First of all, I'd like to introduce a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laX6Ktt6dZU
This is a song from the operetta ''The Beggar Student'' or ''Der Bettelstudent'' by Millocker. In this song, a Polish baron swears revenge on a woman who slapped him with a fan at the theatre. The lyrics of the song are below. Their English translation is placed below it.
Und da soll man noch galant sein
Mit dem schöneren Geschlecht,
Katzenbuckeln, und galant sein,
Spielen den ergebenen Knecht.
Einen Helden, den in Polen
Wie in Sachsen jeder kennt,
Den Wolhynien und Podolien
Nur mit Schreck und Zittern nennt;
Der mit seiner Augen Blitzen
Hat entschieden manchen Krieg,
Dem das Brüllen der Haubitzen
Klingt wie liebliche Musik. - Hat
Diesen Helden, nie geschlagen,
Ueberall hochverehrt,
Durft' ein Weib zu schlagen wagen,
Der Gedanke mich empört.
Die Erinnerung macht mich beben,
Mich so tätlich zu insultieren'!
Doch soll sie etwas von mir erleben,
Meine Rache spüren!
War es denn eigentlich
Gar so fürchterlich, -
Warum ich so schwer gebüsst? Hai
Ach, ich hab' sie ja nur
Auf die Schulter geküsst
Hier hab' ich den Schlag gespürt
Mit dem Fächer ins Gesicht. -
Alle Himmelmillionendonnerwetter, heiliges Kanonenrohr.
Mir ist manches schon passiert,
Aber so etwas noch nicht!
And when should we be more gallant
With the fair sex,
Cats bosses, and his gallant,
Play the devoted servant.
A hero, in Poland
As everyone knows in Saxony,
The Volhynia and Podolia
Only calls with fear and trembling;
With his eyes flashing
Has held some war
The roar of the howitzers
Sounds like sweet music. - Hat
This hero, never beaten,
Everywhere highly revered
Could 'a woman dare to beat,
The idea appalled me.
The memory makes me tremble,
Sun violent insult me! "
But do they want something from me,
Feel my revenge!
Was it really
Even so terrible -
Why am I so heavily fined? Hai
Alas, I have it so only
Kiss on the shoulder
Here I have felt the impact
With the fan in the face. -
All heaven million damn, holy gun barrel.
Me much has happened already,
But such a thing yet!
This song is one which I can really identify myself with. In fact, I don't think I'm the only one who can identify myself with it. Most of my circle of friends have had similar experiences before: trying to get a female friend or girlfriend only to be rebuffed, being treated as transparent or as a fourth-class citizen by the opposite sex, being seen as an ''It'' with whom being seen is a sin of the first order..the list is endless.
This is one of the reasons why opera's a genre which I can feel better able to identify myself with. I don't think there are songs in popular music that reflect such experiences or echo such thoughts. Popular music's there to provide songs to reflect the experiences of the ordinary man and portray things running through in his mind. Ordinary man is well able to get along with the opposite sex. He might not be able to strike a relationship with them but as a mate, even though he might not meet the over-stringent and ridiculously exacting criteria of the opposite sex but he has not failed them by too great an extent. I think my experience differs greatly from the experience of the ordinary man so I felt popular music's unable to act as my voice. Hence I went into opera, finding songs which reflect experiences of characters I can identify myself with, such as these. There are hundreds of opera characters, cut from the same cloth but made differently. There might be one out there whom you can identify with.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Opera Pause 01 - Introduction to the Opera Blog
Hello,as I mentioned earlier, not only am I highly interested in and deeply passionate about history, my other great love is for opera. Although this blog will be mainly dedicated to publications of historical research I've been doing in my spare time, every now and then I'll be publishing some opera-related material.
Even though I've been listening to opera for about 10 years as of now, until now, I still can't understand why some people listen to the same old arias, duets and ensembles sung over and over again. These people claim that there's something different if there are different singers singing them but honestly, how different can it get? Okay, I understand that some singers take liberties with the notes, omitting some, raising the pitch and so on..but the words will always be the same. It's true that there are different styles of singing but if everyone's singing the same song, how different can a Russian singer be from a French singer? They might be using different ways to produce the sound but the sound that comes out is more or less the same. As for the music, no matter how inventive or radical a conductor might be, he can't stray too much from the music or else he will be performing his music rather than interpreting the composer's music. Toscanini and Furtwanger might have different styles of conducting but essentially, their performance of the same piece has to sound the same.
Could these people be so accustomed to their comfort zone of the arias, duets and ensembles they've been listening to for decades that they're hesitant to venture out. They know all the popular operas by heart, plot, music, libretti and all. If they hear of an opera they've not listened to before that was performed centuries ago, they feel that this opera must have fallen out of the repertoire so there's not much worth listening to it. What I hope to do is change this perception. I have to admit that some of the rarer and more obscure operas I've listened to deserve to fall out of the repertoire like Spontini's La Vestale and Gretry's Richard, Le Coeur de Lion but even then, though the opera as a whole doesn't have much to offer, there's still something worth listening in it. I hope to try as many of these rarer and more obscure operas as I can so that I can sieve out all the highlights in order for them not to be written off completely.
Besides,I'm also hoping to use the blog to put up highlights and extracts from genres of opera that aren't as popular as others. I do listen to the popular ones like Verdi, Wagner and so on but my heart lies more with the less popular ones like Rossini, bel canto, operetta, zarzuela and so on..
Verdi, Wagner and so on will never die out in the opera house, they're being performed all over the world and will be for decades to come so long as the opera house remains a place where high society can show off how ''sophisticated'' and ''civilized'' they are. However, it's a different story for the other genres of opera. Most people know this side of opera, the side where the most popular ones are but do they know the other side of it, the side with the less popular ones? Let me give an example of this: everybody knows Pavarotti for belching out the Neapolitan songs on stage but do they know him for his performance in ''La Fille du Regiment'' which gave him his big break. Only the opera diehards, I suppose. It's this lack of attention given to and awareness of this less popular side of opera, the side which lies truer to my heart, that makes me want to show it to others on my blog.
The last thing I'd like to do on my blog is to trace the history of opera singing. This is something I'm not as passionate about or interested in but this is something I hope to change as time goes by.
Even though I've been listening to opera for about 10 years as of now, until now, I still can't understand why some people listen to the same old arias, duets and ensembles sung over and over again. These people claim that there's something different if there are different singers singing them but honestly, how different can it get? Okay, I understand that some singers take liberties with the notes, omitting some, raising the pitch and so on..but the words will always be the same. It's true that there are different styles of singing but if everyone's singing the same song, how different can a Russian singer be from a French singer? They might be using different ways to produce the sound but the sound that comes out is more or less the same. As for the music, no matter how inventive or radical a conductor might be, he can't stray too much from the music or else he will be performing his music rather than interpreting the composer's music. Toscanini and Furtwanger might have different styles of conducting but essentially, their performance of the same piece has to sound the same.
Could these people be so accustomed to their comfort zone of the arias, duets and ensembles they've been listening to for decades that they're hesitant to venture out. They know all the popular operas by heart, plot, music, libretti and all. If they hear of an opera they've not listened to before that was performed centuries ago, they feel that this opera must have fallen out of the repertoire so there's not much worth listening to it. What I hope to do is change this perception. I have to admit that some of the rarer and more obscure operas I've listened to deserve to fall out of the repertoire like Spontini's La Vestale and Gretry's Richard, Le Coeur de Lion but even then, though the opera as a whole doesn't have much to offer, there's still something worth listening in it. I hope to try as many of these rarer and more obscure operas as I can so that I can sieve out all the highlights in order for them not to be written off completely.
Besides,I'm also hoping to use the blog to put up highlights and extracts from genres of opera that aren't as popular as others. I do listen to the popular ones like Verdi, Wagner and so on but my heart lies more with the less popular ones like Rossini, bel canto, operetta, zarzuela and so on..
Verdi, Wagner and so on will never die out in the opera house, they're being performed all over the world and will be for decades to come so long as the opera house remains a place where high society can show off how ''sophisticated'' and ''civilized'' they are. However, it's a different story for the other genres of opera. Most people know this side of opera, the side where the most popular ones are but do they know the other side of it, the side with the less popular ones? Let me give an example of this: everybody knows Pavarotti for belching out the Neapolitan songs on stage but do they know him for his performance in ''La Fille du Regiment'' which gave him his big break. Only the opera diehards, I suppose. It's this lack of attention given to and awareness of this less popular side of opera, the side which lies truer to my heart, that makes me want to show it to others on my blog.
The last thing I'd like to do on my blog is to trace the history of opera singing. This is something I'm not as passionate about or interested in but this is something I hope to change as time goes by.
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Precursor of Roman Literature - Greek New Comedy
First of all, let me begin by introducing Roman literature.
The Romans were something similar to the British. They conquered half of Europe, parts of Asia and Africa centuries ago and ruled them for centuries, imposing their way of life and their culture on the people living in these places. Our Western civilization is very much based on Roman civilization. The Civil Law Code, a compilation of Roman legal works by the Byzantines (the successors to the Romans) was the model on which the first Western laws were based. Western authors, poets and playwrights drew their inspiration from Roman literary works. The list is endless: Milton, Moliere, Shakespeare and so on.. These are just a few of the many ways in which Roman civilization has shaped Western civilization.
Among the many ways in which Romans played a formative role in the development of Western civilization are the influence which Roman literature had on Western civilization. Rather than mentioning how did Roman literature influence Western civilization, I'll be mentioning what makes Roman literature so influential. We'll be looking into how Roman literature contributed to the development of Western literature, its history, nature and features.
Among the oldest works of Roman literature to survive in a substantially complete form are the Latin comedies by the playwrights Plautus and Terence. The comedies these playwrights wrote were translations and adaptations of Greek comedies, mainly those from Greek New Comedy. Before we talk about Terence and Plautus, let's see what Greek New Comedy is actually about.
Greek New Comedy was Greek comedy after the death of Alexander the Great in 323BC till 260BC, during the reign of the Macedonian rulers in Greece. The three most famous and best known playwrights belonging to this genre are Menander, Philemon and Diphilus.
Menander was the most successful of the three comedians. His comedies not only provided their audience with a brief respite from reality, they also gave them an accurate but not too detailed picture of life. This led an ancient critic to ask if life influenced Menander in the writing of his plays or if it was vice versa. Unlike his predecessors like Aristophanes, Menander's comedies tended to be more about the fears and foibles of the ordinary man, his personal relationships, family life and social mishaps rather than politics and public life. They were supremely civilized and sophisticated plays which were less farcical and satirical than the plays before them. This sophistication was what made him more successful than the other Greek comedians belonging to the same genre as him. Not only have hundreds of short passages from his comedies been preserved in literary sources, a complete play, Dyskolos, and substantial portions of five others, Aspis, Epitrepontes, Misoumenos, Perikeiromene, Samia, have been passed down to us.
The other two comedians are Philemon and Diphilus. Philemon was a comedian whose comedies dwelt on philosophical issues and Diphilus was a comedian whose comedies were noted for their broad comedy and farcical violence. Philemon's comedies have come down to us in fragments but Diphilus' comedies were translated and adapted by Plautus (Asinaria, Rudens). From the translation and adaptation of Diphilus comedies' by Plautus, one can infer that he was skilled in the construction of his plots.
The playwrights of the Greek New Comedy genre built on a considerable legacy from their predecessors, drawing upon a vast array of dramatic devices, characters and situations their predecessors had developed. Prologues to shape the audience's understanding of events, messengers' speeches to announce offstage action, descriptions of feasts, sudden recognitions, ex machina endings were all established techniques which playwrights exploited and evoked in their comedies.
However, these playwrights developed a literary style that differed from their predecessors in several ways.
The satirical and farcical element which featured so strongly in Aristophanes' comedies increasingly diminished in importance as time went on. It was eventually given up more or less completely and was not to be revived. The de-emphasis of the grotesque, whether in the form of choruses, humour or spectacle opened the way for increased representation of daily life and the foibles of recognisable character types.
Unlike their predecessor, Aristophanes, some of whose comedies departed from the Athenian setting or covered mythological themes and subjects, their plays were seldom placed in a setting other than their everyday world (Diphilus was a notable exception). Gods and goddesses in Greek New Comedy were personified abstractions who seldom appeared in their plays. There are generally no miracles or metaphorses.
The Greek playwrights from the genre Greek New Comedy not only developed a literary style that differed from their predecessors in multiple ways, they also made considerable innovations in literature. Examples of their innovations were the development of a whole series of distinct stereotype characters which were to become the stock characters of Western comedy and the contributions they made to the development of the play.
The cast of Menander's plays included a number of minor characters drawn from a limited number of one-dimensional stock types such as cooks or parasites who introduced familiar jokes and recognisable patterns of speech. Other stock characters in Menander's plays were the bragging soldier who talked about the number of enemies he killed and how well they'll treat their woman and the kind shrewd prostitute who hid her heart behind a facade of fiere commercialism.
Menander gave stereotype characters a sense that they were character types. In his comedies, they were expected to react the way they were supposed to behave but some resist. These stock characters appear as rich unlayered humans in a new dimension. It was this human dimension that was one of the strengths of Menander's plays. He used these stereotype characters to comment on human life and depict human folly and absurdity compassionately, with wit and subtlety.
An example of such a character is Cnemon from Menander's play Dyskolos. He was an insufferably rude and objectionable character who showed how foolish and absurd humans could be. However rude and objectionable he was, he proved ultimately to be a character who was not necessarily closed to reason. He accepted that other views were possible, proving willing to compromise with life after he was rescued from a well. The fact that this character was not necessarily closed to reason makes him a character whom people can give compassion to.
The 5-act structure later to be found in Menander's plays can first be seen in Menander's comedies. Where in comedies of previous generations there were choral interludes, there was dialogue with song. The action of his plays had breaks, the situations in them were conventional and coincidences were convenient, thus showing the smooth and effective development of his plays.
Sources: The Blackwell Introductions to the Classical World - Classical Literature - A Concise History by Richard Rutherford.
The Making of Menander's Comedy by Sander M Goldberg
The New Greek Comedy by Philippe Legrand
For more information on Greek comedy,one can visit the below website.
http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/chapters/101latergkcomedy.htm
The next topic will be Plautus.
The Romans were something similar to the British. They conquered half of Europe, parts of Asia and Africa centuries ago and ruled them for centuries, imposing their way of life and their culture on the people living in these places. Our Western civilization is very much based on Roman civilization. The Civil Law Code, a compilation of Roman legal works by the Byzantines (the successors to the Romans) was the model on which the first Western laws were based. Western authors, poets and playwrights drew their inspiration from Roman literary works. The list is endless: Milton, Moliere, Shakespeare and so on.. These are just a few of the many ways in which Roman civilization has shaped Western civilization.
Among the many ways in which Romans played a formative role in the development of Western civilization are the influence which Roman literature had on Western civilization. Rather than mentioning how did Roman literature influence Western civilization, I'll be mentioning what makes Roman literature so influential. We'll be looking into how Roman literature contributed to the development of Western literature, its history, nature and features.
Among the oldest works of Roman literature to survive in a substantially complete form are the Latin comedies by the playwrights Plautus and Terence. The comedies these playwrights wrote were translations and adaptations of Greek comedies, mainly those from Greek New Comedy. Before we talk about Terence and Plautus, let's see what Greek New Comedy is actually about.
Greek New Comedy was Greek comedy after the death of Alexander the Great in 323BC till 260BC, during the reign of the Macedonian rulers in Greece. The three most famous and best known playwrights belonging to this genre are Menander, Philemon and Diphilus.
Menander was the most successful of the three comedians. His comedies not only provided their audience with a brief respite from reality, they also gave them an accurate but not too detailed picture of life. This led an ancient critic to ask if life influenced Menander in the writing of his plays or if it was vice versa. Unlike his predecessors like Aristophanes, Menander's comedies tended to be more about the fears and foibles of the ordinary man, his personal relationships, family life and social mishaps rather than politics and public life. They were supremely civilized and sophisticated plays which were less farcical and satirical than the plays before them. This sophistication was what made him more successful than the other Greek comedians belonging to the same genre as him. Not only have hundreds of short passages from his comedies been preserved in literary sources, a complete play, Dyskolos, and substantial portions of five others, Aspis, Epitrepontes, Misoumenos, Perikeiromene, Samia, have been passed down to us.
The other two comedians are Philemon and Diphilus. Philemon was a comedian whose comedies dwelt on philosophical issues and Diphilus was a comedian whose comedies were noted for their broad comedy and farcical violence. Philemon's comedies have come down to us in fragments but Diphilus' comedies were translated and adapted by Plautus (Asinaria, Rudens). From the translation and adaptation of Diphilus comedies' by Plautus, one can infer that he was skilled in the construction of his plots.
The playwrights of the Greek New Comedy genre built on a considerable legacy from their predecessors, drawing upon a vast array of dramatic devices, characters and situations their predecessors had developed. Prologues to shape the audience's understanding of events, messengers' speeches to announce offstage action, descriptions of feasts, sudden recognitions, ex machina endings were all established techniques which playwrights exploited and evoked in their comedies.
However, these playwrights developed a literary style that differed from their predecessors in several ways.
The satirical and farcical element which featured so strongly in Aristophanes' comedies increasingly diminished in importance as time went on. It was eventually given up more or less completely and was not to be revived. The de-emphasis of the grotesque, whether in the form of choruses, humour or spectacle opened the way for increased representation of daily life and the foibles of recognisable character types.
Unlike their predecessor, Aristophanes, some of whose comedies departed from the Athenian setting or covered mythological themes and subjects, their plays were seldom placed in a setting other than their everyday world (Diphilus was a notable exception). Gods and goddesses in Greek New Comedy were personified abstractions who seldom appeared in their plays. There are generally no miracles or metaphorses.
The Greek playwrights from the genre Greek New Comedy not only developed a literary style that differed from their predecessors in multiple ways, they also made considerable innovations in literature. Examples of their innovations were the development of a whole series of distinct stereotype characters which were to become the stock characters of Western comedy and the contributions they made to the development of the play.
The cast of Menander's plays included a number of minor characters drawn from a limited number of one-dimensional stock types such as cooks or parasites who introduced familiar jokes and recognisable patterns of speech. Other stock characters in Menander's plays were the bragging soldier who talked about the number of enemies he killed and how well they'll treat their woman and the kind shrewd prostitute who hid her heart behind a facade of fiere commercialism.
Menander gave stereotype characters a sense that they were character types. In his comedies, they were expected to react the way they were supposed to behave but some resist. These stock characters appear as rich unlayered humans in a new dimension. It was this human dimension that was one of the strengths of Menander's plays. He used these stereotype characters to comment on human life and depict human folly and absurdity compassionately, with wit and subtlety.
An example of such a character is Cnemon from Menander's play Dyskolos. He was an insufferably rude and objectionable character who showed how foolish and absurd humans could be. However rude and objectionable he was, he proved ultimately to be a character who was not necessarily closed to reason. He accepted that other views were possible, proving willing to compromise with life after he was rescued from a well. The fact that this character was not necessarily closed to reason makes him a character whom people can give compassion to.
The 5-act structure later to be found in Menander's plays can first be seen in Menander's comedies. Where in comedies of previous generations there were choral interludes, there was dialogue with song. The action of his plays had breaks, the situations in them were conventional and coincidences were convenient, thus showing the smooth and effective development of his plays.
Sources: The Blackwell Introductions to the Classical World - Classical Literature - A Concise History by Richard Rutherford.
The Making of Menander's Comedy by Sander M Goldberg
The New Greek Comedy by Philippe Legrand
For more information on Greek comedy,one can visit the below website.
http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/chapters/101latergkcomedy.htm
The next topic will be Plautus.
Introduction to the History Blog
When I was 14, I borrowed a book on everyday life in Ancient Rome. In the book was a list of most of the Roman authors who played a significant role in the development of Roman literature. Shortly after borrowing the book, I caught a flu, becoming severely sick. There wasn't much I could do then, very few new books to read, very few computer games to play etc. Life was considerably dreary then. However, no matter how dreary life got, it was still better than going to school then. If there's nothing I could do with the limited amount of things I had on my hands at home, I created things for myself to do. One of them was a compilation of all the works mentioned in this book.
I spent quite a lot of time on making this compendium back then, waking up very early in the morning to begin copying historical texts on my mother's computer and pasting them on word documents. The process would go on for some time until relatively late at night. And so in this way, time flew. Eventually, I was able to finish my compendium just as my long sick leave was about to end. However, when I took a good look at what I've compiled, I had a tremendous shock.
Greek and Roman classics are split up into volumes. The thickness of each volume varies. In the case of most classics, each volume has an average of about 10 - 20 pages. The thickest I saw was 40 pages. Imagine cramming 2 or 3 of these 40 page volumes into 1 document, that would be quite a frustrating experience. A wall of words thrown up in front of you when you open the document in English that requires more than one reading for one to comprehend.
You can imagine the difficulty in reading such stuff. Besides, I did not copy the footnotes to these classics. From my later experience in reading such books, the footnotes to the works are just as important as the works themselves.
Let me give an example of this, the Romans tended to compare friendship to the friendship which Scipio Africanus and Laelius had. The Romans would know who these two historical figures were but we wouldn't. These footnotes explain references to anecdotes or historical figures, literary sayings or philosophical or religious concepts and technical or scientific terms. The Greeks and Romans would have known what they meant the moment they encountered such references, quotes, terms etc. but we wouldn't, unless we have read so many Greek and Roman classics that we are as good as one of them. It's possible to infer what these things meant but can you imagine, reading something in which you've to infer one-quarter of the words. How long can you possibly sustain yourself in reading such stuff? Not very long, I suppose.
Despite these flaws, I felt that the compilation I made then was passable so I never went back to it again for quite some time till recently. Recently, I put together a library of classical music in the time I had left from fulfilling my military obligations. I decided to go back to this compilation and improve it with the skills and techniques I had learned and acquired in the course of putting together this library.
I was able to improve the compilation tremendously. I've supplemented it with twice the number of works I found back then, adding historical and literary works that were not available when I made by initial compilation. I also found some philosophical and legal thoughts I never knew about earlier. I re-copied the classics I copied back then, adding the footnotes and copying them in a way that the end product would look more readable than the initial product. I initially expected to take 1 week to complete this but in the end, the whole thing took me 6 weeks to finish.
Fresh on completing this compilation of Greek and Roman classics, I decided to embark on this blog as a means of making my compilation available to others. However, the more I thought about it, the more possibilities I realized that this blog could have.
I like reading history a lot but as time goes by, sometimes, I get disillusioned. There's nobody I can talk to about what I read. I'm not planning to take a history-related job so this knowledge isn't of much use to me. True, stashing a hoard of knowledge does make me feel some good but so what if I've a stash of knowledge hidden up there in my skull? It wouldn't do much good, would it?
On top of making this blog a place for me to make the work I've done over the past few months available to others, why not make this blog a place for me to share my knowledge with others. This way, all the knowledge I'm acquiring won't stay in my skull as dead matter.
I don't think I'm not the only one who has such thoughts and feelings so I'm hoping to make this a blog a place for history lovers to share their knowledge with each other and talk shop.There are lots of people I know who read about history in their free time but wouldn't they get disillusioned if they don't put what they read to any use? Of course, there's the possibility of putting this knowledge to use if they're studying history in the university. However, one can't be studying history in the university for one's entire life. What happens after that?
Now that I've started the blog,it's time to get the ball rolling.
My first few posts will be to introduce this compilation I had made.
I spent quite a lot of time on making this compendium back then, waking up very early in the morning to begin copying historical texts on my mother's computer and pasting them on word documents. The process would go on for some time until relatively late at night. And so in this way, time flew. Eventually, I was able to finish my compendium just as my long sick leave was about to end. However, when I took a good look at what I've compiled, I had a tremendous shock.
Greek and Roman classics are split up into volumes. The thickness of each volume varies. In the case of most classics, each volume has an average of about 10 - 20 pages. The thickest I saw was 40 pages. Imagine cramming 2 or 3 of these 40 page volumes into 1 document, that would be quite a frustrating experience. A wall of words thrown up in front of you when you open the document in English that requires more than one reading for one to comprehend.
You can imagine the difficulty in reading such stuff. Besides, I did not copy the footnotes to these classics. From my later experience in reading such books, the footnotes to the works are just as important as the works themselves.
Let me give an example of this, the Romans tended to compare friendship to the friendship which Scipio Africanus and Laelius had. The Romans would know who these two historical figures were but we wouldn't. These footnotes explain references to anecdotes or historical figures, literary sayings or philosophical or religious concepts and technical or scientific terms. The Greeks and Romans would have known what they meant the moment they encountered such references, quotes, terms etc. but we wouldn't, unless we have read so many Greek and Roman classics that we are as good as one of them. It's possible to infer what these things meant but can you imagine, reading something in which you've to infer one-quarter of the words. How long can you possibly sustain yourself in reading such stuff? Not very long, I suppose.
Despite these flaws, I felt that the compilation I made then was passable so I never went back to it again for quite some time till recently. Recently, I put together a library of classical music in the time I had left from fulfilling my military obligations. I decided to go back to this compilation and improve it with the skills and techniques I had learned and acquired in the course of putting together this library.
I was able to improve the compilation tremendously. I've supplemented it with twice the number of works I found back then, adding historical and literary works that were not available when I made by initial compilation. I also found some philosophical and legal thoughts I never knew about earlier. I re-copied the classics I copied back then, adding the footnotes and copying them in a way that the end product would look more readable than the initial product. I initially expected to take 1 week to complete this but in the end, the whole thing took me 6 weeks to finish.
Fresh on completing this compilation of Greek and Roman classics, I decided to embark on this blog as a means of making my compilation available to others. However, the more I thought about it, the more possibilities I realized that this blog could have.
I like reading history a lot but as time goes by, sometimes, I get disillusioned. There's nobody I can talk to about what I read. I'm not planning to take a history-related job so this knowledge isn't of much use to me. True, stashing a hoard of knowledge does make me feel some good but so what if I've a stash of knowledge hidden up there in my skull? It wouldn't do much good, would it?
On top of making this blog a place for me to make the work I've done over the past few months available to others, why not make this blog a place for me to share my knowledge with others. This way, all the knowledge I'm acquiring won't stay in my skull as dead matter.
I don't think I'm not the only one who has such thoughts and feelings so I'm hoping to make this a blog a place for history lovers to share their knowledge with each other and talk shop.There are lots of people I know who read about history in their free time but wouldn't they get disillusioned if they don't put what they read to any use? Of course, there's the possibility of putting this knowledge to use if they're studying history in the university. However, one can't be studying history in the university for one's entire life. What happens after that?
Now that I've started the blog,it's time to get the ball rolling.
My first few posts will be to introduce this compilation I had made.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Darren's Introductory Rambling
Hello, I'm Darren Seacliffe.
Lend me your ears for a few minutes. Allow me to introduce myself with the aid of this video first of all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTFu1s1LOeA
No,I'm not singing in this video. I don't know anyone singing in this video, personally, that is.
This video's a pot-pourri, a minute or half of each of the musical numbers of this work, a light opera or operetta called Die Geschiedene Frau, by a German composer called Leo Fall.
For starters, this video seems to be an opera. How come? There are singers singing in a language that you and me most probably don't understand in a way that's very different from what we are used to listening around us. Let's see if I can figure out why you think so:
1. The singers are singing at a pitch that's much higher than what most of us normally listen to or rather are accustomed to.
2. The singers are singing in a way that reminds you of that fat bearded man who recently passed away that sings something we can't understand but we find nice to listen to for some strange reason.
Well,you might be asking me why I'm using this video as an introduction..Let's just say that I'm an opera fan. This video's a way of showing that I'm not the typical opera fan. This opera isn't something which the typical mainstream opera fan listens to. It's also something which you'll be extremely unlikely to find in the ordinary opera house anywhere in the world.
This is a light opera. It's opera in the sense that it's a musical, a play where people are singing musical numbers that tell a story as they are sung in sequence, with music that tends to have quite a strong classical element in it. It's light in the sense that the music, even though it might be classical, has melodies that are easier to remember, unravel themselves faster and charm people upon first listening. Music that seems much lighter compared to the formidable wall of music one's overwhelmed with when one hears a full 60 man orchestra playing away.
Why listen to a musical-like opera? Why not, listen to a musical, you may ask? The reason is because I'm not only an opera fan, but I'm also a history buff. The kind who likes old things much more than new things. I'm not the sort who'd trade the comforts of my home for a cold damp castle that breaks down if it's not under constant maintenance. I'm the sort whose attention is captured by old things much more than new things, the sort who flies down to old things like a bee to flowers. As a history buff, I tend to read history most of the time. My preferences are for ancient Greek and Roman history, European history from 1453 to 1914 and Chinese, Islamic and Indian history. I'm okay with the rest but let's just say that the former areas draw more of my interest.
Well,enough about me. Just sit back and listen to the video one more time after reading this. This type of thing's something which one which needs to listen to more than once for one to be able to appreciate.
Someday, I'll probably be posting similar entries in future. Entries discussing or publicising the two things I'm most passionate about: classical music and opera, history. There'll also be some other entries in which I reflect on the life around me, talk about myself and so on.
Your rambler:
Darren
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