Episodes
Monday Oct 03, 2011
Episode 44
Monday Oct 03, 2011
Monday Oct 03, 2011
Italian Vocal Coach Simone di Felice is with us to discuss more arias from Le nozze di Figaro--since he and I had such a long conversation with a ton of useful information, it will be spread out over two episodes! This week it's Bartolo's aria, "La Vendetta", focusing on some standard verb endings with stressed E, some consonants that are automatically doubled between two vowels and the assimilation of N before certain consonants. The new phonetic letter we talk about is the labio dental [ɱ]. The Opera Guide has a libretto for Le Nozze di Figaro. You'll have to click on Libretto and the letter I (for Italian!), then scroll down to Aria No. 4. The history resources I mentioned on this episode are the classes "History 5: European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present" from UC Berkeley on iTunes University (there are several years to choose from) and the podcast The History of Rome, hosted by Mike Duncan (also available free on iTunes). Feel free to contact me with any comments, questions or suggestions here, on the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com
Tuesday Sep 27, 2011
Episode 43
Tuesday Sep 27, 2011
Tuesday Sep 27, 2011
This is the second part of our 2-part series on Swedish diction, with mezzo-soprano Sofi Lorentzen discussing the text to Sibelius's Fågellek. This week we're talking about consonant combinations and clusters, including: DJ, GJ and HJ (all the j-glide); LG [lj]; GN [ŋn]; NG [ŋ] and NK [ŋk]; KJ and TJ as well as the soft K [ɕ]; SJ, SKJ, STJ and SK before soft vowels [ɧ]; and the R combinations RD [ɖ], RG [rj], RL [l], RN [ɳ], RS [ʂ] and RT [ʈ]. Our text for today, Fågellek, is by Finnish author Karl August Tavaststjerna, considered the first modern Swedish writer in Finnland. If this link works, I found a Swedish site that Google translated here. There are no free online recordings, but some that are available for purchase are Essential Highlights of Karita Mattila and Kim Borg Sings Sibelius Songs (which also has both songs from Episode 42 as well!). The preview clip I found is available at Passionato Classical Music Archives as well. I also found a cute YouTube called Simple Swedish which is good for a laugh, and a website to learn called Learning Swedish Online that offers the first 7 lessons as a free download. Feel free to contact me with questions, comments or suggestions at ellen@ellenrissinger.com
Monday Sep 19, 2011
Episode 42
Monday Sep 19, 2011
Monday Sep 19, 2011
This week we're branching off into a new language--Swedish! In the first of a 2-part series, mezzo-soprano Sofi Lorentzen discusses the vowels and consonants of Swedish, with two songs from Sibelius' Opus 36, No. 4 "Säf, säf, susa" and No.1 "Svarta rosor". The new phonetic letters that we introduce this week are for the letter U [ʉː] & [ɵ] and for the soft K sound [ɕ]. "Säf, säf, susa" is a poem by Gustav Fröding, "Svarta rosor" by Ernst Josephson, a Swedish portrait painter. Composer Jean Sibeluis was Finnish, but most of his songs are to Swedish texts, not surprising since both Finnish and Swedish are equally the official languages of Finnland. Wikipedia has a page on Swedish pronunciation, which I used to help prepare for the interview. The alphabet and writing systems website that I mentioned on this episode is Omniglot, a great resource for all languages which includes tips on learning languages, useful phrases and tongue twisters! They also have a pronunciation page for each language (including Swedish) which includes a phonetic guide. Some of the YouTube clips I found for these songs include: "Säf, säf, susa" with Jussi Björling (and uncredited orchestra?), Birgit Nilsson with the Vienna Opera Orchestra and Håkan Hagegård with Warren Jones on the piano. "Svarta rosor" with Jüssi Björling (again an uncredited pianist!) and a recording from 1902 of Björling's teacher John Forsell with pianist Armas Järnefelt (a contemporary of Sibelius, who studied at the music institute in Helsinki with him). There are many more, these are just a few to get you started! As always, feel free to contact me with questions or comments here, at the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com
Monday Sep 12, 2011
Episode 41
Monday Sep 12, 2011
Monday Sep 12, 2011
Matteo Pais, coach and music coordinator of the Scuola dell'opera italiana in Bologna, joins us this week to talk about two arias from Le nozze di Figaro, Susanna's 4th act aria "Deh, vieni, non tardar" and Cherubino's first aria "Non so più cosa son". We concentrate on Rs in every position, the letter G and what to do when there are millions of vowels in a row. The libretto for Le nozze di Figaro is can be found at the Opera Guide website here--sometimes it defaults to the main entry page, so you may have to click on Libretto and then on the letter "I" for Italian. "Deh, vieni, non tardar" is almost at the end, Recit and Aria Nr. 28, while Cherubino's aria is close to the beginning, Aria Nr. 6. Le nozze di Figaro is based on Pierre Beaumarchais' Le mariage de Figaro, the second in a trilogy of plays (which starts with Le Barbier de Séville). The librettist for Mozart's opera, Lorenzo da Ponte led a very colorful life that's worth looking into as well! As always, please feel free to contact me with questions, comments or suggestions here, at the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com
Monday Sep 05, 2011
Episode 40
Monday Sep 05, 2011
Monday Sep 05, 2011
English Diction is our topic this week, covering the texts to "The Roadside Fire" and the aria "Iris, hence away" from Händel's Semele with vocal coach Mark Lawson, contralto Rebecca Raffell and tenor Donald George. Our focus is on what to do with Rs, WH words, the crazy spelling in English and some differences between American Standard and British Received pronunciation. Some of the new phonetic symbols referred to on this episode are [ɝ] and [ɚ] (for those Rs in diphthongs and triphthongs) and [ɒ] (for the British open back rounded vowel). The Roadside Fire is the 11th poem in Robert Louis Stevenson's Songs of Travel and Other Verses (although most of us know it as the 3rd song in Ralph Vaughan Williams' song cycle Songs of Travel). Most of Stevenson's novels, poems and essays are in the public domain and available as free downloads at Project Gutenberg. Here is a libretto for Händel's Semele, for Juno's Aria, scroll down to Accompagnato Nr. 31 "Awake Saturnia from thy lethargy" and Air Nr. 34 "Iris, hence away", skipping over Iris' Recitative in the middle. iTunes University is a free way to "visit" university classes--they have topics ranging from all the classical to modern languages, history, Fine Arts, mathematics, humanities... pretty much anything that universities offer, there's a class on iTunes U for it. Just go to your iTunes Store and look across the top for the heading iTunes U. I also mention the term "Lingua franca" at the beginning of the podcast, and I learned that phrase from iTunes U! Just as a reminder, I refer quite a bit to the two main books on English Diction, Madeleine Marshall's The Singer's Manual of English Diction which has been the standard for many years, and Kathryn LaBouff's Singing and Communicating in English, which covers the differences between American Standard, British Received and the Mid-Atlantic Dialect in great detail. Feel free to contact me with questions, comments or suggestions here, at the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com
Monday Aug 29, 2011
Episode 39
Monday Aug 29, 2011
Monday Aug 29, 2011
Happy neue Spielzeit! We're back from summer vacation discussing German diction, covering the texts to "Die Lotoblume" and "Liebst du um Schönheit" with tenor Mirko Roschkowski and coach Hans Sotin. We concentrate on the assimilation of consonants and also discuss and compare some common open and closed Es with soprano Karen Bandelow. "Die Lotosblume" is a Heinrich Heine poem set by many composers, the most familiar setting by Robert Schumann (part of Myrthen, Op. 25). The poem "Liebst du um Schönheit" was written by Friedrich Rückert, and also set by many composers--the ones by Gustav Mahler (as the 5th song in the cycle Rückert Lieder) and Clara Schumann are both performed very often. Following a fellow podcaster's advice, I'm trying something new with the audio format, to improve the quality but also lower the file size. I'm not very technologically adept, so hopefully it will work correctly this first time, please let me know if there's a problem! Feel free to contact me with comments or suggestions either here, at the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com
Monday Jul 11, 2011
Episode 38 - Special Edition
Monday Jul 11, 2011
Monday Jul 11, 2011
We're back to basics again today! Conductor Jonathan Darlington reminds us what all the other markings in the score are about--from tempo indications to metronome markings to rubato and col canto, we discuss what composers are trying to tell us, and compare the markings a little between Italian, French and German. There are many online dictionaries of musical terms, but the best one I found for our purposes was from the Dolmetsch Organization. They have all the terms we referred to in this podcast, and also have the French and German equivalents most of the time. There are also many musical dictionaries in book form and for Kindle (since I don't own one myself, I don't know which to recommend, so make sure to get a look inside it first). I'll be on "vacation" with the International Performing Arts Institute in Kiefersfelden, Germany, and the University of Miami's Program in Salzburg, Austria, for the next few weeks, so the podcast will start back up again on August 28. Feel free to contact me with questions or comments here, at the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com Meanwhile, have a fabulous, relaxing summer!
Monday Jun 13, 2011
Episode 37
Monday Jun 13, 2011
Monday Jun 13, 2011
This week, Spanish bel canto tenor José Bros works through the texts of "La maja y el ruiseñor" and "La maja dolorosa No. 3" with us. We're concentrating on diphthongs and other instances when vowels in Spanish come together, which happens quite a lot! We also talk about the difference between [nj] and [ɲ]. Here is the text for Enrique Granados' Goyescas (this libretto is sideways, so it's probably easier to print out to read!); the aria "La maja y el ruiseñor" starts Cadro III on page 28. The text for "La maja dolorosa No. 3" is here. For anyone interested in seeing Francisco Goya's paintings of Majos and Majas, this website contains photos of his complete works online. The idea for this podcast came from a posting on the Facebook page--I really do take suggestions and questions seriously, so please keep asking! I may not be able to honor all requests, but I do try to use the ideas that people have. Please feel free to contact me here, at the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com
Thursday May 26, 2011
Episode 36
Thursday May 26, 2011
Thursday May 26, 2011
Russian Diction is our topic this week--baritone Dmitri Vargin helps us work through the text to Onegin's aria "Вы мне писали... Когда бы жизнь домашним кругом". Our focus this time is on unstressed Os in every position. Finally there's a working link to this libretto that doesn't need to be downloaded! So here is the libretto for Евгений Онегин, scroll down to "page" 37 to find the recitative and aria for today. If you have the book Russian Songs and Arias, be aware of two typos in their transcription of this aria: In the first line, кругом has the wrong stressed syllable so the O is unstressed On the second page of it, the seventh line, годам also has the wrong stressed syllable so in this case the O is stressed. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments or suggestions here, at the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com
Monday May 16, 2011
Episode 35
Monday May 16, 2011
Monday May 16, 2011
This week we're covering German diction again, with baritone Christoph Pohl and vocal coach Michael Schütze, focusing on the texts to "Mondnacht" and "Die Mainacht". The episode started off being about open and closed Ü, and ended up branching out in a few different directions, including double consonants and open and closed U and I. The text to Josef von Eichendorff's poem "Mondnacht" can be found here. It has been set by many composers, but the version most people know best is by Robert Schumann in his Liederkreis Op 39. Our second text is "Die Mainacht", a poem by Ludwig Heinrich Christoph Hölty. You'll notice that the text contains 4 verses, but we used the Brahms setting (which is probably the most famous) which only uses Verses 1, 3 and 4. We mention the ß in passing in this episode. If you need a refresher on that, check out episodes 8 and 22, where that topic is covered a little more in-depth. The University of Iowa website that I referred to is here. You can see the side-view tongue diagrams that many diction books contain here in motion, in English and Spanish as well as German. Please feel free to contact me with questions, comments or suggestions here, at the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com