hobgoblinn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hobgoblinn) wrote2007-12-31 12:02 pm
hobgoblinn) wrote2007-12-31 12:02 pm
Entry tags:
More Church wittering, and a Movie/ Music Review
Thanks first to all who expressed support in my recent travails with the Church. For those who are interested, here's a site with some shots of the inside of the church in question. The second photo down shows the choir loft in which, or under which, I sing every Sunday and Holy Day. The fourth shows the stained glass window I face every week-- one of the largest in the world. With all the cool stuff to see in there, is it any wonder Wee Hob wanders a bit? And there are even cooler hidey holes and secret passages you can't see in these photos.
I know that a Church is way more than beautiful surroundings, though. Even though I could probably get paid a lot to sing elsewhere (Peter in Chains in Downtown Cinci pays people to sing Bach and stuff, and I could get an audition easily enough if I wanted), this Church ,and more importantly, its people, were there for me at a very bad time in my life. They are not running me off, even though they have succeeded in running off a lot of other people in the pews, and I have heard rumors of big donors changing their wills and tithing habits based on lots of other badly handled situations in the past couple of years since this new Rector and Bishop came. I'm not talking about Sexual Abuse-- I think Bishop Foys has sincerely and decently handled the fallout from situations that far predated his presence in the Diocese, with compassion and dignity for the victims. I'm talking about day to day slights, especially against those who do not share the Steubenville mentality that everything would be okay in the world if only we would revert to the Latin Mass and 1950's practices of piety and devotion and bowing to Church Authority Without Question. As a member of both the Bishop's Choir and the Contemporary Music Group Anawim (means little poor ones in Hebrew, I'm told. If anyone cares), I see better than most how differently the two are treated. One sings Latin a lot, one does not. One gets thanked profusely a lot, and the other-- not so much. Though the Bishop has gotten better about it. Maybe someone talked to him.
At any rate, I'll make an appointment with His Importantness and see what can be worked out. I think he really doesn't know my situation, or anything about kids who aren't mindless robots. And that is perhaps the best thing that can be said about him.
But enough of that, what about the Movie?
Yeah. I saw Sweeney Todd Twice yesterday. I turned out to have some time before mass after boy was gone, and I decided to go then, because it would be cheaper. Then liked it so much, I went back after, when I was originally intending to go.
It was amazing. All the singing actors cast did a wonderful job, even surprising people like Timothy Spall (of Peter Pettigrew fame). Helena Bonham Carter is no Angela Lansbury, but for the most part, she doesn't need to be. Not in this film. As I said in some comments on my other related post, one way you can tell singers from non-singers is when they try to sing harmony. Even non-trained actors with any degree of natural ability can stick to a part if drilled enough and they're singing solo. They tend to wander off a bit when they sing against someone else. Rickman has a surprisingly good singing voice, and he absolutely Nails the lower harmony against Depp every time. I could have done with less blood and gore, and I'm sorry they cut Tony Head and the ghosts out (though he has a "blink or you'll miss it" cameo). But I much enjoyed it, and Alan is delicious as always. Several people commented he's sung before, in Truly, Madly, Deeply. So I'll have to seek that out somewhere. The plot looks interesting, and a clip on Youtube was neat, too. Alan as a ghost, 15 or so years ago-- even with the cheesy mustache, that will be cool to see.
Stephen Sondheim-- what's not to love?
Since I have nothing to do today at work, I might as well make good my promise to share my thoughts on Stephen Sondheim. Did you know he got his start writing the lyrics to Bernstein's West Side Story? One thing you notice, even that early, is how clever his rhymes are. But when you get to his music and lyrics, you get a whole new level of art.
For one thing, he's got an amazing ear for the rhythms of Speech, and his settings reflect this. English is by far the hardest language to sing intelligibly-- having rhythm on your side is a huge plus. The human brain is wired to gather information quickly by adding what it's expecting, and Sondheim uses that tendency a great deal.
But the rhymes, very unusual and clever, add a sense of wicked playfulness to the mix. He often adds rhyme to the interior of lines, as well as the end, which adds some structure to things. The example coming to mind right now is from "A Little Priest": "The trouble with Poet is how do you know it's deceased? Try the Priest." (Poet/ know it). Another less playful one is from "Not While I'm Around": "No one's gonna hurt you/ No one's gonna dare/ Others can desert you, not to worry/ Whistle I'll be there". (hurt/ desert).
But those are technical things. Where Sondheim excels is encapsulating complex emotions and plot in his music. I wore out a tape of "Side by Side by Sondheim", a musical review of his earlier work. What's so cool about it is not just the numbers, but the fact that even when I didn't know what show a song was from or what was going on at that point in the show, I could guess quite a lot from the songs themselves. In "You Must Meet My Wife," a pair of old lovers are conversing about the man's new, young wife. He's cluelessly oblivious that she she still loves him, and she has a number of asides that he completely misses, until the end, where he finally hears her ("You must meet my wife"-- "Let me get my hat and my knife" --"Eh? What was that?"). You get a small example of that kind of double take from Rickman and Depp in Todd: in the reprise of "Pretty Women" the Judge remarks on their kindred spirits as men of the world, and Depp makes a sly dig at their similar tastes in Women. But listen through "Side by Side" sometime, and you'll see Sondheim up to this quite a lot. We get more information through the musical numbers than the dialogue, especially when people are being deceptive and acting out conflicting states of mind.
A chilling example of how music tells you more than words, is the beautiful "Not While I'm Around." Touching and sweet when Toby sings it, the verse Mrs. Lovett sings is-- yeah. The strings underneath in dissonance are unsettling, and you really don't need to see facial expressions to know there's more going on than what little Toby sees (though Helena Bonham Carter does a good job with this as an actress. She just has lots of help.)
My favorite all time Sondheim show (and I have by no means seen them all) is "Into the Woods." That's another tape I wore out listening to it, back in the day. What surprised me most when I finally saw it was how almost every bit of the plot progression is covered by the music. The only thing I wasn't clear on until I saw it was how the Narrator suddenly wasn't there anymore (because the characters get upset with the way he's telling their story and feed him to the Giant. Very funny and cool.) If you can locate a DVD of this with Bernadette Peters as the Witch, I highly recommend it.
Sondheim's musicals tend to take technical expectations (rhythm, language) and work with them to help an audience get all the text possible, while at the same time taking emotional/plot expectations and turning them on their head. "Into the Woods" takes traditional fairy tales to their "expected" conclusion in the first half, only to turn them completely around and tell us true things about our own lives in the second. Sweeney Todd is more standard tragedy/ revenge play, but there are isolated examples even there-- Sondheim likes to use echoes from earlier in his shows to highlight things later. Early on, Todd and Mrs. Lovett are waltzing to some highly inappropriately cheerful music as they sing about preying on their fellow man-- the effect later at the end when this music comes back is-- well, it's all chilling. But in the good way.
If you haven't seen Todd, go. Try to find the original stage version too-- see what's different and how much more music does than cinematography-- or what their different strengths are. And by all means, if you don't know Sondheim's work, take the opportunity to seek some out. You will not be sorry.
I know that a Church is way more than beautiful surroundings, though. Even though I could probably get paid a lot to sing elsewhere (Peter in Chains in Downtown Cinci pays people to sing Bach and stuff, and I could get an audition easily enough if I wanted), this Church ,and more importantly, its people, were there for me at a very bad time in my life. They are not running me off, even though they have succeeded in running off a lot of other people in the pews, and I have heard rumors of big donors changing their wills and tithing habits based on lots of other badly handled situations in the past couple of years since this new Rector and Bishop came. I'm not talking about Sexual Abuse-- I think Bishop Foys has sincerely and decently handled the fallout from situations that far predated his presence in the Diocese, with compassion and dignity for the victims. I'm talking about day to day slights, especially against those who do not share the Steubenville mentality that everything would be okay in the world if only we would revert to the Latin Mass and 1950's practices of piety and devotion and bowing to Church Authority Without Question. As a member of both the Bishop's Choir and the Contemporary Music Group Anawim (means little poor ones in Hebrew, I'm told. If anyone cares), I see better than most how differently the two are treated. One sings Latin a lot, one does not. One gets thanked profusely a lot, and the other-- not so much. Though the Bishop has gotten better about it. Maybe someone talked to him.
At any rate, I'll make an appointment with His Importantness and see what can be worked out. I think he really doesn't know my situation, or anything about kids who aren't mindless robots. And that is perhaps the best thing that can be said about him.
But enough of that, what about the Movie?
Yeah. I saw Sweeney Todd Twice yesterday. I turned out to have some time before mass after boy was gone, and I decided to go then, because it would be cheaper. Then liked it so much, I went back after, when I was originally intending to go.
It was amazing. All the singing actors cast did a wonderful job, even surprising people like Timothy Spall (of Peter Pettigrew fame). Helena Bonham Carter is no Angela Lansbury, but for the most part, she doesn't need to be. Not in this film. As I said in some comments on my other related post, one way you can tell singers from non-singers is when they try to sing harmony. Even non-trained actors with any degree of natural ability can stick to a part if drilled enough and they're singing solo. They tend to wander off a bit when they sing against someone else. Rickman has a surprisingly good singing voice, and he absolutely Nails the lower harmony against Depp every time. I could have done with less blood and gore, and I'm sorry they cut Tony Head and the ghosts out (though he has a "blink or you'll miss it" cameo). But I much enjoyed it, and Alan is delicious as always. Several people commented he's sung before, in Truly, Madly, Deeply. So I'll have to seek that out somewhere. The plot looks interesting, and a clip on Youtube was neat, too. Alan as a ghost, 15 or so years ago-- even with the cheesy mustache, that will be cool to see.
Stephen Sondheim-- what's not to love?
Since I have nothing to do today at work, I might as well make good my promise to share my thoughts on Stephen Sondheim. Did you know he got his start writing the lyrics to Bernstein's West Side Story? One thing you notice, even that early, is how clever his rhymes are. But when you get to his music and lyrics, you get a whole new level of art.
For one thing, he's got an amazing ear for the rhythms of Speech, and his settings reflect this. English is by far the hardest language to sing intelligibly-- having rhythm on your side is a huge plus. The human brain is wired to gather information quickly by adding what it's expecting, and Sondheim uses that tendency a great deal.
But the rhymes, very unusual and clever, add a sense of wicked playfulness to the mix. He often adds rhyme to the interior of lines, as well as the end, which adds some structure to things. The example coming to mind right now is from "A Little Priest": "The trouble with Poet is how do you know it's deceased? Try the Priest." (Poet/ know it). Another less playful one is from "Not While I'm Around": "No one's gonna hurt you/ No one's gonna dare/ Others can desert you, not to worry/ Whistle I'll be there". (hurt/ desert).
But those are technical things. Where Sondheim excels is encapsulating complex emotions and plot in his music. I wore out a tape of "Side by Side by Sondheim", a musical review of his earlier work. What's so cool about it is not just the numbers, but the fact that even when I didn't know what show a song was from or what was going on at that point in the show, I could guess quite a lot from the songs themselves. In "You Must Meet My Wife," a pair of old lovers are conversing about the man's new, young wife. He's cluelessly oblivious that she she still loves him, and she has a number of asides that he completely misses, until the end, where he finally hears her ("You must meet my wife"-- "Let me get my hat and my knife" --"Eh? What was that?"). You get a small example of that kind of double take from Rickman and Depp in Todd: in the reprise of "Pretty Women" the Judge remarks on their kindred spirits as men of the world, and Depp makes a sly dig at their similar tastes in Women. But listen through "Side by Side" sometime, and you'll see Sondheim up to this quite a lot. We get more information through the musical numbers than the dialogue, especially when people are being deceptive and acting out conflicting states of mind.
A chilling example of how music tells you more than words, is the beautiful "Not While I'm Around." Touching and sweet when Toby sings it, the verse Mrs. Lovett sings is-- yeah. The strings underneath in dissonance are unsettling, and you really don't need to see facial expressions to know there's more going on than what little Toby sees (though Helena Bonham Carter does a good job with this as an actress. She just has lots of help.)
My favorite all time Sondheim show (and I have by no means seen them all) is "Into the Woods." That's another tape I wore out listening to it, back in the day. What surprised me most when I finally saw it was how almost every bit of the plot progression is covered by the music. The only thing I wasn't clear on until I saw it was how the Narrator suddenly wasn't there anymore (because the characters get upset with the way he's telling their story and feed him to the Giant. Very funny and cool.) If you can locate a DVD of this with Bernadette Peters as the Witch, I highly recommend it.
Sondheim's musicals tend to take technical expectations (rhythm, language) and work with them to help an audience get all the text possible, while at the same time taking emotional/plot expectations and turning them on their head. "Into the Woods" takes traditional fairy tales to their "expected" conclusion in the first half, only to turn them completely around and tell us true things about our own lives in the second. Sweeney Todd is more standard tragedy/ revenge play, but there are isolated examples even there-- Sondheim likes to use echoes from earlier in his shows to highlight things later. Early on, Todd and Mrs. Lovett are waltzing to some highly inappropriately cheerful music as they sing about preying on their fellow man-- the effect later at the end when this music comes back is-- well, it's all chilling. But in the good way.
If you haven't seen Todd, go. Try to find the original stage version too-- see what's different and how much more music does than cinematography-- or what their different strengths are. And by all means, if you don't know Sondheim's work, take the opportunity to seek some out. You will not be sorry.
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