That's true Sergey. Just after I left the Royal College, I was looking for some decent work and managed to get an oboe job for a Puccini Run in London. Before I even turned up for rehearsals and get used the the opera house, I went through the whole of the libretto of Madame Butterfly, checking to see how the oboe parts might relate to the voice and what they were saying. Did the same for Boheme, Tosca and his comic one, Gianni Schicchi. In all of them except the comic one, I found myself becoming too involved with the story to the point that I found it very difficult to play in certain points; basically because I understood what was happening up on the stage.
So when poor Tosca watched her bloke being shot, the sound of the rifles just made me rigid. Tosca is talking to herself about how he should keep still and drop at the right movement, because she believes it to be a mock execution, when all along it's a real one.Let alone where she chucked herself off the top of the ramparts.
Boheme just pulls me apart all the way through. That is such a sad opera about consumption. It must have been a shocking thing to watch in those days.
Madame Butterfly is hilarious because we just play a Japanese theme at the end, but because she is killing herself, it's terrible!!!! The callous ex boyfriend turning up married and she's killing herself with a baby there....... omg.
So I have these operas where I had great difficulty playing them in places because of my understanding of what was happening.
Just shows that the understanding the words makes a lot of difference.
Actually, for some reason, I have trouble with the finale of Swan Lake as well. Tchaikovsky plays around with the Swan theme on the oboe and he alters things from minor to major and all hell breaks loose on stage. However, Tchaikovsky can get to me via pure sound as well. Russian ballet and opera are particularly powerful especially with gongs, bells and the dramatic use of brass. Just the sound of it reaches me terribly.
Even to this day at the grand old age of 63, I feel it terribly. It makes me feel such a girl's blouse.
Understanding is paramount to how a lot of music affects people, but the big Russian romantic stuff affects me just through pure sound. Even hearing a Russian orchestra sound is spine chilling. The brass in particular can be spectacular. I'm not so keen on the Russian oboe sound which is a bit bleaty.
Russian orchestras have this rawness about their sound that you don't hear anywhere else in the world. They can be very aggressive and also, very sophisticated sounding (in a very different way to British orchestras actually) Sometimes even crude sounding at the big highlight moments; particularly in Russian music,
The Shostakovich symphonies are also powerful soundscapes and raw as hell. His sarcasm and swipes have the hairs rising in my neck!!!! Russian orchestras playing his stuff is something else.
The ones I can play and love to death are the Stravinsky ballets. Firebird, Petrouchka and Rite of Spring. I gained a lot of insight into the Rite with Boulez who dissected everything extremely thoroughly. He scared the pants off me!!
Live performance ....... I'm gripping the seat and have problems playing very often!!!! I get too involved.
Very rare to get anything similar with pop. The Wall by Pink Floyd was very sad for me. I found that quite gruelling when I first heard it and also The Dark Side of the Moon which is about anything associated with lunacy or madness. Again, words get to me ...
'For want of the price, of tea and a slice, the old man died'. Awful.
Oh dear .. you've got me going now and I've forgotten about Imaging on headphones!!!!
well, to be honest, that many musicians coming out of two little earspeakers with anything like reality being included is a pretty amazing feat. The room size in a headphone is inches and they're playing right up against your head. No wonder I can't form an image!!!!