Reviews for Music's broken wings

The average rating for Music's broken wings based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-03-17 00:00:00 Hollie Lopez I had a roommate in college who insisted, to the annoyance of his theory professor, the "three B's" were Bach, Beethoven and Berlioz. Okay boys and girls . . . we all know that third one should be Brahms. But David ate drank and (I think) made love to Berlioz. He was constantly humming themes and snippets of melodies'his favorites: the Symphony Fantastic and Harold in Italy. I, of course, was into the sturm und drang German school of Wagner, Bruckner and Mahler and therefore had no time for the frivolous French. Fast forward to a couple months ago. The Saturday Met broadcast was 'The Damnation of Faust.' (I think I had a recording in college I never broke the seal.) I thought about twisting the dial. I wasn't interested. But I had a thirty minute drive so, what the hell (literally), I will give it that. By the time I got home I ran inside to get it on the Bose towers. There went the afternoon. I didn't think anyone staged this. Ever. It's not really an opera'more like a Medieval tableaux. But there it was, in all its quirky glory and I was hooked. My er-roommate would be proud. At 4:30 on Saturday afternoon, I downloaded 'Damnation' to the iPod. Then 'Les Troyans.' I cleared almost everything else off the iPod, went on a downloading frenzy and over the past few months celebrated my own personal Berlioz Festival. There is a reason why Berlioz' autobiography has been in print for 150 years. Not only did he come in contact with every famous 18th century artist (and there were a slew of them), he brilliantly wrote (not composed) about literally everything. I knew when the memoirs began with one of my favorite quotes from "Macbeth" I was going to be in for a glorious ride: "Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing." Berlioz wastes no time with his early years and gets right into the good stuff starting with his winning the Prix de Rome (after applying five years in a row). As an eighteen year old, just take a look at his companions: Ingres, Cherubini, Liszt, Hugo, Goethe, Balzac! Hunting trips with Mendelssohn, oh my! "In an artists life one thunderclap sometimes follows swiftly on another, as in those outsized storms in which the clouds, charged to bursting with electric energy seem to hurl the lightning back and forth and blow the whirlwind. I had just had the successive revelations of Shakespeare and Weber. Now at another point on the horizon I saw the giant form of Beethoven rear up." Berlioz was 'the' most outspoken critic of his day. It is hard to believe art and music caused riots of passion'unlike our pristine concert and gallery experiences today (not the people who talk during a play). Audiences responded vociferously (I have always wished I'd been in the audience for the premiere of 'Le Sacre du Printemps.') Here he describes what happened when a simple violin solo was deleted from a Gluck opera: "The scene [in the opera:] was nearly over when: "Wait a minute, what about the violin solo?" I said, in a voice loud enough to be heard. 'He's right' someone said, 'it looks as if they're leaving it out. Baillot! Baillot! [the first violinist:] The violin solo!' At that the whole pit fired up. And then'something unheard of at the Opera'the entire house rose and noisily demanded that the program be carried out according to the bill. While this uproar was proceeding, the curtain came down, At that, the clamor redoubled. The players alarmed by the fury of the pit, hastily abandoned the field; whereupon the enraged public invaded the orchestra, hurling chairs in all directions, overturning stands, bursting the drums. In vain I shouted 'Gentleman, gentleman, what are you doing? This is madness!' No one listened to me now. The rioters did not stop until they had laid waste the whole orchestra and left numerous instruments and chairs in ruins." And now Berlioz' denouement: "That was the bad side of the Draconian criticism-in-action that we exercised at the Opera. The good side was our enthusiasm when everything was going right." His humor is as cutting as his criticism. It was a time before music was copyrighted and scores considered sacrosanct. It is hard for us to imagine today that movements of Beethoven symphonies were interchanged and hacks added and deleted at will. Another great moment comes when Berlioz goes to the opening night of the Paris premier of The Magic Flute [Mozart:]. The conductor assumed the audience would hate it and rewrote more than half with his own music. Berlioz, of course, went into a fit of frenzy. Pages and pages of frenzy'that are a hoot to read. In the days when all psychosis, or genius, were attributed to that curious human organ called the 'spleen' artistic temperament was considered eccentric if not mysterious. Today Berlioz would be over medicated with a cocktail of valium, Prozac and Xanax. He passionately writes of his attempt to justify a lovers betrayal. Engaged to a duchess who secretly married into a higher rank (and obviously more money) Berlioz plots to kill the couple by outfitting himself in women's clothing, appearing at their palace, shooting them, and then putting a bullet to his head. His costume is lost in transit, another is made quickly, he wanders the woods in despair, eating raw birds, and eventually changes his mind. This seemed quite logical in the 1800's. Today he would be locked away. Berlioz had an amazing memory. The detail he garners, years after the fact, is astounding. After finishing his memoirs, he didn't die. To his own chagrin, he admits the next ten years after finishing the book were more interesting than his entire previous life. So he tacks on another couple dozen chapters. And that last decade was a whopper. Tell, us Hector, how do you 'really' feel about Richard Wagner? My iPod now contains about two days worth of 19th century French romantic bombast. And I am really happy about this.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-29 00:00:00 Stefanie Cora Convinced me I didn't want to go to medical school.