from beneath the earth
Nov. 26th, 2025 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yamamanamaThere was a miserable pile of secrets wearing an Alucard t-shirt under his jacket. Another passenger was dressed in a Luxerion gothic style only with more red.
For lunch, I had cajun voodoo wings. Later, I bought a bag of chilli lemon Kenyan chevda. Note: actually from India. Maybe they want to make it sound exotic.
Someone in the audience, who had done the Ring Cycle once, called it a very operatic requiem.
So I've done the Requiem (Verdi) multiple times and gone through the talk once before (and in fact I was talking with a guy on the red line after) but here are some new insights.
One of the soloists is from Baku (his journey took 40 hours and it was worth it) and so there are many people in Azerbaijan who were watching.
He says you can just listen and let it fill your soul but if you’re here, you want the information. Is it a Christian work? Maybe. Verdi himself was not a believer. His purpose in writing the Requiem wasn’t to spread the Word. Someone said that if Christianity is not true, it is at least the greatest tragic poem.
At the time it was written, Italy was not a unified country and didn’t even have a common language. The Latin mass is the one thing they had in common.
I. Introit/Kyrie
The parishioners express anxiety in the face of Death. The 5-3-1 sequence is one of painful emotion, finality, and acceptance.
Verdi had favorite singers. They’re all dead now so we got some new ones.
II. Dies irae
I am the scales of justice, conductor of the choir of death! Sing, Brother Heckler! Sing, Brother Koch! Sing, brothers! Sing! SING!
The Dies Irae shows up four times throughout. The chorus should be buried underneath the orchestra.
It’s broken down into multiple parts of its own.
Tuba mirum
Mors stupebit
In which even Death is stunned by the dead rising.
Liber scriptus
In the original version, it was a baroque choral fugue but he revised it to give the alto another solo, and this is the definitive version but you can find the original somewhere if you want to.
Quid sum miser
Rex tremendae
Recordare
A duet between the soprano and alto.
Ingemisco
The tenor sings the highest note a tenor can sing.
Lachrymosa
A day full of tears from the soprano and alto.
5-1-2-3 shows up in the Eroica’s funeral march and in Chopin’s second piano sonata. The one with that funeral march.
The Amen is on the wrong key.
III. Offertory
Mezzo, tenor, and then bass, while the cello arpeggiates. The hostias for tenor is pure radiance.
IV. Sanctus
A double fugue from the choir.
V. Agnus Dei
The soprano and the alto are singing an octave apart.
VI. Lux æterna
Divided into six parts.
VII. Libera me
A statement for the soprano, speaking for mankind. And with a CRASH! comes the Dies Irae again. At the end, her voice merges with the silence (there's no In paradisum) and the unknown remains unknowable.
And despite all the fury and wrath and doubt, it does not end in despair but in confidence in Man’s ability to face light and shadow.
Alec had a Green Day t-shirt. Dookie was the first album I ever listened to. That was like when it came out.
Halo is Filipino and uses indigenous designs and techniques in her (their? In fact, they both have a rather androgynous look) art. Had a painting of a whale’s eye because she’s fascinated with the concept of whale fall. Recommended the book Frankenstein (I read it in high school as well) to Alec. Doesn’t like to know anything about movies before watching them.
They both go to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Kayleigh is a makeup artist and just got back from working. She has four lip piercings, two on top and two on bottom, along with a septum ring and headphones that look like horns.
burning question: is Trump just pissed that those orange monarchs (Danaus plexippus) are more universally beloved than him?
For lunch, I had cajun voodoo wings. Later, I bought a bag of chilli lemon Kenyan chevda. Note: actually from India. Maybe they want to make it sound exotic.
Someone in the audience, who had done the Ring Cycle once, called it a very operatic requiem.
So I've done the Requiem (Verdi) multiple times and gone through the talk once before (and in fact I was talking with a guy on the red line after) but here are some new insights.
One of the soloists is from Baku (his journey took 40 hours and it was worth it) and so there are many people in Azerbaijan who were watching.
He says you can just listen and let it fill your soul but if you’re here, you want the information. Is it a Christian work? Maybe. Verdi himself was not a believer. His purpose in writing the Requiem wasn’t to spread the Word. Someone said that if Christianity is not true, it is at least the greatest tragic poem.
At the time it was written, Italy was not a unified country and didn’t even have a common language. The Latin mass is the one thing they had in common.
I. Introit/Kyrie
The parishioners express anxiety in the face of Death. The 5-3-1 sequence is one of painful emotion, finality, and acceptance.
Verdi had favorite singers. They’re all dead now so we got some new ones.
II. Dies irae
I am the scales of justice, conductor of the choir of death! Sing, Brother Heckler! Sing, Brother Koch! Sing, brothers! Sing! SING!
The Dies Irae shows up four times throughout. The chorus should be buried underneath the orchestra.
It’s broken down into multiple parts of its own.
Tuba mirum
Mors stupebit
In which even Death is stunned by the dead rising.
Liber scriptus
In the original version, it was a baroque choral fugue but he revised it to give the alto another solo, and this is the definitive version but you can find the original somewhere if you want to.
Quid sum miser
Rex tremendae
Recordare
A duet between the soprano and alto.
Ingemisco
The tenor sings the highest note a tenor can sing.
Lachrymosa
A day full of tears from the soprano and alto.
5-1-2-3 shows up in the Eroica’s funeral march and in Chopin’s second piano sonata. The one with that funeral march.
The Amen is on the wrong key.
III. Offertory
Mezzo, tenor, and then bass, while the cello arpeggiates. The hostias for tenor is pure radiance.
IV. Sanctus
A double fugue from the choir.
V. Agnus Dei
The soprano and the alto are singing an octave apart.
VI. Lux æterna
Divided into six parts.
VII. Libera me
A statement for the soprano, speaking for mankind. And with a CRASH! comes the Dies Irae again. At the end, her voice merges with the silence (there's no In paradisum) and the unknown remains unknowable.
And despite all the fury and wrath and doubt, it does not end in despair but in confidence in Man’s ability to face light and shadow.
Alec had a Green Day t-shirt. Dookie was the first album I ever listened to. That was like when it came out.
Halo is Filipino and uses indigenous designs and techniques in her (their? In fact, they both have a rather androgynous look) art. Had a painting of a whale’s eye because she’s fascinated with the concept of whale fall. Recommended the book Frankenstein (I read it in high school as well) to Alec. Doesn’t like to know anything about movies before watching them.
They both go to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Kayleigh is a makeup artist and just got back from working. She has four lip piercings, two on top and two on bottom, along with a septum ring and headphones that look like horns.
burning question: is Trump just pissed that those orange monarchs (Danaus plexippus) are more universally beloved than him?
no subject
Date: 2025-12-09 09:53 pm (UTC)The tenor sings the highest note a tenor can sing."
Hmm. I can't imagine its higher than the note in I Puritani. I had forgotten that Verdi wrote a requiem. I have heard McBeth, Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Falstaff. I didn't like the first or the last, but I really enjoyed the other two. I am not going to try Otello, because first, I don't like loud, heavy things, and secondly, no one living today can match Francesco Tamagno. Even in his own time, it was nearly impossible! All of the opera singers I like began their careers prior to the 1940's,so I don't listen to modern productions of anything anyway, unless I have no choice i.e. I Due Figaro by Carafa.