Tag Archives: Italian

1: Michael Maniaci – 2: Mahler Lieder

John | 18 December, 2011 - 1:48 am

In the past month I’ve made two posts about the counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky.  As I’ve mentioned, I first came across him when I bought the rediscovered opera by Vivaldi – Ercole s’ul Termodonte.   When I first listened to the opera I assumed his part was sung by a soprano, and I found it difficult to tell the voices apart in the first duet.  It was only when I watched the YouTube video (which I’ve included in my 15 November post) that I discovered that one of the “sopranos” was a man.  I’ve this two posts because it seems that Philippe Jaroussky is one of the big discoveries in the world of classical music and opera in 2011.

However Philippe is a counter-tenor.  The following video is about Michael Maniaci who describes himself as a soprano.  By the way, because I began dabbling into learning Italian in January 2010, I know that Maniaci is pronounced – Mahn-ee-AH-chee.

 

With counter-tenors and male sopranos the subject of three posts, I think it’s time to reveal to you some of the other singers and songs I came across for the first time this year.  I mean singers other than Fleet Foxes (see my  post on 1 November) and the pleasant young Johnny Ruffo from The X factor.  I mean the singers of Mahler’s lieder.

I’ve written before that this year I finally discovered Mahler, after the seeds were sown in my mind from listening to a cassette tape in the mid 1970′s.  However, instead of gradually dipping my toes in the water, I bought two collections of all his works.  One of recordings originally issued on the DGG label and the other of recordings originally issued on EMI.  I’ve found that I not only enjoy the symphonies, but have also come to enjoy the Lieder.  Yes, on first hearing  - rather than listening- the Lieder seem to be gloomy cheerless songs sung in German.  But when I opened my mind, and actually listened to the deeply beautiful voices, with the wonderful German language sounds so carefully enunciated, and the sublime orchestration, I began to appreciate these superb songs.  When I say “deeply” beautiful I mean it both colloquially and literally.  The male voices are baritone and the female voices are mezzo-soprano, in the songs I’ve listened to so far.

When I was a student at Mount Gambier High School in the early 1950′s, the Headmaster (Mr Campbell) took one our lessons, and in it he talked about enjoying everything you can  in life.  He said that people who say they are bored with something or other, are really saying that they don’t understand and appreciate whatever it is that bores them.  I have never forgotten that, even 60 years later.  It’s as true today as it was then.  And so, with that in mind, I have in recent posts begun presenting videos and music that some visitors to this site might not enjoy.  Well, not at first at first.  But perhaps they might watch and listen with an open and inquiring mind to try to discover for themselves what it is that I and so many others like so much.

I’ll start off with a video of Sir Thomas Allen singing the Mahler song I have so far come to enjoy most – Die zwei blauen Augen.  It took a while before this song grew on me, as they say.  Or perhaps more accurately, it took a while before I grew into the song  and began to appreciate it.   But once I connected to the song, I loved it.

By the way, Sir Thomas Allen is a very interesting person, and you can read about him in this article in Wikipedia.  I have to confess that I’d never heard of him before I began writing this post.  That seems strange to me  now that I learned that he is an internationally renowned operatic singer regarded by many as one of the best lyric baritones of the late 20th Century.   Well that probably explains why I’ve never heard of him before writing this post.  He’s a baritone.  All the great opera singers who have become household names, such as The Three Tenors – Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras – are tenors.  These days we now have  popular ensembles such as The Ten Tenors singing a mix of pop, rock and opera.  And we had Anthony Callea.

It’s not only the tenors who are household names, but some of the operatic arias written for tenors.  The most famous aria these days is Nessun Dorma which achieved world recognition after the performance by Luciano Pavarotti at the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

I can’t think of the name of any baritones or arias written for them – other than those below.

In case you don’t read the Wikipedia article about Sir Thomas Allen CBE, I’ll mention that apart from his long career as an opera singer, he starts a new position on 1 January 2012 as Chancellor of Durham University.

Below is another version of the same song, with Thomas Hampson as the baritone.   The conductor is Leonard Bernstein, one of the great exponents of the works of Mahler.  This recording is the one in my DGG complete works of Mahler.

And finally the same song (Die zwei blauen Augen) again.  This time it’s from my EMI boxed set of the complete works of Mahler. The singer is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, a German lyric baritone now retired (he was born 10 years 5 months+ before me.   He is regarded as one of the great singers of the 20th century.

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    Die zwei blauen Augen sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Unlike opera, where the arias are sung by characters in a drama who are either male or female, the Mahler lieder seem to be frequently sung by either male or female.  However, it seems to me that the singers, male or female, usually sing lower than tenor and sopranos.

While writing this post I came across a work I’d never heard before.  That of course is a confession that I haven’t yet listened to either of my complete works of Mahler in full.  It’s a song that’s growing on me the more that I listen to it.  I’m sorry to say that in my ignorance, I didn’t realize that this is one of the greatest Mahler songs – Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen.

The first is sung by Magdalena Kožená, a Czech mezzo soprano, married to the Sir Simon Rattle, the great English conductor.

The following version is sung by the Swedish mezzo-soprano Katarina Karneus.

An extract from this song can be heard in the following Vimeo video from Le maître de musique (The Music Teacher) - a 1988 Belgian film:

The following image is the cover of my boxed set of the complete works of Mahler on the EMI label.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the way, you can buy Mahler: The Complete Works – 150th Anniversary

  • from Amazon for US$44.78
  • from Presto Classical for A$36.15 (as I write)
  • from iTunes for A$25.99.

All are great prices for 16 high quality CDs of some of the most beautiful and spectacular music ever written.

I’ll quote extracts the first reviewer on Amazon.com (leaving out his list of all the CDs) dated 1 July 2010:

It was bound to happen sooner or later: pretty much everything known by Mahler put into one box (16 cd’s). Of course, one could argue endlessly about what performances of the various symphonies EMI could have/should have chosen. But what this set has going for it are a series of outstanding renditions of the various song cycles and vocal works. In addition to having the Thomas Hampson/Wolfram Rieger (piano) “Five Ruckert Songs”, disc 16 gives us a survey of numerous “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” performances – possibly THE most gorgeous orchestral song ever composed – captured by EMI over the years. That list includes Janet Baker, Christa Ludwig (twice), D. Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Allen, Brigitte Fassbaender, and Katarina Karneus. But rather than yack on and on, I’ll simply leave you a list of what this box contains.

……………….

Needless to say, this set captures many of the biggest names in the Mahler “biz” ever: Barbirolli; Horenstein; Furtwaengler (his one and only studio recording of Mahler); Bruno Walter; Kathleen Ferrier; Klaus Tennstedt; Simon Rattle (opinions vary, but they chose some of his better work here); Janet Baker; Christa Ludwig; D. Fischer-Dieskau; Brigitte Fassbaender; C.M. Giulini; Chicago Symphony (caputred in the Medinah Temple); Berlin Phil.; Philharmonia Orch. (the Walter Legge years); E. Schwarzkopf; the incomparable Fritz Wunderlich (“DLvdE”) – the list goes on, so most of this set is pretty much self recommending. Even if you already own some Mahler, if you don’t have many of these performances, you probably ought to indulge yourself with this set.

The writer finished with the following comment:

No one need be reminded that we’re in the middle of summer and an economic recession. But when the holidays roll around, few things will say “Merry Christmas” better to music lovers than this box. Ponder that thought. It’s better than yet another “La Boheme” or Beethoven cycle, not to mention Lady Gaga.

Hmmm.  I’d never thought about this before.  This set would make a stunning present and at very reasonable price.  The only problem is that I don’t know if any of my friends (other than the couple who introduced me to the Lexus) even enjoy classical music, let alone might enjoy the works of Gustav Mahler.

By the way, to put Mahler’s timeline into context, he was born on 7 July 1860, and died on 18 May 1911.  Hence the EMI album released last year commemorates 150 years since his birth.  Earlier this year the 100th anniversary of his death was recognized.  His widow Alma died on 11 December 1964 – barely two months before I’d been with Elder, Smith & Co., Limited and then Elder Smith Goldsbrough Mort Limited for six years.  My father died in July that year.

 

 

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Learning Italian 10

John | 24 August, 2010 - 12:33 am

The purpose of my post titled Learning Italian 9 was to review my progress over the past seven months in trying to casually pick up some Italian. I was very surprised to find three effects that I didn’t expect from my decision to find out how much Italian I could pick in a year.

The 4th unexpected effect, which I didn’t mention in that post, was that trying to learn some Italian this year has created a new desire to learn more about English, and refresh my school days studies (I used to top the class with Distinctions in English studies).

The iPad has been amazing in helping me pursue my studies.  The Kindle for iPad app has enabled me to buy and download books instantly 24/7.  Anyone with an Internet connection can do the same.  There are Kindle for iPhone, PC, and Mac apps.  And of  course there is the Kindle device itself – but it doesn’t have colour.

My new English studies have only just begun, but I’ve found three interesting words already:

niche - If, like me, you pronounce it NEESH, you’re also wrong.  It’s NITCH.

Restauranteur - No, no, no.   The person who owns a restaurant is a Restaurateur.  There is no “n” in the word.  The word restaurant comes from the French for “restore”.

Nevada - this is my favourite, as I only read about it in the news today.

Lucky for me, when I was in Las Vegas for a few days in June 1999,  I didn’t mention the name of the State it’s in.  Nevada.  I would’ve called it Ne-VAH-da, which is incorrect and apparently the frequent mispronunciation irritates many Nevadans.  It’s pronounced Ne-VAD–a (rhymes with adder).

I quote:

Aug 22, 11:25 PM (ET)
 CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) – The misuse of one little vowel frustrates a lot of Nevadans who get irritated by the mispronunciation of the state’s name – using an “ah” instead of “a.”

Outgoing Assemblyman Harry Mortenson is proposing more tolerance. The Las Vegas Democrat is working on a resolution for the 2011 legislative session to make the “Ne-VAH-da” pronunciation equally acceptable to the one with the short “a.”

Mortenson says he’s not asking Nevadans to change. He just wants the Spanish pronunciation recognized.

Nevadans have long bristled over the issue. In 1944, Reno newspapers even scolded former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey for his “East Coast” pronunciation during an appearance.

—

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Learning Italian 9

John | 14 August, 2010 - 1:05 am

It’s now more than seven months since I decided on 31 December 2009 to see how much of the Italian language I could pick up in a year without any formal training or serious study, but spending a few minutes each day with a new word from the desk calendar I bought.

So, with more than half the year gone by, I’m going to review my progress to date, and the unexpected effects of the decision I made on New Year’s Eve last year.

First and foremost, to put it into a real perspective, I forget most of the new words I “learn” each day on the desk calendar within about an hour of first reading them, and certainly by the next day.  And I’m now convinced more than ever, that I’ll never be able to converse in Italian (or any other foreign language).  I can’t understand the words at conversational speed.

However, having said that, some words on the desk calendar have stayed with me, probably in those cases where I’ve come across the words in the training books I’ve bought, and the words have therefore been revised.

Therein lies the first unexpected effect.  I soon realised that I needed more than the desk calendar which gave a new word and demonstrated it in a short sentence in Italian.  I needed a dictionary to explain the other words in the sentences, and I soon decided that I’d like to study it deeper.  So I increased my range of resources.

After 7 months, I’ve worked out that some of the desk calendar pages are wrong (it’s Venerdi, not Venderdi, for Friday), but I still can’t put a sentence together in Italian.  But I was very surprised when watching a midday movie during the week (highly recommended by the Green Guide), that when David Wenham’s PA in the movie lent across to a client and said something that ended in “prossimo sabato” I knew exactly what she’d said.  ”Next Saturday.”

The  second unexpected effect is that I’ve come to realise that I enjoy my studies of Italian just for the sheer fun of it, with no expectation of ever being able to carry on a conversation in Italian.  And it’s helped me to understand English better.

The third unexpected effect is something I alluded to in my Learning Italian 8 post on May 17 – and that was to do some basic French and German studies.  At first, when I looked at some of the books at the language bookshop in Collins Street, Melbourne, I decided that trying to learn the rules of two other foreign languages while still trying to Italian would be too much for me.

But in the past week or two, I’ve gained confidence and have now taken on some studies in French and German – on the iPad.  I’ve also put a couple of German books on my wish-list.  Once again, I don’t expect that I’ll ever be able to chat in a foreign language, but I’m thoroughly enjoying learning about these  languages, and being able to read what I’ve learned.

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Learning Italian 8

John | 17 May, 2010 - 12:13 am

The thumbnail picture for this post on my blog home page is a beautiful view of Florence at sunset.  I’ve never been to Italy, but I did fly over it on my way home from London in 1993.  And in my childhood, from age 5 to 8, I grew up in Mount Gambier, South Australia, with an Italian prisoner of war in our home.  His official job was as a labourer on our 5 acre block of land, of which about 3 acres were devoted to all kinds of vegetables, a glass house for tomatoes, a passionfruit trellis, a 100 foot long bean and pea trellis, sand bed for asparagus, a maize patch, fruit trees, a big walnut tree and fowls.  The other 2 acres were a paddock for a cow or two.  Tony was treated like a member of our family, and to me was a friend and company.  We all liked him, as did our family friends.

The following photo shows another admired Italian – the beautiful 2010 Maserati Quattroporte.  I find it more exciting than a Ferrari.

I have many reasons to want to see how much of the Italian language I can pick up this year.  But early last week it crossed my mind that as we grow closer to the half year mark, I haven’t made all that much progress.  I forget most of the words I learn about an hour after learning them (not just the Italian word, but even the English word that I’ve forgotten the Italian word for).  I can’t yet construct even a simple sentence in Italian.  And I’m still struggling with the basic pronunciation of Italian words because of the inconsistent explanations in all the sources at my disposal.

This week I went into the city CBD for the first time this year, and as fate would have it, twice.  I took this opportunity to visit the Foreign Language Bookshop in Collins Street where I became interested in two books on my first visit.  I ended up buying them on my second visit, after researching their reviews on Amazon.

It did cross my mind that I already had enough books and iPhone apps about learning Italian, and I didn’t need any more.   But these two books each had a different “teach yourself” approach that appealed to me.

As I mentioned above, my main concern has always been pronunciation, as I’ve noticed many variations in my different books when it comes to vowels.  And quite often the words spoken by supposedly native Italian speakers in my iPhone apps have confused me even more.

One of the new books explains where your tongue should be when pronouncing vowels and consonants.  That’s taken me back to primary school days when one of the subjects was English.

The other book talks about language similarities on page 1, and in doing so, it struck a chord with me for the first time, when I realised that there is often a pattern between English and Italian words that would help me understand the Italian words in print (but not in speech, as the pronunciation is greatly differently).

These patterns are helping me to remember many words, such as the Italian for “slowly” which I first learned in January.  I’ve tried to recall it many times over the past four months (to use in the phrase “please speak slowly”).  I’ve looked it up every time, but I’ve never been able to remember it afterwards, even at the beginning of last week.  But now I’ll remember it always, as I’ve known the Italian for “slow” since the age of eight in my pianoforte and music studies.  Lento.

The pattern to turn the adjective “slow” into the adverb “slowly” is to add “mente” to the end of the Italian word.  Lento becomes Lentamente.  The o changes to an a,  but that doesn’t matter as it reminds me of the actual word.

Correct pronunciation of Italian remains my greatest stumbling block, as I want to get this sorted out before I proceed further.  But in the past few days I’ve now begun to wonder if this is really as far as I want to go.  I get a great kick out of my new found ability to pronounce all Italian words reasonably well, even if I have no idea what they mean.

I’ll be very surprised if I’m ever able to speak or understand spoken Italian, but I’ve totally enjoyed my studies so far.  However, I’m currently thinking that my real interest is not in learning Italian to be able to converse in Italian, but to get an understanding of another language.  I’ve found that this fascinates me.

So, I’m now thinking of doing some basic German and French studies to get a bit of an inkling into those languages and their pronunciation.  I’d like to be able to pronounce German and French words better than I can now.

I’ve seen a book on Amazon about French pronunciation that I’ll keep a lookout for in local bookshops, as it goes very deeply into pronunciation, which I expect applies to all languages.  It explains the complexities of pronunciation whereby the mouth and tongue change shape and position for, say,  c or k, which have the same sound, in expectation of what follows in say, cool and keel.

I learned a new Italian word today – barista.  And I was surprised to discover that in Italian it means barman (in the case of a male) or barmaid (in the case of a female).  The plural has a different end vowel in the case of males and females  (mixed groups take the male plural ending).  Oh dear.  I know a qualified barista who would be horrified to be told that it only means barman in Italian.

This send me looking up barista in English dictionaries.  The big Shorter Oxford defines it as someone who serves coffee.   The big American Heritage does not list the word.  The Australian Oxford defines it as someone who makes coffee (especially espresso) professionally.

The 20 volume OED (Oxford English Dictionary) has the following entry:

barista, n.
Brit. /ba“ri;st@/, /b@“rIst@/, U.S. /bA“rist@/, /b@“rIst@/  Plural baristas, (rare) bariste, (irreg.) baristes.  [< Italian barìsta (plural barìste; 1939–40) < bar (see bar n.1 28a) + -ista -ist.]

A bartender in an Italian or Italian-style bar. Also spec. (orig. U.S.): a person who makes and serves coffee in a coffee bar (the more frequent sense in English).
In spec. sense, a proprietary name in the United Kingdom.

1982 P. Hofman Rome, Sweet Tempestuous Life 24 A good barista can simultaneously keep an eye on the coffee oozing from the espresso machine into a battery of cups, pour vermouth and bitters+and discuss the miserable showing of the Lazio soccer team. 1988 Boston Globe (Nexis) 13 Dec. 61 A feisty but cordial competitor to the larger caffeine chains the [Boston Coffee] Exchange has unfurled a help-wanted poster titled ‘Learn to be a coffee barista’. 1990 Atlantic Nov. 157/2 This ritual unites all the baristas in Italy. But not everyone accomplishes the layer of light-colored crema, or foam, that is the pride of an expert espresso-maker. 1999 Dominion (Wellington, N.Z.) (Nexis) 24 Feb. (Business section) 24 New bariste undertake an intensive training programme which covers the philosophy, history, and science of coffee, and the psychology of service. 2001 Times 7 Mar. ii. 5/1 The key to a good espresso lies in the barista+and whether he or she cares enough to do it right.
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Learning Italian 7

John | 23 March, 2010 - 6:48 pm

On Sunday afternoon I followed up one the suggestions in my books, which Ralph also gave a week or two ago, and I looked at an Italian newspaper online.  I did a Google search to find Italian newspapers and chose Corriere Della Sera.it online.

It wasn’t very interesting so I decided to have a look at the motoring section.  I was instantly fascinated by the content.

MILANO – L’annuncio è allettante: vendesi Jaguar Daimler Majestic V8 praticamente nuova (22.500 chilometri accertati), unico proprietario, condizioni perfette (a parte qualche pelo di corgi sui tappetini posteriori), color verde patriottico e full optional (compreso bracciolo personalizzato per la borsetta, console speciale per il controllo dei fanali, luce di emergenza blu e linea telefonica diretta con Downing Street e Ministero degli Interni, oggi non più funzionante). Certo, il prezzo di listino non è proprio abbordabilissimo: quasi 73mila euro. Ma, del resto, la macchina in questione non è una semplice berlina extralusso, bensì l’auto privata della Regina Elisabetta, usata dalla sovrana fra il 2001 e il 2004 più che altro nei dintorni del castello di Windsor e per fare la spola con Buckingham Palace. Da qui, i pochissimi chilometri percorsi e le condizioni immacolate, peli di cane a parte.

I’m sure you can work out what much of this means yourself.  One of the delights of Italian is that so many words are so close to our own.  The Italian news report lead me to the following:

and the video.  Note the selector for 360p, 480p and 720p (HD).

If you want to read more, or place a bid, go to hmthequeensdaimler.com

Sometimes, of course, the Queen travels by horse and cart (so to speak):

As usual with embedded YouTube videos, if you click on the video you can see it full size on the YouTube site.

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Learning Italian 6

John | 22 March, 2010 - 1:01 am

It’s only last Thursday that I drove to Chadstone shopping centre – the biggest in the Southern hemisphere – to buy the Italian for Dummies Audio Set. It’s an audio course with 3 CDs and a small 96 page book that you can follow along with the CDs to see in print the words you are hearing, and repeating.  I’ve used the CD case as the thumbnail for this post.

I’ve seen this audio set at Borders for the past two months but have resisted buying it.  I finally decided that it would be helpful.  I half expected that the CD set I’ve seen at Borders for two months, would’ve been sold since my last visit.  But instead, the set was almost everywhere I looked.  Borders had a Dummies promotion going on.

What surprised me was that Italian for Dummies (a normal size Dummies book) was in stock for the first time this year.  I pounced on it.  It comes with one audio CD.

I’ve only been studying the book for three days, and only in small doses, but I’m very impressed with it’s totally different way of explaining pronunciation.

This has led me to a better and more confident way of pronouncing Italian words.

To follow up on my last post, a typical problem I’ve had is how to pronounce the word “giorno.”

The Complete Idiot’s book says that all vowels in Italian are pronounced, but are slid together in the case of dipthongs (two vowels slid together to form one sound. So technically, giorno is pronounced jee-ohr-noh.  But the jee-ohr part should slide together quickly to form johr.  Hence,  johr-noh with a rolled r.

The Dummies book explains this in a totally different way.  It states that an e or i after a g indicates the g should be pronounced the same as j in jam, instead of  the usual g as in get.  Where the Dummies book differs is that it says that to obtain the “j” sound before a,o or u you have to insert an i.  But it then goes on to say, and this is the big difference, that the i serves only to indicate the proper sound of the g, and you do not pronounce it.  Hence giorno is pronounceed johr-noh (and not jee-ohr-noh).

So in words with “ge” or “gi” the g is pronounced with the “j” sound.  To get the “g” sound (as in get) when the g is before an e or i, you insert an h.  And of course h is not pronounced in Italian.  And so we have “spaghetti.”

It’s interesting, but this totally different way of explaining the pronunciation has made it a lot clearer for me.  Instead of trying to remember lots of rules, I’ve now got a different way of looking at it and understanding it.

However, I’m still having trouble with the pronunciation of o.  The Dummies book says it’s o as in piano (which they write as oh as a guide) and leaves it at that.  An example – espresso.   But I know from listening to Italian there are two ways of pronouncing the vowel, often in the same word.  An example – giorno!

You might by now be thinking that I’ve been learning Italian for almost three months and still haven’t got past buon giorno.  That’s quite true.  But it’s just an example of the some of the confusion in my mind from the different books and sources I’ve been using.  I’d like to get it sorted out in my mind.  At this stage I’m interested to learn whether the books are either wrong in places, or different people have different ways of hearing sounds,or whether the books are dumbing it down for beginners, or even just to make it easier for the authors.

The reality is that I can say buon giorno (as no doubt can you) well enough to be understood by any Italian.  But I’ve noticed the differences between books and travel guides, and I’ve perhaps become more interested in the linguistics side of it than in actually learning Italian itself.

As an example, how would you set out how to pronounce the word “question.”

In fact, ask yourself how you pronounce it.  kwes-tee-on?  kwest-chee-on?  kwest-chon?  kwest-shun? or some other way.

I’ve looked it up in the OED and it says kwestjun.  Well sort of. The u is shown in the OED as an upside and back to front e.  That symbol sounds like a in another.

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