Yesterday’s seminar class began with us discussing the opera, “Turandot,” as a whole and giving each of our inputs, explaining the positives and negatives, as well as what we felt was good and bad. I greatly appreciated discussing the “minor character”, Liu and her role holistically in the opera. But, I didn’t really quite understand why her death was barely paid attention too, however at the same token it made the man more emotionally appealing to Turandot. Being this opera was the first one I ever attended, I was amazed at the scenery and the discipline the conductor must have for his/her orchestra.
The next part of class was a change of pace because I, along with the rest of the class were introduced to a man named, Michael Sirotta, who has traveled all over the world and wrote music from instruments all over the world. Thankfully, the Internet has brought this ever-expanding source of music so easily into our lives. On Sunday, Professor Sirotta is having his newly-written orchestral composition displayed at the Staten Island Philharmonic, and our class is lucky enough to be given the opportunity to attend such an empowering and breathtaking show. This particular piece explores musically a Jewish folk song by Mark Warshawsky, who was a lawyer in the Ukraine, and created Yiddish tunes. I was completely unaware that the alphabet used for Yiddish is in fact the Hebrew language.
I found it so interesting how Professor Sirotta’s first musical memory was so vivid and remembered exactly where, when, and what exactly it was. It just shows me, that it greatly influenced his future and this memory will be forever embedded into his brain. This song that he listened to when he was only five years old was “Ofyn Pripetshok,” better known as the second Jewish national anthem. I was shocked when I heard that statement, because I didn’t really understand how it fits into the category of being a national anthem. This piece is about a Rabbi who teaches small children the Hebrew alphabet, but out of no where the Rabbi hits you in the gut emotionally, by saying that he hopes his students will realize the tears that exist in all the letters in the alphabet, and more importantly, gain the strength to go about each day.
After Professor Sirotta finished discussing why he chose this particular piece to display at the musical gathering on Sunday, he provided us with two different variations of the composer, Johannes Brahms with and without the orchestra. He made it clear to us that, in the 20th century, composers still wanted to do variations and themes, but didn’t want to follow the structure except for some phrases. Therefore, they made their own variations which us, as the audience, cant sing or recognize.
Michael’s piece is a set of variations, not exact phrases by phrase, but was more interested in the melody and harmonic possibilities, so he deconstructed the melody and put it back in different ways, creating introductions and themes emerging out of it. I am looking forward to attending my first Philharmonic and it’s very convenient that it’s held at the College of Staten Island.