13 March 2015

So, Why Compose An OPERA?

People have often; actually very often, asked me: "WHY, why would you want to compose such a HUGE work as is an Opera Denny?" I have to, of course, give them the short answer. I will say: "because it has always been a desire of mine to see a fat lady sing!" Of course, they laugh a little and I laugh a little (it's all for comedy's sake) and I die a little inside. The REAL reason I want to compose an Opera is a long, long expose on how I first became aware of the Italian School of the late 17th century and the early 18th century composers. Verdi, Puccini, and Rossini have, in my humble opinion, written some of, if not ALL of, the world's most colourful and emotional music ever known. Here is a blog entry to explain: Why I Want To Compose An Opera. Enjoy....


SO, Why Compose An OPERA?

When I first figured out how a computer could assist me with the task of notating music, in a real and concrete way, I quickly developed a few habits and patterns of behavior. I could go online and download a particular type of music file known as MIDI; I would find classical music in the form of these MIDI files and could download to my heart’s content. I would eventually end up with thousands of them. This particular file format was great for me because, not only would it play an electronic version of the music, but it could also be opened in a notational format and could be viewed as notes on a stave. With certain applications I could manipulate these notes into various configurations; I would spend countless hours (15 to 20 hrs a day....) sitting at my computer (an IBM 486 Aptiva, circa 1993,cpu= 66mhz ie: SLOW!!!) manipulating notes from classical music. In fact, I spent a few years doing this. Eventually, I invented a method of replicating the sound of a really special kind of instrument I had heard when I was very young. These instruments aren’t very popular; they’re actually from a by-gone era when folks didn’t even have record players. You may think I’m talking about a piano, but no, I’m actually referring to a music box. Most people think of a music box as a small metal kajigger with a spiked cylinder, and a little comb on it that would play an immature version of happy birthday in a jewelry box. I am very familiar with this cute little piece of mechanical marvel; but no, this is not the kind of music box to which I refer. I’m talking about a real one. It used to be, that a music box was a master work of art, produced by the finest clock makers and instrument companies of the world. They were very large, to very small and the very large could play music as if it were pure magic; and in most cases, full orchestral arrangements.

I was about 8 yrs old when I had my experience with a real music box. I had just finished eating dinner at my grandmother’s. It was a Sunday evening and the whole Italian brigade of my dad’s family was there. After dinner, my Dad’s adopted sister, who incidentally is my Godmother, got up from the table and had decided out loud that instead of watching Lawrence Welk, as per usual, we would listen to music. My Aunt proceeded to leave the dining room and walked into the very large living-room salon area which had many mysterious and old items of furniture and other curious things in it. She walked to the end of the room and proceeded to open the lid of what appeared to me to be the top of a tall slender dresser with many layers of drawers in it. The lid she was lifting covered the top of this dresser and it appeared to look like a 3 foot wide oaken casket. I watched with the curiosity that only a young boy could have. After this lid was opened, she looked to the side of this box and began to fold open what appeared to be a large crank, and wound it, click click click around it went, just like the winding of a clock. I had no idea what was happening, but was fascinated none the less. She finished this course of winding and then reached inside the box and I heard a hollow click clack sound. That is when it happened.

The single most glorious experience I have ever felt from music. The room I was in was very large, and all along one side of it were leaded windows and the lite from the Niagara Falls parkway was shining across the yard through them, twinkling on the opposite wall where the fireplace was, surrounded by book shelves closed in by glass paneled doors. It was a very warm and comforting room, it felt stable, and old, and established. The sound came flowing out of that oaken box as if it were in 3 dimensions and it filled every possible nook and cranny that very large room could offer. The richness of the audio and fullness of it can only be compared to the first time I had heard an audio CD. I was astounded! The music box was playing a piece of music I would later discover to be that of Guiseppi Verdi, from an opera entitled Aida. It was so very colourful, so full and complete, and touched every emotional button hidden within me. Out it flowed, bright, layers upon layers of harmony and rhythm, the melodies prominent and full of life like I had never heard in music before. There I was, 8 yrs old, and not only was I feeling my meaning of life, I was hearing it, right there, live. It was at the moment, when I first heard the strains of Aida, that I knew, my life would only be a complete and happy experience, if I dedicated it to making music like that! I was dumbfounded and of course, would find myself asking my Aunt all kinds of questions about the instrument. What was it? where did it come from? How could it have been sitting there all these years and remain so disguised to me? I would get my answers, and they only added to the marvel I had felt. That was definitely it for me folks, I was 8 yrs old and I had experienced my first epiphany. For lack of a more appropriate description, I had my first religious experience.

It turns out, that when my Aunt had been adopted by my dad’s family; when she was a little girl from Italy, she was sent a very special gift. Her Italian family had sent with her, this music box, as a gift to her new family that had adopted her. It turns out that this music box was as special to my Godmother as it had become to me. It came from Italy, and was made sometime in the mid 1800′s by a company back then known as Sorrento. My Aunt was offered, probably in the mid 1970′s, the sum of 25,000$ for it, American, and she turned it down. It turns out that what she has is one of the most complete collections of music rolls that could ever be purchased with the classical instrument. Not only was the music box in pristine condition, but it had also been sent with an original cabinet, full of drawers containing rolls of opera music, Italian folk music, all in fully orchestrated format. There must have been 8 drawers in this cabinet, and in each drawer there was 4 rolls. She truly, in every sense of the word, has a very, very special item there. What’s most fantastic about it for me, is that I got to hear it, in all of it’s glory, suddenly one Sunday evening. This brings me back to my opening comments on what I used to do with classical music on my computer, how I used to manipulate the notes into configurations. What I found was that I was capable of arranging the notes from these files into configurations that would imitate sound as would come off of a music box roll. I could arrange the bass notes, the mid range notes, and the highest notes from left to right in the stereo field. This would mimic the way notes were arranged on a music box roll, just as they are arranged inside a piano. When I played back this music, applying a music box “voice” to it, I was able to mimic that incredible 3D, life like audio experience I had when I first heard the Sorrento music box in my grandmother’s living-room. I have never heard music so colourful, so life like as I had heard that evening; it was Verdi, it was opera, and it moved me more than any music has ever moved me since.

I have become very fond of the opera format, especially that of the Italian school from the 19th century. If there was ever a more fundamental reason for me to use Opera as my format of choice for my most major work of art yet, I haven’t come across it. My reason is clear to me. I must write an Opera so that I can complete within me, the meaning of what I experienced as a boy.

Denny TJ BArCH

 

 

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