There ain't no "right" on this. I can enjoy Brecht and Weill as much
as a vocal work by Xenakis - but if the words are not foregrounded I
find my listening shifts, much as if I'm watching a play in another
language, and I am listening to different aspects of language, its
sonic qualities I suppose. This doesn't bother me, I find it
interesting; but I can understand others getting impatient.
Not long ago I did a reading (which was totally audible) with a
musician. His work was improvised, mine was not, except insofar as
how I read. I was interested afterwards when he said he hadn't been
responding to the meaning of the words I said, but to the tone.
There are many ways of communicating.
Best
A
> >But how many words can you understand in those
>> wonderful 19C soprano arias? Does it matter?
>
>If you're talking Verdi or Puccini, a very large number of them, unless the
>soprano is the type who swallows her consonants. But these libretti were
>carefully crafted, and intimately connected with the music (and used devices
>such as rhyme and regular metre which aid audibility).
>>And why do people
>> expect more vocal clarity from contemporary opera than they do from
>> contemporary pop music or trad opera?
>Which is probably why I don't listen to much contemporary pop. Give me
>Billie Holiday caressing and meaning the words of her jazz standards any
>day.
>
>>Language almost always distorts
>> when it's sung, especially if the music is demanding.
>When the composer distorts the cadence of the line, putting the stress on
>the wrong syllable, the words become inaudible. I've worked with several
>composers and I've found that tweaking the words so that the cadence of the
>words fits the cadence of the music renders the difficult clear.
>
>George
>______________________________________________
>George Simmers
>Snakeskin Poetry Webzine is at
>http://www.snakeskin.org.uk
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead
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