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From: jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Dec. 15 Metropolitan "Elektra" broadcast (and love of music)
Message-ID: <4231@tekecs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Dec-84 12:45:48 EST
Article-I.D.: tekecs.4231
Posted: Thu Dec 20 12:45:48 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Dec-84 07:55:48 EST
References: <263@olivej.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 43

This broadcast was a special experience for me. For the last 10 years or
so, I have acquainted myself with operas I was curious about, not only
by listening to performances, but by playing through the piano scores.
I had read through "Elektra" two or three times before the Met
broadcast, but I had never heard it performed. Well, it's experiences
like this that make me wonder why people bother with drugs. Although
I recognized things were going on which I didn't care for (see below),
I was so caught up I was close to tears through the whole thing. And I
listened to it on a cheap FM alarm radio! And I didn't even see it!
Aaargh, music is heaven...

All in all though, I agree with Greg's assessments of the performance.
Especially I found myself irritated with Levine's pace, in which it
seemed many of the beauties I discovered from playing the work were
swallowed (my poor radio didn't help). It also gave the impression there
was too much singing crammed into too short a time, which I am sure Strauss
did *not* intend.

Compare this experience to the one I had a few years ago when there was
a TV broadcast (with subtitles) of "Otello". I had only the vaguest idea
of this opera before then. I had heard it was a masterpiece - "even if
you don't care for Verdi ["Falstaff" is the only other Verdi I can handle],
you'll like this, etc." And I had accompanied the setting of Desdemona's
prayer. So I sat down, curious, to watch, and to listen, in front of my old
B&W TV with lousy sound. Someday I will write in a worthwhile fashion about
the land where I go when I listen to music, but for now suffice to say that, 
by the climactic end of the third act, I was so absorbed that, when the
final cadence in C is punctuated by that E major blast (which I could discern
as a motive even on first hearing), I nearly had a heart attack. I get a
chill now just thinking about it. I seem to remember screaming out "did you
hear THAT?" to no one in particular. Since then I have read through the
piano score several times, loving every minute of it.

Someday, I will see Salome. Yes, I also like it better than Elektra,
but I wouldn't put down the "Dance of the Seven Veils" - it's the
relief and the tease that enables Strauss to construct an otherwise
unbroken climax from the middle of the opera (C# minor cadence) to
the end.

Oh well, back to work...

                                  See, I don't always criticize!
					Jeff Winslow