Day 291: Opera, electronic music, computer music
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
291 — Opera, electronic music, computer music
19-May-1972
(Freitag–Fri.)
TRANSCRIPT
Did a little of everything. Learned a little about
what computer music is from Ing. Gottwald. Doesn’t
seem quite as glamorous as I expected, at least not
yet.
Saw Daphne
(Strauss). It
seems that when opera has less melody-like lines, the
words have much more importance. It also seems that
opera is harder to bring about a tremendous climax
(but it does), than an orchestra does. For example,
in Daphne,
the orchestral passage at the end was quite a
contrast in effect to the rest of the opera. It was
much more stirring, perhaps because there is more
continuity.
REFLECTIONS
Electronic
and computer music. Engineer
Gottwald teaches me a little bit about computer
music, a field that in the 1970s was emerging. In the
70s and 80s, electronic music and computer music
began to explode. I continued my interest in
electronic music by studying at Indiana University
and with Dr. Tom Wells at The Ohio State University.
I managed to take electronic music classes at the
famous Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center at
Columbia University with Bulent Arel and Vladimir
Ussachevsky. At Ohio State, I did take an interesting
computer music course where you actually program the
mainframe computer itself to produce sounds. It ain’t
easy folks. At OSU, I also managed to get involved in
the computer analysis of Bach chorales by one of the
music theory professors. Here I met a mastermind
computer programmer, Tom Whitney. I wish I had his
mainframe “music printing” experiment that attempted
to print music notation. Very funny. Many years
before notation programs came to bear.
It was all a great learning experience and influenced
my student composition, all resulting from this first
year’s exposure to musique concrète under Dieter
Kaufmann. Again, thanks to all my teachers.
Climaxing
with
Daphne. I see
Richard Strauss’ Daphne
at night.
I mention that when the melodic lines are less
“melodic”—perhaps those of recitative-like passages
compared to the long, flowing melodies of Puccini—it
may be more difficult to bring about an operatic
climax as compared to the orchestral climax at the
end of the opera. While there may be a little truth
to that of recitative passages compared to arias,
opera has the power (with the backing of the
orchestra) to be truly emotional and climactic. (See
Paul Pott.) Still, in opera, the voices and orchestra
are intertwined. When I hear Puccini melodies, I
probably concentrate more on the melody than the
lyrics. That’s true even in pop music, I tend to
gravitate towards the music first, then the lyrics.
Climaxing
with Paul Pott. Talk
about operatic climaxes. Talk about Puccini. Talk
about arias. Don’t go to the opera? Are you a
“Britain’s Got Talent” fan? Do you remember Paul
Pott’s performance of Nessun
dorma from
Puccini’s Turnadot?
(So many questions.) There are many millions of
YouTube hits on all of these videos. You can’t helped
but be moved by this former mobile phone salesman’s
performance.
John
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