I Could be TOTALLY Wrong, but ...: This Post is an Experiment

Saturday, June 8, 2013

This Post is an Experiment

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I'm trying to put a music file in this post without going to all the trouble to make a video of it. Most of the examples I want to give do not have relevant video to accompany it. Some of my readers probably appreciate the music score I supply, but it is far more data to put on the Web than my humble posts deserve, let's face it.

OK, here goes:

Woo, woo! That was a total success!!!!!

A few words about the tune:

I had featured this piece earlier; it is an aria from a CD which I wonder whether I should name, for fear of getting into trouble, or whether I should give the full reference to it, in the name of truth in advertizing, and hoping that some of you will decide to buy it:

OK, the latter, then: it is Vergnügte Ruh, from Cantata no 170, BWV 170. [All the Cantatas have the same BWV number as their Cantata number, because Wolfgang Schmeider, who catalogued all of Bach's works, catalogued the Cantatas first, in their numerical order. I do not know who assigned the number to the Cantatas; possibly the Bach Society (The Bach Gesellschaft, whose catalogue is called the Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausgabe).] This performance is by Guillemette Laurens.

Warning: I have also modified the piece somewhat, for obvious reasons.

[Monday, June 10]
Here are a few audio files you might like.

This first one is a recently generated file of the Serenade which I wrote a couple of years ago, and is almost my only composition (apart from a chorale-prelude written when I was nineteen). The more I listen to it, the less satisfied I am with the musical ideas in it, though I did the best I could with what I began with. Inexcusably, I have forgotten the exact scoring of this version; I think it is for solo strings and a clarinet.

[Added still later: no, that does not work, even for me. There's something wrong with the protections on the file server. The one below did not work either, I know; so much for being able to put a whole lot of files on for you folks...
Here is a (minimal) YouTube version of the piece.]

This next is the amazing opening chorus from J. S. Bach's Passion according to St Matthew, or Matthäuspassion, as it is called in German. In case you weren't paying attention back in 2009 when I wrote about it at length, it is for two complete choirs and orchestras, probably located in two areas separated by at least several feet, and the piece is antiphonal, that is the sound goes back and forth between one chorus and the other. (Gabrielli, in Rome, used the same principle in some of his best known pieces written to be performed exclusively in the Vatican, but, as the story goes, Mozart reconstructed the music from memory soon after he had heard it.) The opening chorus uses the two choirs, as well as a children's chorus, probably situated between the two choirs and orchestras, in the middle. The melody of the children's chorus is doubled softly in the organ. To appreciate this wonderful piece one needs the full power of stereophonic sound, and most modern recordings try to do exactly that. When creating a sound file in a computer, the matter is relatively easy. You will probably find the stereo separation a little too extreme, but here it is, for what it's worth:
[As you know, the method I used at first did not work, so here is a link the old-fashioned way, via YouTube. The video is absolutely minimal, as a protest against an unfriendly universe; but there is an interesting feature you will notice.

I had two files with this piece: an mp3 generated with my software, with the antiphonal choirs and orchestra as I described above. However, I had used up all 24 lines of music that my software allowed, and when it came to adding the double bases, it wouldn't let me! Can you believe it? Bach does not specify double basses, but with such enormous musical forces, two entire choirs and orchestras (which, actually, could have been quite modest, separately), it was the practice to use proportionately heavy bass.

Well, in a spirit of adventure, I downloaded a trial version of the full software, Finale 2012, (the big brother of the PrintMusic I own,) which allows unlimited numbers of staves, so it was a mere bagatelle to add just two more: one line each of double basses for each choir and orchestra. Of course, I had to take the opportunity to make it generate an mp3 for me, with these fabulous double basses. Remember, this is slightly unfamiliar software, and it does things in slightly different ways than old buddy PrintMusic; it's like comparing a 1040EZ and 1040 for doing your taxes, you see? By the time I had itemized my double-bass deductions, I had wreaked all sorts of havoc up and down the score. Here is the tiniest possible video I could make easily. (It is possible to make an even smaller video using Adobe Flash, but the software is completely screwing me up.)

This work, the St Matthew Passion has almost legendary stature within the Christian musical community, and old-time Bach fanatics find themselves sucked into the veneration of the work, and confuse musical veneration with religious veneration. I'm reluctant to make disparaging remarks about the phenomenon, which you have to experience for yourself. YouTube has a clip of Karl Richter, a sort of law unto himself, performing this same chorus. It takes some 11 minutes, in contrast to the 5 that my (mechanically produced) version took. (It was not taken at an insane speed, either; you probably thought it was a little too deliberate.) But here is the Richter version. The performers seem to feel that they are participating in a religious experience. It is very difficult to sing at such a slow pace; the breathing is almost impossible.

Well!

Before you go away thinking that Karl Richter is a total loss as a musician, here is something that might convince you that his musicianship is more than salvageable. He was an amazing performer on the organ and the harpsichord. This is one of Bach's most celebrated works: the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord.