Hello friends, I think it might be post-Thanksgiving blues, but all I wanted to write about is FAST AND LOUD opera. It’s funny, some of the posts I felt the worst about have been read the most and those that I thought were great, feel flat on their faces
There is a common misunderstanding about this question, please don’t fall on it too! I often red that steel strings were invented and adopted following the demand of a louder orchestra. I am a strings specialist. Steel strings were adopted because gut strings suffered from quality problems due to wars and high demand of surgical and tennis strings which required a quite opposite characteristic compared to musical strings. As a consequence in 20th century gut strings broke too often, even every day, and musicians were exasperated. But steel strings cannot give the same sweet pianissimo and not even the same roaring fortissimo than gut strings. That baroque music was all about flebile sound was a misconception of the 20th century revival. Up to today the challenge of musical strings company is still to make a modern string that can compete with a gut one for dynamic range.
Thanks for reading and for the great examples. I love Franco Corelli! Let me add here another classic to lift up spirits: Agitata dai due venti by Cecilia Bartoli
While listening I couldn’t help but notice how handsome Placido is here!
😊I think he was around 30 years old here - a young man!
They all were so young!!!!
Especially enjoyed the choral works. Gets one up and running for the day!
Yes agreed! It's hard not to want to do SOMETHING after listening to them.
Wow Franco Corelli - fantastic
There is a common misunderstanding about this question, please don’t fall on it too! I often red that steel strings were invented and adopted following the demand of a louder orchestra. I am a strings specialist. Steel strings were adopted because gut strings suffered from quality problems due to wars and high demand of surgical and tennis strings which required a quite opposite characteristic compared to musical strings. As a consequence in 20th century gut strings broke too often, even every day, and musicians were exasperated. But steel strings cannot give the same sweet pianissimo and not even the same roaring fortissimo than gut strings. That baroque music was all about flebile sound was a misconception of the 20th century revival. Up to today the challenge of musical strings company is still to make a modern string that can compete with a gut one for dynamic range.
Thanks for reading and for the great examples. I love Franco Corelli! Let me add here another classic to lift up spirits: Agitata dai due venti by Cecilia Bartoli
https://youtu.be/6czLBVqo_zw
thank you for sharing this! And Bartoli singing the Vivaldi is just incredible! One of my all time favorites :-)