Prosaic Torture by a Tory for 200 Years

Sometimes the best way to escape the sheer terror of the stress mounting everywhere around you is to ignore it and pretend it isn't there, if only for a short time.  This is me doing just that, in my haven at Harmony House.

Welcome to hell week.

Thumbing through my leather book of scribblings, I've noticed that many of my Scarlequain deal with historical figures, be they operatic performers/reformers, serial rapists, or random men of the French Revolution.  ...it is with an ashamed demeanor that I admit my love of immortally binding these people with my words is very Wilhoitesque.

At any rate, I figured I could share a few of those poems with you as a tribute to those people who have lived and died, and yet who did something with their lives that was significant enough to make us remember them.

First of all (because let's face it, from the instant I mentioned the two words "serial rapist" that's all you've been thinking about): Don Giovanni!

*insert extreme groan of disdain from every Bryanite musician who has slaved under DW's tutelage.*

Fashioned after the Spanish player Don Juan, Don Giovanni is an Italian playboy who boasts of having laid around 1,200ish women in his travels and escapades, and ends up getting sent to hell for his raucus lifestyle (because I totally didn't use the word raucus in my paper on DG...).  Yes...we had to write a paper on this guy.  So here you are, for your pleasure.  A tribute to Don Giovanni, star of the opera buffa (hint, hint, freshies...), and by implication, the great Mozart, and the suffering we all endured in his name.

Don Giovanni and the Commendatore

Don Juan,

Will gone,

Shoot me now,

To torture voluntarily bow:

Music History Paper.

I decided I should write a poem for this next guy because, let's face it...how many people actually know about operatic reformers?  I'm a music major and had no idea who this guy was previous to about a month ago (thanks DW).  At any rate, Christoph Willibald Gluck was the most famous of operatic reformers.  He decided opera's music should serve the poetry and plot of the libretto (the guy who writes the words), and he restored the role of the chorus (the big conglomeration of peeps who sing aside from the soloists), integrated an orchestra, and added much more variety to the solos that were sung.  Props, Gluck!  With a name like that...you need to be remembered for something.  ...other than your name.

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Serve the story,

In the Whig of a Tory,

Music was torn,

Need operatic reform:

Enter Willibald Gluck!

I recently found the first Scarlequain I wrote in Music History class, where this all began, and chucked a bit to myself.  Even after flipping through my Music History notes, I couldn't find who this poem is about.  I do recall the details, however.  It seems there was this one chap who was just before Gluck (who, upon further consideration, is my hero), and wanted opera to be based solely on prose and not poetry.  Being the beatnik/hippie/romantic/weirdo that I am, that sort of set me off, as it were (that's for you, Dad).  So I wrote this poem about my distaste for that fellow, for prose, and for the Enlightenment in general (if only just for this one aspect of it):

 Here is a picture of Kant.  Because Enlightenment.

Prosaic demoniac,

Raging maniac,

Poetry, not prose,

Mere dirt in your toes:

Enlightenment buzz.

Finally, and probably the sole inspiration for this post, here is my homage to the two great composers who were born in 1813, and consequentially, celebrate their 200th birthday this year: Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner (ri-CARD VAHG-ner.  See, you learn something new every day.)  Both men were extremely important and influential in their respective nations: people used to cry "Viva Verdi" (used as an acronym for the King of Italy during the Revolution that was stirring in the 1850-60s: Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia), and, believe it or not, Hitler got much inspiration from the antisemitic writings of Wagner, and was deeply inspired to "preserve the motherland" after hearing one of Wagner's operas and visiting his grave site.  Despite these seemingly undesirable associations today, these men remain two of the greatest composers of the 19th century.

(Time out before I celebrate these two great men.  Let me say that it is a sin that Carrie Underwood is starring in a redo of The Sound of Music.  Just...no.  It should NEVER be redone.  Ever.)

At any rate, happy birthday to them both:

Giuseppe Verdi

Richard Wagner

200 years,

Raise Euro beers,

Salute the greats,

Despite Hitler's hate:

Verdi and Wagner.

And now you have been introduced to one of the largest areas of my life.  I am a musician, and I love it.  Will it pay?  Will I continue down this path after I leave the Hill?  Right now, I don't know, and I don't care.  Pardon me while I take another sip of my coffee.