Wagner Das Rheingold

Classical Music / Opera (Music Drama)

Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), WWW 86A, is the first of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (English: The Ring of the Nibelung.) It premiered at the National Theatre Munich on 22 September 1869, with August Kindermann as Wotan, Heinrich Vogl as Loge, and Karl Fischer as Alberich. Wagner allowed the performance only of this first cycle at the insistence of his patron King Ludwig II of Bavaria. The work was first performed as part of the complete cycle on 13 August 1876, in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.



Video Credit: 

Wagner - Der Ring Nibelungen: Das Rheingold. Richard Wagner. Das Rheingold. Adam Fischer/Vienna State Opera, 2016.  Youtube, uploaded by Randall G. Malstrom. Accessed April 20, 2023.

Resource:

Das Rheingold. en.wikipedia.org. Accessed September 22, 2016. 



(c) 2016-2017. Updated April 20, 2023.  Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.   

Frida (Film) Soundtrack

Soundtrack  of Frida (Film)

Frida is the original soundtrack album, on the Universal label of the 2002 Academy Award and Golden Globe Award - winning film Frida,  starring Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Mia Maestro and Ashley Judd. The original music score was composed by Elliot Goldenthal.  The soundtrack features songs by various artists. 

 

Link to:     Frida Kahlo - Soundtrack

Note:  There are 12 videos; wait few seconds for the next one to play.

 

 

 

About Frida (The Film)

Frida is a 2002 American biopic drama film that depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954). She painted many portraits including self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by her country's popular culture, she employed a naive folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her works embody the pride of Mexico's national patriotic movement, called Mexicanidad, that pulsed throughout the country following the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century. Often, her paintings had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Frida Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo)

Known as the 'master of self-portraits', her self-portraits often include interpretations of physical and psychological wounds. They are considered among the finest ever created. Most famous self-portrait is perhaps Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird. 

 

The film, directed by Julie Taymor, stars Salma Hayek in her Academy Award-nominated portrayal as Kahlo and Alfred Molina as her husband, Diego Rivera. The movie was adapted from the book Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera. The film generally received  positive reviews from critics, and won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Makeup among six nominations. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida)



Video Credit:

Frida Kahlo (Film) Soundtrack.  YouTube, uploaded by Jaz Ponce. Accessed 11 September 2016.

Film Soundtrack Resource:

Frida (Soundtrack). en.wikipedia.org. 



Photo Credit:

Cover of Frida (Film) Soundtrack.  en.wikipedia.org / Fair Use.  File: Elliot Goldenthal. Accessed 11 September 2016.

(c) 2016.  Tel Asiado.  Inspired Pen Web.  All rights reserved.

Written on the Wind (Song)

Songs / Down Memory Lane


The song Written on the Wind is written by Sammy Cahn and Victor Young. It was sung by The Four Aces during the opening credits of the 1956 American drama film of the same title, directed by Douglas Sirk, starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone.  The film's score was composed by Frank Skinner. 





Video Credits:

Main Titile - Written on the Wind (Original Soundtrack). Youtube, downloaded by Classic Soundtrack Collector. Accessed September 11, 2016. 


The Four Aces - Written on the Wind (1956). Youtube, uploaded by Catspyjamas1. Accessed July 17, 2017.

"Written on the Wind" Film Opening (Directed by Douglas Sirk). Youtube, uploaded by impuritylevels. Accessed September 11, 2016.  



(c) 2007-2017. Tel Asiado. Written for Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs - Ralph Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony

Choral Singing / Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

Dates:  

Thursday 22 Sept 2016, 8pm
Saturday 24 Sept 2016, 2pm

Venue: 

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House

 

Program:

1. Richard Wagner - 'Siegfried's Rhine Journey' from the opera Götterdämmerung

2. Carl Vine - Wonders (world premiere) 

3. Ralph Vaughan Williams - A Sea Symphony, 

The Four Movements: 

       I.     A Song for All Seas, All Ships 

      II.   On the Beach at Night Alone 

      III.  Scherzo: The Waves 

      IV.   The Explorers


Artists:

Brett Weymark  Conductor
Penelope Mills  Soprano
Christopher Hillier  Baritone
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs: Symphony Chorus & Festival Chorus 
Sydney Youth Orchestra


A snippet  of our general rehearsal with Maestro Brett Weymark. Apology for the abrupt end of the recording. 



A pre-concert talk by Carl Vine and English composer Christopher Gordon will be held prior to the performance on Thursday 22nd September 7:15pm-7.45pm. Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House Northern Foyer. 

About the Music:

A Sea Symphony is a choral symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams, written between 1903 and 1909. Vaughan Williams's first and longest symphony, it was first performed at the Leeds Festival in 1910, with the composer conducting. It marked the composer's emergence as one of the most ditinctive musical personalities of the 20th century. The symphony's maturity belies the composer's relative youth when it was written (he was 30 when he first began sketching it). 

                                  Image Credit: Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

 

One of the first symphonies in which a choir is used throughout the work and is an integral part of the musical texture, A Sea Symphony helped set the stage for a new era of symphonic and choral music in England during the first half of the 20th century. The work is sometimes referred to as the Symphony No. 1. The sound of the sea permeates the entire work from the sailors' sea shanties "Song for all Seas, all Ships", to the tranquillity of "On the beach at night, alone", and the exulting dramatic waves in "The Waves", and the words the choir sings are by the American poet Walt Whitman.

Leo Tolstoy

Writers Datebook: September 9

Russian Novelist, Also a Moralist, Philosopher and Mystic

Brief biography of Leo Tolstoy, one of Russia's best writers best known for War and Peace and Anna karenina.

Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, or simply, Leo Tolstoy, was one of Russia's finest writers. He is best known for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, books considered to be among the greatest of all time.

Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828. His parents were wealthy landowners, and they lived on a huge estate, Yasnaya Polyana, near Moscow. Hoever, his parents died when he was young, leaving his aunts to bring him up. He was privately educated at home, then at Kazan University where he studied law and Asian languages. From his writings, Tolstoy had a happy childhood. A dreamy young man, he failed to graduate and moved to Moscow where he lived a fairly wild life.

When he was 23, he accompanied his elder brother Nikolay Tolstoy and joined the artillery regiment serving in the Crimean War. It was this time that Tolstoy also began his literary career. He published his autobiography and Sevastapol Sketches, a view of war as soldiers see it. He toured Europe as a literary celebrity but returned to Russia, where he set up a school for peasant children on his estate.

When he was 34, he married 18-year-old Sofya Behrs. They were happy and had 10 surviving children. Tolstoy devoted himself to his family, his writing and as a conscientious landlord, and committed to improving the lives of the peasants who lived on his Volga estate. During these years he produced his two literary masterpieces. War and Peace is a huge and complicated novel set in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars. It was followed by Anna Karenina, the story of doomed love.

In his mid-life, Tolstoy went through a 'spiritual crisis' that he described in My Confession. In his serious search for God, he expounded Christ-like doctrines. As a result, he rejected materialism, war, the church, and his own wealth in favour of a simple, peasantlike life. 

Quoted from his last major work A Calendar of Wisdom page 257 (refer Resources below):

"Try to establish an inner silence in yourself, a complete silence of your lips and your heart. And then you will hear how God speaks to us, and you will know how to fulfil his will."

Leo Tolstoy died at the age of 82. This brilliant writer, philosopher, moralist and mystic, seemed to look at life slam in the face: passionately, wondering, perhaps too seriously even to argue itself with life, or even death. He died at the age of 82.  

Suggested Listening:

War & Peace. By Martin Phipps, James Laing, Latvian Radio Choir & BBC National Orchestra of Wales. YouTube, uploaded by The Greatest Bird. Accessed September 9, 2017

                          

Books by Tolstoy:

1851 Istoria vcherashchnevo dnya (Accounts of Yesterday)

1852 Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, an autobiographical trilogy

1855-56 Sevastapol Sketches

1865-69 War and Peace

1875-7 Anna Karenina

1884 My Confession

1886 How Much Land Does a Man Need?

1886 The Death of Ivan Ilyich

1895 Master and Man

1899 Resurrection

Note: I first wrote and published this piece for Suite101.com, September 13, 2007 / Tel 

Image Credit:
en.wikipedia.org Commons / Public Domain.

Resources: 

1. Dictionary of Writers, Larousse, 1994.
2. Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. Carlton Books, 1997. 



(c) September 2016. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Antonin Dvorak

Classical Music / Composer's Datebook: September 8

Brief biography of Czech composer Antonin Dvorák, most internationally celebrated composer of 19th century Bohemia, now Czech republic. He is best known for Symphony No.9, "From the New World" and his nationalistic outlook by using folklore and traditional legends.    

Antonín (Leopold) Dvořák, Czech composer with the widest international renown due to his masterpiece Symphony No.9, 'From the New World,'  is equally known for incorporating folk music into his classical works by using Bohemian and Slavonic folk songs and dances. 

Dvorák was born in Nelahozeves, Czech Republic on September 8, 1841, Following the family tradition, he was trained as a butcher, something that did not suit well with him, but he finally convinced his father to allow him to pursue music especially singing, violin, piano and organ. He studied with Antonin Liehmann, then at the Prague Organ School. Only 16 years old, he played viola in cafes and the organ in a mental asylum in order to earn monies. A capable viola player, he joined the band that became the nucleus of the new Provisional Theatre orchestra. Antonin Dvorák was an amiable family man and lived a happy life.