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Harris's 13th

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Author Topic: Harris's 13th  (Read 3100 times)
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Jim
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« on: March 17, 2013, 11:15:14 pm »

the text is so toe-curlingly embarrassing as to doom the entire work out of hand.

Careful, if you put Kaddish into room 101, Tippet 3 will have to go too ;D

PARTS of the text are embarrassing, but then it is supposed to be the composer's inner voice, 'warts and all'. I don't think it worse than Harris 13 because as inner dialogue it is more convincing than Harris' outer empty declamations. Maybe it is a peculiarly English thing but even the Copland Lincoln portrait is a bit embarassing with all the, 'That's what he said' repetitions.

Let me make a suggestion: go and hear Carmen sung in English and I am sure you would agree that it is pure doggerel (unless brilliantly improved by Hammerstein for 'Carmen Jones'). You may even say that the 'text is so toe-curlingly embarrassing as to doom the entire work out of hand'. Now the question arises, how many choral/vocal works that we consider masterpieces have substandard texts that we monoglots are blissfully unaware of?
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