Deinonysus wrote:Awesome, what's your favorite song in Winterreise? Mine is Das Wirthaus. I also started out as a baritone that got Shanghaied into singing tenor, although eventually it turned out that I was a low tenor after all.
I was going to ask you if you named yourself after Josquin des Prez, then I checked his Wikipedia article and your icon was right there, so that anwers that question! I do love early music, especially madrigals! I also love recorder music. I bought myself a baroque-style plastic alto recorder but never got around to learning to play it.
I'm reasonably familiar with Handel but had never heard of Dixit Dominus, and I'd never even heard of Buxtehude at all! I'll need to check them out.
I'm listening to your Stile Antico clip now; it's awesome! I'll definitely need to check out more of their stuff! I've honestly never seen a bad Tiny Desk Concert. Even T-Pain's was great.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau got away with singing tons of opera with more of a Lieder voice than an opera voice, so it's definitely doable.
Hey, my favourite song of the
Winterreise is the first one,
Gute Nacht. But I also like
Der Leiermann,
Auf dem Flusse, and
Frühlingstraum. There are so many great songs in this cycle!
Yeah, I named myself after Josquin Desprez, but rather for the sound of his name than for some special affection for hime. I do think he was a good composer (I especially like his chansons
Mille regretz and
El grillo), but he's not my favourite. I prefer Brahms for romantic music and Tallis and Byrd for renaissance music.
I never got around learning the recorder, I started with the bassoon right away. I was pretty good, even played in some amateur orchestras and thought about studying at the conservatory, but when these dreams didn't come true I somehow lost interest. That's when I discovered I was much better at singing than I ever was at playing the bassoon. Also, I liked singing and practising to sing much better. I hated finger and tongue practice for technical passages on the bassoon! I was always better when lyrical melodies were required, so singing was much easier for me than playing an instrument. I also had a year or so of piano lessons, but I didn't get very far. I can still play Bach's
Minuet in G, but thats about it.
Yeah, baritones being shanghaied for singing tenor seems to be quite a common phenomenon!
My voice teacher had been unsure about my voice type for a long time, but now it seems I'm more of a high baritone than a low tenor. I don't really have any problems singing tenor, other than using my head voice a lot, especially for high g's and a's, but I'm much more comfortable in the baritone register.
Buxtehude is probably best known as a mentor of young Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach even did some kind of pilgrimage in order to visit Buxtehude in his hometown of Lübeck. He learned a lot about organ playing from him, I think. Buxtehude is probably the best-known representative of the North German Organ School and has left some impressive toccatas and preludes, but he also composed for other instruments and for voices. His cantatas are still quite well-known in German church music.
I'm glad you like Stile Antico! They're really great. I love everything by them.
Also, thanks for comparing me to Fischer-Dieskau!
Well, we'll see where the journey will take me, but if I'll get good enough for solistic appearances, I'd probably rather sing oratories or, as I said, early music. I'm probably not extroverted enough for a life on the opera stage and I'm much more into church music than into opera anyway. My role model in this regard is Christian Gerhaher, who started as a lied singer and only later became an oratory and opera singer. He has a very special way of singing, but I love his voice and his musicianship. I also like Benjamin Appl, who mainly focuses on songs as well. He hasn't got the very best technique, but his voice is marvellous and he's still young.
Oró, sé do bheatha abhaile! Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.
But learning to sing the classics is the base and I it is a dream come true to explore it. A dream I hadn't known about for a long time. I started rather late, but that is no problem. It is the same as with the languages. Of course spending hours a day on it from the early childhood will lead to the best results. But you can still learn a lot much later.
