The Carnival of Music
Welcome to the Carnival of Music. Thanks to John for letting me play host this week. Sadly, this fledgling carnival is getting off to a slow start, so I've padded the few submissions with some links I found all by my lonesome.
I'm also tying things together with an improbable theme. (What, you say? An improbable theme? On the internet???) This week I introduced a new quiz, called What Sci-Fi Film Score Are You? There is evidence at least one person has tried it out. After I created the quiz, I realized I overlooked the classic film score to The Day the Earth Stood Still. To atone for my mistake, I will make it the central organizing principle of this post.
I can't say I loved the movie; at the time I saw it, I would have
called it The Day the Plot Stood Still. Nevertheless, the
score to the movie was groundbreaking and widely imitated. (Someone
has claimed that Lost In Space directly ripped off the music.)
Thanks to TDTESS, theremins
will always bring to mind aliens in flying saucers.The story is simple: Klaatu, a humanoid alien with superhuman wisdom and technology, comes to earth to warn us that we must give up our violent, destructive ways and learn to live in peace and harmony -- or else mankind will be wiped out in a violent, destructive armageddon by the alien's giant robot named Gort, who melts tanks and vaporizes soldiers with laser beams. "Klaatu barata nikto" apparently does not mean "I love you" (that would be "eep opp ork ah ah"). When the stupid authorities reject Klaatu's message, he goes incognito and lives with an ordinary family. Apparently Klaatu suffered from a bit of a messiah complex.
In light of all this, Scott Spiegelberg addresses one
of the fundamental
questions in music: are the major and minor scales of western
music rooted in the harmonic series, i.e., in the physics of music?
Scott says, give it up: it's all artifice. Sorry, Scott, I cannot
completely agree. To prevent you from spreading this destructive idea,
I am afraid I will have to vaporize you with my laser eyes.BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!There.
When things aren't working out, aliens like Klaatu need to take time off from war and politics. Certain other aliens, called composers, similarly go on retreat to rethink priorities. Paul Bailey tells us what it's like.
Lynn takes a break from music posting to comment on the terrorist attacks in London. Those poor people need someone like Klaatu to establish law and order. Oh wait; the terrorists probably think that's what they're doing. Meanwhile, Jessica describes a London concert made transcendent by the deadly context. Helen wonders if she is fiddling while London burns. The Overgrown Path says: the show (that is, the Proms) must go on.
Speaking of ponderous, statuesque executioners: A.
C. Douglas let's us know what might really be going on at the end
of Mozart's Don Giovanni.A word to the wise from the woodwindy Patricia Emerson Mitchell and Brian Sacawa: a good reed is hard to find. Hey guys, switch to theremin and your happiness will never again depend on a tiny, fragile strip of wood.
Does music theory mess up your mind? Corey Dargel worries it warps creativity; Kyle Gann has been having similar thoughts. This one doesn't have a space alien theme; the improbable tie-in is fruit preserves.
Umie the Umlaut says, "ask your doctor about the Fredösphere!"
3 Comments:
I have a blog for my students, this is a recent post:
I am a big fan of opera. Near Los Alamos, New Mexico is the Santa Fe Opera, which is world class opera house. When I was young the opera was a genuine outdoor opera (if it rained you got wet) . Sadly that opera house burned down in the late ‘60’s. The replacement was also a genuine outdoor theater (whereas today's house is only vaguely out door). Sometimes my mom worried that she was dragging me to the opera, but it turns out that they only go to the opera when I drag them. The best opera I attended at Santa Fe was Mozart’s Magic Flute (summer 1971). But this has as much to do about nature as the opera itself (without nature I liked their Faust and Gianni Schicchi performances best). The theater was open in back with a stunning view of the Jemez Mountains framed by the back of the stage.
In the Magic flute the antagonist is the Queen of the Night, a subtly evil character (if you do not know the opera you do not find out she is the bad guy until the last act). Her first entrance has the darkly spectacular aria (O zittre nicht) which frames most of the action for the rest of the opera. The Santa Fe Opera decided to really jazz up her entrance. For this opera they put her “grotto” on the elevator part of the stage. Then they used dim lighting and carbon dioxide fog to give a dark cavelike effect. When it was time for her entrance the stage went dark and the grotto arose on the elevator from below the stage. As the grotto slowly rose a brief storm broke out over the Jemez. So not only did you have the stage fog swirling around the grotto, the lighting effects of opera, but you had the ragged flashes of lightning in the back ground. By the time the coloratura was done singing her aria the storm has ended. Thanks to nature this was a most spectacular entrance I have ever seen.
Gee, thanks for the mention!
I'm still trying to understand this whole Carnival thing. Is it that others are supposed to contact the Carnival host of the week with their music link? Of course everything at my oboe site is about music ... whether directly or bizarrely. Or both. But anyway, I'm an oboe player so I'm slow at understanding anything that isn't about making music to cause folks to cry. (THAT, after all, is what we oboists do best.)
Anyway, I appreciate the mention. And yes, a theremin might be the way to go! :-)
"Someone has claimed that Lost In Space directly ripped off the music"
That was Bernard Herrmann ripping himself off. Herrmann scored the never-aired pilot episode, and those music cues were later used in episodes scored by others. Herrmann was given screen credit only on the never-aired episode (which can now be seen on the first season DVD's).
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