Karl E. H. Seigfried News
American musician
- guitar, double bass
- jazz
- United States of America
- bandleader, composer, conductor, jazz musician, guitarist
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2024-04-25
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2019-05-22 20:07:00
Visionary Stockhausen Donnerstag : Royal Festival Hall
[…] first Michael's voice is the tenor ( Hubert Mayer), but as his identty develops, his musical avatar, Michael-as-Trumpet takes over. The part is huge and demanding, but Henri Deléger holds the whole opera together, from beginning to end : a true virtuoso perforance, full of depth and intensity. The trumpet, too, is shadowed, paired with basset horn and clarinet, each well defined : both of them are Woodbirds to the trumpet, leading it, like Seigfried, on a journey of self discovery. These there instruments joyously interact, reinforcing the concept that positive relationships are inherently creative. In contrast, the Trombone (Mathieu Adam) represents negativity and repression. Stockhausen grew up during the Third Reich and knew how destructive authoitarianism could be. If he was often obsessive in his own life, it was more a matter of focusing things in his own mind than forcing them on others. The trombone is Luzifer's […]
2018-11-05 20:25:00
Wilfred Owen, Dunsden Green - a personal memoir
Wilfred Owen died 100 years ago, but his poetry has made him immortal. But wat shaped Owen's personality, and his singular art ? Unlike Seigfried Sassoon, who recognized Owen's potential when Owen was a gauche nobody, Owen didn't come from an elite background. Owen's parents were not well off, not poor but not secure. After many years moving from place to place they ended up in two up two down Victorian terrace, now facing a downmarket shopping mall on a rough estate. Nonetheless, for years the tenants hung hanging baskets outside, a display so colourful that the houses were a local landmark. Owen's parents and sister are buried in All Saints Church in Dunsden Green, (pictured above) a few miles away, where Owen served as lay assistant to the Vicar from 1911 to February 1913. That connection must have meant a lot to them. Inside the Church, there's a memorial plaque […]
2017-12-14 02:50:00
Powerful statement - Rattle Metamorphosen, Das Lied von der Erde
[…] young, the friends in the pavilion will part. Gerthaher's calm smoothness reminded me of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, who salves troubled souls. Lotus blossoms dignify Kuan Yin in Chinese mythology. The roots grow in darkness and dirt, but the flowers grow towards the sun. The maidens pluck them because they are edible : a source of nutrition in every sense. Eventually the poet/protagonist is silenced, with only a bird (woodwind) as guide (like Seigfried). Then in Der Abschied the journey metamorphosed onto another level altogether. Gerhaher's singing here was exquisite, well modulated and even paced, the last words "ewig...ewig...ewig" expressed with depth and richness.This Rattle/LSO Das Lied von der Erde was also outstanding because Rattle understood its structural architecture. The work is remarkably symmetric, dualities creating internal links within and between each section. The singers voices are paralleled by flute and oboe. The repeating refrain "Dunkel ist […]
2017-08-20 15:52:00
[…] the night. The peasants (here a single symbolic figure) are terrified by the supernatural, but Klaus-Narr, being a Fool, can recognize the ghosts for what they are - cosmic forces, and the demonic power of Nature.Gurrelieder starts with a rhapsodic prelude, string lines swelling and heaving, harps adding warmth, woodwinds delicate, naturalistic touches. The reference is probably Siegfried's Journey down the Rhine, for Waldemar is about to embark on a journey of destiny. Like Seigfried, Waldemar spends his innocence hunting in the woods, where Tove is concealed. Hence the Wood Dove, like the Wood Dove in Siegfried, an all-seeing avatar. Dense forests, in Germanic culture, symbolize powerful, though sinister, primeval forces. The subconscious, source of creativity and danger. Gurrelieder is song symphony of Wagnerian proportions. Simon O'Neill, being a very experienced Wagnerian brought dramatic authority to the role. Waldemar is no Tristan […]
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