Fuck Fach

Opera! Classical music! Music humour! Terrible puns! I'm a mezzo(?) in the third year of my Bmus

[savviwriting]

a mini lesson in musical terminology

piano

FORTE

ᵖᶦᵃⁿᶦˢˢᶦᵐᵒ

FORTISSIMO

ᶜʳesCENDO

DIMINuenᵈᵒ

SFᵒʳzaNDO

a   d   a   g   i   o

a n d a n t e

allegro

rit a r  d  a   n   d    o

a    c    c   e   l  e  r a ndo

stac- ca- to-

leeggggaaatttoooo

[classical-crap]

my dad: how on earth have we already run out of printer ink

me, a violinist heathen who just printed off three etude books and the entire beethoven violin concerto from imslp: it’s a mystery

[count-di-luna]

How to survive an opera

Soprano: unless it’s an opera buffa, you are probably screwed. a few survival methods are:

- do NOT date the tenor 

- marry a rich bass 

- run away with the mezzo 

- try not to get tuberculosis

Tenor: almost as screwed as the soprano

- be a jerk, they somehow tend to survive

- get a soprano to die for you (not entirely foolproof but sometimes works)

- DO NOT piss off the baritone 

- also do not duel the baritone 

- just be gay for the baritone it’s the best idea (careful tho: you might be related)

- find a wise bass to teach you the way of the Jedi

Mezzo/Contralto: pretty good survival rate, but a few things to watch out for.

- DO NOT piss off the tenor

- DO NOT let your whiny brother rape the tenor’s wife

- just. stay away from tenors

- put on breeches. now you are immortal 

Baritone: better survival rates than a tenor or a soprano but oh so many potential deaths…

- DO NOT duel the tenor. Statistically you have a better chance at winning but what if his boyfriend is the Dark Lord Satan?

- do not be the title character in anything that isn’t opera buffa, you WILL be dead

- if you are good-aligned, you dead 

- if a bass tells you the other bass is evil and wants you dead. maybe LISTEN 

- if there is another baritone, and you KNOW he’s a treacherous little shit, jail him immediately instead of letting him roam free around your drink

- do not leave sharp objects where sopranos can see them 

- do NOT provoke the bass. you may win at first, but the motherfucker will be back, now with supernatural powers 

Bass: generally pretty good survival rates, but…

- learn to swim 

- DO NOT provoke the baritone. your low constitution (because you put all points into cunning) vs his maxed strength will not have good results

- be the Devil, you can’t die and you already live in Hell

- maybe do not murder children for the throne. just a suggestion 

- do not try to fight whoever seduced your daughter. it’s not worth it 

- do not think you can get away with being a terrible husband if your father-in-law is a god

[classical-carp]

i literally only want to become a music teacher so i can say “-but this is only a theory….a music theory.”

[tomorrowcomesomedayblog]

Jean Ritchie at the Folk School playing the mountain dulcimer during the summer of 1948.

[screenshotsofdespair]

[animatostrings]

when the examiner asks you to sight-read

[misanthropic-drown]

[fauxfelix]

Iconic historical stage designs for The Queen of the Night sequence from Mozart’s “Magic Flute” - the first image by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1815, the second by Simon Quaglio in 1818 (x)

[just-go-and-get-her]

did i do this right

[viola-rules]

an introduction to women composers

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) from Germany 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP

Maddalena Casulana (1544-1590) from Italy 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP

Francesca Caccini (1587-1641) from Italy  📚 Wikipedia   🎵 IMSLP She was friend with Artmisia Gentileschi

Barbara Strozzi (1619-1977) from Italy  📚 Wikipedia   🎵 IMSLP

Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665-1729) from France 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP

Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1739-1807) from Germany 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP

Marianna Martines (1744-1812) from Austria 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP

Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831) from Poland 📚Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP

Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) from France 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP

Fanny Mendelssohn [Hensel after marriage] (1805-47) from Germany 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP Sister of Felix Mandelssohn

Clara Schumann [nee Wieck] (1819-1896) from Germany 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP Married to Robert Schumann

Elfrida Andrée (1841-1929) from Sweden 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP

Terea Carreño (1853-1917) from Venezuela 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP

Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944) from France 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP She was the first female composer to be awarded the Légion d’Honneur in 1913.

Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) from England 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP Not only a suffreagette, but also a lesbian who was involved with Virginia Woolf and Violet Gordon-Woodhouse, among others

Adele aus der Ohe (1861-1937) from Germany 📚 Wikipedia    🎵IMSLP She studied with Franz Liszt. She was friends with and performed Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with him conducting. 

Amy Beach (1867-1944) from the USA 📚 Wikipedia    🎵IMSLP

Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) from Croatia 📚Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP

Rebacca Clarke (1886-1879) from England 📚Wikipedia   🎵IMSLP    🌀Rebecca Clarke.org (I have access to almost all her published works, let me know if you want me to email scans of something to you)

She studied with Lionel Tertis and briefly sang under Vaughan Williams. In 1919 her Viola Sonata tied in the Berkshire Festival of Chamber Music with Ernest Bloch’s Viola Sonata. She was also friends with Frank Bridge. In 1912 she was one of the 6 female musicians allowed into the Queen’s Hall Orchestra (later became the LSO)

Florence Price (1887-1953) from the USA 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP She began studying at the New England Conservatory after she graduated high school at 14. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered her Symphony No 1 in E minor on June 15, 1933, making Price’s piece the first composition by an African-American woman to be played by a major orchestra

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) from France 📚 Wikipedia   🎵 IMSLP She was the first woman to win the Prix de Rome when she was only 19, in 1912.

Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) from the USA 📚 Wikipedia    🎵 IMSLP Became the first women to be granted the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1930

Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994) from England and Ireland 📚 Wikipedia    🌀Biography

Sofia Guabaidulina (1931-present) from Russia 📚 Wikipedia    🎼 YouTube

Joan Tower (1938-present) from the USA 📚 Wikipedia    🎼 YouTube She has 3 Grammy Awards and and she was a member of the Da Capo Chamber Players who won the Naumberg Award.

Kaija Saariaho (1952-present) from Finland 📚 Wikipedia    🎼 YouTube

Nicole Lizée (1973-present) from Canada 🌀 Nicole Lizee.com    🌀 CMC

Cheryl Frances-Hoad (1980-present) from England 📚 Wikipedia    🌀Cheryl FrancesHoad.co.uk

Dobrinka Tabakova (1980-present) from Bulgaria  📚 Wikipedia    🌀 Dobrinka.com

Caroline Shaw (1982-present) from the USA 📚Wikipedia    🌀Caroline Shaw.com (listen to Entre’act, I’ve played it, so GOOD!) She won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013, the youngest ever, at only 30.

Hannah Kendall (1984-present) from England & the Caribean  📚 Wikipedia    🌀Hannah Kendall.co.uk

Fjóla Evans from Iceland & Canada 📚Fjiola Evans.com    🎼 SoundCloud

Add any other women composers that you know of to this post!

#WomenInMusic   #WomenComposers

[nannerlmozartofficial]

Nannerl Mozart (1751-1829)

Wikipedia 

Sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

[viola-and-chill]

Everyone save this list and come back to it, I certainly will be!!

[arcadeigannon]

u know when u watch a movie and afterward you’re like “god the score was so fucken good who composed it” and the answer is hans zimmer every time

[the-headless-vulcan]

he is just That Bitch

[anunexpectedfanboy]

Counterpoint: John Williams

[classical-crap]

[sopranoandthealtoclef]

What a mood

[just-a-violinist-deactivated202]

The biggest M O O D

[you-had-me-at-e-flat-major]

“what’s your name” “lenny” “is it short for leonard?” “no it’s actually short for Dmitri Shostakovich Symphony no. 7 in C major ‘Leningrad’, Op. 60”

[kehlso]

[classical-crap]

it’s that time of the year when I’m getting nightmares about auditions and ending up last chair viola even though I play violin

[beethoven]

[sociallifeunknown-blog]

Dear kids that are starting band for the first time.

Instruments don’t have gender. If you are a boy and you want to play flute. Do it. If you are a girl and you want to play tuba. Do it. No one can tell you that since you are a boy you have to play saxophone, trumpet or another instrument like that. Or since you are a girl you have to play flute, clarinet or some instrument like that. Play whatever you want to. No one can tell you other wise.

[catscenter]

[ravenwhimsy]

Cats ARE liquids!

[thatdorianguy]

how do you tune this violin

[absedarian]

very carefully

[bisexualbaker]

[Image: A black cat laying in a violin case, its body where the violin’s body would be, its tail in the groove for the violin’s neck]

@shiraglassman

[seasons-of-ceres]

@mercer-safehouse