At 2:32 PM -0500 22/1/2002, Pierre Joris wrote:
>very sorry I have to miss
>it -- (or why doesn't someone record it & make an mp3 which cld be posted on
>the list... ugh, I'm dreaming
You could always write to Robert Hampson and DEMAND action.
Otherwise can some spies on the list go and report for us
geographically deprived types? I like Ferneyhough and I'm curious to
know, even at a remove, what they're doing...
And I'm personally delighted by David's news. I love that piece
HEROIN and it would be great set to music. For those who want to
have a look, it's up at
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/us/howard.html
At 6:12 PM +0000 22/1/2002, George Simmers wrote:
>It must be very dispiriting for the poets to know their words are not
>registering.
>Or maybe it's just that they don't have the necessary craft.
For some reason quite a number of composers have set my poetry;
sometimes you can hear the words, more often in contemporary song
cycles you can't. I've never been bothered by words not being
audible in any music setting, so long as in an opera the action is
clear and the libretto's in the program (neither of which happened in
my last opera production, woe was me). The audibility of the words
depends on the music as much as on the writer: Alice Goodman, a very
good librettist, writes for John Adams whose minimalist background
shows in very clear and undistorted vocal settings (yes, you can hear
every word). But how many words can you understand in those
wonderful 19C soprano arias? Does it matter? And why do people
expect more vocal clarity from contemporary opera than they do from
contemporary pop music or trad opera? Language almost always distorts
when it's sung, especially if the music is demanding.
Best
A
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
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