Mozart is my Homeboy

[sebsational]

This is an older video that is, for some reason, making the rounds on the internet—but it’s too neat not to share.

The pianist Maria João Pires sits down to a performance and, as the orchestra strikes up, she realizes she has prepared the wrong Mozart concerto for performance. You can see the panic register on her face; her anxiety is almost palpable. “I’m going to try it,” you can hear her say over the orchestra.

"You better do that," says Maestro Chailly a bit later.

The instant she starts to play, her panic disappears, and the sounds she produces are shockingly clear, tightly controlled, confident, lacking any doubt. It’s a beautiful moment.

[mozartismyhomeboy]

Véronique Gens sings "Ogni Vento" from Handel's Agrippina.

Ogni vento ch'al porto lo spinga, ben che fiero minacci tempeste, l'ampie vele gli spande il nocchier.

Regni il figlio, mia sola lusinga, sian le stelle in aspetto funeste, senza pena le guarda il pensier.

Though every wind would drive him back to harbor, though he be threatened by fierce storms, the helmsman has unfurled his sails.

My son, my only hope, will reign. Whatever the stars might portend, I will face them, untroubled.

[sebsational]

X-Rays Reveal Censored Ending of Cherubini Opera

[mozartismyhomeboy]

After more than 200 years in obscurity, the last unreadable pages of an opera by Italian composer Luigi Cherubini have been deciphered with the help of one of the most advanced X-ray machines on the planet.

[sebsational]

I am going to see this broadcast of Rigoletto in a couple of weeks and I cannot wait.  It’s either going to be magical, or it is going to be a trainwreck.  But hey—it’s getting me to care about Verdi, so.

[wilbr]

[sebsational]

Fuck you, music industry.  Fuck you so hard.

[kevinwada-deactivated20230323]

X-fashion commission: X-Opera!  X-men women matched with opera heroines in mid-century garb inspired by their costumes.  Full description of the piece here.  Happy Birthday Brett!

Mystique as the Queen of the Night

Psylocke as Cio-Cio San

Storm as Aida

Boom-Boom as Cunegonde

Kitty Pryde as Octavian

Jean Grey as Violetta

Rogue as Carmen

[uncannybrettwhite]

This is mine! My amazing boyfriend had this COMMISSIONED FOR ME. This is like, the things we both love all blended together gorgeously! This is the best gift I’ve ever received and I love it.

Come to my apartment and see it in all its glory. The detail in this is amazing, absolutely stunning.

[sebsational]

Hey y’all.  If you’ve been wondering why I’ve been hiding my iPad from Brett and turned off all email notifications on my iPhone and put a passcode lock on it for two months, this is why!

Kevin Wada was amazing to work with and did just a shockingly good job breathing life into my crazy idea.  He even tolerated a very large and very neurotic spreadsheet I made (including youtube links).  What a cool, cool thing done by a cool, cool guy.

One of the neatest things about this piece, for me, is that it helps put into visual form all of the similarity I’ve begun to recognize between comic books and opera since I started dating Brett: two amazing media with unique sets of challenges in the 21st century, telling incredible human stories using the super-human as a device (in comic books, it’s usually literal super-humans with revealing and touching moments of humanity; in opera a virtuosic voice feels more than human, but cuts to the core of the human experience). I love drawing this analogy whenever I can, and now I have a quite literal and concrete drawing of the analogy.

So, it’s great.  Kevin Wada is a superhero.

[mozartismyhomeboy]

So, this happened.

[drawsomepikachus]

[charlietodd]

Improv Everywhere surprised a random couple sitting on a bench in Central Park with a fancy dinner and a private concert by a wind quintet.

Read the full story: Instant Date | Improv Everywhere

[sebsational]

THIS IS MY FAVORITE THING EVER TO HAVE HAPPENED EVER.

The wind quintet plays the third movement from Mozart’s Serenade for Winds. Seriously.  If this had happened to me I would have been WEEPING by the third measure.  My favorite thing ever.  My only question is: WHY IS THIS COUPLE NOT MORE INTO THE MAGIC THAT IS HAPPENING TO THEM.

[mozartismyhomeboy]

Automatic Serenade for Winds reblog.

[sebsational]

Mozart chocolate at the corner store. (Taken with instagram)

[mozartismyhomeboy]

"Did they make your mouth sing?"

"I think they made my mouth play a couple peppy string quartets, but maybe that's just the flavor I got."

[leadingtone]

Rossini - Il barbiere di Siviglia Act I, Scene 2 “Una voce poco fa”

Beverly Sills, soprano 

[sebsational]

In news that doesn’t make me sad to be a human: today is Rossini’s birthday!  This is a video of one of his most famous arias, and you should watch it.  This style of opera is called “bel canto,” and Beverly Sills is one of the greatest bel canto singers of the 20th century.  Look at how effortlessly those sounds pour out of her.  I love it.

[mozartismyhomeboy]

I'll take Rossini for $500, and you don't even have to read the answer, Alex, because I know the question is, "What is the thing I want to listen to for the rest of my life?"

[mozartismyhomeboy]

This is my current obsession.

[mozartismyhomeboy]

Never buy me this.

[sebsational]

Since I know classical music is boring, let me sum up.

Asshole’s phone rings during the dénouement of a very dramatic symphony.

Conductor Alan Gilbert notices.

Cell phone does not stop.

Alan Gilbert stops the music (which almost never happens.  I have seen people carried out of operas on stretchers while the show was still going on uninterrupted).

Alan Gilbert finds out whose phone it is and refuses to continue until said gentleman confirms that he has, in fact, turned the phone all the way off.

Audience cheers.

Symphonies are the BEST, you guys.

[mozartismyhomeboy]

Wanda Landowska (1879-1959) was a Polish harpsichordist who is symbolic of (and partially, arguably greatly responsible for) the early music revival in the 20th century.  Her brilliant musical interpretations gave her star power outside of early music circles, and her performances and recordings led to the eventual re-acceptance of the harpsichord as a valid concert instrument.  Her advocacy for and research of early music unlocked a wealth of nearly-forgotten repertoire that we still benefit from today.  She moved to Paris and married in 1900.  However, she and her husband both took female lovers: Wanda Landowska was an out-of-the-closet lesbian in 1900.

Her husband passed in 1919, but Landowska had become a naturalized French citizen and remained there after his passing.  As a Jew, she was forced to flee Europe when the Nazis invaded France.  She arrived in New York, with her partner Denise Restout, on the same day Pearl Harbor was attacked (December 7, 1941). Her house outside Paris had been looted and she had no assets, only $1300 with which to start a new life.  She settled in Connecticut and eventually re-established herself as a musician, giving performances and making recordings until shortly before her death.

She also recorded this piece by François Couperin (le grand) in 1954, which I find incredibly haunting and have been unable to shake since I listened to it for the first time last week.

The name of the piece is "La Favorite," and it begins at the top of the video and lasts until about 4:40. Listen to the theme that begins the piece: it is a series of four descending notes, repeated three times, each time starting on a lower note.  This cyclical theme is recalled several times throughout the piece, the backbone of a musical form called the rondeau—where a refrain is interrupted by a series of different interludes or "episodes."

The musicologist in me knows that this is a common musical form and that I should expect this theme to keep coming back.  But when I listen to this piece, it feels like Couperin (or possibly Mme. Landowska) was himself haunted by something, like he was trying to think his way away from something only to find himself back at the beginning no matter how hard he tried.

[mozartismyhomeboy]

Ladies and gentlemen, Antonín Dvořák.

[mozartismyhomeboy]

HOLY SHIT THIS REALLY HAPPENED.

At the 1998 Grammys, the great tenor Luciano Pavarotti was slated to sing "Nessun dorma..." from Puccini's Turandot prior to receiving the Grammy Legend Award.  However, he was benched due to a sore throat.  Who could step in to sing the aria for him?

Apparently, Aretha Franklin could.

This is amazing.  I'm normally not a fan of crossing genres--I feel like opera singers should stick to opera, and rock singers to rock, and soul to soul, and pop to pop.  But sometimes, if you have enough artistic power, you can figure out a way to make it work.

If you can only do two things as an opera singer, I would say the most important ones are: being able to sing in impeccable Italian and being able to sing over an orchestra without the use of a microphone.  Aretha Franklin, despite failing these two litmus tests, totally fucking ROCKS THE SHIT OUT OF THIS ARIA.  Watch all the way to 4:25 and you'll see what I mean.

She performed a quantum leap, straight into a different musical sphere, and she made it work.  How did she do it?  Easy.  She stuck with what she knows, she played to her strengths, she stayed true to her voice and her artistic sensibility, and she certainly wasn't apologetic about it.  But she also possesses something else that singers need, singers in any genre: behind each note she sings, there is a clear vocal intent and strong commitment to sound.  To me, this is incredible artistry.