Progetto ROS / Rossini Opera Stampa; a 'KAUS Urbino Project' related to the Rossini Opera Festival 2012
first draughts for mechanical music
box:
Artistically speaking, what was this world where Rossini worked in?
Living in the second half
of the 'romantic era' (1750-1850) Giaochino Rossini would be
well acquainted with the 'improvvisatori e improvvisatrici' and
their theatrical-, and indeed street-performances, known and
applauded by 'tout l'Europe', for as far as some would be on
'the Grand Tour'.
(see the great book by Angela
Esterhammer: Romanticism and Improvisation, 1750-1850; Cambridge
Studies in Romantics; Cambridge University Press, 2008)
This kind of 'rap' or 'poetry-slam' is the nearest thing in literature
to what we know in music as improvisation, the artistic play-ground
where the 'da capo aria' (George Friedrich Haendel 1685-1759)
is such a great part of.
This area of the arts is one aspect of performance, where an
artist is to excel, in a most individual way, related to a subject
(a suggestion from the public, or a theme, a composed line)
Composers (people who 'compose' = 'make or form by uniting parts
or elements') take their time to find 'the fittest' way for the
parts in their trade; be it words, musical notes or painted colours.
In such process they would obviously know/find the places where
consideration has decided for one choice, where other choices
were in many ways equally good (they are supposed to know
the why- and why-not's); changes consequently have an influence
on all, or at least a fair few, other spots in the composition.
On the shoulders of the composer is the creation of the 'original
unison' of what his mind wishes to express and the metaphorical
expression of the material/matter at hand. When succeeded such
a piece is an 'authentic masterpiece'. Such pieces open the way
into a new psychological vision, and new techniques to handle
the materials from which to 'built'. To work on those both vision
and technique is the artistic area of the performer (one who
is as near to a creation as her/his own make alows her/him),
or the 'improvisor'.
The ever so popular 'spontaneity' and the state of 'non-preparation'
is but a limited state of mind/skill/knowledge based on experience
with other authentic masterpieces; one's cultural heritage
ask mr. J.S. Bach about his 'Musikalisches Opfer' and how and
what he actually has 'composed' = 'written down' afterwards.
If that is not the world that Giaochino Rossini worked in, it certainly is the infinitely difficult minute to minute decission taking space where today's performers live in; knowingly taking up a score in which the composer has left 'some' space for improvisation
Improvisation = deviation
for modern musicians, as 'we' have learned to work on pieces
that bear to the minutest of detail the intentions of the composer.
This is a million miles away from a composer starting at 12 years
old from a musical family, with the experience of a father being
(shortly as this may have been) imprisoned for political reasons,
and a mother making the most of a good but not well trained voice.
All that in an economical situation in all of Europe where money
was tight and talent used to the utmost to make a penny; pasta
was invented to make use of a flour that was for animals in richer
era's, and the tomato (being cheap to produce) was becomming
the food of the people after a long time of obscurity in which
it was considered poisonous.
Improvisation = elaboration; the best 'elaborator' would make
the best dime.
I am beginning to think that
Giaochino Rossini, sometimes writing for the orchestra most in
the intresting instrumentations / at the same time rhythmically
fairly boring / does by this approach leave singers the greatest
of free space for that 'elaborating'; it gets better when on
'this carpet' of instrumental sound 'the steps' of a singer has
its own time.
Now which singer would have this romantic gut, to stop an orchestra
and leaving it for a moment in dispair?
I'm sure the audiences would be excited. As they could be about
the first flute's 'elaboration' in rhythm after the bow's ticking
the bows are of beat, when correct in most places. This
orchestral-carpet could win when, especially in introductory
notes leading into and rounding of an aria were in a disticntly
other tempo than the aria itself.
Freedom for musicians is much debated now, but we should know:
it alwasy was.
Rossini (born in 1792) had his first opera staged in 1810 (it
was in fact his second). Writing some 3 to 4 per year and staging
from 1815 (as the result of the contract he had in the San Carlo
and Del Fondo theaters in Naples) 2 The 'Elisabetta regina d'Inghliterra'
in which he for the first time writes down all ornamentation;
Mozart and Beethoven had started to do so for parts in their
concerts where solo-players could show off (these were suggestions
for those who might just not have too much personal ideas, so
to speak). Being a singer and player of a diversity of instruments
from an early age this might give something to think about.
draughts for mechanical music box:
"Dad made Rossini into some impossible, and ongoing Thieving Jay"
another dad: "Rossini's music was a very popular concert choice post-war, when we needed to forget the unpleasantness about us"
"Such < the Thieving Jay > is probably not fair to Rossini, but it certainly kept me from listening for other stuf"
"Ill sleep on Rossini
(note: ON, not WITH)"
"a director < > to hooked on very shallow iconography and allegory < > poses à la 'Grease' etc < > a half-dimensional view of everything"
"Could be the second vision of hell is listening to eternal trills and warbles"
then on a more positive note:
"a Frederica von Stade I cannot forget; it giving you the feeling that too many inexperienced singers are thrown on poor old Rossini"
(yes it is spring and my hair is off)
Joseph J. Visser, Composer, Visual Artist , Author/translator & Lecturer.
Dietrich Buxtehude married Anna Margarethe Tunder, the daughter of his (late) predecessor, as part of the bargain, in order to keep her from poverty. It was a happy mariage for all we know. Such arrangements, also nowadays, are more commonplace than most of us care to think. I know in my art-school, 1960ies, a girl in fact doing the same (she was not happy and had - or should I say, suffered - psychological treatment).
Such 'keep the money in the family' marriages are no surprise; and on the otherhand we should consider many lower working-class people never even got to the status of being married, by lack of money to begin with, until pretty much 1900.