{"id":80,"date":"2012-11-02T07:30:44","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T20:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catesings.org\/?p=80"},"modified":"2012-11-02T07:30:44","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T20:30:44","slug":"friday-fun-full-fathom-five-ades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/2012\/11\/02\/friday-fun-full-fathom-five-ades\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Fun: Full Fathom Five (Ad\u00e8s)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is not the kind of music I normally find appealing, being atonal and deeply, deeply strange.\u00a0 It’s from Thomas Ad\u00e8s’s recent opera of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest<\/em>.\u00a0 <\/em>This aria belongs to Ariel, an airy spirit, and is sung here\u00a0 by Audrey Luna. It’s positively (and appropriately) unearthly.<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OPkEj3B9KKI&w=560&h=315]<\/p>\n

Are you awake now?<\/p>\n

The lyrics, in case you didn’t catch them, are a re-wording of Shakespeare’s verse from Act I, Scene 2 of the Tempest:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Full fathom five thy father lies;<\/em>
\nOf his bones are coral made;<\/em>
\nThose are pearls that were his eyes;<\/em>
\nNothing of him that does fade,<\/em>
\nBut doth suffer a sea-change<\/em>
\nInto something rich and strange.<\/em>
\nSea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:<\/em>
\nDing-dong,<\/em>
\nHark!\u00a0 Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell.<\/em>– William Shakespeare<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n

Five fathoms deep
\nYour father lies
\nThese are pearls
\nThat were his eyes
\nNothing of him
\nThat was mortal
\nIs the same.
\nHis bones are coral
\nHe has suffered
\nA sea change
\nInto something
\nRich and strange
\nSea-nymphs hourly
\nRing his knell.
\nI can hear them
\nDing dong bell.<\/em>– Meredith Oakes
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I like the way the Oakes version almost has the rhythm of a chant or an incantation.<\/p>\n

I am both repelled and compelled by this music.\u00a0 I find it hard to discern a melody in it, but the high notes make me want to laugh with joy – who even writes music like that?\u00a0 (Thomas Ad\u00e8s does, evidently).\u00a0 I just love Ariel’s inhuman melodies, especially in Fear to the Sinner<\/a>, Ariel’s first aria (sung here by Cyndia Sieden) with all its rapid leaps into the stratosphere and back down to the merely high (17 top Es in less than two minutes, oy.).\u00a0 It must be confessed that on first hearing this, I couldn’t stop giggling, and then spent the next few days wandering around the house squeaking at Andrew at random intervals, in imitation of Ariel’s strange, strange music (I can’t get that high, hence the squeaking).<\/p>\n

… I honestly don’t know what else to say about this.\u00a0 But I do like this little page and clip, titled “My wife is an alien<\/a>“, which shows Hila Plitmam (yes, there are at least three singers in the world who can sing this aria.\u00a0 It amazes me, too) practicing Fear to the Sinner at home, with no orchestral accompaniment – I find that one gets a really interesting sense of what the song is doing when one is not distracted by the orchestral accompaniment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is not the kind of music I normally find appealing, being atonal and deeply, deeply strange.\u00a0 It’s from Thomas Ad\u00e8s’s recent opera of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.\u00a0 This aria belongs to Ariel, an airy spirit, and is sung here\u00a0 by Audrey Luna. It’s positively (and appropriately) unearthly. [youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OPkEj3B9KKI&w=560&h=315]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,52,168,316,492,505,549,644,707,720],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ariel","tag-audrey-luna","tag-cynthia-sieden","tag-hila-plitmann","tag-meredith-oakes","tag-music","tag-opera","tag-shakespeare","tag-the-tempest","tag-thomas-ades"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}