Christopher Webber writes to voice his disagreement with my lukewarm review of Golijov's Oceana. One passage caught my eye: > The Neruda setting, "Oceana", is not a Song Cycle in the customary mode. > Its contrasted sections alternate and/or combine a small, combo group > with solo female vocalist against a massive full orchestra and chorus, > but somehow it still feels intimate. The words are indeed used as a > catalyst rather than meant to communicate for themselves, and Golijov's > sound-world - the chamber group with Latino-jazz vocalist strikingly > close in essentials to the Spanish instrumental combos used to accompany > "tonos humanos" songs in 17th century zarzuela - is fascinatingly varied, > in-your-face, and colourful. With its haunting synthesised backing track > of tidal ebbs and flows, this is very much music of today, and whatever > it's replay value, it certainly grabs the listener first time round. I often wonder, even with new music, how much our previous experience colors the present. Christopher had the advantage of relating Golijov to zarzuela, a genre largely unknown to me. Thus, I could relate Oceana to nothing at all, besides other Golijov. I'll have to listen again, obviously. Steve Schwartz *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html