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Does anyone know what the swirling music that plays in the sequence where the vampire drags his coffins from the boat to various locations in the city is?
That is the prelude to Wagner’s Rheingold, used several times in the picture, and taken from the groundbreaking Solti recording of the Ring.
Could you perhaps post a link with a cd that contains this particular recording? many thanks!
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Thank you both!
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Posted: |
Nov 5, 2009 - 11:13 AM
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By: |
Ebab
(Member)
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Film music before film, as some have said.
And this becomes doubly true if one ever has the opportunity to hear the music in Wagner’s Festival House in Bayreuth. Its acoustics have been much praised, and I can’t but add, deservedly so. The orchestra pit is recessed under the stage and covered by a hood, as it was Wagner’s wish to keep the conductor and the orchestra from sight of the audience, thereby eliminating any visual distraction. Through the brilliance of the architectural conception (and probably some luck, too – with acoustics, you can never really tell in advance), the listener cannot localize the source of the music, though, luckily, it remains perfectly clear and present, and not muffled at all. It’s everywhere but without source, surrounds you, wraps you in. It’s not a spectacular effect though, entirely subtle but striking, and very much reminds of the experience of listening to film music in a cinema (only better).
When the lights have gone out completely (another thing that was new in Bayreuth), and you’re looking over an unusually wide – as Wagner called it – “mystical abyss” at the curtain that’s soon going to open to some evocative landscape, and you hear the music starting softly but precisely, coming from somewhere – that’s a perfectly cinematic experience, much unlike that of most other opera houses … like an overture in a movie theater with the finest sound system imaginable.
Don't know what it has to do with Dracula, though. Bit of a distraction, as I recall.
Yah – I’m not sure either if it was such a good idea … The piece is popular, and gives quite specific associations to those who know it, and even if you don’t … it’s a piece where something beautiful and meaningful begins, where you get drawn into a stream of grandeur – I’m not sure what it’s supposed to stand for in the context of the Dracula story.
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Posted: |
Nov 5, 2009 - 10:44 PM
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By: |
Ebab
(Member)
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That way, you're not stuck with the entire opera (which you might not really want to listen to every single minute of) but rather, you can listen to the nice bits (like "The Ride of the Valkyries" , the "Magic Fire Music" and "Forest Murmurs") from all four operas which collectively compise the "Ring" cycle.
That’s an interesting alternative. Allow me though to encourage anybody to hear the works in their entirety, with the libretto and a translation ready, and read the synopsis up front. These are genuine musical dramas where story line, words, stage action, vocal lines and their orchestral counterparts, the leitmotifs that comment and direct forward and back to certain aspects of the story, all come together into one powerful experience – that’s the thing that’s special about Wagner, and it’s not well represented through some excerpts.
Wagner takes work, and some things need getting used to. But it’s rewarding. Since we all here have an interest for music in a larger dramatic context, there might be some people ready for the whole experience.
And if you're not buying into my whole speech, that's all right too.  Maybe all you're really interested in is that cue from Nosferatu, and maybe another nice bit, and that's fine of course. I'm just saying, the full value may not be so readily accessible, but worth discovering.
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Posted: |
Nov 13, 2009 - 6:31 AM
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By: |
antipodean
(Member)
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That’s an interesting alternative. Allow me though to encourage anybody to hear the works in their entirety, with the libretto and a translation ready, and read the synopsis up front. These are genuine musical dramas where story line, words, stage action, vocal lines and their orchestral counterparts, the leitmotifs that comment and direct forward and back to certain aspects of the story, all come together into one powerful experience – that’s the thing that’s special about Wagner, and it’s not well represented through some excerpts.
Tackling the Wagner Ring is something which you need to work up to, since the whole thing runs to 14+ hours - in the same way you wouldn't just decide to run a 42-km marathon without training up to a sufficient level of fitness.
My experience is that just sitting and listening to Wagner is not easy - certainly not parts of Siegfried or Gotterdammerung. I'm sufficiently familiar with Das Rheingold and Die Valkure to be able to get through either work in its entirety without difficultly - see my first point above - but that said, these two operas are also pretty self-contained dramas, move along at a reasonable pace, and can be appreciated as standalone works; whereas Siegfried and Gotterdammerung are darker and moodier in theme (you don't even hear a single female voice in Siegfried till about 2.5 hours into the opera), and much, much more slower-paced (the first act of Gotterdammerung alone is longer than the entirety of La boheme).
On the other hand - if you ever have the opportunity to watch a Ring cycle in its entirety, the sheer length and spectacle of it is an unforgettable, awesome experience (and I don't mean videos, either.) I was at the 2004 Adelaide Ring, and was in fact a bit more than just an audience member: I was invited by the Wagner Society of South Australia to present a talk as part of their lecture series around the performances, had the chance to take a backstage tour of the Adelaide Festival Centre between Valkyrie and Siegfried, and one of the Rheinmaidens was a classmate of mine.
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