Art Nouveau Ho

Poem of the day

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:53:28 GMT

Sailing to Byzantium
W. B. Yeats, 1927

I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
--Those dying generations -- at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enameling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Rings and things

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:43:14 GMT

Today's interesting-thing-stolen-from-MetaFilter:
The Rings of the Earth: What we'd see if the Earth had rings like Saturn. [YouTube]

Somewhere in a parallel universe, someone is making a video of all the stars they'd be able to see if their planet didn't have rings.

Music for a while

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:01:28 GMT

Music heard and seen today:

- A strangely inspired concert by voice-and-clarinet duo Ah! You Sitting Comfortably, starring my good friend Pete W. The programme was all music by living composers, with whom the duo had worked-- and the preparation showed. Each piece was a bizarre, fantastic little story: my favourite, Flimminilap by Stephen McNeff, featured two people on a train drifting in and out of conversation and music on the way to a station whose existence is debatable. The last piece, Atem by Mauricio Kagel, is strangely moving: a solo clarinettist has increasing difficulty turning breath into sound; she plays feebly on several different reed instruments by turns before falling dead to the floor. It's music about the loss of music, and I liked that.

- 6comm at the Underworld in Camden. I arrived late-ish for the one decent opening act-- but heard all of the two who sucked hairy goat balls. (Very seriously, mind you.) One girl who showed some promise had to cut her set short because of a CD malfunction. 6comm himself started strongly, making his ritual gesture with his bell-festooned axe before settling down amid his usual morasse of stage-smoke and percussion instruments. What I like about 6comm is his soundworld, which is unique to him. Using percussion, samples and synths, he builds up this astounding sound-atmosphere which takes you right out of this world. Over this, he sings (his voice is surprisingly good; his lyrics, more often than not, total bollocks. Usually the words are kind of indistinguishable, which is a bonus.)
He played a few good songs before all his keyboards simultaneously died on him, so he was left with just percussion, looping and samples. It was interesting to see how he handled the situation, and it was great to see him improvise, but in the end he sadly admitted defeat and wandered offstage, shaking his axe.

- On the way home I stopped for some takeout meze at my neighbourhood Middle Eastern place (tasty, cheap and open late: what more could one ask?) The guys that know me were on shift, and as usual, they put on some dance music. Usually I just smile and show them a move or two-- but I'd been hearing extraordinary music all evening and not dancing, so I took off my coat and shoes and cut loose. A girl at one of the tables stood up and joined me: it turned out she knew me from dance class! So everyone at her table stood up and started dancing too, and we ended up having a brief dance party while I waited for my takeout. (They smiled and charged me £5.)

What have we learned about music today?

From the first concert: Music is what you think it is.
From the second concert: When you're in the zone, let nothing throw you out of it.
From the last dance: Without music, the human race would have no reason to shake its booty.

Good night and sweet music to you all.

Deh signor, non contrastate/ Consolate i miei desir

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:00:10 GMT

Figaro went well! Kudos to my colleagues, and many thanks to all who came.

In every piece of music you rehearse, there comes a time by which the music is going round and round in your head nonstop: on the bus, down the aisles of the supermarket, and especially when you're trying to get to sleep.

But this time it was Figaro, and Figaro turns that phenomenon up to 11. Suddenly the earworm in your head has the volume and clarity of a million-dollar sound system that you can't turn off. There isn't a hope of getting rid of it, so you just live with a skull full of blasting Mozart.

There are two good points to this situation: one is that you get to know the opera really well, whether you want to or not. The other is subtler: this is the closest we'll ever get to knowing what it felt like to be Mozart. If his music occupies our every waking moment and won't leave us alone, how must he have felt? Did the music resound in his head with the same painful clarity, the same insistence, never letting him rest till he wrote it down? If so, he must never have needed to cast about for ideas; they'd have come thronging, clamouring to be let out.

If Mozart had lived a normal lifespan for his time and social class, most of what we have of his today would be known as "early Mozart".

My teacher once said that when you memorise music, you're actually composing it again in your head. I think he was right about this.

There's a bit in the Act II Finale (about 1.40 to 2.20 here) that made our Cherubino (offstage at the time) grin madly and wave her legs in the air. I think she was right about this too.

Limning literary love

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:12:12 GMT

The absolute best thing I have stolen off MetaFilter today is: Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!!!

This is a blog in which comics artists draw their favourite literary characters and authors. I've only browsed for a bit, but I've already found some treasures:

Trim and Uncle Toby from Tristram Shandy, drawn by Donna Barr
Sunday from The Man Who Was Thursday, drawn by Neil Gaiman
Dracula, drawn by Michael Zulli
Jules Verne, drawn by Ted McKeever
Douglas Adams, drawn by Tom Fowler
3 drawings of H P Lovecraft
Alan Moore, drawn by Frazer Irving
Job (looking not unlike Swamp Thing), drawn by John Totleben
Captain Hook, drawn by Linda Medley
Jane Austen's Emma, drawn by Trina Robbins
Victor Frankenstein, drawn by Shea Anton Pensa

Go waste time here. I command it.

Artificial fires

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:42:00 GMT

At the end of Figaro, after all the traps are sprung, misunderstandings cleared up, and jealous spouses disciplined, there is a very brief, almost frantically festive final chorus.

Questo giorno di tormenti,
Di capricci e di follia,
In contenti ed allegria,
Solo amor puo terminar.

Sposi! Amici! Al ballo! Al gioco!
Alle mine date fuoco!
Corriam tutti a festeggiar!

The next-to-last line means "Light the fireworks!" or, literally, "To the mines give fire!" This used to be an English phrase too:

In giving fire to any great peece of Ordnance, such as Cannon, Culverin, or such like, it is requisite that ye Gonner thereto appointed first see that ye peece be well primed, laying a little powdre about ye touch-hole as a traine, and then to be nimble in giving fire, which as soon as he espieth to flame, he ought with quicknesse to retire back three or four yardes out of danger of the reverse of ye wheels and carriage of ye peece; for oftentimes it happeneth that the wheels or axle-tree doth break and spoile ye Gonner that giveth fire, not having ability to move himself from the danger of ye same; yea, I did see a Gonner slaine with the reverse of the wheele of a culverin, which crushed his legge and thigh in peeces, who, if he had had a care, and nimbleness withal, might have escaped ye misfortune.

So "give fire" basically just meant "light something that explodes." The Italian word mina, "mine", similarly, just meant "thing that explodes." Italian fireworks were known as the loveliest in Europe, and much sought after; the Royal Fireworks of 1749, for which Handel composed the music, were made and given fire by Italians. (The concert pavilion burned down, but so it goes.)

All of this took place, of course, in the Age of Enlightenment. This was a time when all things, from new discoveries to religion to long-entrenched social institutions, were subjected to ruthless and minute scrutiny by philosophers using the power of Reason. Their conclusion: Fireworks are awesome.

Few productions of Figaro actually end with fireworks. Sadly, you cannot actually blow shit up in an opera house. Modern stage technology means that you can have certain pyrotechnics onstage, but they are expensive, and producers tend to save them for things like der Ring des Nibelungen.

Which is a pity, because after all the Almaviva household have been through, they deserve a great firework display to release the emotional tension that's built up all through the opera, and also symbolically herald the coming revolution.

Figaro is set in Spain, of course, but the original play was written by Beaumarchais, a Frenchman. (The opera is a collaboration between an Austrian composer and an Italian librettist.) The ban on its performance by Louis XVI, which kept it off the stage for six years, has become part of its legend. By the time Mozart's opera was finished, it was 1789 and the Revolution was under way. Some of Beaumarchais's politically incendiary dialogue is trimmed, but the core of the matter remains: by the end of the opera the social structure is turned upside down. The Count, the character of highest social status, is outwitted and humiliated by his wife, her maidservant, and his valet. Moreover, we have been shown that this outcome was right and just: the Count was an abuser of his power, both as aristocrat and as husband. Beaumarchais doesn't call for his head-- this is a comedy, after all-- and Mozart, in one of the most unforgettable moments in all of opera, has the Countess forgive him. Still, the character has been ruthlessly-- and deservingly-- stripped of his dignity.

In America, fireworks celebrate the Revolution; in Britain, they celebrate the preservation of the status quo. (And, yes, the prevention of hundreds of deaths, okay, whatever.) All of which proves my theory that any day is a good day to BLOW SHIT UP. In conclusion, I wish you all a fiery Fifth.

I like Reich

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:09:59 GMT

On Halloween night, since I was neither in Oxford nor Whitby, I headed to the Royal Festival Hall to see Steve Reich. Yes, the man himself was in town for a performance with the London Sinfonietta; the show was long since sold out, of course, but they were screening it live in the RFH's ballroom for free. I got to hear "Sextet" and Music For 18 Musicians, both of which were ...

I'm struggling for an adjective here. I could use an anodyne one like "lovely", but this music is not lovely. Its nature requires you to commit to it on its own terms. It is made with the precision of the gods of geometry; with an exactitude that leaves no room for mercy. It is not music that makes you think. It is music that renders you, after a while, incapable of thought. It has the mathematical inexorability of Bach with added metallophones and maracas. It is, in short, Steve Reich.

...Or that's one way of looking at it. Another way: Music For 18 Musicians is an hour long without a break. In the first and final sections, called "Pulses", sixteen of the eighteen musicians play repeated staccato semiquavers on a single chord. Underneath the chord, the two bass clarinettists sustain a throbbing note for as long as their breath lasts. After two breaths, one of the clarinettists stands up to inhale; at this signal, without missing a beat, the chord changes. This cycle continues through eleven different chords, the duration of each defined by the fragile human breath. So much for mathematics; so much for exactitude.

Towards the end of the piece, Reich's score calls for maracas to keep up a steady pulse for about 15 minutes. This is not humanly possible. No matter how buff you are, your arms will turn to spaghetti in their sockets. So in performance, Reich has arranged for two of the 18 musicians to alternate at intervals on the maracas. On being relieved, the off-duty maracista shakes their arms out, then heads straight to the marimba or piano. Reich insisted that every part had breaks built in, but it's still physically and mentally an extremely demanding hour. Reich himself was performing it two days after flying to the UK; having experienced what jetlag does to the brain, I am awed.

Afterwards, Reich came to the ballroom for a post-performance talk, which was great. He talked quite a bit about music history, saying "There's always been an open window between the concert hall and the street," and citing Guillaume de Machaut, Palestrina and Kurt Weill among others as examples of this. He was scornful of composers who feel required to "do something new," saying that it was better to write something you actually like. "On long car journeys, I listen to quite a lot of my own music. I think that says something," he said with a smile.

So if you ever have the chance to hear Reich speak, go: he's knowledgeable and funny as all hell. And to hear a living composer play their own music is always inspiring. I have to say, though-- traitorously-- that as far as the music itself, I still kind of prefer Philip Glass. The reason is simple: You can listen to Philip Glass with a hangover. Reich, not so much.

If you don't believe me:
Clapping Music
Music For Pieces Of Wood (extract)
Piano Phase
City Life part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

Aux armes, citoyens!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:48:43 GMT

"And what's the point of a revolution without general copulation?"
--Peter Weiss, Marat/Sade

Lately I've been reading A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel, who just won the Booker Prize for Wolf Hall. I'm more than halfway through, and I have to admit it: I love this book. After wading through wheelbarrowloads of poorly-written "popular history" and poorly-researched historical fiction, it's an amazing feeling to find someone, at last, doing it right.

I have one other confession to make: I was a teenage French Revolution geek. Michelet and Twelve Who Ruled had pride of place on my shelves, along with a plethora of other books in English and French. I sang the Carmagnole and Ça Ira in the school hallways, and dated my papers by the Revolutionary calendar. So when I say that Mantel's novel has the French Revolution Geek Seal Of Approval, you'll know those aren't idle words.

A Place of Greater Safety requires commitment: it's a doorstop-sized book and a slow read. In this, and in its sprawling scope, it reminds me a bit of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (though Mantel isn't quite that insane.) If you do make the commitment, though, you get rewarded with sentences like:

Annette had decided to employ that aspect of herself her friends called a Splendid Woman. It involved sweeping about the room and smiling archly.

**************************

[Danton to Desmoulins:] "May I continue? You've never achieved anything because you're always bloody horizontal. I mean, you're supposed to be at some place, right, and you're not, and people say, God, he's so absent-minded - but I know the truth - you started the day with very good intentions, you might even have been on the way to where you're supposed to be going, and then you just run into somebody, and what's the next thing? You're in bed with them."
"And that's the day gone," Camille said. "Yes, you're right, you're right."

The book centres around Georges-Jacques Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Maximilien Robespierre, following them from childhood through optimistic youth into their history-making years as "public men." Mantel does well by all three. She clearly found them interesting and wanted to know more about them, and she makes her reader feel the same curiosity.

They don't have the narrative all to themselves, however; a good double handful of characters take a turn telling the story. We hear from the long-suffering Gabrielle Danton, the keen-witted Lucile Desmoulins and her mother Annette; the pubescent Louise Gély, who grows up with the Revolution; from Fabre d'Églantine, unemployed genius; from Manon Roland, salon hostess and implacable enemy of our three protagonists; from Philippe, Duke of Orléans.

I admit to being especially impressed by her treatment of Robespierre. We all know the cardboard-cutout Robespierre, the villain of countless stories: bloodless, sexless, icy, devoid of human feeling, caring only for the ideals of Revolution and Republic. Mantel's Robespierre is very different. The adjective she uses most for him is "gentle." She creates an extremely believable human character for him; she gives us his hopes and fears, his likes and dislikes, his wit, his weaknesses. Her Robespierre isn't sexless, and she even takes us into his bed to prove it -- with results that are sort of morbidly hilarious.

In fact, a sense of the ridiculous is one of this book's great strengths:

'Sansculottes', the working men call themselves, because they wear trousers not breeches. [...]On the sansculotte head, the red bonnet, the 'cap of liberty'. Why liberty is thought to require headgear is a mystery.

For the rich and powerful, the aim is to be accepted as sansculotte in spirit, without assuming the ridiculous uniform. But only Robespierre and a handful of others keep hope alive for the unemployed hairdressers of France.

Genius, I tell you. Go read.

Figaro, Figaro, Figaro

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:30:18 GMT

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
(THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO)
SHELDONIAN THEATRE
OXFORD
NOVEMBER 10 & 11, 2009
7:30pm

Tickets: £20/£16/£12
Concessions £8
STUDENTS £6

BOOK TICKETS AT http://www.figaroinoxford.co.uk

November 10th and 11th are a Tuesday and Wednesday evening: inconvenient timing for those outside Oxford who work normal hours. However, if your schedule permits, this is shaping up to be a rather special Figaro. An eighteenth-century opera in an eighteenth-century theatre in eighteenth-century costume is surely cause for celebration. The orchestra is mostly modern instruments, but the continuo will be a fortepiano like the one Mozart used at the first performances.

If, by chance, you were planning to come and see lost_in_avebury's and brute_force's work in the completely free Steampunk exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science-- well, Figaro would make an excellent evening's entertainment. Hope to see you there.

Sing to me, o muses

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:47:26 GMT

I want to write something, but I don't know what. Throw me a title, will you?

Just a song at twilight

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:12:09 GMT

After rehearsal yesterday, I happened to pass by one of the most fantastic charity shops ever: Age Concern on St Clement's, Oxford, crammed to the gills with the random and the sublime. There I found

The Parlour Song Book: A Casquet of Vocal Gems

In almost every charity shop you can find old collections of songs meant to be sung around the piano (or harmonium) at home by friends and family, containing popular songs of the time as well as traditional songs and hymns. This one is different: it's dedicated specifically to the Victorian parlour song, composed by actual Victorians (as well as a few nineteenth-century Americans). Within its battered covers is enclosed pretty much everything there is to love and loathe about the Victorian era.

One of the reasons goths love the Victorian era is its obsession with death and mourning. To us, it seems overdone; we forget quite how many of our friends would be dead by this point, or have seen their child die, if we'd been alive in the pre-antibiotic era. The Victorian era in particular was an age that came up with a whole hell of a lot of things that could kill you, and showed absolutely no mercy to the casualties.

Once you were dead, though, you were fuel for that uniquely Victorian phenomenon, the sentimental song. I'll throw you some titles from the table of contents:

Father's a Drunkard and Mother is Dead
Dear Mother, I've Come Home To Die
Yes, Let Me Like A Soldier Fall
Shall I Be An Angel, Daddy?
Let Me Kiss Him For His Mother
The Vacant Chair
The Pardon Came Too Late

You can pretty much tell exactly what each of these songs are going to sound like just by reading the title. The book also includes other mostly-forgotten genres like Temperance songs and "minstrel" songs (written in dialect, to be sung by white singers in blackface makeup.)

As well as the shovel-loads of tripe, though, the book does contain a few songs that have held onto their value. "The Lost Chord" is in there, as well as "Come Into the Garden, Maud" and "The Last Rose Of Summer." Here are the lyrics to one by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, set by Michael Balfe:

I know a maiden fair to see,
        Take care!
She can both false and friendly be,
        Beware! Beware!
        Trust her not, 
She is fooling thee!  Beware!

She has two eyes, so soft and brown,
        Take care!
She gives a side-glance and looks down,
        Beware! Beware!
        Trust her not,
She is fooling thee!  Beware!

And she has hair of golden hue,
        Take care!
And what she says, it is not true,
        Beware! Beware!
        Trust her not,
She is fooling thee!  Beware!

She has a bosom as white as snow,
        Take care!
She knows how much it is best to show,
        Beware! Beware!
        Trust her not,
She is fooling thee!  Beware!

She gives thee a garland woven fair,
        Take care!
It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear,
        Beware! Beware!
        Trust her not,
She is fooling thee!  Beware!

The question now is: what should I do with this book? Find someone with an accordion and work up a few numbers to amuse steampunks? Send it anonymously to the Dead Victorians in the hope that they'll do an upbeat, ukulele-accompanied version of "Father's A Drunkard, Mother Is Dead"? Really, what do I do? I'm open to suggestion here.

Win some, lose some

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:01:04 GMT

The good news:
A couple of weeks ago I was offered Marcellina in a Figaro in Oxford on 10th and 11th November. It's in the very beautiful Wren-designed Sheldonian Theatre, in 18th century costume (full-throated huzzahs)! Rehearsals have been going well.

The not-so-good news:
Sadly, this means no Whitby. And the dress rehearsal is, cruelly, on Bonfire Night. I suppose this means I will have to set the rehearsal venue on fire. Sigh.

This will be my first Marcellina. When a mezzo goes from Cherubino (teenage pageboy) to Marcellina (old baggage), it can make her contemplate her own mortality. Cherubino is much more fun, though really the two characters share the same problem: randomized lust in search of an object.

Figaro is, for me, the beating heart of opera. Whenever I wonder why I'm doing this, I put on the CD, and with the opening bars of the overture I instantly think: "OK, that's why."

Sex, drugs and baroque roles IV: the wrap-up

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:34:54 GMT

Many, many thanks to all who endured an evening on wooden benches in a cold church listening to silly Baroque ornamentation. You are truly hardcore, and the ghost of Handel smiles on you.

The show went decently well on both nights. I was surrounded by a phenomenally talented company of extremely nice people, and hope I acquitted myself well enough not to let the side down. I really enjoyed doing it.

I'd forgotten that one of my favourite things about opera is being sung to. Few things about being Cesare pleased me more than the chance to sit back and be serenaded by a Cleopatra who exceeds the bounds of possible human cuteness.

I dwell on the mistakes, of course, and things I wish I'd done better. Saturday was going quite well until I made a mistake at the end of my last aria. (Arrrrrrgh.) But overall, I really enjoyed my brief time as emperor of the world.

Things I read to feel more Roman:
- Caesar's Legion, a history of the 10th Legion. Very readable and full of interesting detail, though the writing and editing decline in quality after the death of Caesar.

- The entire archive of excellent webcomic SPQR Blues, especially the military flashback in Chapter 2. SO GOOD. Go read.

- Also, I drew/wrote a lot of Sator squares.

Next up: Marcellina in an Oxford Figaro next month... of which more anon. Meanwhile, thanks again to my colleagues and to everyone who came along!

Sex, drugs and baroque roles III

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:33:40 GMT

In the title of these posts, I promised you sex.

I am singing a part written for Francesco Bernardi, stage name Senesino. He was one of the great opera stars of his day, and he was able to be so because, at age thirteen, he had been castrated. He was the son of a Sienese barber; since barbers often doubled as surgeons, his father would have known exactly what the operation entailed and would have sent his son to the best surgeon he knew. Thousands of families made a less well-informed choice every year -- some in the belief that castration alone would give their child the vocal talent to make them a fortune. (Only one singer, Caffarelli, is on record as having such musical ambitions as a child that he asked to be castrated.) Needless to say, disappointment was the norm; surgery-related deaths were also frequent. Only a small number of the survivors would have the talent, intelligence, dedication and luck to make a living singing in opera companies or church choirs.

from the Wikipedia entry (which is excellent, and well worth a look):

As the castrato's body grew, his lack of testosterone meant that his epiphyses (bone-joints) did not harden in the normal manner. Thus the limbs of the castrati often grew unusually long, as did the bones of their ribs. This, combined with intensive training, gave them unrivalled lung-power and breath capacity. Operating through small, child-sized vocal cords, their voices were also extraordinarily flexible.

With his big ribcage and small larynx, a well-trained castrato could sing for a full minute or longer on one breath. Handel's music is full of long coloratura passages that take advantage of this unique ability. Most modern singers have to breathe in the middle of these; I certainly often do!

For someone like Senesino, the rewards were great. Handel wrote him no fewer than seventeen leading roles, and he was often paid more to sing them than Handel was to write them. These characters were heroes, generals and kings; very different, in other words, from the male roles later written for female, cross-dressing mezzo-sopranos. Male roles written for women tend to be young lovers with more enthusiasm than success like Siebel in Faust and Cherubino in Figaro, or terribly effete creatures like Prince Orlofsky and the splendid teen-goth Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos. I'm no stranger to trousers, but a character like Caesar is considerably more virile than I'm used to.

As well as a brilliant general and an able politician, Julius Caesar was a prolific lover of women (and possibly also some men.) Of Senesino's love life, I can find not a whisper-- only that an English soprano, Anastasia Robinson, was once embarrassed by his "too near approach" onstage. From here:

Her disappearance from the stage was a puzzle to many, and only a few of her nearest friends knew that she had secretly married the Earl of Peterborough. In 1724 Peterborough publicly defended Robinson when she had been embarassed by Senesino's 'too near approach' during a public rehearsal. Peterborough challenged Senesino, made him apologise publicly on bended knee, and then caned him. Robinson was never to appear on stage again, and her marriage was not publicly acknowledged until many years later, just before Peterborough died.

One can't help but feel for Senesino here. Castrati were popular both as "safe" objects of sexual adulation and as lovers. Many were perfectly capable of sustaining an erection (see the linked article for details), and they acquired a reputation for being as virtuosic in bed as they were in song. Though Senesino was by no means as handsome as his colleague Farinelli, he would have had no trouble finding willing partners if he wanted them. I hope, at least, that his performance as Caesar made people of taste and discernment want to shag him.

Handel, too, kept his love life under wraps. He never married, and the quest for any hint of an affair with anyone-- male or female-- has been driving biographers crazy since time immemorial. He may, of course, simply have been celibate (which doesn't necessarily imply a lack of passion.) There is passion in the music; there is love there, for sure. Is there sex? Judge for yourself. Cleopatra is a sex-bomb of a character, and her playful, teasing music is certainly very sensual.

YouTube, audio only: Magdalena Kozena singing "V'adoro, pupille." Check out those ornaments...!

Text and translation:

V'adoro, pupille,
Saette d'amore,
Le vostre faville
Son grate nel sen.

Pietose vi brama
Il mesto mio core,
Ch’ogn’ora vi chiama
L’amato suo ben.

I adore you, o eyes, darts of love!
Your sparks are welcome in my breast.

Look with pity on my sad heart,
Which always calls you its dear beloved.

So that's where I am: standing in the shoes of the sexually vigorous Caesar, the castrato Senesino, and the ambiguous Handel. It is a somewhat confusing position, but on the other hand, these are some seriously stylish shoes.

Less than a week now until the first performance! Email david.crown@virgin.net to book tickets.
Thursday 8th and Saturday 10th October, 7.30 pm
St Michael's at the Northgate, Cornmarket Street, Oxford
Tickets £10/students £5

Obama makes goths smile

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:51:17 GMT

This photograph of Barack Obama with Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero and his family, including two vaguely gothic teenage daughters, is causing a bit of a stir.

"Try as they might to stay hidden, the children of world leaders will find a way to show off the regrettable teenage phases they are going through for posterity."

Sigh. They're not even that goth. No more goth than their mother, anyway. No corsets, no piercings, no overexposed flesh-- even the most conservative parent would concede that they're dressed entirely appropriately for a formal occasion (and very pretty).

I think I'm right in saying that if you, o gothic ministers of LJ, were to be photographed with a head of state, you would show these political types a thing or two about style? Oh yes.

Should I ever get a chance to meet Obama, damn right I'll be wearing a corset.

Meanwhile: solidarity, Spanish baby bats. Keep the faith.

Sex, drugs and baroque roles II

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 02:24:51 GMT

Today I've been mostly practicing my recitative.

Baroque opera is divided rigidly into "recitative" sections-- lightly sung dialogue, in which the action takes place-- and musical numbers (arias, ensembles, choruses), in which the characters react to, and reflect on, the action. For instance, scene one of Giulio Cesare:

Chorus: About how awesome Caesar is.
Aria: Sung by Caesar; also about how awesome Caesar is.
Recit: Caesar has vanquished his rival, Pompey the Great. Pompey's wife and son come to him, pleading for peace. Caesar agrees and offers generous terms. Just then, an Egyptian general enters, bearing a gift from Pharaoh Ptolemy: Pompey's head. Caesar is shocked; Pompey's wife faints; Pompey's son is horrified. Caesar orders the Egyptian general to leave. But wait! He can't leave yet....
Aria: ...because Caesar has to sing for another few minutes about how angry he is, philosophise about how no true king is without mercy, and order him to leave a few more times.
(Here's the fainting-and-horrification part of the recit, leading into mezzo Sarah Conolly singing that last aria. Is she not the butchest thing on earth?)

So the structure of Baroque opera presents a bit of a problem to the modern listener. The story only moves during the recits; when an aria starts, the action stops. Add to this the da capo aria form and we start to have a problem: "Hang on, the action just stopped and now he's going to sing it all over again?"

Clever directors and singers who can act will find ways around this. Handel himself, by the time he wrote Cesare, was starting to play around with the form to make it less static. However, the bottom line is that if you go to a Baroque opera, your desire for story has to be balanced about 50-50 with the desire to hear good music. (And if you're singing in one, you'd damn well better be entertaining.)

Sex, drugs and baroque roles

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:44:13 GMT

I think I'm going to talk a little about what I've been working on lately, in the event that it interests anyone who might like to learn more about what I do, or who may be coming to see Giulio Cesare (which I hope you will.)

Opera was invented in Italy in the 1600s by people trying to find a modern equivalent of classical Greek theatre. By the 1700s, the goals weren't so lofty: opera had gone from being edifying entertainment for nobles to being spectacular entertainment for nobles to being blockbuster entertainment for everyone. Stage technology had advanced to the point where instant scene changes and spectacular effects were possible. Composers, too, wrote to thrill the crowds: rapid coloratura fireworks, sustained phrases that tested the limits of a singer's breath capacity, and tunes you were sure to leave the theatre humming. Opera stars were like rock stars and movie stars combined, and the stakes were high: the rivalry between two sopranos, Cuzzoni and Faustina, often led to violence among the fans and, once, to an onstage brawl between the divas themselves. It wasn't enough just to sing a good aria onstage. You had to sing it wearing the latest fashion and the biggest hat imaginable; you had to sing faster and quieter and louder and hold notes longer than your rival at the theatre down the street; and of course, you had to invent the best ornaments.

Ornaments are very important in Baroque music, especially opera. Most arias of this period follow a certain form: the composer writes two sections, which we'll call A and B. In performance, you sing the A-section, you sing the B-section, then you go back to the beginning and sing the A-section again, ornamenting the melody with little flourishes of your own. Every singer invented their own ornaments, both to show off their best vocal tricks and to display their musical creativity. The audience would listen for these and applaud particularly graceful or well-executed ones; they would be just as quick to boo ornaments they found tasteless, or worse, recognised as stolen from another singer.

Generally, a Baroque aria represents a single emotional moment, whether that emotion is love, despair, anger, desire for forgiveness, desire for revenge, or madness (an old favourite.) Good ornaments will serve to heighten that emotion in the repeated A-section. Bad ones will detract from it (for example, if you're singing a sad song, you don't put trills all over the place.)

In Giulio Cesare, Cesare has one aria that's basically a "Christmas tree"-- an excuse for as many ornaments as possible. Here's a YouTube video of countertenor Andreas Scholl having fun with it-- though not as much fun as the violinist. Enjoy!

The words translate as:

Se in fiorito ameno prato
L'augellin tra fiori e fronde
Si nasconde,
Fa più grato il suo cantar.

Se così Lidia vezzosa
Spiega ancor note canore,
Più graziosa
Fa ogni core innamorar.

A-section: "If, in the flowery field, a little bird hides itself among the branches, its song gives even greater pleasure."
B-section: "So, if the charming Lidia sings while hidden, she makes all hearts fall even more in love."

("Lidia" is really Cleopatra in disguise. Caesar is happy because she's just sung him a song.)

Gold in them there hills

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:52:15 GMT

Deep in darkness    as dragon's dwelling
Hidden under hill    lay heaped the hoard, 
Battle-gear    brightly gleaming.
Sword-hilts splendid,    serpent-spiraled,
Helms and horns    and handles to hold,
Gold to grace    the graves of the great.
Silent it slumbered    as centuries passed.
Then a carl came,    keen and cunning,
The dark earth delving    with deft detector, 
Singer of spell-song,    seer into stone.

Shiny pictures here,
explanation by a British Museum bod here.

I love the way the BBC keep referring to the find as a "hoard," as if it had been found with the bones of a dragon coiled possessively over it. Attempts to interview the finder were unsuccessful as he seemed to have disappeared, along with one of the hoard's less significant items, reportedly a small inscribed gold ring...

Insert coin, receive singing

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:58:25 GMT

Let me tell you about my friend Emilie.

I think you'd like her. She's funny as all hell. She knits.

Most importantly, she's an amazing mezzo-soprano, currently studying at the Royal College of Music. But she's in a tough spot financially right now, and has exhausted most of her options. If things carry on as they are, she's in danger of having to drop out of music college.

So, as a last resort, she's set up a donation website in which she explains her situation with eloquence and wit, and provides a PayPal button whereby you can, if you choose, help her out.

I know the world is full of chaos, carnage and suffering, and many people are going through an uncertain time financially. But if you felt like sending Emilie a pound or two, I think you'd be doing a lovely thing.

Poem of the day

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:10:03 GMT

To Juan at the Winter Solstice
by Robert Graves
There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling,
Whether as learned bard or gifted child;
To it all lines or lesser gauds belong
That startle with their shining
Such common stories as they stray into.

Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues,
Or strange beasts that beset you,
Of birds that croak at you the Triple will?
Or of the Zodiac and how slow it turns
Below the Boreal Crown,
Prison to all true kings that ever reigned?

Water to water, ark again to ark,
From woman back to woman:
So each new victim treads unfalteringly
The never altered circuit of his fate,
Bringing twelve peers as witness
Both to his starry rise and starry fall.

Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty,
All fish below the thighs?
She in her left hand bears a leafy quince;
When, with her right hand she crooks a finger, smiling,
How may the King hold back?
Royally then he barters life for love.

Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched,
Whose coils contain the ocean,
Into whose chops with naked sword he springs,
Then in black water, tangled by the reeds,
Battles three days and nights,
To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore?

Much snow if falling, winds roar hollowly,
The owl hoots from the elder,
Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:
Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.
The log groans and confesses:
There is one story and one story only.

Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,
Do not forget what flowers
The great boar trampled down in ivy time.
Her brow was creamy as the crested wave,
Her sea-blue eyes were wild
But nothing promised that is not performed.

Tonight, with friends, I went to see 6comm accompanying Freya Aswynn's ritualistic recitation. Much of her text was adapted from parts of the Elder Edda, and her harsh, unrelenting voice suited those repetitive verses strangely well. It made me really want to hear them spoken in Old Norse, but I think Aswynn's intonation is about as close as I'll get to listening to a skaldic poet. 6comm's soundscapes made it a properly astounding experience.

Afterwards, a group of five of us or so were talking about myth and poetry and the books we'd loved in childhood, and I mentioned this poem (attributing it, incorrectly, to Dylan Thomas.) When I looked it up, it seemed a good match for the mood of the evening.

Married To The Sea wins again

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:46:24 GMT

www.marriedtothesea.com

bats, bears, books

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:43:04 GMT

Some photos:

A bat skimming a pond (apologies for the Daily Mail link, but it had the most photos, including an interesting one of the photographer's setup.)

Many, many polar bears.

Neil Gaiman's bookshelves! The photos enlarge to the point where you can read the titles.

Neil Gaiman really needs to write a book about a bat and a polar bear who... uh... never meet because they can't live in the same climate zone... OK, maybe not.

Out upon 'Merry Christmas'!

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:58:07 GMT

The announcement that this year's London Christmas lights will be themed around Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol makes me fiercely joyful for many reasons, including:

*the hope that the lights will include cheery seasonal images of starving street children

*or the Ghost Of Christmas Future, who scared the living fuck out of young, TV-watching me. Seriously.

*an excuse to stride down Oxford Street declaiming "Every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' upon his lips should be boiled in his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart"

*...like I've ever needed an excuse. But still.

It Is Now Officially Friday

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:41:23 GMT

If you would like a few well-made comic-book tales about dogs, ghosts, witches and zombies, go here.

If you didn't waste enough of your childhood playing Infocom text adventure games, go here. Look, it's Zork! And the Douglas Adams-scripted Bureaucracy! And Hitchhiker's Guide! Maybe this time I can actually get the motherfucking Babel fish in my ear...

Or if it's been the kind of week where you feel the need for shouty whiteboy rap about punching people in the genitals, just go here. (YouTube, NSFW)

Friends, Romans, countrypersons

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:28:51 GMT

France was good, and today is a good day to tell you about this. So: come one, come all!

Poster by the ever-amazing playfuleye.

This is a concert performance-- that is, it'll be in evening dress, using scores (though I hope to be off book.) Still, there will be interaction and we will tell the story (which is quite a fun one, involving Cleopatra.) The score has many amazing Handelian moments, both of rapid-fire awesomeness and lyrical beauty.

Plus, I get to be emperor of the world for once in my life. Cool, eh?
Hope to see you there!