sacred music

 

flawless Asian (Korean) soprano singing Schubert

 

beautiful the best of Vietnamese folk music

 

NÓI VỀ OPERA, ÂM NHẠC, VÀ QUÝ TỘC TÂY PHƯƠNG:

 

NÓI VỀ ÂM NHẠC:

có posting cuả một người VN chắc cho là mình sành điệu âm nhạc cổ điển Tây Phương, và chắc theo thói quen TỪ VN: gọi nhạc sĩ Wagner soạn opera cuả Đức là "vĩ đại nhất nhân loại." Posting ca tụng thêm vua chúa và người có tiền tài trợ cho tài năng.

xin đọc câu nhận định rất chua cay nhưng chính xać cuả NN, dưới đây: .

Có người cho NN biết: Một độc giả cuả sự tôn dương "vĩ đại" này vô nói "Phew".

"Phew" nên nói khi người VN ca tụng "vĩ đại nhất nhân loại" và chỉ nói bời nhử̃ng kẻ có khuynh hướng đó. Một là̉ "hỗn," hai là...bị cứng họng không nói gì được nưã thì "phew," nhưng rất thích hợp với loại quần chúng đó.

"Phew" cũng có nghĩa...vâng lời, vì NN không muốn đối thoại với bất cứ ai ca tụng sự "vĩ̉ đại" cuả bất cứ ai. Nghe rất chướng. Nhân tài và thiên tài thật sự không cần sự tung hô vỉ̃ đại.

_____

NO NEED FOR DISCUSSION: just browsing and finding this on Do Quy Dan's forum, as there is something called freedom of speech, which happens to be my specialty in law: So I speak.

FOR READERS' fuller insight into the operatic art:

Wagner stood for very dramatic singing and splendid stage setting: in terms of the voice: kind of contrary to the Italian Bel Canto, which characterized renaissance, so to speak. So Wagner stood for the German school, in symphonies as well as in operas.

There are sources criticizing Wagner for anti-semitism (what else is new, but one should take the time to really look at Europe and Germany before Hitler). (There are critics speaking of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice as anti-semitic as well).

If a singer does Bel Canto, the singer doesn't do Wagner and vice versa. yet, La Callas did it, she did both, within a week's time or so, at the invitation and "mandate" of Conductor Serafin (I believe, just don't hold me to it, since i don't comment on FB with dictionaries or WIKI next to my screen). She did it within a week! Superhuman.

To say that Wagner la nha soan opera vi dai nhat nhan loai thi lam on ngo' lai Bellini with Norma, Puccini, Rossini, etc. of the Bel Canto area and the Italian tradition -- that which created talents like La Callas, as I and many call her.

Cai gi cung la "vi dai nhat nhan loai" cu.m tu nay tu dau ra? Nghe tham thiet qua. I mean tha?m thiet, not tha thiet, not thắm thiết.

TCS da duoc dem ra dat ten duong o Hue cua tui, nhung that tinh TCS co viet duoc "hoa am" nao khong, cho tui nghe voi....

I saluted to Le Thuong, PhamDinh Chuong, before I even thought of TCS, whom I happened to know when I was 6 years old. I know where some of TCS's best songs came from, right around me and below his flat on Nguyen Truong To Hue, me at 6 years of age.

Wagner has his place, no doubt. He inspired many many.

Lam on phan tich nhac va dramaticism cua Wagner cho chung ta cung hieu va thuong thuc thi tot hon la ca len cau, 'vi dai nhat nhan loai."

Further, it's common knowledge that Baroque, classical, romantic, etc. composers of Europe lived off the aristocracy in order to create, so what's new?

Only Beethoven would dare claiming a "meritocracy" which derived from God and Angels (definition of "talents," i.e., Beethoven went to Heaven, Mozart came straight from ...Heaven!)

And then, Mozart, descending upon earth, spoke stacology, and the great Beethoven, upon turning deaf, told his sponsor the Prince (I forgot the spelling of the Prince's name -- Beethoven dedicated one of his best to that Prince. This is what Beethoven said: "Prince, you become you because of Birth, I become me because of...myself. so there are thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven."

And yet, I haven't yet said, how dare, I am yet to say, Beethoven is vi dai nhat nhan loai. Nghe den "vi dai" la toa't mo hoi la.nh rung ron ca nguoi.

FYI: all composers of the past in Europe had sponsors who were aristocrats; THIS WAS THE WAY IT WAS!

Chopin of the 19th century had George Sands due to the...heart, but she was also the widow of an aristocrat with money and...castles, and a place in Majorca for Chopin to compose!

Fill me in on further details on my FB, since i can type very fast without research but i can miss something. I am imperfect, yet I am...myself because of..memory!

Rest my case, Bye! I won't return to Do Quy Dan's forum!

DNN

Me and Schubert's Serenade -- Schubert: king of lieders

 

THE IMPERFECT PERFECTION OF MARIA CALLAS

 c

Augustdts 5S,ohpofn so2rdeeol01ldlth7S  · 

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THE RESPECT GIVEN TO THE ART OF BEL CANTO AND THE DIVINA MARIA CALLAS: my personal tribute to a woman who is unrivaled and misunderstood.

I repost this tape of my amateur singing to a Vietnamese audience for my sister in singing,Thu Hoai, to see for fun. I enjoyed this performance because there was no practice, yet the three Vietnamese musicians in the back got on with me so nice!

But the real reason for this re-post was the opportunity for me to write about, and to express my personal, very personal indeed, tribute to one of the women I admire the most: the assoluta singer-actress of the 20th century: the late Maria Callas, who stood for the art of bel canto in our modern time, yet revolutionized the opera stage. I dare not imitate her, because an idol is someone you cannot imitate. I have never imitated her -- in fact, I did not really study her until the year my novel Daughter of the River Huong was published. DOTRH was laced with description of classical music. Having created such lace and understanding the timbre of my work, I decided to seek out the legacy of Maria Callas by reading and listening.

In this tape, my hand gesture, my movements, the intensity of my face, my gown, my scarf, my decision to "rumba" the popular Napeolitan song Come Back to Sorrento, were all my natural self -- I was born with, and grew up with, all those aspects. Also, in this tape, I (already in my 50s) dropped down to a low register because I was singing for a Vietnamese audience whom I believe did not like the high voice that much. The drop was not because I... idolized Maria Callas! These characteristics of mine did not come from watching or listening to Callas -- a novice like me simply can't, and shouldn't!

I think to imitate Ms. Callas or to dig into her personal life is to disrespect her. To learn from her, to try to understand her, to guard her personal life (all made public with treacherous speculations) by not judging her, and to try to use discipline and intellect in the study of music the way she has used hers, is to love her and respect her legacy.

Watching and hearing my dropping down to the lower register did make me poignantly think of her. Ms. Callas's voice stretched super-humanly from low to high. She recognized and taught that in bel canto singing, one must connect the chest voice to the mid-voice to the higher voice -- a point disputed by many other celebrated divas who opine that a soprano should never utilize any such thing as the "chest resonance." Ms. Callas taught, too, that in bel canto, one must remain "light" even if one could be "heavy," as one masters and exhibits all the embellishments the composers of bel canto had created! (Instead of distinguishing "light" from "heavy," many of my Vietnamese compatriots have described voices as "thin" or "thick." I think my voice is "thick" when...I have a cold; it's thickened with mucus!)

These past couple of years, I had to cope with the loss of my singing voice (meaning I no longer...like what I hear and many times cannot sustain a long phrase with breath). Then, I began to fully understand the lessons imparted by Maria Callas, her voice, and her life. She had taught me to understand myself and my voice.-- I, somebody she did not know, had never been rightly and adequately trained in her tradition, had become her pupil. She became the teacher to all of us who love the human voice as a musical instrument.

BUT, she became my idol not because of the myth of her voice and her acting.

She did not become my idol because of her celebrity or the sensationalism of her life. I idolized her because of her ability to speak, her strong character, her intelligence, her spontaneity, her intellectual and emotional honesty, her sophistication and class, her growth as she got older, her tremendous lifetime discipline and good taste, and her respect for, and dedication to, her art.

She is my idol because to me she is a female artist that can be "First Lady" of a nation although she never did. (The other performing artist who has First Lady class and caliber is Helen Miren. These are my opinions.)

I love watching Madame Callas because she was so real, not just because she appeared breathtakingly beautiful and elegant in so many memorable moments (In other moments, she could be ...genuinely scary!). She was one of those very rare women born with an egg-shaped face combined with a square jaw line and an oval chin, sparked with dark, huge expressive eyes, and animated with curved lips typifying the big mouth that characterizes naturally born singers!

Her voice and beauty reflect perfection in imperfection. Those who study the legacy of Callas and her art will agree with me: La Callas means perfection and imperfection in one woman, unique and unsurpassed! Live for love, live for art: On the journey to reach perfection, one must be blemished in order to remain pure!

tieng mua ngau sang tac cua Le Toan Tho ̣ -- LE TUYEN va tieng hat Duong Nhu Nguyen

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/judy-garlands-kids-proud-had-143100774.html