As most of you know Japan suffered one of the biggest earthquake in history today. I happened to wake up in the middle of the night in New York, and found someone posting on Facebook and tried to call my parents. All phones and cellphones were out, but eventually my mother emailed me, and my family is all fine. It turns out, internet was the lifeline.
After finding out my family's safety I tried to resume my work and life, practicing my Subharmonics again. I kept watching Japanese realtime internet TV and couldn't really focus. But life goes on, but I am rethinking our family's preparedness; I should beef up our emergency kits....
I did practice almost 2 hours on Subharmonics, and got other work done. It was relieving to know my parents were safe. The disturbing thing about my last note, the one that I'm so struggling to get, is that there is almost no sign of it! Others are getting better and better, and now I'm trying to artificially put a pressure on myself, to make sure I can produce them under any circumstances :)
Life goes on, work goes on.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Déjà vu
For the past month and a half, I'm intensely working on the new Subharmonics that I am finally getting. A few weeks ago we took our kids on vacation but I even took my practice violin along so that I won't forget it. If I let go for more than a day, I'm afraid I lose it.
This is purely a kinetic exercise that intellectually speaking, quite boring. I just have to repeat my motions over, and over, and over again until I have it. These days, every morning for solid one hour and half, I am doing only one thing and one thing only. Practicing this new Subharmonics. It is getting quite reliable now, and as said in my previous entries I need SEVEN semitones, of which I already have six. The last one, the open G string, is the most difficult to control. I am "inching towards it" quite literally. That is to say, I am putting my left hand finger very very close to the end of the fingerboard so it is almost open G, but not quite. I am trying to get used to the feeling on my right arm how it would feel like on the open G, although I still can't do it. I am seeing the day is coming very close. I can already do it about 60% of the time with this "cheat mode" with stopping the left hand finger very close to the open G.
This exercise is oh so boring, so much so that I need some entertainment. CNN these days is too disturbing about the news about Libya, so I'm watching movies that I have watched many times before, so I don't really have to watch it. With occasional resting of my right arm, I can watch "Apollo 13", "The Young Victoria", "My Cousin Vinny". "Analyze That" (or "This"), etc. I need to occupy my mind but not so much so that I need to pay attention to the film. When I work, I usually need some kind of distraction. If the TV or movie is on, I usually don't remember much, which my husband laughs about. I can watch the same movies over and over again since I'm not really watching :)
This is purely a kinetic exercise that intellectually speaking, quite boring. I just have to repeat my motions over, and over, and over again until I have it. These days, every morning for solid one hour and half, I am doing only one thing and one thing only. Practicing this new Subharmonics. It is getting quite reliable now, and as said in my previous entries I need SEVEN semitones, of which I already have six. The last one, the open G string, is the most difficult to control. I am "inching towards it" quite literally. That is to say, I am putting my left hand finger very very close to the end of the fingerboard so it is almost open G, but not quite. I am trying to get used to the feeling on my right arm how it would feel like on the open G, although I still can't do it. I am seeing the day is coming very close. I can already do it about 60% of the time with this "cheat mode" with stopping the left hand finger very close to the open G.
This exercise is oh so boring, so much so that I need some entertainment. CNN these days is too disturbing about the news about Libya, so I'm watching movies that I have watched many times before, so I don't really have to watch it. With occasional resting of my right arm, I can watch "Apollo 13", "The Young Victoria", "My Cousin Vinny". "Analyze That" (or "This"), etc. I need to occupy my mind but not so much so that I need to pay attention to the film. When I work, I usually need some kind of distraction. If the TV or movie is on, I usually don't remember much, which my husband laughs about. I can watch the same movies over and over again since I'm not really watching :)
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Setting up
This morning, I went to the home of Muneko Otani, the 1st violinists of the Cassatt Quartet. I'm writing a new work for them for quartet and interactive computer, and they just got all the gear -- programs, microphones and audio interface -- so I went there to set up and check everything.
My new pieces are in different stages of development, one in particular, in connection to my *new* Subharmonics is especially interesting to me. I need to compose at the same time I'm just finding out how to control this new technique. The new Subharmonics arrive to me by accident. One day I hear something and I go, "Oh no, you've got to be kidding me!", which turns out, it isn't. I try to repeat the *accident*, and give up when I'm unable to do so. Then, when I do get to repeat the sound production I go "Ah ha!", try to hang onto that repeated *accident* and remember how I felt. Then I forget. Then I try again. It has been like this for the last several years to get this new Subharmonics. Finally, it is no longer an accident, but still quite unstable. In order (for me) to use it in a composition, I have to be able to play it 200% of the time - well, 100% of the time... i.e. I cannot afford NOT to be able to play it. It has to be on demand, and that is the hardest thing about Subharmonics. ANYBODY can play Subharmonics. But to control it, you need a very precise bowing technique.
I still don't have my last, 7th note... I got six out of seven. But I'm inching towards it.
My new pieces are in different stages of development, one in particular, in connection to my *new* Subharmonics is especially interesting to me. I need to compose at the same time I'm just finding out how to control this new technique. The new Subharmonics arrive to me by accident. One day I hear something and I go, "Oh no, you've got to be kidding me!", which turns out, it isn't. I try to repeat the *accident*, and give up when I'm unable to do so. Then, when I do get to repeat the sound production I go "Ah ha!", try to hang onto that repeated *accident* and remember how I felt. Then I forget. Then I try again. It has been like this for the last several years to get this new Subharmonics. Finally, it is no longer an accident, but still quite unstable. In order (for me) to use it in a composition, I have to be able to play it 200% of the time - well, 100% of the time... i.e. I cannot afford NOT to be able to play it. It has to be on demand, and that is the hardest thing about Subharmonics. ANYBODY can play Subharmonics. But to control it, you need a very precise bowing technique.
I still don't have my last, 7th note... I got six out of seven. But I'm inching towards it.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Listening to Pictures
Right now, I'm involved intensely in several projects that are totally different. One in particular is very different from my usual creative process. It is an interactive graphics work, where I'm interacting with a short movie. I started this project inspired by the complex and imaginative beauty of this visuals, created by my friend Ken Perlin at NYU.
I have worked in collaboration with the visuals in the past, but this particular one, seems to dictate the music. I look at it, and each section or frame evoke sounds to me. I am "listening" to the pictures.
Not much can be said at this point, and I will follow up later.
The new Subharmonics is still stalled at six out of seven notes I need. One more note to go still, but it's still not coming.
Today is my father's 78th birthday. His name is Ken-ichi Kimura, and he is a Professor Emeritus at Waseda University in Architecture. He is the Japanese pioneer of Solar Energy. If you go to his page I linked here, and see "Japanese Vernacular Houses with a focus to energy conserving technologies" you can see how Japanese old houses used natural energy to be ECO-friendly. I grew up in a solar house, one of the first experimental house in Japan called "Kimura Solar House". He studied at MIT where he married my mother who was at Radcliff at the time. Both of them were on Fullbright Fellowship, and I have to say, that I know I was conceived in Boston! :)
I have worked in collaboration with the visuals in the past, but this particular one, seems to dictate the music. I look at it, and each section or frame evoke sounds to me. I am "listening" to the pictures.
Not much can be said at this point, and I will follow up later.
The new Subharmonics is still stalled at six out of seven notes I need. One more note to go still, but it's still not coming.
Today is my father's 78th birthday. His name is Ken-ichi Kimura, and he is a Professor Emeritus at Waseda University in Architecture. He is the Japanese pioneer of Solar Energy. If you go to his page I linked here, and see "Japanese Vernacular Houses with a focus to energy conserving technologies" you can see how Japanese old houses used natural energy to be ECO-friendly. I grew up in a solar house, one of the first experimental house in Japan called "Kimura Solar House". He studied at MIT where he married my mother who was at Radcliff at the time. Both of them were on Fullbright Fellowship, and I have to say, that I know I was conceived in Boston! :)
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Hunting New Subharmonics in a Cave :)
So I have taken the longest hiatus on my blog in a long time, only posting once in February. Those of you who have been reading this blog maybe wondering what has been happening :) Well, it's multiple of things, but mainly it is my vanity that I wanted to come out with a BANG! While ago, I hinted that I have a new Subharmonics interval; I so far have Subharmonic Octave (I play a note and I can get an octave below without changing the tuning or moving my left hand finger). I also have Subharmonic 3rd (I play a note and I get minor third below the note I play, again without moving a finger on the fingerboard). I have minor 2nd, which is just F#, a half semitone below open G, by slightly modifying the way I play.
For the longest time, I wished I had this new interval I'm working on, since musically it is significant. I really don't mean to be secretive, and I WILL introduce it in my concert in May. It has been a looooong time coming, several years in fact, that I tried, stopped, tried and come back to it yet again. Last summer, while at IRCAM, I allocated a bit of my time trying to work on it again, quite seriously. I have in fact, documented my progress (or non-progress... I couldn't quite do it), by video taping myself.
Just about a month+ ago, I took it up again. This time, I have been absolutely determined to get it. And, I DID. I am not quite yelling out on the top of the mountain yet, since I still don't have it quite under control. I have been practicing very hard, just doing the exercise. It reminds me very much when I first came up with the Subharmonic Octave in 1992 (I didn't publicly introduce it in a concert until 1994, when I was absolutely solid and was good enough for performance). In 1992, I was a student at Juilliard, and that winter, I remember it was cold like what we had this year in NYC, and I had no social life. I didn't have a boyfriend (or maybe he was far away :) and I had my time all to myself. I sat in my small studio on West 70th at Broadway, practicing Subharmonics over and over again like a maniac. I was in a CAVE :)
Now so many years later, I am finding myself in a cave again, in the same obsessive mode, with a bit more experience and knowledge about how to produce Subharmonics. I wake up in the morning, I try for half an hour--my arm gets tired and I stop before it gets tired. Usually my concentration is shot after 30-40 minutes anyway, so I take a break. My children demand my attention, which is not exactly an unwelcome distraction. ("Mommy can you peel me more apples, pleeeese, NOW?!") Sometimes my exercise gets so boring I listen to CNN while I do it, or have Google Earth and roll the mouse so I fly over the world, like Sahara desert slowly (I know it sounds sick... :) I repeat this in the afternoon a few times, then in the evening. Repeat the next day.
There are seven semitones I need to get for this particular Subharmonics (if you are so inclined and so savvy and have nothing else to do, you know by now what this interval is :) But anyway, I have SEVEN notes I need. As of today, I have SIX. One more to go. And I started to use my husband as a guinea pig; I catch him when he comes from work and say, "So watch, see?" and try to play my six notes. Of course I play a lot less better than in my privacy. Although it is *just* my husband, I do get nervous when I try to do this in front of people. There is some attention or projection element in my violin playing that changes the way I play, so I need to practice this Subharmonics, really, in front of people. My poor husband happens to be the most immediate "other people" I have.
Anyway, I thought I start up the blog again, since I can no longer pretend I am going to come out with a BANG! and this blog entitled "Extended violin DIARY" should really be a diary that documents my progress, to help those who want to attempt something new, and to show the creative process (or struggle) or what I'm doing :)
Just so that I put an extra pressure on myself, I am already writing a new piece using this new Subharmonic interval, which I am planning to premiere in May. So it MUST be done :) And at the same time I get to explore the way this new interval can be musically incorporated into the violin playing and phrasing, which is essentially, the ultimate purpose of my developing Subharmonics in the first place.
I am very, very close. This is by far, the most difficult one for me to control, compared to Subharmonic Octave, 3rd or 2nd. And I'm not quite good enough yet to officially announce it. It is hard to imagine anyone else gets so excited about it, but in fact, from my point of view, in the history of violin playing this is pretty historic :) Or so I tell myself :)
For the longest time, I wished I had this new interval I'm working on, since musically it is significant. I really don't mean to be secretive, and I WILL introduce it in my concert in May. It has been a looooong time coming, several years in fact, that I tried, stopped, tried and come back to it yet again. Last summer, while at IRCAM, I allocated a bit of my time trying to work on it again, quite seriously. I have in fact, documented my progress (or non-progress... I couldn't quite do it), by video taping myself.
Just about a month+ ago, I took it up again. This time, I have been absolutely determined to get it. And, I DID. I am not quite yelling out on the top of the mountain yet, since I still don't have it quite under control. I have been practicing very hard, just doing the exercise. It reminds me very much when I first came up with the Subharmonic Octave in 1992 (I didn't publicly introduce it in a concert until 1994, when I was absolutely solid and was good enough for performance). In 1992, I was a student at Juilliard, and that winter, I remember it was cold like what we had this year in NYC, and I had no social life. I didn't have a boyfriend (or maybe he was far away :) and I had my time all to myself. I sat in my small studio on West 70th at Broadway, practicing Subharmonics over and over again like a maniac. I was in a CAVE :)
Now so many years later, I am finding myself in a cave again, in the same obsessive mode, with a bit more experience and knowledge about how to produce Subharmonics. I wake up in the morning, I try for half an hour--my arm gets tired and I stop before it gets tired. Usually my concentration is shot after 30-40 minutes anyway, so I take a break. My children demand my attention, which is not exactly an unwelcome distraction. ("Mommy can you peel me more apples, pleeeese, NOW?!") Sometimes my exercise gets so boring I listen to CNN while I do it, or have Google Earth and roll the mouse so I fly over the world, like Sahara desert slowly (I know it sounds sick... :) I repeat this in the afternoon a few times, then in the evening. Repeat the next day.
There are seven semitones I need to get for this particular Subharmonics (if you are so inclined and so savvy and have nothing else to do, you know by now what this interval is :) But anyway, I have SEVEN notes I need. As of today, I have SIX. One more to go. And I started to use my husband as a guinea pig; I catch him when he comes from work and say, "So watch, see?" and try to play my six notes. Of course I play a lot less better than in my privacy. Although it is *just* my husband, I do get nervous when I try to do this in front of people. There is some attention or projection element in my violin playing that changes the way I play, so I need to practice this Subharmonics, really, in front of people. My poor husband happens to be the most immediate "other people" I have.
Anyway, I thought I start up the blog again, since I can no longer pretend I am going to come out with a BANG! and this blog entitled "Extended violin DIARY" should really be a diary that documents my progress, to help those who want to attempt something new, and to show the creative process (or struggle) or what I'm doing :)
Just so that I put an extra pressure on myself, I am already writing a new piece using this new Subharmonic interval, which I am planning to premiere in May. So it MUST be done :) And at the same time I get to explore the way this new interval can be musically incorporated into the violin playing and phrasing, which is essentially, the ultimate purpose of my developing Subharmonics in the first place.
I am very, very close. This is by far, the most difficult one for me to control, compared to Subharmonic Octave, 3rd or 2nd. And I'm not quite good enough yet to officially announce it. It is hard to imagine anyone else gets so excited about it, but in fact, from my point of view, in the history of violin playing this is pretty historic :) Or so I tell myself :)
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
How to get to the Soul of it
I have taken a long hiatus from my blog. About 10 days ago, I had an emergency room visit for corneal abrasion. I damaged my eye by taking off a contact lens in a wrong way. That was Saturday a week ago, and on Sunday morning, I think I scrubbed my eye waking up. The following few hours, I was in excruciating pain on my right eye. I was going to *tough it out*, but tears were streaming down non-stop, and the pharmacist on the phone said to go to the emergency room, so I did. At the ER, doctors came in to look one by one saying "wow, that's impressive!". A doctor friend said later, "it's not great when doctors are impressed" :) They told me it was quite large, 3mm x 3mm abrasion in the center of the eye.
It healed very fast but the pain medicine, Vicodin made me quite sick and slowed me down, which resulted in everything piling up. I'm slowly picking up and catching up!
I went to see a Flamenco dance performance recently. My husband is taking Flamenco guitar lessons quite seriously so friends call and we go out for these things. I love Flamenco guitar, but in doses--it is just so intense, and if I listen to it, I will have to stop everything and it becomes very emotionally draining. My husband plays Flamenco CDs all day while he works, and I have absolutely no idea how he can do that!
At the concert, the dancers were marvelous, well rehearsed, technically superb, and I just love the sheer energy of these fierce women. The band: singers, drummer, guitarist were sitting in almost a semi-circle behind the dancers and I had this strange out-of-body or out-of-context feeling: as if we were transported near a beach somewhere in the south of Spain, near a camp fire, or in a drinking place gathering and watching our neighbors sing and dance late into the night. It was a strange feeling--on stage there is Malaga, and we the audience, Manhattan crowd peeking into the world ages and places away. I see other more ethnic performances so to speak, but this Flamenco performance gave me this strange surreal feeling.
The top-billed dancer was obviously fantastic, and all three women gave great performances. After the curtain call, all musicians and dancers came in front and formed a semi-circle clapping in interlocking rhythms as they do, and one by one they took turns giving short encore dances with only singing and clapping. Even musicians and singers danced, which doesn't happen in classical setting; how many violinist can drop the violin and join dancing the Nutcracker? :)
Anyway, as much as the program "proper" was impressive, what I really felt for, was one of the singers who sang throughout the show. She became a dancer for the moment during this encore, and gave her short solo dance. She probably didn't have the fancy footwork that the dancers showed all evening, but I was moved by her, in just a few minutes of her dancing. I felt she had the soul of it, and I don't know how I know it. She didn't have more tragic or intense facial expression than others; she didn't move faster or slower than others. But her dance spoke to me as a whole expression. I try to think why this happened.
When your performance is rehearsed, choreographed, executed according to plan, one must do so until it becomes a second nature, where everything feels as if it was never planned. I must confess that is quite a difficult state to achieve, as I find myself usually almost out of time, just enough to fulfill the planned execution. I usually barely have one or two days of *non-involvement* that is to say, I don't have to think about specific execution of the performance before the concert. You can put yourself a bit outside of the performance, which frees you. As I mentioned in my previous entry, when I am not "all there", the audience seems to respond better than when I'm completely aware of every single things I'm doing during the performance.
This Flamenco singer-dancer had it---she wasn't thinking of the dance, nor choreography, but she was on the Magic Carpet expressing the soul of it. It looked as if everything came naturally to her and it was her second-nature. And that is what put everything into place--her facial expressions, her movements, everything. When this happens, communicating with audience is completely effortless. Now let's wish us good luck for our own performance next time, that we will get to the Soul of it :)
It healed very fast but the pain medicine, Vicodin made me quite sick and slowed me down, which resulted in everything piling up. I'm slowly picking up and catching up!
I went to see a Flamenco dance performance recently. My husband is taking Flamenco guitar lessons quite seriously so friends call and we go out for these things. I love Flamenco guitar, but in doses--it is just so intense, and if I listen to it, I will have to stop everything and it becomes very emotionally draining. My husband plays Flamenco CDs all day while he works, and I have absolutely no idea how he can do that!
At the concert, the dancers were marvelous, well rehearsed, technically superb, and I just love the sheer energy of these fierce women. The band: singers, drummer, guitarist were sitting in almost a semi-circle behind the dancers and I had this strange out-of-body or out-of-context feeling: as if we were transported near a beach somewhere in the south of Spain, near a camp fire, or in a drinking place gathering and watching our neighbors sing and dance late into the night. It was a strange feeling--on stage there is Malaga, and we the audience, Manhattan crowd peeking into the world ages and places away. I see other more ethnic performances so to speak, but this Flamenco performance gave me this strange surreal feeling.
The top-billed dancer was obviously fantastic, and all three women gave great performances. After the curtain call, all musicians and dancers came in front and formed a semi-circle clapping in interlocking rhythms as they do, and one by one they took turns giving short encore dances with only singing and clapping. Even musicians and singers danced, which doesn't happen in classical setting; how many violinist can drop the violin and join dancing the Nutcracker? :)
Anyway, as much as the program "proper" was impressive, what I really felt for, was one of the singers who sang throughout the show. She became a dancer for the moment during this encore, and gave her short solo dance. She probably didn't have the fancy footwork that the dancers showed all evening, but I was moved by her, in just a few minutes of her dancing. I felt she had the soul of it, and I don't know how I know it. She didn't have more tragic or intense facial expression than others; she didn't move faster or slower than others. But her dance spoke to me as a whole expression. I try to think why this happened.
When your performance is rehearsed, choreographed, executed according to plan, one must do so until it becomes a second nature, where everything feels as if it was never planned. I must confess that is quite a difficult state to achieve, as I find myself usually almost out of time, just enough to fulfill the planned execution. I usually barely have one or two days of *non-involvement* that is to say, I don't have to think about specific execution of the performance before the concert. You can put yourself a bit outside of the performance, which frees you. As I mentioned in my previous entry, when I am not "all there", the audience seems to respond better than when I'm completely aware of every single things I'm doing during the performance.
This Flamenco singer-dancer had it---she wasn't thinking of the dance, nor choreography, but she was on the Magic Carpet expressing the soul of it. It looked as if everything came naturally to her and it was her second-nature. And that is what put everything into place--her facial expressions, her movements, everything. When this happens, communicating with audience is completely effortless. Now let's wish us good luck for our own performance next time, that we will get to the Soul of it :)
Friday, January 21, 2011
On Tenors: Professional Opinion
In response to my post yesterday about how interpretations today maybe limited, taking the example of "La Donna E Mobile" and Caruso, which I amateurishly posted, a friend of mine Andrew Moravcsik sent me this very informative and educational email. Andy is an opera critic who has reviewed Bayreuth Opera and writes for Newsweek International and other publications such as Opera magazine and Economist. He is the authority on operas for me, although he has a day job teaching Political Science at Princeton University, and to many, is an authority on European Union. But when Andy calls at the last minute inviting me to go to an opera production, I basically drop everything and go.
I thought that his email is too good to just sit in my inbox, so I share it. Here is what Andy wrote me:
Hi Mari!
Glad to see my favorite electronic violinist is slumming in the land of Italian opera favorites. But why don't you consult with your opera expert before throwing these things up?
You have very much the right idea that modern singing is one-dimensional as compared to older opera singing: Sung from the chest, little variation in expressive and musical means. This is the tragedy of modern singing. But you do miss three big items intrinsic to any "Donna è mobile" comparison:
(1) You compare on rubato, and that is important. But there are many more relevant dimensions of vocal expression that we are losing, besides simply tempo. Among them are dynamics, vocal color, whether to sing in the head or the chest, characterization, artistic imagination, diction, rhythmic articulation, etc. The use of these other tools has declined just as much as use of rubato.
(2) You compare 8 modern ones, 1 quasi-professional of the 50s (Lanza), and Caruso. But the greatest competitors to Caruso lie in between. In a serious 20th century comparison, most people might include, alongside Caruso, Pavarotti (for sheer vocal splendor), Kraus (for style), Domingo (just because of who he is, even if he is misparted here). None of the others rate in historical perspective, though I rather like the version by Kaufmann I've heard. The more interesting tenors are those between 1910 and 1970.
(3) Another thing any serious opera person will note is that Caruso recorded the aria three times, in 1903, 1904 and 1908. These are rather different. (There is a whole debate about his evolving style.) So which one do you like and why? The same goes for many of these others: Kraus, I believe, recorded the entire opera more than once. Pavarotti has recordings of the aria spanning 40 years. In the latter case, I rather like the early ones, which are freer and more imaginative, then he settled into routine that was much criticized. (See the piece I wrote for NEWSWEEK on his death on my website here:http://www.princeton.edu/~amoravcs/library/pavarotti.pdf
Now, on to Caruso. I appreciate, as you do, the use of rubato at the end of each line (not just the end of the stanzas), and find it interesting. But I believe it comes at a cost, both musical and dramatic. Remember that this is an aria by an aristocrat who is at once arrogant and indifferent to those around him, and who doesn't have a worry in the world. The opera's plot turns on the fact that the Duke does not care about morality or mortality, for nothing can ever happen to him. He's untouchable. The injustice of this, viewed from the perspective of Rigoletto, his lowly jester, drives the plot: Rigoletto first joins the Duke, then tries to beat him--of course unsuccessfully and, in the end, tragically. The aria is brilliantly written to convey this. Any interpretation must be done with a light touch, projecting this uncaring, light-hearted personality, obliviousness to surroundings, simple-minded interest in pleasure, even his exasperating arrogance, yet at the same time a certain underlying fierceness and danger. It is more difficult to do well than it might seem at first.
Back to Caruso: I find there are real problems in the 1908 version. It is heavy, both in terms of vocal color (the voice sounds too old and heavy for the part--and it is notable that, though this was less than 1/3 of the way through his recording career, Caruso never recorded this lyric aria again), and in terms of interpretation. The tempo changes work against him in places: for example, the ends of the phrases seem clumsy and heavy, and stopping in the middle of the line makes him seem like someone who thinks too much. I like the 1903 more, and the 1904 even more. Caruso's voice sounds more youthful, he mixes and varies head and chest well, the rubato more naturally employed, there is more rhythmic snap and characterization to it all, and he sounds less mannered. 1904 Caruso would be on my top 10. Obviously, compared to Rolando Villazon it sounds great. But I think there are even better ones out there.
One of my favorites is Beniamino Gigli 1934. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWImUY0N610 but I do not like this transfer, the original is warmer of sound, so use the version attached above, which I think sounds more natural). This one, in my view, has it all. The tempo creates the right mood of insouciance. It is slower, relaxed. It passes your rubato test, but in a different way. His tempo is steady through the first part of the stanzas. He does not use rubato at the end of each line, and I think (see above) in this light aria, that is the more appropriate choice. (There is a debate about whether in the 19th century singers varied tempo more, what we have lost, etc.) You can almost see the strolling aristocrat, who cannot be bothered to notice anything except the little tune he is singing and the girl he is chasing. He uses a more conventionally placed, but perfectly judged ritard on the high note, followed by a snappy acceleration.
Gigli mixes and varies head and chest voice well--in a way that is varied, natural, musical, and in character. He starts mezzo-forte with mostly chest, a very focused tone, goes from full voice to an audaciously pure head voice (pp) on the high note (Caruso does this once, suddenly, but with an uncomfortable break, near the end of the 1903 recording, but this is much better), then back to mixed. Only on the last notes of the phrase does he open up the voice to forte, and only on the last notes of the entire aria, after the little cadenza, does he exploit his voice's full, golden richness, more chesty and darker than the start, at ff. Notice also that he starts the second verse in a slightly more head voice than the first (Caruso hints at this in 1904, as well).
There are, in addition, myriad rhythmic and stylistic details. The mordents are perfect, musically lovely, and dramatically suggesting aristocratic disdain. The diction is very clear, and there is a wonderfully teasing quality about it. In the first stanza, listen to how crisply the words "cento" "penSIEro, "pianto" are enunciated, and the way he snaps "mobile" halfway through the first stanza, tracking the violins exactly. (You think there is nothing at all in the thin accompaniment to this aria, until you hear an singer make use of it like this.)
All this is high art, very subtle, and yet the most amazing thing is that you do not notice any of it. Gigli is so personable, so innately musical, and so firmly embedded in a stylistic tradition, and yet so idiosyncratic, that it seems entirely natural. He adds all this without crushing what is the simplest and most unaffected of arias. In my opinion, it is sheer genius.
There are dozens of performances between 1910 and 1970 worth parsing in this way, though few quite as good as Gigli. But no time!
BTW, if you want to hear the greatest conducting of Rigoletto ever, which really makes a virtue of this mix of restraint and freedom within a proper style required to be truly great, listen to the celebrated live Act IV from Madison Square Garden under Toscanini.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5YW2V0esi0 Toscanini pushes the tempi, which is correct in Italian opera, and yet it feels open and natural. He understood the need to make each line breath, as if it were sung, and the need for rubato where appropriate. Listen, for example, to his handling of the Quartet, which comes right after "La donna e mobile." The first (allegro) section (from 4:45 to 6:11) is played with unmatched deftness and lightness, combined with irresistible flow and forward momentum. What he gets the orchestra to do between the two stanzas with the accelerando and rubato--for example, that sudden violin sfz articulation at 5:38!--is just magical. This section just sweeps you into the more famous andante that follows. Toscanini He underscores the contrast by not initially varying the tempo, giving the line a magical sense of stillness. As in Gigli's "Donna è mobile", he exploits the dramatic potential of an initially steady tempo. There is a slight increase in urgency when the other voices come in. Then at the end of the verse, a little accelerando and a big ritard on the tenor high note. In the tutti that follows, the slight tempo changes are all natural, not forced as in Caruso. Once in a century it sounds like that--despite being live in a basketball stadium.
You should hear my evening talk on "10 tenors of the 20th century" sometime. I do one aria each by, arguably, the 10 greatest tenors of the 20th century, arrayed to tell the story of the tenor aria from Monteverdi to Britten. I contrast Gigli and Pavarotti on "Donna e mobile" to show the decline of singing. People are blown away by how low we've sunk. You certainly got that right! I look forward to your other forays into opera!
Andy Moravcsik
Princeton University
I thought that his email is too good to just sit in my inbox, so I share it. Here is what Andy wrote me:
Hi Mari!
Glad to see my favorite electronic violinist is slumming in the land of Italian opera favorites. But why don't you consult with your opera expert before throwing these things up?
You have very much the right idea that modern singing is one-dimensional as compared to older opera singing: Sung from the chest, little variation in expressive and musical means. This is the tragedy of modern singing. But you do miss three big items intrinsic to any "Donna è mobile" comparison:
(1) You compare on rubato, and that is important. But there are many more relevant dimensions of vocal expression that we are losing, besides simply tempo. Among them are dynamics, vocal color, whether to sing in the head or the chest, characterization, artistic imagination, diction, rhythmic articulation, etc. The use of these other tools has declined just as much as use of rubato.
(2) You compare 8 modern ones, 1 quasi-professional of the 50s (Lanza), and Caruso. But the greatest competitors to Caruso lie in between. In a serious 20th century comparison, most people might include, alongside Caruso, Pavarotti (for sheer vocal splendor), Kraus (for style), Domingo (just because of who he is, even if he is misparted here). None of the others rate in historical perspective, though I rather like the version by Kaufmann I've heard. The more interesting tenors are those between 1910 and 1970.
(3) Another thing any serious opera person will note is that Caruso recorded the aria three times, in 1903, 1904 and 1908. These are rather different. (There is a whole debate about his evolving style.) So which one do you like and why? The same goes for many of these others: Kraus, I believe, recorded the entire opera more than once. Pavarotti has recordings of the aria spanning 40 years. In the latter case, I rather like the early ones, which are freer and more imaginative, then he settled into routine that was much criticized. (See the piece I wrote for NEWSWEEK on his death on my website here:http://www.princeton.edu/~amoravcs/library/pavarotti.pdf
Now, on to Caruso. I appreciate, as you do, the use of rubato at the end of each line (not just the end of the stanzas), and find it interesting. But I believe it comes at a cost, both musical and dramatic. Remember that this is an aria by an aristocrat who is at once arrogant and indifferent to those around him, and who doesn't have a worry in the world. The opera's plot turns on the fact that the Duke does not care about morality or mortality, for nothing can ever happen to him. He's untouchable. The injustice of this, viewed from the perspective of Rigoletto, his lowly jester, drives the plot: Rigoletto first joins the Duke, then tries to beat him--of course unsuccessfully and, in the end, tragically. The aria is brilliantly written to convey this. Any interpretation must be done with a light touch, projecting this uncaring, light-hearted personality, obliviousness to surroundings, simple-minded interest in pleasure, even his exasperating arrogance, yet at the same time a certain underlying fierceness and danger. It is more difficult to do well than it might seem at first.
Back to Caruso: I find there are real problems in the 1908 version. It is heavy, both in terms of vocal color (the voice sounds too old and heavy for the part--and it is notable that, though this was less than 1/3 of the way through his recording career, Caruso never recorded this lyric aria again), and in terms of interpretation. The tempo changes work against him in places: for example, the ends of the phrases seem clumsy and heavy, and stopping in the middle of the line makes him seem like someone who thinks too much. I like the 1903 more, and the 1904 even more. Caruso's voice sounds more youthful, he mixes and varies head and chest well, the rubato more naturally employed, there is more rhythmic snap and characterization to it all, and he sounds less mannered. 1904 Caruso would be on my top 10. Obviously, compared to Rolando Villazon it sounds great. But I think there are even better ones out there.
One of my favorites is Beniamino Gigli 1934. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWImUY0N610 but I do not like this transfer, the original is warmer of sound, so use the version attached above, which I think sounds more natural). This one, in my view, has it all. The tempo creates the right mood of insouciance. It is slower, relaxed. It passes your rubato test, but in a different way. His tempo is steady through the first part of the stanzas. He does not use rubato at the end of each line, and I think (see above) in this light aria, that is the more appropriate choice. (There is a debate about whether in the 19th century singers varied tempo more, what we have lost, etc.) You can almost see the strolling aristocrat, who cannot be bothered to notice anything except the little tune he is singing and the girl he is chasing. He uses a more conventionally placed, but perfectly judged ritard on the high note, followed by a snappy acceleration.
Gigli mixes and varies head and chest voice well--in a way that is varied, natural, musical, and in character. He starts mezzo-forte with mostly chest, a very focused tone, goes from full voice to an audaciously pure head voice (pp) on the high note (Caruso does this once, suddenly, but with an uncomfortable break, near the end of the 1903 recording, but this is much better), then back to mixed. Only on the last notes of the phrase does he open up the voice to forte, and only on the last notes of the entire aria, after the little cadenza, does he exploit his voice's full, golden richness, more chesty and darker than the start, at ff. Notice also that he starts the second verse in a slightly more head voice than the first (Caruso hints at this in 1904, as well).
There are, in addition, myriad rhythmic and stylistic details. The mordents are perfect, musically lovely, and dramatically suggesting aristocratic disdain. The diction is very clear, and there is a wonderfully teasing quality about it. In the first stanza, listen to how crisply the words "cento" "penSIEro, "pianto" are enunciated, and the way he snaps "mobile" halfway through the first stanza, tracking the violins exactly. (You think there is nothing at all in the thin accompaniment to this aria, until you hear an singer make use of it like this.)
All this is high art, very subtle, and yet the most amazing thing is that you do not notice any of it. Gigli is so personable, so innately musical, and so firmly embedded in a stylistic tradition, and yet so idiosyncratic, that it seems entirely natural. He adds all this without crushing what is the simplest and most unaffected of arias. In my opinion, it is sheer genius.
There are dozens of performances between 1910 and 1970 worth parsing in this way, though few quite as good as Gigli. But no time!
BTW, if you want to hear the greatest conducting of Rigoletto ever, which really makes a virtue of this mix of restraint and freedom within a proper style required to be truly great, listen to the celebrated live Act IV from Madison Square Garden under Toscanini.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5YW2V0esi0 Toscanini pushes the tempi, which is correct in Italian opera, and yet it feels open and natural. He understood the need to make each line breath, as if it were sung, and the need for rubato where appropriate. Listen, for example, to his handling of the Quartet, which comes right after "La donna e mobile." The first (allegro) section (from 4:45 to 6:11) is played with unmatched deftness and lightness, combined with irresistible flow and forward momentum. What he gets the orchestra to do between the two stanzas with the accelerando and rubato--for example, that sudden violin sfz articulation at 5:38!--is just magical. This section just sweeps you into the more famous andante that follows. Toscanini He underscores the contrast by not initially varying the tempo, giving the line a magical sense of stillness. As in Gigli's "Donna è mobile", he exploits the dramatic potential of an initially steady tempo. There is a slight increase in urgency when the other voices come in. Then at the end of the verse, a little accelerando and a big ritard on the tenor high note. In the tutti that follows, the slight tempo changes are all natural, not forced as in Caruso. Once in a century it sounds like that--despite being live in a basketball stadium.
You should hear my evening talk on "10 tenors of the 20th century" sometime. I do one aria each by, arguably, the 10 greatest tenors of the 20th century, arrayed to tell the story of the tenor aria from Monteverdi to Britten. I contrast Gigli and Pavarotti on "Donna e mobile" to show the decline of singing. People are blown away by how low we've sunk. You certainly got that right! I look forward to your other forays into opera!
Andy Moravcsik
Princeton University
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)