Klarinet Archive - Posting 000014.txt from 2008/02

From: "Alexander Brash" <brash@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Strauss' use of orgasms
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:27:29 -0500

This thread might have some real potential.

I know there was a scandal with Nijinsky's original portrayal of the Faun
in the Debussy - he apparently mimed masturbation and climax onstage (not
spamming here, it even shows up in the wiki article on him).

Other musical or artistic portrayals of coitus? I think Mozart often used
clarinets to indicate the hanky-panky was about to start, but I'm sure Dan
knows more details :)

Alex

On Fri, February 1, 2008 12:29 pm, Daniel Leeson wrote:
> In speaking about Salome, I mentioned that Strauss presented music to
> describe Salome's orgasm. This apprentaly is her first because she is a
> real
> necrophiliac, unable to achieve sexual satisfaction except in the present
> of
> a dead body or even a fragment of a body. And she would have had little
> previous opportunity or experience with that kind of thing. (By the way,
> necrophila is illegal almost everywhere. It is pretty icky stuff.)
>
> But that opera was not the last time that Strauss would use orchestral
> music
> to simulate an orgasm.
>
> Just before the curtain rises on Rosenkavalier's first act, the orchestral
> music infers that the couple (the 17-year old Octavian and the 36 year old
> Marshallin) are having sex. And suddenly, in case you are from a small
> midwestern town and don't know much about this kind of thing, Stauss give
> the orchestra's 4 horns some three or four giant whoops, that simply have
> no
> place in the orchestral music's material. But now that you know what they
> are, pay attention to the music the next time you hear or play
> Rosenkavalier.
>
> Dan Leeson
> dnleeson@-----.net
> SKYPE: dnleeson
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> The Woodwind.Org 2008 Donation Drive has started. Visit
> https://secure.donax-us.com/donation/ for more information.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------------
The Woodwind.Org 2008 Donation Drive has started. Visit
https://secure.donax-us.com/donation/ for more information.
------------------------------------------------------------------