just wrote some crazy stuff!

Okay, so, Richard Strauss's string parts didn't look as horrible as "Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz" by Fibich (it's a parody piece, like the "Viola Fight Song), but his string parts are pretty formidable. Herr Strauss was also one of the founders of BMI, which is why I'm not showing any excerpts here. ALL of his music is still under copyright!

Because I do have “essential” (there's that word again) tremor, I have to “work out” daily, with scales, intervals, string crossings, hand-framing, and a bunch of other gobble-de-gook that string players get, but is meaningless to a non-fretted string player, who uses a bow. Doing so enhances seems to enhance the muscle memory, or embed it in my pea brain. It's a good daily routine, but unlike a physical work-out, I'm not trying to get ahead necessarily, but just maintain my groove. It also makes it easier to read the music and run the patterns.

Viola Clef. The viola is the only instrument that uses this clef. We all play in Soprano (violin) clef and occasionally, some dimwit writes a part for us in Bass Clef or Tenor Clef. We tend to go on strike if this happens. My better 2/3 thinks we should all just add a 5th lower string to the violin (that would sound tubby and woody and awful) and we should just get rid of this clef all together. Somewhere, Beethoven is laughing, because he actually found a use for violas! (We also had a joke that violas only played in 3 positions, 1st, 3rd and EMERGENCY! I don't know why that is, because I "memorized" my fingerboard, and it's a lot easier to crawl around in 1/2 steps than to take leaps, although I can do that accurately, too! ;-)

It also requires discipline, which then I can turn around and apply to writing. I try for an hour a day. Sometimes, it gets so crazy around here, I'm lucky if I get five minutes. With all of the hoo-ha of getting passports, work visas for Japan (which got pretty hilarious I thought) and trying to get the SSA to put my money in the right account, so I can pay my bills while overseas (I'm beginning to suspect the government is incompetent) and deal with “new” insurance rules that I believe are designed to kill us off in a more spritely manner, I'm flabbergasted that I'm sitting here at 10:36 pm on September 6th, writing this for September 7th, 2016, after I just returned from a rehearsal and being gone all day. I guess planning is not my long suit, most of the time.

But, it's the discipline and not all of what I write during that hour, or one-half hour or five minutes is always good, or half-way good. It's a lot of dross and ends up in the Virtual Paper Shredder. Music is the same way. You have to be your own worst critic before you'll be any good at all. Luckily, there are tons of people in both Arts who are willing to assist! Happy #ISWG'ing!

#A-TO-Z CHALLENGE 2015 – LETTER “J” – JEAN SIBELIUS, FINNISH COMPOSER

 

I think the first piece I ever played by Jean Sibelius was “Finlandia” and I was in the San Jose Youth Symphony. I'm sure it was pretty horrible, but it was loud and busy and that was all we kids needed to keep us occupied. The orchestra was filled with pretty talented kids, from ages 12 to 18 and I spent several happy years in this orchestra. Our conductor was a tyrant, who really had very little English, but knew enough to call us “little worms” and yell at the cellos, violas and 2^nd violins to shut up, when he was trying to work out passages with the 1^st violins and the rest of the orchestra was bored, bored, bored. Rehearsals frequently ran until 11 pm on Monday nights, instead of 10 pm, and we'd be tired and cranky. But, I see Youth Symphonies are still a thing and I'm sure the discipline is much better now than it was in the early 1970s.

courtesy:sjsy.org                                     

Geeze, these kids even look more professional than some working orchestras I've seen. Although it's been forty-some years since I played, we looked like a bunch of refugees from the nerd factory.

Anyway, in my first season there, we did play “Finlandia” and I've played it since then. I think it is the least favorite of mine, of any piece that Jean Sibelius has ever written. Sibelius was born on December 8, 1865 and died September 20, 1957, a huge and important span of time in the musical scene. His music played in integral part in the development of Finnish National Identity.

The core of his ouevre is his set of seven symphonies (which I have had the great good fortune to play). Like Beethoven, he used each successive work to further develop his own personal compositional style. His music continues to be performed and recorded in the concert hall.

Yes, he does. It's difficult to find a composer who has NOT been influenced in some way by Beethoven.

In addition to the symphonies, he also composed a number of “tone poems” besides the anthem-like “Finlandia”. “The Karelian Suite”, “Valse Triste”, “Kullervo” and “Swan of Tuonela” (one of four movements of the “Lemminkäinen Suite”) and his superb “Violin Concerto in D minor”. Apart from that, he also wrote choral music, with 21 publications.*

*Citation needed.

This is probably my favorite interpretation of the "Karelian Suite." It's joyful and brooding, but don't be put off by it; it's delightful!

Sibelius composed prolifically until the mid-1920s, but after completing his Seventh Symphony, he composed no more large-scale works. Although reputed to have stopped composing completely, he is known to have developed sketches for an Eight Symphony, written some Masonic music and re-edited some of his earlier works. He retained an active interest in music, although he didn't always view modern music favorably. Until adoption of the Euro, his likeness graced the Finnish 100 mark bill. In 2011, Finland adopted Flag Day, on December 8^th, the composer's birthday, a day of Finnish music.

Jean Sibelius, circa 1891.

I have always had a deep fondness for Sibelius' music. It is arctic and passionate all at once. This is nowhere more obvious than in his “Violin Concerto in D minor”. The opening movement seems ominous, and, like much of his music, the chord changes and movement are slow. The violin sweeps in and rises to, what seems an impossible height and cuts loose with a melody in parallel 6^ths, and I defy anyone to listen to this and not get the “feels”; the fireworks. The 3^rd movement is a balancing act in tempi; you are off-balance through the entire thing. It almost sounds like the violin is rushing, on the climbing runs, but that is a trick that Sibelius employed to great effect.

Jean Sibelius, 1939. Sweet Moses on a buttered cracker! He looks like Uncle Fester from the Addams Family! What a great picture!

This sort of thing and the repetitive obbligato, in the 4^th movement of his Second Symphony in the celli, basses and violas for 25 measures the first time, and 39 measures the second time and finally, 6 measures towards the end, baffled and left some critics cold. One critic, René Leibowitz, a renowned theorist, composer and conducter, went so far as to call Sibelius “Sibelius the worst composer in the world.” To which Sibelius replied, “Pay no attention to what critics say; no one ever put up a statue to a critic.”

courtesy:deviantart.com

Okay, so Jean Sibelius didn't get a whole statue, but he got a head. There us also a monument in his name that looks like a bunch of organ pipes glued together. I'm not a modern art afficionado, as you can tell.

He was also a rival of Gustav Mahler and felt that Mahler's approach to symphonic writing was entirely undisciplined. For every symphony that Sibelius wrote, he addressed some issue with form, harmonic movement, resolution, development, or thematic material in his own unique way, while Mahler tended to be all over the place. The two had a chance to discuss this while in a sauna. Sibelius later reported that during the bath:

“I said that I admired the severity of style and the profound logic the created an inner connection between all the motifs. . . Mahler's opinion was just the reverse. 'No, a symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.'”

Gustav Mahler lived and worked in Vienna and Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was an eminent composer-conductor and a huge rival of Richard Strauss, who was a neo-classicist. Mahler set in stone the foundations of the 2^nd Viennese School of composition, which went down the road of 12-tone music and serialism, with composers like Arnold Schoenbert, Anton Weber and Alban Berg.

The two could agree on the usage of indigenous folk music, however. After Sibelius got over his Wagnerian period, he tended more towards using naked tri-tones, Haydn's built-in dissonances and bare melodic structures, with jagged melodies, at times. In other words, what would was recognized as the 2^nd Viennese School of composition, something Mahler, Alban Berg and Anton Webern embraced, although once again, Sibelius was not a proponent of “modern” music. He was sometimes referred to as “antimodern modernism” a true paradox to be sure.

Violin Concerto in D minor, played by Maxim Vengerov. I can think of no finer interpretation. His tone is warm, and his technique flawless.

Again, it is most notable in his Violins Concerto in D minor, which is breathtaking. He remains an important figure in 20^th century music, and in the development of later composers, Vaughan Williams, William Walton (That Viola Concerto!) and Arnold Bax.

BLOGGING CHALLENGE A TO Z - LETTER "O"

OPERA

Note: This is an expansion on a post I wrote about several weeks ago, having spent a considerable amount of my career playing viola in opera. It's a bit longer than usual, but I hope you enjoy it.

Young persons today have lost sight of the fact that opera used to be the 19^th century's version of “Jersey Shore.” Well, kind of. Persons in operas did all sorts of outlandish things that just were not done in polite company. Actually, this analogy doesn't play out well, because all of the shit that goes on in “Jersey Shore” pretty much goes on in real life. Never mind.

Anyway, opera was THE form of entertainment back in the days before television and iPods and all of that, so composers and librettists were hell-bent on coming up with some pretty outrageous stuff to keep the hoi-polloi amused. In Italy, Puccini ruled and he wrote some beautiful stuff. Between Puccini and Guiseppe Verdi, Italian opera was well represented.

The Germans on the other hand, had a few problems. One of them was the Kaiser. Kaiser Wilhelm was a bit odd. He, uh decided, much like Stalin did in Russia several decades later, that he would decide what was acceptable for German audiences. Never mind that the Germans had been raised on the Aesir and Ragnarok and were already of a Berserker mentality. There was a problem with his favorite composer, who later became Hitler's favorite composer. Herr Richard Strauss lived long enough to achieve this dubious distinction, but Strauss really didn't give a fig what Wilhelm, or Hitler or Göebbels thought and went on to compose operas that were, ah, indeed in questionable taste. 

The other is that for sheer crazy, German opera just can't be beat. Before Richard Strauss, we had Richard Wagner, whose magnum opus is the “Ring Cycle,” 20 hours of mayhem. Incest, death, destruction, war, 20 questions with dragons, trolls, witches, stupid but good looking heroes, Brünhilde, Rheinmaidens, Välkyrie, Valhalla, topped off by Götterdammerüng. A very happy batch of operas indeed, called "Das Ringen der Nibelungen," or "The Ring Cycle." I'll let Anna Russell describe it for us.

This set the stage for Richard Strauss who thought wholesome stuff like Salome would be perfect for operatic treatment. Herr Strauss was an awesome composer, but he had not clue one about anything socio-political during his long life. He thought it was a swell idea to collaborate with Stefan Zweig as his librettist during his stint as Reichsminister of musik for the Third Reich under Josef Goebbels. Herr Zweig was Jewish and living in London. Herr Goebbels was pissed about it and Strauss was lucky not to get a one-way ticket to Dachau.

Well, during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm, who was a notorious blue-stocking, Strauss thought it would be a hella idea to do an operatic treatment of “Salome.” D'you remember this story? Antipas marries Herodias so he can get at her daughter Salome. John the Baptist is locked up in Antipas' prison under the palace. Salome gets a gander at John, as he squabbles over theology with some pharisees and goes all googly-eyed over him, but John spurns her for the harlot-in-training that she is. Antipas wants to see Salome dance, but she's all like, “Ewwww.” Herodias is rather annoyed at both Antipas and John (must be PMS) and she tells Salome to dance for Antipas, because Antipas will give her whatever Salome asks for, and she should ask for John's head.

Herodias is sick and tired of Antipas mooning over both Salome and John the Baptist. Antipas is afraid of John, as John is a man of God and keeps saying all this scary stuff from his cistern. So, Salome says, “Okay, A, I'll hip-hop for ya” and does the “Dance of the 7 Veils.”

This is a more modern treatment, but the staging is so well-done, I chose this.

Once done, she asks for the head of John the Baptist and the evil deed is done. Next comes perhaps the most unbelievably hellish passage in music imaginable, as a huge hand rises out of the cistern bearing the head of John the Baptist.

Antipas is horrified, but the nightmare is not yet ended. Salome proceeds to roll around on stage with the severed head of John the Baptist and sings the most glorious song of love that is also horrifying.

So, Antipas has her put to death by the Roman guards. Curtain falls.

Great stuff! Seriously, this is music I grew up listening to and played, so even though my ears are by no means jaded, one can see why I am pretty tolerant of today's Rammstein-like groups and less than thrilled with precious music like Mozart. I love Haydn. Haydn took chances and is wonderful. Enough digression.

Beethoven would approve.

Strauss went ahead and debuted this opera without the Kaiser's approval. The Kaiser's favorite minister later died wearing a pink tutu at some function or another. So much for propriety; the Kaiser had a really bad year.

I played in Opera Tampa for 12 seasons, so I have plenty of rich material to draw from. We did mostly Italian opera. Maestro Coppola (the same family that produced Francis and Nic Cage) summed it up this way: “Anyone can play a Goddamned German opera. It's just 1, 2, 3, 4.  In Italian opera there are so many rubatos and tempi changes it requires so much artistry. You are all here because you were hand-picked. Be proud.” Tyrant. I miss it. Maestro wasn't necessarily wrong, although in his waltzes, Richard Strauss affords lots of rubatos in the Viennese style. You may have picked that out in the "7 Veils." For the record, I LOVE playing Richard Strauss; supremely challenging and he pushes orchestras to the limits. In "Ein Heldenleben," (A Hero's Life" with him as the hero) during it's debut, one of the first violinists complained to him that a certain passage is unplayable. He casually looked over the score and said, "Don't worry, it's unplayable in the flutes, too." It is in the violas as well. Let's end this with one of the funniest Bugs Bunny cartoons ever.

Probably one of the best Wagner treatments I've ever seen.

#ROW80 - Young Person's Guide to the Opera

Young Person's Guide to the OPERA

Young persons today have lost sight of the fact that opera used to be the 19^th century's version of “Jersey Shore.” Well, kind of. Persons in operas did all sorts of outlandish things that just were not done in polite company. Actually, this analogy doesn't play out well, because all of the shit that goes on in “Jersey Shore” pretty much goes on in real life. Never mind.

Anyway, opera was THE form of entertainment back in the days before television and iPods and all of that, so composers and librettists were hell-bent on coming up with some pretty outrageous stuff to keep the hoi-polloi amused. In Italy, Puccini ruled and he wrote some beautiful stuff. Between Puccini and Guiseppe Verdi, Italian opera was well represented.

The Germans on the other hand, had a few problems. One of them was the Kaiser. Kaiser Wilhelm was a bit odd. He, uh decided, much like Stalin did in Russia several decades later, that he would decide what was acceptable for German audiences. Never mind that the Germans had been raised on the Aesir and Ragnarok and were already of a Berserker mentality. There was a problem with his favorite composer, who later became Hitler's favorite composer. Herr Richard Strauss lived long enough to achieve this dubious distinction, but Strauss really didn't give a fig what Wilhelm, or Hitler or Göebbels thought and went on to compose operas that were, ah, indeed in questionable taste. 

The other is that for sheer crazy, German opera just can't be beat. Before Richard Strauss, we had Richard Wagner, whose magnum opus is the “Ring Cycle,” 20 hours of mayhem. Incest, death, destruction, war, 20 questions with dragons, trolls, witches, stupid but good looking heroes, Brünhilde, Rheinmaidens, Välkyrie, Valhalla, topped off by Götterdammerüng. A very happy batch of operas indeed, called "Das Ringen der Nibelungen," or "The Ring Cycle." I'll let Anna Russell describe it for us.

This set the stage for Richard Strauss who thought wholesome stuff like Salome would be perfect for operatic treatment. Herr Strauss was an awesome composer, but he had not clue one about anything socio-political during his long life. He thought it was a swell idea to collaborate with Stefan Zweig as his librettist during his stint as Reichsminister of musik for the Third Reich under Josef Goebbels. Herr Zweig was Jewish and living in London. Herr Goebbels was pissed about it and Strauss was lucky not to get a one-way ticket to Dachau.

Well, during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm, who was a notorious blue-stocking, Strauss thought it would be a hella idea to do an operatic treatment of “Salome.” D'you remember this story? Antipas marries Herodias so he can get at her daughter Salome. John the Baptist is locked up in Antipas' prison under the palace. Salome gets a gander at John, as he squabbles over theology with some pharisees and goes all googly-eyed over him, but John spurns her for the harlot-in-training that she is. Antipas wants to see Salome dance, but she's all like, “Ewwww.” Herodias is rather annoyed at both Antipas and John (must be PMS) and she tells Salome to dance for Antipas, because Antipas will give her whatever Salome asks for, and she should ask for John's head.

Herodias is sick and tired of Antipas mooning over both Salome and John the Baptist. Antipas is afraid of John, as John is a man of God and keeps saying all this scary stuff from his cistern. So, Salome says, “Okay, A, I'll hip-hop for ya” and does the “Dance of the 7 Veils.”

This is a more modern treatment, but the staging is so well-done, I chose this.

Once done, she asks for the head of John the Baptist and the evil deed is done. Next comes perhaps the most unbelievably hellish passage in music imaginable, as a huge hand rises out of the cistern bearing the head of John the Baptist.

Antipas is horrified, but the nightmare is not yet ended. Salome proceeds to roll around on stage with the severed head of John the Baptist and sings the most glorious song of love that is also horrifying.

So, Antipas has her put to death by the Roman guards. Curtain falls.

Great stuff! Seriously, this is music I grew up listening to and played, so even though my ears are by no means jaded, one can see why I am pretty tolerant of today's Rammstein-like groups and less than thrilled with precious music like Mozart. I love Haydn. Haydn took chances and is wonderful. Enough digression.

Strauss went ahead and debuted this opera without the Kaiser's approval. The Kaiser's favorite minister later died wearing a pink tutu at some function or another. So much for propriety; the Kaiser had a really bad year.

I played in Opera Tampa for 12 seasons, so I have plenty of rich material to draw from. We did mostly Italian opera. Maestro Coppola (the same family that produced Francis and Nic Cage) summed it up this way: “Anyone can play a Goddamned German opera. It's just 1, 2, 3, 4.  In Italian opera there are so many rubatos and tempi changes it requires so much artistry. You are all here because you were hand-picked. Be proud.” Tyrant. I miss it. Maestro wasn't necessarily wrong, although in his waltzes, Richard Strauss affords lots of rubatos in the Viennese style. You may have picked that out in the "7 Veils." For the record, I LOVE playing Richard Strauss; supremely challenging and he pushes orchestras to the limits. In "Ein Heldenleben," (A Hero's Life" with him as the hero) during it's debut, one of the first violinists complained to him that a certain passage is unplayable. He casually looked over the score and said, "Don't worry, it's unplayable in the flutes, too." It is in the violas as well. Let's end this with one of the funniest Bugs Bunny cartoons ever.

Probably one of the best Wagner treatments I've ever seen.

ROW 80 POST 29 – STRAY WONDERS AND OBSERVATIONS

Governor Sparkle, aka Scott - I would hire whoever Photo Shopped this, 'cause he looks like an actual       bi-ped here. Just sayin'. 

Well, after the events, alleged felonies, misdemeanors and crimes around here, and let’s face it, the rest of the world, I thought it might be time for a bit of reflection about What It All Means. Balls. It means what it always means. We can put as much meaning or as little import into the Signs and Wonders of the world as our current states of hearts and minds allow.

When someone starts waxing about the divine or Man’s Original Sin or as I saw last night, although in jest, how the “Mayan Calendar called it, because Twinks are Toast,” or something of the sort, I smell the same end-of-the-world bullshit that has been floating around since the world began. I believe the Mayans don’t actually come out and say we’ll all become a floating cinder, they have some other lingo. Until I see some actual terminology like, “melting earth,” or “3^rd planet from the sun is incinerated, on December 21, 2012 at 10:12 A.D.” I’m going to continue on in my own little orbit of whatever this is.

“This” can be whatever I want it to be. I designate it so. If that sounds batshit, so be it. It’ my “this.” You can go get your own “this,” whatever your “this” is. Eventually, if I keep this up, which is different than “this,” I am going to become well nigh unreadable, and I will lose my record high 15 followers. I hope not. I plan to start re-posting from my truly “Homeless” days, and expand on that craziness. Now that we have celebrity bank robbers, in our midst and who knows what else; but I digress.

This post is truly going nowhere. I was starting out with some observations, and this is an example of that. Firstly, my writing prowess exceeds my material at present; rather like Richard Strauss’ “Simfonia Domestica,” which, I mentioned to our conductor Kenneth Jean in Detroit, at the time; I compared Strauss’ tone poem to “taking your cat shit to the dump in your Rolls Royce.” Ken thought that a fine metaphor. “Simfonia Domestica” is a shitty programmatic piece of music, but beautifully written. I’m full of puffery like that. Observation one and one-and-a-half.

Observation two. How is it that as we tear along into the 21^st century that it seems all really is not fine and dandy? Or not getting finer and dandier? I make a shit-ton of jokes about how it’s déjà-vu all over again and I rather wondered for a while, where the rage of the 60s went. However, I think it is still there and I believe that its vectors have just changed. Rather than surging through the streets and closing universities and bombing federal buildings, the rage is being felt and expressed through the internet. 

I realize  that this is not a spectacularly original thought. However, with the immediacy of the internet and without having to deal with the logistics of moving people, materiél and supplies, cyber-rallies, cyber-demonstrations, cyber-vandalism and cyber-attacks can be planned and executed very quickly. It will also be easier and quicker to find allies, cutouts, back doors and sabotage big systems. Yipes. I just scared myself.

However, none of this will make a bit of difference if I can’t figure out how in the HELL I am supposed to open ANYTHING. This is where I channel YumaBev and all the rest of the Parkies I haunt. A plus, I do have my very own Parkie-Pedia! Check out www.parkinsonpanda.org. I swore to God I wasn’t gonna even mention them today; honest Injun. I sound like I’m stalking the Parkinson’s Disease people. Jim and his darling wife, Penny Adams. Maybe I need an intervention. Swell. Come and intervene. Please. Be my guest. I want to invite them all to my next grocery shopping trip. Everyone's invited!

This is the most hysterical thing since, I don’t know what. The 1 Stooge. I almost took out the wine aisle with my cart the other day. I jigged and the cart jagged. There was a couple sitting at the place where you take your high blood pressure. He was taking his. I bet it was eleventy billion over seven jillion, when I got through with them. They saw me bearing down on them with a cart full of shit.

I had about 3 X more shit, plus cat food, and no Rolls Royce!

I had to have had 300 pounds of groceries in that sucker. I’d been to the Dollar Store and had canned goods and a garbage can along with all my groceries. I weigh about 100 pounds, but I’m strong. I try to move fast in between the shake, rattle, and roll. So, here comes the Death Locomotive and it’s Blind, dead at them. I kissed that wine aisle, missed them and at the last minute, I executed a 90 ° left turn, and hollered out, “This is why Mary don’t drive!” And went clattering off to the Pharmacy, dragging Whackamole in my wake. They’re probably still praying.

#ROW80 POST 14 – METAMORPHOSEN (WITH APOLOGIES TO RICHARD STRAUSS)

Dr. Richard Strauss, Time Magazine, July 25, 1938 

The tone poem “Metamorphosen” was written in 1945 in honor and grief by Richard Strauss. The bombing of Munich during WW II and specifically the Munich Opera House in 1943, became the inspiration. “Metamorphosen,” a metamorphosis, is not the only war-inspired music ever written. Shostakovich wrote 3 symphonies, Leningrad 7^th , Stalingrad 8^th and the no-name 9^th symphony. More on this one, later. It’s a juicy story.

I love history and music. My music history professor made me hate it. He was beyond crashing boredom, if he could make me hate 2 somethings balled into 1 something; I should have loved it twice as much, no? But I loathed it. Anyway, the story of the no-name 9^th symphony by Shostakovich that was supposed to celebrate the Soviet win over the Nazis is dandy. As usual, I digress.

Anyway, “Metamorphosen” is a tone poem for orchestrated for 23 strings, specifically 23 SOLO strings: 10 violins, 5 violas, 5 cellos and 3 double basses. This tone poem, along with his “4 Last Songs” are of the more classical and elegiac of Strauss’s works, returning to his initial style of composing prior to WWI, and during the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Anyway, the man lived a long time and saw lots of shit happen. Kinda like me, but I didn’t get threatened with Concentration Camps and hide my Jewish daughter-in-law and grandkids and then turn around and try to convince Stefan Zweig that Joseph Goebbels would be all cool with him writing librettos from London for his Operas, m’kay? This kind of behavior led the great conductor Arturo Toscanini to say, “To Strauss the Composer, I take off my hat. To Strauss the Man, I put it back on.” We have all had those days, but Toscanini should have kept his talkhole shut.

The sum of a person’s life can never be measured in anecdotes, or slices, but how in the hell can we ever qualify a person’s life? Should we even try? I have a bitch of a time with this. Just when I think I’m on a path of clarity, something comes along and tips my clarity wagon over and it goes all to hell and I scramble around. Or I do some ass thing, like make a judgment and guess what? I’m dead WRONG! Shit! How the hell did that happen? Gee, because… maybe, I’m not God.

My Daddy said that once to my Ma when she bitched at him for something that wasn’t just absolutely, fucking PERFECT. After she ran off at the piehole for about 5 minutes and he stood there looking at her with a twinkle in his eye and his easy grin, and said, “That’s because I’m not God.” Actually, I remembered it wrong, on purpose, because I want him to be THAT guy, but he wasn’t. He was kind of exasperated with her, and probably with me, because I laughed. Big deal. I laugh at everything. So did he. He pointed at the floor and said that, then stomped off to the garage for a slug of hooch. He was who he was. He loved her and he loved me in his human way. Nobody died or got beaten up. We laughed about it 5 minutes later. Slice of life.

He just wasn’t Richard fucking Strauss. Richard Strauss wasn’t "Strauss hanging out with Goebbels most of the time." He was home with his Frau Pauline and they were living in Stuttgart with their young son, who has been mayor of Stuttgart. Erwin Rommel’s kid has also been Mayor of Stuttgart. They're Schwabians, I think. Everyone loves Rommel. Rommel was a Wermacht Panzer General in WW II in North Africa, and not a real Nazi. Nobody likes Montgomery, because he was such a jerk. I have taken polls; "Rommel, or Montgomery?" "Not Monty, he's a jerk." So, it's not just me. He would show up and instant jerkery would ensue, just because he’s prissy and seemed a glory hound. Rommel is lion-brave and suave. 

All due respect. General Rommel had been awarded the equivalent of Knight's Cross and the Pour le Merité in WWI and was Hitler's favorite General. Eek! I just always thought of him as lion-hearted.

Fair and a gentleman too. And a comedian. He used to write to his wife, Lucy who was back in Stuttgart taking care of their only child, a son, Manfred. Rommel wrote his wife that Hitler told him that if he caught any soldiers who were Jews they were to be executed immediately. Rommel told Lucy that that directive fell behind his roll-top desk, "ho ho." That is from an actual letter to Lucy. He gave his staff no orders to ask the enemy prisoners’ faith and would not countenance any such questioning.

The point being, that we all aspire to this kind of honor. I fiddle around with some principle and do principle-checks and being the OCD sad thing  I am, it’s always *PRINCIPLE-CHECK TIME!* If it’s good, HAPPY BALLOONS, if not, my sad balloons are on the ground. Believe it, or not, I have *FILL-IN-THE-BLANK CHECKS* for about everything; appetite, mood, vision, nerve-ending, coordination, Asperger's Syndrome, bipolar; I'm a huge mess.  No wonder my goals are unmet!

Well, that formatting nightmare is over with. I just am trying to explain that we tend to try and put a quality on, or qualify things, people, lives  that are not easily qualified. I am especially bad at this. I’ve noticed, for instance, that as I’ve aged, I go back and listen to music I’ve played or known as a child. I experience it much differently. The same is true for reading. I think the difference is this. My brain organizes information differently now. I don’t want to make this sound clinical, because it’s not. I think it’s mostly spiritual.

As we seek and explore different paths of expression, we expand our belief systems. What may seem rigid, or one way becomes more porous and information flows both ways, I believe. Strauss was looked upon as a giant in the musical world. A German composer of what is known as the late 1^st Viennese School. Gustav Mahler was his contemporary, but was of the 2^nd Viennese School of composing; very different; he founded it, actually. But towards the end of Strauss’s life, WW II intervened, and Strauss became Reich Minister of Music under Joseph Goebbels. Thank God, Mahler was already dead; at age 51, in 1911.

He was really Strauss’s only equal as a composer and conductor. They had battled for supremacy on both sides of the Atlantic, and hated one another cordially. Mahler was Jewish. But truly, Strauss didn’t see any of this as a stumbling block. He was absolutely blind to the pernicious racism of the 3^rd Reich. The horrible killing machines were in Eastern Europe; Bergen-Belsen, Theresienstadt, Sobibor, Auschwitz, among many others. In his defense, he could not know about the Wannsee Conference.  Herr Strauss was appointed Reich Music Minister and chose to keep the position so he might be better situated to help his Jewish relatives by marriage. Strauss knew he was a lion in the musical world. In the 20s, only Otto Klemperer, (Werner Klemperer--Colonel Klink's dad, and they had already fled to New York from Vienna in 1938, because they were, gasp! Jews) Bruno Walter, and a very few others were on the scene. 

Even a young Herbert von Karajan had yet to make the scene. Conductors then, were the Rock Stars and they did rock. The mystique and the tantrums were legendary. I started playing professionally, just as those old lions were leaving the stage, so to speak. I'm kind of sad, but with the rise of the musicians' unions, it's probably a good thing. I experienced Klaus Tennstedt, and Karl-Heinz Von Stockhausen and their rages first-hand. Let me bring Richard back to center stage.

Herr Strauss then sparred with Goebbels for the next several years, not entirely successfully. You can read about the whole ordeal and the presumptuous way he was treated, here.. I don't think he was uncaring or unaware at all. I think Dr. Strauss used Goebbels to safeguard his family. He knew what he was doing. So, I choose to give him a pass. Besides, I’m not God; thanks, Daddy.