#decomposing composers

[gnossienne]

Visit Original Link

nel giorno del compleanno di Gaetano Donizetti (b. 29 November 1797)

[ahnsael]

Gary Gygax is rolling in his grave, Mozart is decomposing.

I had to look up Gary Gygax (I tried D&D once, but didn’t have the attention span -- I was the only one in my friend group who didn’t play D&D; I’d just play the old 8-bit Nintendo at this friend’s house or mess around on his Apple IIC while they played).

And then a friend tried to get me into a different RPG which I don’t remember the name of but it was so late and he started describing a scary as heck situation to me but it was something like 4 in the morning and I dozed off and his description became a nightmare because I was still hearing it, but seeing it VERY clearly in the dream that happened and it freaked me out, so I haven’t ever really been an RPG GUY. So I can’t say that I know enough about Gary to comment on that part.

But the Mozart bit? That reminds me of a Monty Python song.

[gnossienne]

Erik Satie: Music, Art, and Literature (ed. Caroline Potter)

[gnossienne]

Peter Shaffer's Amadeus (1979)

[gnossienne]

Yet I’ve come to accept that I and other lovers of music, like lovers of any art form, can’t help being swept up in the search for, and identification of, greatness. Your first time hearing some exhilarating or mystifying work by a composer of the past — Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony, Beethoven’s searching Fourth Piano Concerto, Wagner’s trance-inducing “Tristan und Isolde,” Stravinsky’s shattering “Rite of Spring,” take your pick — can be as formative a moment as anything in your life. These works, and the composers who wrote them, become living presences; it’s natural to acknowledge the place they hold for us, and to seek reassurance that the things we love are important to others, too.

The Case for Greatness in Classical Music

[gnossienne]

Charpentier's Actéon (Opera Atelier, 2018)

[gnossienne]

Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, by Opera Atelier (2016) (x)

[gnossienne]

Handel's Ariodante, dir. Stefano Poda for Opéra de Lausanne (2016)