Category Archive: Classical Music
Ariadne & Theseus at the Mortlock Chamber
Picture courtesy of Dr Daniela Kaleva
To the Mortlock Chamber in the State Library of SA, to hear L’Arianna abbandonata e gloriosa and Lamento d’Arianna (1608), works reconstructed from Monteverdi’s fragmented scores, with solo voice and harpsichord, accompanied by the odd stage effect to evoke waves crashing on lonely Naxos, where (failed Argonaut) Theseus has parked Ariadne to show his gratitude for her help surviving the labyrinth on Minos. This paring away eschews the go-for-baroque approach that could overwhelm the purity of the harmonics, which are quite reminiscent of Purcell’s Dido pieces…
Continue Reading →Tristan und Isolde
Beware matchmakers. Beware writing opera when in lust with Mathilde Wesendonck. Beware love-of-death; it leads to the death of love, or death-porn. Wagner must have seen himself as Tristan to Mathilde’s Iseult, Lancelot to her Guinevere, when he shelved the Ring and forged perhaps the most beautiful opera of all. T & I poses a number of problems. Its staging should be spare yet lush. It requires a measure of taste and discretion, for Wagner wrote this work while well-unzipped (he expected the work to be censored unless it was played as parody) and the material can stray dangerously near…
Continue Reading →Memoirs of Hector Berlioz
Like Wagner, Berlioz was a pain in the neck, a necessary pain, the kind reminding one both of life and mortality. There is still no agreement as to how good he was and a lot of his work has Wagnerian length without the same depth. But check out his Faust, Trojans and Symphonie fantastique. This autobiography, painstakingly translated by David Cairns, (who has also produced a massive biography) shows the composer kicking like a mule to get ahead, to get his way, to get some recognition, in a France that has always been indifferent to him. A great work even for…
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