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Iversen’s Multiconfused Log (see p.1!)

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Hobbema
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 Message 2177 of 3959
20 December 2010 at 4:22pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
Good question. In major orchestras the musicians are selected through an international competition, and therefore you can have people from many countries sitting in the same orchestra. Conductors are if possible even more international, and even though some may be polyglots they can't cover all languages.


All good points in this post.   I have had a little experience with this, and I myself have played under international conductors. I have not seen one yet that doesn’t know good English. But while verbal communication can be helpful, it’s not always necessary. All serious musicians that I know (even those in high school) are well acquainted with at least the common Italian, French, and German musical terms. And especially in an accomplished orchestra, it is expected that each musician have the repetoire well prepared before they walk into the rehearsal hall, including knowledge of the directions as given on the score by the composer. So by the time the orchestra uses the valuable time of the conductor, communication can be given by the baton, hand motions, and very few words, unless the conductor wants to convey something complex.

Iversen wrote:
...
And you have to know some German (and Italian) to really understand what for instance Gustav Mahler wrote in his 8. Symphony: "A tempo. Etwas [aber unmerklich] gemäßigter, immer mehr fliessend". Or what he meant by "Schalltrichter auf" (all wind instruments should turn the hole at the end of the instruments directly towards the audience). And "Volles Werk" as an order to an organist means "pull all stops". Btw. The 8. Symphony is also called "Symphonie der Tausende" because of all the forces required to perform it. I have read somewhere that orchestral musicians are more likely to be hit by tinnitus and deafness than rock musicians. Those who play Mahler's 8 should wear earplugs.


In a youth orchestra in high school we once played an all German concert under a German conductor. I forget his name, it wasn’t anyone what most would consider famous. But even though he spoke excellent English, he stood on the podium; brusquely and with truly harsh Teutonic efficiency gave all directions in German to a bunch of mostly mono-lingual high school kids. I believe he did this for several reasons:
1.     To teach a bunch of arrogant high school kids to LISTEN closely and not take anything for granted.
2.     To teach us that music is an international language.
3.     To teach us that it is essential to understand music in its cultural context.


Iversen wrote:
]
Kuikentje wrote:
...the Ring seems ridiculous, about some days or weeks long haha!!


Well, I only like the instrument parts (or transcription for orchestra of the rest) so that cuts down the time to something manageable. But Das Rheingold, Die Valküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung each last some 3-4 hours, so if you started listening in the early morning you could be through the ordeal before midnight. Parsifal and Die Meistersinger are longer.


Mahler and Wagner can be exciting but also exhausting. Here’s a mental misfire....a few decades ago I visited the Wagner museum in Lucerne. It was his home for a period of time, when he lived in Switzerland, and in that house was a painting depicting a scene I think from the Ring, which captured my imagination and which I have always wondered its title and who painted it. I have never been able to find it in an internet search. It depicts (Brünnhilde?) or some woman with long blond hair past her butt, in some heroic Nordic scene, and as a teenager I fell in love with her and all of Wagner’s music. Despite finding out later that the Ring Trilogy lasts 15 hours or more....

Is that geeky or what!

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Iversen
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 Message 2178 of 3959
21 December 2010 at 12:46am | IP Logged 
I have in some periods played in amateur orchestras, but luckily never under those authoritarian conductors - and I am glad that I didn't have to earn my money as an orchestral musicians under people like Toscanini, Reiner, Szell and Stokowski (just to mentions a few of those reputed for their dictatorial tendencies, but eminent musicianship).

But there are even worse jobs around.

PLATT: Ek höff höört een lüttje been Platt vanavond vun een VHS Band mit Sennungen ut NDr. Ik höff de eerste halfe höört vör ek mien Video op Platt maakte, man eerst de tweede nu gehöört , en dat var meestendeels mit ölle lüu die sien ganze leven in de Torfpeet arbeideten - un wie sie sik afrackert höffen, dat war aver gruselig! Ik glööp toch, dat 't bedenklich is immer ölle lüü vun dem Lande te wiesen, wenn 'vun Platt die Taal is - 't is niet good vör die "Image" vun die niederdüütsche Spraak!

Tonight I have for instance watched the second half of my 4 hour VHS tape with Low German programs from NDR, - I watched the first half before making my video in Platt. However the second part mostly showed old people who had worked 3 months every year of their lives in the peat bogs - and that was certainly bonecrushingly hard work, if anything! But while it was interesting to see whole process of digging for peat I'm not too happy with the image such programs give of the Low German language - you will automatically associate it with boring hard work in a rural setting from Anno Dazumal, not with modern living conditions when you have watched such programs.

But there are other rotten jobs. I have also watched the English series where Tony Robinson from the Time Team goes through the whole English history to find the all-times most appalling jobs. And while washing Henry VIII's fat bum definitely belongs on this list, Mr. Robinson pointed to a job that in all respects must have been far worse: making gut string of rotten feces-filled sheep intestines. Then it must surely have been better to be one of the musicians playing pretty music on those strings afterwards, even with a strict conductor!

If you want clean surroundings then Singapore wouldn't be the worst place to start (though they forgot to criminalize ugly music in Changi airport, - once one of my preferred airports). Below follows a short passage from my Bahasa guide and the official translation thereof plus my own hyperliteral rendering:

BA I: Dipenjara karena menyebarang sembarang? Salah!
Jail for jaywalking? False!
Be-prisoned because crossing everything/where? False/Error!

Meskipun tidak jauh dari kenyataan yang ada,
Though not far from the truth,
Though not far from truth which be,

menyeberang sembarangan dan sejumlah kejahatan "kecil" lainnya
jaywalking and a number of other "petty" crimes
crossing everywhere and various crimes 'small' other

yang di negara-negara lain bukan merupakan tindakan ilegal
that are not illegal in other countries
which in people-people (=countries) other not constitute action(s) illegal

(meludah, membuang sampah sembarangan, merokok di tempat-tempat umum, makan di MRT)
(spitting, littering, smoking in public areas, eating in the MRT)
((to) spit, throw waste everywhere, smoke in place-place(s) public, eat in MRT (=metro))

dapat dikenakan hukuman dari S$500 - S$1.000 untuk pelanggar hukum pertama kali.
can incur penalties from S$500 - S$1.000 for first-time offenders.
can be-incurred penalty(s) from dari S$500 - S$1.000 for offender(s) law first time.



Edited by Iversen on 21 December 2010 at 6:57am

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Iversen
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 Message 2181 of 3959
22 December 2010 at 3:41pm | IP Logged 
Hobbema wrote:
the Ring Trilogy lasts 15 hours or more....
Is that geeky or what!

Kuikentje wrote:

Maybe it's geeky I don't know. you liked a warlike woman. Mostly, the Brunhilde pictures aren't pretty, therefore you have seen a different one. In my opinion those people and the Vikings as well, and all the warlike ones are bit frightening.
Some of my plush toys's names are the composers' names, maybe it's geeky as well (the first name, not the surname of the composer). For example I've teddybears who are called Dmitri, Antonin, Gustave, etc haha! but it's a problem because I hate Shostakovitsch now, but the poor teddybear has the name Dmitri because when I was younger I liked his 5th symphony but now I find it irritating and stupid. I like very muhc Dvorák and Mahler, therefore those teddybears are happy. The others haven't composers' names, mostly.



GER: Heutzutage werden fast alle Opern - darunter die von Wagner - aufgeführt ohne irgendwelche Versuch die 'richtige' Zeitalter anzudeuten. Also keine Germanische Urwald mit starke speerbewaffnete langhaarige Walküren, sondern so etwas wie Bürofrauen in einem internationalen Flughafen-Terminal. Und dies ist meiner Meinung nach wirklich albern - auch wenn es so war zum Beispiel Shakespeares Dramen zur Aufführung kamen. Übrigens gehe ich selten zu Konzerten, und niemals in die Oper (weil es dort nicht nur Publikum gibt, aber auch Sänger).

I never go to Opera and rarely to concerts, but I find it utterly strange that the longhaired warlike Germanic Valkyres from the performances at Wagner's own time now universally are replaced with skinny office worker types moving around in something resembling a futuristic airport terminal.


Edited by Iversen on 14 September 2011 at 1:29am

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Iversen
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 Message 2183 of 3959
27 December 2010 at 11:51pm | IP Logged 
Kuikentje wrote:
Ich weiß, dass du kein Fan von Weihnachten bist, aber trotzdem wünsche ich dir

Frohe Weihnachten!

Glædelig Jul!


.. Og godt nytår (happy new year) to everybody out there.

I have spent a few days in the company of my mother and my sister and my two brochures from Singapore and a Bahasa dictionary, a Viennese magazine in Russian (!) and a lot of edible stuff plus a Christmas Tree. Christmas is weird, but my family likes it. It has been freeeeeeeezing cold here, down to minus 23 degrees C, but the infrastructure of most of the country (apart from Bornholm) is functioning. And now I'm back home, where I'll be working the next days - but I also see forward to some serious studying.

RU: Что это, венский журнал по-русски? Этот журнал на самом деле является, его название - "Новый венский Журнал", и я он купил в Инсбруке два месяца назад. Язык легче действительно чтобы понимать чем язык моей книги об истории России, которая уже давно была моим наиважнейшим предметом изучения, и имеются красивые статьи внутри, эксобширной на парках и на садах Австрии. Я с нетерпением жду учиться много об Австрии ... на русском языке!

I bought a magazin in Russian in Innsbruck two months ago, but didn't open it until now - better late than never. It turned out not to be a magazine for Austrians about Russia, but rather one about Austria in Russian - and the language appears to be easier to deal with than that of my Russian history book, which so far has been my main study object (i.e. intensive study where I acribically scrutinize one page at a time).

BA I: Saya belajar juga Bahasa Indonesia saat Natal - dan untuk menggambarkan ruang lingkup, saya bisa menyebutkan bahwa itu ada hingga 700 kata-kata di daftar saya. Dan tidak, aku tidak bisa mengingat semua, tapi kosakata saya akan tentu tumbuh. Sekarang aku harus mendengarkan setiap radio atau podcast di Bahasa Indonesia, jadi saya juga bisa membuat video dalam bahasa itu. Aku punya nurani sedikit bersalah dalam Bahasa Malaysia, tapi masalahnya adalah bahwa teks-teks terbaik studi adalah di bahasa Indonesia, dan itu termasuk dua brosur saya dari Singapura.

I have also studied Indonesian - and to illustrate the magnitude of this endeavour I'd like to mention that my wordlists from just five days reached 700 words. Even if I forget some of them it has been a real boost for my Indonesian vocabulary. However I must say I have a bad conscience concerning Bahasa Malaysia. Initially this was was the variant I wanted to learn (after my trip to Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia), but my best study texts just turned out all to be in Bahasa Indonesia. So for practical reasons that's the language I'm concentrating on right now.

GE: Natürlich habe ich mich auch mit anderen Sprachen beschäftigt, vor allem durch Fernseh-gucken, und hier sollte man wohl zuerst die drei Stunden erwähnen die Phoenix über dem Niebelungenlied gesendet hat - sehr komplizierte Sachen! Jedoch habe ich diese Arbeit hier früher diskutiert und werde nicht mehr darüber sagen (jedenfalls nicht bevor ich dies alles im Original lesen kann)

NO: Min mor og min søster bor på landet, så de er veldig interessserede i værvarsling. Til variasjon har vi også sett de tyske og svenske og norske værmeldinger, og det virker som hele Midt-og Nord-Europa har blitt senket ned i en fryser!! Næ forresten, i Norge har det vært DOBBELT så kaldt om natten som i en vanlig fryseboks!

Of course I have also dealt with other languages. I have for instance watched a program about the Medieval poem Niebelungenlied on Phoenix for three hours, and I have watched German, Norwegian and Swedish weather forecasts - here in Denmark it is freezing cold, but less so than further North in Scandinavia. Actually it is colder during the night than it is in a standard freezer like the one in your average kitchen.


Edited by Iversen on 14 September 2011 at 1:30am

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