Sonic Revelations, Sonic Revolutions

Okay come on. Isn’t Opera supposed to be this huge high class snobby high-brow Fest? Where there are Fat sopranos and Fat tenors and everyone is fat and singing these notes that don’t really exist in the human range of singing but somehow are available to these few people. There’s supposed to be tragedy of epic proportions, mostly dealing with love and how awesome love is even though in order to truly get the princess you have to prove something.

Then there is Lang. proof that we live in “modern times.” Alegant said that he composes his Operas mostly to produce C.D.’s I believe that his Operas would be much better in person. I couldn’t imagine what the acting slash set and costume design would look like on one of these things. When the lyrics to one of the songs is completely made up and incomprehensible, how is one to understand the meaning of the Opera, or the plot. Or does it not matter. I for one know that any opera that I have seen, even if I did understand the language it was in, I still couldn’t tell what the F they  were saying. But still, there is plot in lyrics, and emotions that ties in to the Opera as a whole. Where is that in Langs pieces? I would love to see one of his Operas live, in a serious context. However If I were to stumble upon one of his Operas without knowing his music before, I would probably feel ripped off out of however many hundred Euros it would cost. I would say “Is this guy standing in the back laughing his ass off that people actually paid to see this thing?” I wonder why it hasn’t come to America yet. I mean, were so used to crap these days–broadway now runs Legally blonde the musical, and also Shrek the musical, not to mention half of the Broadway Phantom of the Opera show is pre-recorded–couldn’t we tolerate something quirky and intellectual? What would the American reaction to Lang be? Maybe he should just stay in Vienna where his ancestors are.

I must say that I truly enjoyed listening to JLA last weekend. For some reason I found his music incredibly deep and inspiring. In reading about him I learned about the influence his home in Alaska has on him. I could really see the frozen tundra of the north shining through some of his pieces. I saw this especially in “The Light That Fills the World.” The swirling drones of the higher registers combined with the rumbling bass created this very astral effect on me. It was a strange feeling that started in my hands and then kindof shook my body. In listening I could see myself watching something so naturally bazzar (however that’s spelled) as the Aurora Borealis. Which in itself connected with this song. There are all these high colors swirling in lines together creating this great painting in the sky, which is exactly what “The Light That Fills the World” did to me. I could hear all these colors combining and spackling together, as if I could actually see them. The ending of the piece was perfect. There is a slight climax of the deep rumbling of the bass, with the raindrops of the xylophonie instrument and the higher strings, that forced themselves upon each other, and then slowly peeled themselves off one by one as if it hurt a little animal. And that little animal is all that is left, whimpering away until the song ends. That one note sounded so perfect and crisp once it was left alone from all the other things that were piled on top of it.

In critique of the piece I must say it often became repetitive, repeating similar sections over again. Low bass rumbling, with some added higher drones followed by the wobbly jingles then change. Yes they were all slightly different than previous sections, but in terms of format these parts were often repeated one after another. However, it seemed to work out pretty well.

I enjoyed the wide variety of songs that Chris chose to play for us on monday. Monday night I went out into the Lorain county farm and amish country and slaughtered some goats… Atleast I think, I was in a trance. It must have been the Five string blues that made me do it. But seriously, I respect norweigans for their forms of expression, we all have a spiky shrieking side that needs to come out every once in a while, they are just more comfortable about it I suppose. Like “look at how badass they are.” Maybe they aren’t messed up, maybe they are normal and the rest of us are weird. Who knows?

“Five String Blues,” Was good to hear at first, but it was complemented by Doug’s comments about the blues form, I think that made me appreciate it more. The rock solo, I mean if you can’t respect that shredding ability you must be some bitter 70-year-old who thinks that the young people have too much freedom, and that flappers should come back. I appreciated the obscurity and the perfectly executed rhythmic stops in the first heavy song we listened to, however I didn’t enjoy it necessarily. I would listen to it yes, many times, but it wouldn’t make my favorite songs list.

Uaxuctum: scary and beautiful. I think it’s because mystery and fear both are beautiful. We all love the sense of adventure, and “scary” songs like this make us think of places that would make our hearts beat fast, and make us feel alive. I like how this piece got my adrenaline going a little bit. I could see this whole world inside this piece that was full of fantasy. The quick changes allowed me to never get comfortable with a phrase of the song, it always kept going following that mystery. It was certainly a listening voyage that went somewhere dark and completely unknown. probably with ghosts.