Really?

Really?

At this point, I have to wonder if singers do this on purpose. We talked before about how sad it is that women can give fantastic performances, yet the majority of the critiques they receive are mostly colored by their appearance and what (or "Who," if you're Joan Rivers...) they are wearing. I can't decide if the singers realize this and wear things like this on purpose, or if they simply have such poor taste.
One commenter put it perfectly : "Her costume doesn't match the light, joyful aria either. This is Juliet's Dream Song and she's wearing a strange, black costume that looks like something worn at a Funeral for a Star Wars character"

Ms. Battle is not the only one who has worn something reminiscent of Bjork's swan dress 



Singing the same aria, Diana Damrau wears a dress that looks like she bought it from a bar wench at her local Renaissance Faire.

At least at one point in time, this might have been considered a beautiful dress.

What, as singers, do we say about ourselves when we perform in outfits like these? Personally, I find it almost an insult. If I were to wear a dress like that for a performance I would either have to be out of my mind on painkillers or I would have to care so little about myself, my image, and my performance, that I thought wearing something like that would be funny.
Granted, a lot of stars spend a lot of money on hilariously awful outfits

When it's time for the academy awards, or the Oscars, or the Tony's or whatever red-carpet social event is in season, designers pull out all the stops, and sometimes I wonder if they are entirely lucid when they design their outfits.

What's worse is the women who wear them. The amount of mental absence it takes to step out of a building in that outfit makes it entirely believable that some of these women are on some serious drugs.

The men have the right idea. Just a tux. No bling, no feathers, no sequins, justatux.

But women can't possibly wear 'justatux,' as women we have to sparkle like jewels - we have to be the prettiest peacock to get the most desirable mate.

Interesting - the pretty peacocks (and generally most pretty, colorful birds) that strut around looking for the best mate are the men, but in the human world it's the women who primp and preen to catch the best mate.

How the heck did that happen?

This is a video of cellist Sol Gabetta explaining the Dvorak Cello Concerto...unfortunately it's in German, but she is absolutely stunning! It's really interesting if you can understand the basics of what she is saying.  She really understands this piece and explains the importance of the interaction between her and the other instrumentalists.  I'm fascinated by her playing and really wish she would come to the United States again.  She teaches at the Basel academy in Switzerland.

Clara Schumann

This is the Grave of Robert Schumann with CLARA Schumann at the base as the "muse inspiring a dream partnership in music.  Robert the romantic hero and Clara the loving wife."  This monument was erected in 1880 and Clara was in attendance at the dedication in May of that year.

St. Cecilia by Raphael 1514

This is the painting many falsely believe was the first artistic depiction of St. Cecilia as musical, but as written in my essay there were previous art works doing so in the fifteenth century. This painting is more popular because it is by Raphael and goes beyond simple imagery. There are numerous instruments shown in the painting and in separate visual areas. In the heavens angels are singing without accompaniment, St. Cecilia is holding a small organ, and other instruments such as a tambourine, a viol, a triangle, a flute and others lie at her feet. The angels singing and her holding the organ represent the glory of sacred music as opposed to purely instrumental music, for music at that time was believed to be most important for praising God. The people surrounding her are John the Evangelist, Augustine, Paul and Mary Magdelene. Cecilia's rich clothes tied with a belt symbolize her virtue and chastity; their color of golden yellow symbolize her desire of God. This painting portrays her as more than a musical muse, but as a virginal Saint important among Saints.

St. Cecilia: Music and Myth

This is an essay about St. Cecilia's false association with music and her interesting inspiration to mostly male composers.

St. Cecilia: Music and Myth

St. Cecilia is known socially, culturally and religiously as the Patron Saint of Music. Her popularity and association with music are false, however, because Cecilia was not musical and in fact through tangled history and human error she probably did not even exist. Historical facts aside she has been directly associated with music now for about five centuries, making her an icon of music. She has become a source of inspiration, almost like a muse. Misconstrued history has led to her incorrect labeling, but her inspirational capabilities make her connection with music important and relevant. She has been created as musical and it is essential she remains connected with music. Interestingly, she has been most inspirational towards male composers. Hopefully it will become more attributable as a female symbol of music and not simply an icon of patriarchal male domination in music.

The history of St. Cecilia in general, not considering music, is misconstrued if not completely false. There is no evidence of her existence and any labeled proof has been proven false. Most interestingly, music is not considered in the early accounts of St. Cecilia, and it is amazing how she becomes associated with music throughout the Middle Ages. The blatant fact is “the Acts are essentially a literary fiction designed to glorify the virginal life” (Luckett, 16). The first accounts of Cecilia were translated and rewritten many times and the original documentation of her story is unknown and does not exist. Her name is known to start circulating in the late fifth century with associations as one of many undistinguished virgin martyrs. St. Cecilia became very popular due to the literary aspects of her Acts. Extremely important is the description of her wedding in which instruments were playing. In early Latin the word for instruments is organis, which many people have confused to mean organ. Additionally, she is described to be silently singing (praying) in her heart to God. These descriptions morphed into to her playing the organ and to her singing aloud. Her connection with music started with a mistranslation which was never corrected (Connolly, 14; Luckett, 16- 21).

In the fifteenth century the Middle Ages were ending, craft guilds were growing, exploitation and cults of saints especially virgin saints began, the status of musicians as artists increased, attributions and symbols for saints increased (Luckett, 24). There was a need for a saint of music and Cecilia fulfilled the need. Stories about her musical achievements or her invention of the organ are “rationalizations” of her visual portrayals (Luckett, 26). It is assumed that Raphael’s 1514 painting was the first to portray her as musical, but this is also false. There are visual representations in the fourteenth century depicting her musically leading to her iconography association with music between 1450 and 1500 (Luckett, 19). There is an Italian visual showing Cecilia with an instrument from the late fifteenth century, the cathedral at Albi was dedicated to St. Cecilia with musical depictions in 1480 and scenes from the Acts as well as paintings featuring her with music (Luckett, 19). As the sixteenth century ends she is completely synonymous with music and is an inspiration by the seventeenth century.

Many artists, composers, poets and writers, mostly men, over the centuries have found encouragement in Cecilia’s muse-like quality. Some musical pieces written for her Feast day are simply masses with Latin texts such as Scarlatti’s St. Cecilia Mass written for her 1720 Roman celebration and Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass (1855). Among other well known pieces there is an Ode on St Cecilia’s Day by Henry Purcell (1692), a song “Ode on the rejection of St. Cecilia” by Gerald Finzi with text by G. Barker, a Hymn for St. Cecilia by Herbert Howells with words by Ursula Vaughan Williams (1961). Some, however, show how important she can truly be to a composer; even if male it is glorifying a woman through song with a different style of praise. Two works which are very interesting are Handel’s Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day (1739) and Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia (1942).

The text of Handel’s is taken from the second of two odes to Cecilia’s musical honor from 1687 and 1697 by John Dryden. The piece mostly portrays the text of generally glorifying music. Although at one point the text is very interesting: “Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains and height of passion, For the fair, disdainful dame” and the music responds by rising in pitch. Section No. 12 is a recitative named “but Bright Cecilia” with “But bright Cecilia rais’d the wonder high’r: When to her organ vocal breath was giv’n, An angel heard, and straight appear’d Mistaking earth for heaven” as the text. It is apparent that she was believed to be very musical and divine because of her talent. It could be that her prayers were deemed special or heightened because they were sang and better heart. It seems as if people believed her praying through song made her prayers more beautiful and worth and closer to God.

Benjamin Britten’s piece is extremely interesting. He seems to personally relate to her and her patriarchal oppression. Some believe that Cecilia “prays for deliverance from confusion,” which could connect to Britten’s homosexuality and possible pedophilic feelings (Connolly, 40). The text by W. H. Auden is beautifully and powerfully set. The music is soft and pleading when the chorus sings, “Like a black swan as death came on Pour’d forth her song in perfect calm: And by ocean’s margin this innocent virgin Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer”. The main prayer for inspiration is, “Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions To all musicians, appear and inspire: Translated Daughter come down and startle composing mortals with immortal fire,” which returns once and then again to end the piece. The chorus sings, “I have no shadow to run away from, I only play” sounding like something personal to Britten, possibly his own wanting to run away from his inner demons, but can only compose. One section ends with “Love me” in the soprano on a soft E, expressing desire, yet pain. The text, “dread like a beast, of truths that never change” is sung lower and softer, almost as if more truthful and hurtful. Then it is disturbing when, “Oh dear white children . . . So gay against the greater silences of dreadful things you did . . . O weep child weep, weep away the stain, Lost innocence” culminates in a large climax leading up to innocence. The focus returns to honoring music and ends with the prayer for inspiration. It is safe to assume that Britten used St. Cecilia’s association with music as a prayer for inspiration, change, and as a calming effect on the suffering of his troublesome thoughts.

It is apparent that the history of Cecilia is a myth created through miscommunication, misconstrued facts and worship like cults. Her purpose was to encourage chastity. Honoring her as the patron saint of music is mistaken, but as some believe “she symbolized at least some kind of female identification with musical practice (Cook and Tsou, 1). Some feminist musicologists see her as passive and idealized for being perfect according to patriarchal chastity, domesticity, and submissiveness. It is also interesting to think that although she was a performer of music she was never a composer (Cook and Tsou, 1). However, by ‘reclaiming’ her musicology can decide to not let patriarchal exploitation continue. Her inspiration to composers is incredibly important, especially when analyzing Benjamin Britten’s piece. In order to reclaim Cecilia and move forward we must accept that historically and factually St. Cecilia was a literary figment and unmusical. However, she is very powerful because the abstract Cecilia has created a nurturing source of endless inspiration and relating abilities for musicians. Maybe her muse-like quality is still praise-worthy even if she also served to uphold virginity. In the artistic depictions of her she knew suffering and understood the plight of humans. Her empathetic force is important for musicians and it proved extremely therapeutic for Britten. We need to embrace her and recognize her potential. Composers need an abstract figure of inspiration. She is still relevant as a source of musical inspiration even though she is unhistorical and her story lies mostly within fictitious stories and human miscommunication. St. Cecilia’s falsity does not make her less of a muse. Hopefully she will become more of a muse to female musicians.

Works Cited

Britten, Benjamin.Hymn to St. Cecilia (Op. 27). 1942.

Connolly, Thomas. Mourning into Joy: Music, Raphael, and Saint Cecilia. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994.

Cook, Susan C., and Judy S. Tsou. "Bright Cecilia." Introduction. Cecilia Reclaimed: Feminist

Perspectives on Gender and Music. Ed. Susan C. Cook and Judy S. Tsou. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, n.d. 1-10.

Handel, George Friderich. Ode On St. Cecilia's Day. 1739. New York: The H.W.Gray Co., n.d.

Lives of Saints: With Excerpts from Their Writings. Ed. Joseph Vann, Father. New York: John J.
Crawley and Co., Inc., 1954.

Luckett, Richard. "St. Cecilia and Music." Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 99
(1972-1973): 15-30. 21 Nov. 2008 . Path: Cecilia.

DPRK orchestra

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as2QlOV4Ra8&feature=related

I found this so interesting...video of a North Korean orchestra, that happens to be all women. I'm assuming in the DPRK, there is some law that only women can play specific instruments or something bizarre like that. I think they sound pretty good, and the music is rather folk oriented (no surprise there)  - hope you enjoy.

More Japan.

I just posted on my personal blog about enka, but I thought I'd share this video of Hibari Misora singing a song called Yawara...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_W7-HcBIPA

This is a rough translation of the lyrics (courtesy of my sister WHO IS NOT DROWNING IN JAPAN!):

If you think you can win, you'll lose,
Loosing is nothing deep in my heart
Ever burning, the dream of yawara
Once for all in my life once for all in my life Is waiting Yours is yours I've got my own wish By discarding will I be able to overcome If only tonight as a human
Love's tears love's tears Will I come to share Make no talk Do your fast hand
This is no moment to deal with a fool.
No matter how I go I say I sit I sleep
Yawara all the way
Yawara all the way
Another day will break

The internet tells me Yawara is a region in Japan...I don't really know, to be honest.

Ethel Smyth

I don't feel we spoke enough about Ethel Smyth a week or so ago in class. I'm posting an essay I wrote for Histo II and hope you'll find it interesting! Her Mass in D is definitely worth a listen - the library has a decent recording of it. (Bibliography is at the bottom, below the essay.)

Hiding in the Closet: Smyth’s Mass in D

            Dame Ethel Mary Smyth was born in Woking, a suburb of London on April 23, 1858. Her father was a Major-General in the Royal Artillery, and her mother kept busy caring for Ethel and her seven siblings. Smyth notes in her memoirs that she was “proud to be a ten months’ child [because] in pre-Suffragette days…[she] heard that such children [were] generally boys and always remarkable” (Crichton, 23). When Smyth was nine, her family moved to Frimhurst and she lived there until her father died in 1894. It was a town full of sophisticated people and social gatherings that the Smyth family enjoyed. She began her earliest musical training while living in Frimhurst much to the dismay of her parents, most notably her father.

As her interest in music grew, she traveled to London, and nearby concert venues to hear the music of great composers. One of her “half-milestone” journeys was her first trip to hear Brahms (56). The performance was of the Liebeslieder Walzer and Smyth immediately fell in love with the music of Brahms. She eventually knew she had to be in an environment where she could meet and work with composers similar to Brahms. After a hunger strike in her own house, her father finally allowed her to travel to Leipzig and study at the conservatory there. Ethel began her studies with Carl Reinecke though after a year at the conservatory she dropped out feeling she was not being taught properly.

Finding herself in a foreign country, and no longer in school, Smyth began private studies with Heinrich von Herzogenberg. While studying with von Herzogenberg, Smyth became very close with his wife Elizabeth (Lisl). Smyth had always lived her life not feeling as though she was the most feminine woman and felt most comfortable wearing suits and ties. It was not until she met Lisl and became entangled in a love-triangle that she truly realized her sexual passion and desires for women.

            One of Smyth’s largest and most well-received works is her Mass in D, first performed on January 18, 1893. It is written for full chorus, and four soloists along with full orchestra including full woodwind and percussion sections. Smyth arranges the movements differently than standard choral masses, most likely because she grew up an Anglican, attending the Church of England. Ergo the final movement is the Gloria as opposed to the Agnus Dei.

            Smyth was quite a critic of her work, and leading up to the first performance, she constantly found new sections that she was not pleased with and also felt some of her orchestration was poor:

I realized various mistakes I had made – for instance, scoring the solo parts of the Sanctus for a quartet of soft brass. When the poor contralto, emerging from a welter of choral and orchestral billows, attacked one of her solo passages, I perceived that a brass curtain ring flung to an overboard passenger in the mid-Atlantic would be about as adequate a ‘support’ as my four lonesome instrumentalists, who in that vast empty hall sounded like husky mosquitoes (194).

After listening to a recording of the Mass in its entirety, the passage that Smyth speaks about was not the most balanced between the brass and contralto soloist. It seems that the best way to resolve the situation is not to change what instruments are accompanying the soloist at this specific section, but to employ a singer with a solid, and strong voice that cuts through the orchestra easily.

            In Sydney Grew’s 1924 review of the Mass, he goes into great detail praising the genius of Dame Smyth bringing attention to the fact that she was only 33 years old when she completed the work (Grew, 140). Grew continues to rave about how incredible this work truly is, stating that “it is made clear that the young composer had made music a sort of native language: she composes as easily as a good organist plays, and her declamation is excellent” (141). This mention of excellent declamation holds true to the entire Mass. Smyth writes in a way that the text is always heard clearly and understood well by the audience. After just one listening of the Mass, it is difficult to not share Grew’s enthusiasm for Smyth’s fantastic composition.

            Another 1924 article by an author under the name C praises Smyth’s work as well. C states that the “Mass corresponds, in point of time, in Ethel Smyth's career to the second Symphony in Beethoven's, or The Flying Dutchman in Wagner's” (C, 256). This statement is incredible considering when it was written, claiming that this work of a young, woman composer in England has already reached the level Beethoven and Wagner. Though most thoroughly enjoyed and praised the Mass in D, Smyth did not feel she received enough notoriety as a composer from it, and turned to composing operas for a large portion of her life. This also is quite remarkable, as England was not known for operas at this time, and hers ended up being quite successful (256).

            The aforementioned lesbian relationship of Smyth’s comes into play in Elizabeth Wood’s “Lesbian Fugue”. Wood claims that Smyth composes in fugal style when she is somehow attempting to expose her lesbian tendencies. The most striking fugue in the entire Mass in D is in the Credo movement, where the text is speaking of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. “[A] baroque trumpet announces the theme of a mighty fugue scored for massed chorus and full orchestra” (Wood, 182). When Smyth composed her Mass, she was at odds with Lisl. She had taken too much liberty entering a sacred marriage, and essentially lost not only someone she felt passionately about but a wonderful friend. “Perhaps this passage [suggests reconciliation] with Lisl in another life” (182). 
            While relatively unknown and rarely performed, Smyth’s Mass is a monumental work that deserves to be among the great works of Beethoven and Wagner and no longer hidden in the closet.

Bibliography

Smyth, E. (1991). British Composers, Ethel Smyth [Audio CD]. Minneapolis: EMI Classics.

Smyth, E. Mass in D. London, 1925.

C. (1924). Dame Ethel Smyth’s Mass at Birmingham. The Musical Times, 65(973), 256.

Crichton, R. (1987). The Memoirs of Ethel Smyth. Middlesex, UK: Viking.

Grew, S. (1924). Ethel Smyth’s Mass in D. The Musical Times. 65(972). 140-141

Wood, E. (1993). Musicology and Difference R. A. Solie, (Ed.). Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.