My new musical comedy, "Des Kaisers neue Walzer (The Emperor’s new Waltz)" will have its world premiere at the Salzburg State Theatre on March 4. (Details in German below.) The romantic comedy is a 'rich gril meets poor boy' story: Leonie, a billionaire's daughter, who is obsessed with Mozart and wants to be a conductor, and Jonas, a poor gardener but also taltented singer-songwriter. So it's the love story of two young people, but also the love story of two musical worlds: the classical and the popular. The opera is also a parody on the tuneless world of modernist classical music. I want to emphasize, however, that this is not a criticism of the music of any particular composer. I have enormous respect for all composers who in good faith bring their music in front of an audience, regardless of whether I like their music personally or not. My opera only parodies an ideology, which has dominated the world of classical music in the last generations, and which dictates to audiences and to aspiring composers alike what 'serious modern music' is allowed to sound like. Whether you agree with my views or not, I hope you will agree that no ideology is too holy to be parodied... www.salzburger-landestheater.at/de/produktionen/des-kaisers-neue-walzer.html “The Last Days of the Opera” edited by C. Kircher, G. Korentschnig, D. Wendel-Poray. www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Days-Opera-Letzten-bilingual/dp/8857243591 ------------------------------- Meine neue musikalische Komödie "Des Kaisers neuer Walzer" wird am 4. März im Salzburger Landestheater uraufgeführt. Die romantische Komödie ist die Geschichte eines reichen Mädchens und eines armen Jungen, aber sie ist nicht nur die Liebesgeschichte zweier junger Menschen, sondern auch eine Liebesgeschichte zwischen zwei musikalischen Welten: der klassischen und der populären. Die Oper ist auch eine Parodie auf die melodielose Welt der modernen klassischen Musik. Ich möchte jedoch betonen, dass dies keine Kritik an der Musik eines bestimmten Komponisten ist. Ich habe großen Respekt vor allen Komponistinnen und Komponisten, die ihre Musik in gutem Glauben vor ein Publikum bringen, unabhängig davon, ob ich ihre Musik persönlich mag oder nicht. Meine Oper parodiert lediglich eine Ideologie, die die Welt der klassischen Musik in den letzten Generationen beherrscht hat und die dem Publikum wie auch aufstrebenden Komponistinnen und Komponisten vorschreibt, wie "ernste moderne Musik" zu klingen hat. Ob Sie mit meinen Ansichten übereinstimmen oder nicht, ich hoffe, Sie stimmen mir zu, dass keine Ideologie zu heilig ist, um parodiert zu werden... www.salzburger-landestheater.at/de/produktionen/des-kaisers-neue-walzer.html "Die letzten Tage der Oper": C. Kircher, G. Korentschnig, D. Wendel-Poray. www.amazon.de/Die-letzten-Tage-Oper-German/dp/885724511X/
As I mentioned to Tommaso, pop music is far more classical than "modern classical music" ... he agreed about the composition practise, but made the important addition this does not apply to the way the music is played, how the people playing the instruments are trained.
lol ok I’ll post this here considering that it might get lost in the feed and not reach your attention. Imo operas just evolved, there is no reconciliation needed. You hear opera like music in places you wouldn’t expect. You can say that anime’s are a form of opera, just look at Attack on Titan. You can’t tell me the opening to that anime isn’t opera. You should listen to the live version. You can say movies are just the evolution of opera too or musicals. Something’s just evolve, no amount of nobility is going to change popular opinion. One can say that nobility is its demise.. how many ppl can afford going to an opera? So then, how popular can you accept operas to be? Here in the USA and in most democracies we don’t have kings and queens dictating what should be popular like they did in the old days. Furthermore, now apply what I said about evaluation to the baker story. If he had innovated the bread into something like a doughnut 🍩 well he would be making some real dough now wouldn’t he?… this the end to my rant 🙃
Alma's allegory tells us well, That without melodies, it's hard to sell. For music needs its special spice, To make us move and entice. Once a baker, skilled and wise, Made loaves that rose up to the skies. With yeast he made his dough so light, And every bite was pure delight. But one day, he had a notion, To change his bread's divine potion. He thought, "Why not remove the yeast? My bread will still be just as beast." So he took out every bit, And baked the loaves until they split. He tried to trick the folks in town, But soon his trickery came tumbling down. For his bread was flat and dull, And no one wanted it in their skull. His funny tricks could not prevail, And soon his bread was up for sale. The people chose to go without, For they knew what yeast was all about. The baker learned a lesson true, That what was once loved, he must renew. And so it goes in the opera scene, Where melodies are what we deem, The yeast that makes the music rise, And brings the beauty to our eyes. So let us honor Alma's tale, And keep our melodies full and hale. For they are what make opera grand, And keep us entranced throughout the land. Happy birthday, dearest of Almas. Alisa
Honestly, it is a story that works well as commentary on many aspects of modern culture. It is gratifying to see that you are not only an intelligent and talented young woman, but also a wise one.
This young woman is a treasure and gift to this world. May her philosophy of music, and the recognition of the goodness and beauty of objective reality, spread far and wide.
I've got a ticket for the premiere of your new opera since December and I'm sooooo excited !!! I'm traveling in train to Austria just for it. Thank you Alma !!!
It is ironic that the baker stopped using yeast specifically because he imagined the people were “tired” of good bread. It was he himself who was “tired” of it-and he projected that upon the community.
What a brilliant analogy. I agree. Let's not be sniffy because something is popular. Let's see it as a sign of quality. It is a concept in several art fields that if something is pleasant, it must be lacking a finer, ill-defined quality. More power to Alma!
I've been thinking about this very subject while watching the Oscars race and thinking back to Everything Everywhere All At Once. It's a wildly popular movie, and no doubt the Academy would rather give the Best Picture to a predictable, dourly dramatic, and well-made movie few moviegoers are ever going to watch, as they usually do. But EEAAO... it's so popular bcs it has something beautiful to say and it succeeded at sharing it with so many people! It's popularity is deserved as much as its Oscar nominations, and for the same reason - it took complicated ideas and delivered them simply, artistically, and beautifully. Why do those things have to be antipodes instead of complements?
As an aspiring composer, I absolutely agree with everything you have said, Alma. To remove tonality, harmony and melody from music is akin to removing gravity from this universe- all one will end up with is utter chaos and disorder. Romanticism can convey so many wonderful and deep feelings and emotions that modernism simply does not come close to. Thank you for this 🙏🎶🎵
Thank you, Alma, for your sharp and delightful analogy, and best wishes for the success of your new opera. The fact remains, however, that most of your worldwide fans will not be able to make it to Salzburg. Therefore, in the spirit of your analogy, I hope the theatre will do its best to convey the opera to as large an audience as possible by making a pay-to-view video stream available. I am aware that such a video can be made to be dauntingly expensive if it involves multiple cameras skipping between points of view and zooming in and out with the associated editing. None of it is necessary. It is sufficient to have a single camera providing a view of the whole stage approximating to the best seat in the house, plus the best possible sound recording.
Dear Alma, I bought a ticket on the front row as soon as it was possible - now I can hardly wait ..... I love your music, and I admire your courage! Greetings from Copenhagen
Thank you, Alma. Somehow I waited for you before you were born. I waited for someone who would heal the modern classical music from its ailment of disharmonies and uglyness. You seem to be born to give it back the beauty that I (and perhaps millions of other people) longed for, for such a long time. With you, we are heading in to such a wonderful future with lots of the most beautiful music.
As always, Alma, you are the voice of sense and reason. I wish your new opera all the success in the world and hope that it will soon be available on CD, so that those of us unable to travel will be able to enjoy your new melodies
Beautiful story. The same is with public spaces and places . There is no melody, no structure , no geometry, no symmetry, no balance, that give the beauty, elegance and majesty to the city. Cities are turning into an ugly hoard. What educates mind of generations to be chaotic .
I think this could be said about a lot of modern pop music too. I think I've heard one song that I actually like on the radio in 5 years! Thankfully I recently discovered Dimash Kudaibergen who sings songs with beautiful melodies and with superb skill, blending opera, pop and Kazakh folk music. I finally have beautiful music again! Your opera sounds like lots of fun!
Right on! I wish I were close enough to come to your new opera! Our family enjoyed coming to "Cinderella" in San José in November and seeing you in person. I hope "The Emperor's New Waltz" will be performed in San José too.
As long as musical, creative minds like yours have a passion for story telling, Opera will be alive and well. A modern Opera, in my opinion, could be about the modern world. It could tell of love, of tragedy.... It's up to the story teller.
I absolutely can`t await the premiere!! - Gonna be my first time in Austria but definetly not the last. Dear Alma, thank you for being you! Too excited for the opera and everything that will come in the future😊
"But be not discouraged; some day a real musician may appear on Urantia, and whole peoples will be enthralled by the magnificent strains of his melodies. One such human being could forever change the course of a whole nation, even the entire civilized world. It is literally true, “melody has power a whole world to transform.” Forever, music will remain the universal language of men, angels, and spirits." The Urantia Book, Paper 44, Section 1. God bless you, Alma Deutscher, for your spiritual as well as for your musical insight!
Can't get to the Premiere, but look forward to the DVD. Loved Cinderella. Fully endorse your ideology. Every good wish for an outstanding success. Have ordered The Last Days of the Opera.
You have so elegantly expressed what so many feel about dissonant, difficult music. Without tuneful melodies ever so many contemporary musical creations are destined for the dustbin of history. I often think that unappealing new creations represent the efforts of newly graduated academics who feel they must be "modern" and create "modern music" to be regarded as successful by their peers.Such music seems almost as if it were created with no view toward posterity at all - works that should have a "sell by" expiration date on them. Your tale of the baker very effectively defines the problem, and your conclusion about what must change is spot on - the question is backwards. Your story makes me think about Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell, remarkably skilled artists whose realism was denigrated by the critics and contemporaries of their time, most all of whom were consumed by the abstract expressionist and surrealist movements, and considered realistic representation passé. I was charmed by your Cinderella. You gave us exactly what you promised - a fresh, humorous, modern reimagination that honored the old fairy tale's concept. I was glad that the milieu - costuming and sets - remained traditional, since we were, after all, still in the world of princesses and kings. Today I sent your new San José performance link - along my own laudatory recommendations - to my 70 very good friends who love to enjoy operas in their homes. Some of them are elderly and can't easily travel, and were made very happy by all the free opera streaming from the Met and the European houses during pandemic confinement, myself included. I myself saw a few operas as a child in the 1950's, but without today's wonderful subtitles, they did not inspire me to seek out more. Only in my late 50's did I consider going to an opera again, when a newspaper article related that the Met movie-house showing would be Thais, not done at the Met in 35 years. Knowing the lovely violin "meditation", I thought I should go - after all, in doing the math, I realized I might miss it entirely if I waited for another opportunity! (Most of us only get one chance to see Halley's comet, but my daughter, bundled up in her onsie, "saw" it when 3 years old - she might get another chance!) The production values of Thais were so astonishingly good, and the now-comprehensible subtitled libretto so utterly accessible, that I have missed very few opportunities to enjoy operas new or old since that experience. This summer I'm digging up the old literary foundations of operas to read - plays, poems, and novels - as "homework" before viewings. Thank you so much for the fresh creativity you bring to music. I look forward to lots, lots more!
Oh, my God. I love your article. You have said so much. I have often referred in my critiques of modern literature/music as dry, loveless loaves of tooth-tough bread.
Alma, I'm happy to see you've retained your spirit. You are part of a revival of beauty, and in fact, I suspect there is some destiny to you being on the forefront of the resurgence of the love of beauty. A talent like yours arising at this point in history when the Zeitgeist is shifting back to the love of beauty? This is no coincidence. I can't wait to hear more compositions!
I won't be traveling the seven and a half thousand plus miles to Salzburg, but I look forward to buying the opera on disc when it comes out. I do hope that's soon!
That's very lovely. You are a gift from God Alma. May God continue to bless you and inspire you. God is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Keep listening to His voice in you. Philippians 4:8 "For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline: think of these things."
I love your music! I've never been to an opera. Unlikely to go. It's not that I wouldn't like to see one. But I only speak English, I'm not interested in learning a language to be Entertained , I know some are in English but not many. I don't live close to anyplace I could go to one. If I wanted to attend one in New York I'd have to travel 2,000 (3200 km) miles round trip stay in a very expensive city and miss work. I support a family. It's not a reasonable use of money for me. Opera, if it's going to really grow needs to be more accessible. I've listened to you singing up in the sky in an interview. Beautiful song! You have a lovely voice .I'd like to hear more of your singing. I listen to your violin concerto several times a week.
@@ItIsJustJudy on stage? I don't think I've ever seen acomplete opera on film anywhere .probably exist but I don't know where. The point is it's not accessible.
@@denaecoco400 I'm expext so. I'm not in a position to take an overnight trip to one for fun. I work 6 to 7 days a week. My point is thsy need to be on film for a really large audience. Closest stage production I know of is about 3 hours away by car 6 round trip. And its not opera.
This makes me nervous. I agree with her, but I wonder if she's aware of how deeply subversive her assertions are. There's a whole philosophy and worldview behind "modern" art which I've never heard Alma interact with. The dark sarcasm, that E. Michael Jones writes about, is no joke and, if she doesn't have a solid worldview underneath her preferences, it'll crush her. God protect her.
the academic world likes to chop everything to pieces for analysis - everything is genre categories and historical time periods and how defined everything should be in their masterly construed configurations - this, however, is the very antithesis of the organic freedom and transcendental nature of art - so the academic must always drag Art down to their dogmatic dungeons and keep everything chained in its proper jail cell - sigh, what a shame - what a tragedy - not so much for what the academics do to Art, but more I think for all the creative artists who accepted their terms
One of the things intelligence at her level can do is to take an apparently complex issue, explain its essence in simple terms, and advance a solution. I am reminded of Richard Feynman explaining the essence of science.
Thks Alma for the beautiful story & reading. Also congratulations on your new Opera & I note in the comments that you are now 18. When was that & congratulations on that special day. Keep up all your wonderful work in the music world. I have enjoyed all your YT posts.
Perfekt, einer der weißesten Menschen, den wir zur Zeit auf unserem Planeten haben hat gesprochen. I love so much, what you do and say, your presence is such an honor for our country - we love melodies, but on the first place we love you 💓💓💓💓💓💓🥰
liebe Alma, mach uns Musik zurecht, zum Spielen, zum Wegtragen und Herumgehen, zum Lachen zum Weinen zum Erheben Es ist doch wunderbar, daß Du das tun kannst, ich bräuchte auch noch schöne Stücke für die Orgeln, die da so viele verschiedene Pfeifen haben, bestimmt fällt Dir direkt das Allereinfachste ein, das sozusagen immer schon da war und ist, und das nur erst von Dir ausgesprochen werden soll. Welch ein Grund zur Freude, Dein achzehn Jahre währendes musikalisches Wachsen erleben zu können und sich ganz gewiß zu sein: da kommt noch so viel Erfreuliches auf uns zu!!!!!
For some reason I have a hunger for some bread. I'm going to the store to get me a loaf of olive ciabatta which I plan to dip into olive oil and perhaps balsamic vinegar. See you all later.
I really really eynjoyed that little story. It´s truly incredibly, how you are able to put such a deeply interwoven and widespread topic into a story that is so easy to understand. And how strongly I have to agree with you. It bothers me that you can barely find a perfomance of Goethe´s "Faust" for example (stretching your argument to cultural art generally) that isn´t displayed in some weird, modern way, having very little to do with the original. A very important thought. For art to progress, is does not always have to take away what used to work all the time before.
Alma, you elucidate my own feelings about modern and postmodern “high art” music so beautifully. I feel that your music fits perfectly between the logical extremes the 20th century has seen: atonal music and minimalism. I feel that atonal music may have contours and pitches, but no memorable melodies that I can follow (and I have perfect pitch, just like you). Minimalism has melodies that to me go nowhere. I’m wondering if you are familiar with the music of Friedrich Gulda. Yes, I know that Gulda is known as a performer, but he also composed music. His “Concerto for Myself” has ironically outlasted him as a performer because it is actually a “Sonata Concertante” with a framework familiar to Beethoven that at the same time incorporates a drum kit, an electric bass, and the instruction or custom of playing a cadenza with modern elements between the slow movement and the finale. The slow movement ends on F-sharp, and the finale begins on F-sharp, so the cadenza has to eventually end on F-sharp. Then the finale builds up to a bold assertion of D major (the Concerto’s home key), and through a crescendo of bedazzling rondo episodes the audience blocks out all memory of what just happened.
Thank you Alma for this wonderfully thought out essay. After listening to the Met production of Don Carlos today on the radio, I am looking forward to the beautiful melodies to come in your new opera. If it's anything like your previous compositions, I shall be listening to it over and over. I have Cinderella, will there be a DVD released with the new opera?
The audience is crowded, the concert hall is packed, So musical presenters have to reassess their act. The music is too beautiful, the ticket one to covet. We have to change our repertoire because too many love it! The audience's loyalty, too steadfast, too dependable, These listeners are staid and dull and finally expendable. To gain a better market slice, attract the young and bold, Renounce the warm and lyrical - embrace the sear and cold. Romance the avant gardists and the cultural elites, To clear a place for better taste and free up extra seats! Our most outstanding orchestras have been too long in bed With so-called great composers who are white and male and dead. So fill your program with the cutting edge by any means And cut down your subscriber base (you know they're philistines). Let's give the critics elbow room, allow them breathing space While all those little people leave, with none to take their place. Away with most of Mozart, heaps of Haydn - toss them all! And watch as excess listeners turn and flee the concert hall! Copyright 1998 Eileen Pollock
Dear Alma, i wish i could have a conversation with you about this topic, which has troubled me for the past 10 years. I personally am disgusted by the new music, and find it dishonest. It seems to me that most people who seriously pursue it, are disconnected from the real world. The fact that out of hundreds of cultures around the world, only the western Europeans, and only in the past century, developed a catastrophic language of musical chaos, is for me an indication that humanity really doesn’t need this type of music. It doesn’t serve a necessary function in the society. However, there is an elephant in the room. The type of music i despise, was a natural predictable step in the history of western music. How does one sound “original” and “beautiful” at the same time in the 21st century? There is no question that when we compose in the “beautiful” style of the great classical/romantic tradition, we are reviving something that ultimately lead to the the horrible “new music”. It is like visiting a museum with an advanced version of deepfake technology. Imagine seeing Mozart in a museum compose a piece over a theme you give him. It would be beautiful, but it wouldn’t be original. What i think is missing, is the “real”ness, in Liszt or Rachmaninoff, you really feel a progress from before. How can one now continue that exciting path of progress, without falling to the trap of crap “new” music?
Clever and aproppo as usual you are but just for those who are curious about the origins of bread, in biblical days it was. naturally fermented without yeast, as is still done in other cultures. My brother still makes it that way but it takes a week so therein maybe be a deeper truth of opera. An opera too takes a long time for all the parts to rise up and come together.
I know Alma wrote the article for the book, however does anyone know if the story of the baker and his yeast is a story that already existed, or is it from Alma'a imagination?
There are many unleavened breads that are quite yummy. Also once can eat and enjoy both leavened and unleavened bread: they can coexist. So your analogy falls completely flat (pun intended).
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
My new musical comedy, "Des Kaisers neue Walzer (The Emperor’s new Waltz)" will have its world premiere at the Salzburg State Theatre on March 4. (Details in German below.) The romantic comedy is a 'rich gril meets poor boy' story: Leonie, a billionaire's daughter, who is obsessed with Mozart and wants to be a conductor, and Jonas, a poor gardener but also taltented singer-songwriter. So it's the love story of two young people, but also the love story of two musical worlds: the classical and the popular. The opera is also a parody on the tuneless world of modernist classical music. I want to emphasize, however, that this is not a criticism of the music of any particular composer. I have enormous respect for all composers who in good faith bring their music in front of an audience, regardless of whether I like their music personally or not. My opera only parodies an ideology, which has dominated the world of classical music in the last generations, and which dictates to audiences and to aspiring composers alike what 'serious modern music' is allowed to sound like. Whether you agree with my views or not, I hope you will agree that no ideology is too holy to be parodied...
www.salzburger-landestheater.at/de/produktionen/des-kaisers-neue-walzer.html
“The Last Days of the Opera” edited by C. Kircher, G. Korentschnig, D. Wendel-Poray.
www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Days-Opera-Letzten-bilingual/dp/8857243591
-------------------------------
Meine neue musikalische Komödie "Des Kaisers neuer Walzer" wird am 4. März im Salzburger Landestheater uraufgeführt. Die romantische Komödie ist die Geschichte eines reichen Mädchens und eines armen Jungen, aber sie ist nicht nur die Liebesgeschichte zweier junger Menschen, sondern auch eine Liebesgeschichte zwischen zwei musikalischen Welten: der klassischen und der populären. Die Oper ist auch eine Parodie auf die melodielose Welt der modernen klassischen Musik. Ich möchte jedoch betonen, dass dies keine Kritik an der Musik eines bestimmten Komponisten ist. Ich habe großen Respekt vor allen Komponistinnen und Komponisten, die ihre Musik in gutem Glauben vor ein Publikum bringen, unabhängig davon, ob ich ihre Musik persönlich mag oder nicht. Meine Oper parodiert lediglich eine Ideologie, die die Welt der klassischen Musik in den letzten Generationen beherrscht hat und die dem Publikum wie auch aufstrebenden Komponistinnen und Komponisten vorschreibt, wie "ernste moderne Musik" zu klingen hat. Ob Sie mit meinen Ansichten übereinstimmen oder nicht, ich hoffe, Sie stimmen mir zu, dass keine Ideologie zu heilig ist, um parodiert zu werden...
www.salzburger-landestheater.at/de/produktionen/des-kaisers-neue-walzer.html
"Die letzten Tage der Oper": C. Kircher, G. Korentschnig, D. Wendel-Poray.
www.amazon.de/Die-letzten-Tage-Oper-German/dp/885724511X/
Beautifully written. Sounds like the perfect analogy for modern society.
Ich kann die Premiere garnicht mehr abwarten! Großer Fan Ihrer Ansichten und Musik und freue mich auf alles was kommen mag-
I will bring extra yeast!
As I mentioned to Tommaso, pop music is far more classical than "modern classical music" ... he agreed about the composition practise, but made the important addition this does not apply to the way the music is played, how the people playing the instruments are trained.
lol ok I’ll post this here considering that it might get lost in the feed and not reach your attention. Imo operas just evolved, there is no reconciliation needed. You hear opera like music in places you wouldn’t expect. You can say that anime’s are a form of opera, just look at Attack on Titan. You can’t tell me the opening to that anime isn’t opera. You should listen to the live version. You can say movies are just the evolution of opera too or musicals. Something’s just evolve, no amount of nobility is going to change popular opinion. One can say that nobility is its demise.. how many ppl can afford going to an opera? So then, how popular can you accept operas to be? Here in the USA and in most democracies we don’t have kings and queens dictating what should be popular like they did in the old days. Furthermore, now apply what I said about evaluation to the baker story. If he had innovated the bread into something like a doughnut 🍩 well he would be making some real dough now wouldn’t he?… this the end to my rant 🙃
This is the most polite and polished roast I have ever heard 😂
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼💖😜😁🌟
How can someone so young be so insightful? Alma nailed what is wrong with modernity, not just opera!
Happy 18th birthday Alma!! Wishing you all the very best with the production of your new opera.
Alma's allegory tells us well,
That without melodies, it's hard to sell.
For music needs its special spice,
To make us move and entice.
Once a baker, skilled and wise,
Made loaves that rose up to the skies.
With yeast he made his dough so light,
And every bite was pure delight.
But one day, he had a notion,
To change his bread's divine potion.
He thought, "Why not remove the yeast?
My bread will still be just as beast."
So he took out every bit,
And baked the loaves until they split.
He tried to trick the folks in town,
But soon his trickery came tumbling down.
For his bread was flat and dull,
And no one wanted it in their skull.
His funny tricks could not prevail,
And soon his bread was up for sale.
The people chose to go without,
For they knew what yeast was all about.
The baker learned a lesson true,
That what was once loved, he must renew.
And so it goes in the opera scene,
Where melodies are what we deem,
The yeast that makes the music rise,
And brings the beauty to our eyes.
So let us honor Alma's tale,
And keep our melodies full and hale.
For they are what make opera grand,
And keep us entranced throughout the land.
Happy birthday, dearest of Almas.
Alisa
@Alisa: with thank-you for this lovely poem en homage to Alma. Poetry, like music, enobles the heart. 💖
Great poem. I hope it is fine with you, that I have written a copy of it and consider if it can be put into music.
Honestly, it is a story that works well as commentary on many aspects of modern culture. It is gratifying to see that you are not only an intelligent and talented young woman, but also a wise one.
wise puts it perfectly
You beat me to it!
I agree 100% - a lot of many other aspects not only of so called 'modern' culture but society as well.
This young woman is a treasure and gift to this world. May her philosophy of music, and the recognition of the goodness and beauty of objective reality, spread far and wide.
"no ideology is too holy to be parodied" Most emphatic agreement here!
I've got a ticket for the premiere of your new opera since December and I'm sooooo excited !!! I'm traveling in train to Austria just for it. Thank you Alma !!!
Me too😍 I am too excited I can't even express it
It is ironic that the baker stopped using yeast specifically because he imagined the people were “tired” of good bread. It was he himself who was “tired” of it-and he projected that upon the community.
I used to consider this girl a music genius, but after watching this...
.
.
.
.
.
.
I think she is a TOTAL genius 😎
✨💖💖💖💖🌟
What a brilliant analogy. I agree. Let's not be sniffy because something is popular. Let's see it as a sign of quality.
It is a concept in several art fields that if something is pleasant, it must be lacking a finer, ill-defined quality.
More power to Alma!
I've been thinking about this very subject while watching the Oscars race and thinking back to Everything Everywhere All At Once. It's a wildly popular movie, and no doubt the Academy would rather give the Best Picture to a predictable, dourly dramatic, and well-made movie few moviegoers are ever going to watch, as they usually do. But EEAAO... it's so popular bcs it has something beautiful to say and it succeeded at sharing it with so many people! It's popularity is deserved as much as its Oscar nominations, and for the same reason - it took complicated ideas and delivered them simply, artistically, and beautifully. Why do those things have to be antipodes instead of complements?
Wow. Amazing Alma. Thanks for bringing us back to the true nature and beauty of music, in a world that praises noise and condemn art. ❤
Thanks Alma! For being here and saying these beautiful words! Medicine for our souls to hear you!
As an aspiring composer, I absolutely agree with everything you have said, Alma. To remove tonality, harmony and melody from music is akin to removing gravity from this universe- all one will end up with is utter chaos and disorder. Romanticism can convey so many wonderful and deep feelings and emotions that modernism simply does not come close to. Thank you for this 🙏🎶🎵
Thank you, Alma, for your sharp and delightful analogy, and best wishes for the success of your new opera. The fact remains, however, that most of your worldwide fans will not be able to make it to Salzburg. Therefore, in the spirit of your analogy, I hope the theatre will do its best to convey the opera to as large an audience as possible by making a pay-to-view video stream available. I am aware that such a video can be made to be dauntingly expensive if it involves multiple cameras skipping between points of view and zooming in and out with the associated editing. None of it is necessary. It is sufficient to have a single camera providing a view of the whole stage approximating to the best seat in the house, plus the best possible sound recording.
Happy birthday to you,Alma, stay healthy and give us many more beautiful melodies!!
Dear Alma, I bought a ticket on the front row as soon as it was possible - now I can hardly wait ..... I love your music, and I admire your courage! Greetings from Copenhagen
also can`t wait!! i am like wayyy to excited haha. Greetings from Germany
dear Alma you just touched the problem of inexistance off melodie in modern operas! Hope your voice will matter!
You nailed it😄
⭐️✨💖✨🌟 Absolutely magical and practical is your allegory Alma.
I love it!!!!
Happy Birthday dearest lady of wisdom and music!!
God bless you, Alma!❤️ Very wise and excellently told. Happy 18th birthday. You are so inspiring to us all.
Thank you Alma 😊 ....you help light up the world 🌎 ✨
Thank you, Alma. Somehow I waited for you before you were born. I waited for someone who would heal the modern classical music from its ailment of disharmonies and uglyness. You seem to be born to give it back the beauty that I (and perhaps millions of other people) longed for, for such a long time. With you, we are heading in to such a wonderful future with lots of the most beautiful music.
As always, Alma, you are the voice of sense and reason. I wish your new opera all the success in the world and hope that it will soon be available on CD, so that those of us unable to travel will be able to enjoy your new melodies
So true, Alma! Wisely put! ❤
Bravo Alma! That was both clever and funny. Break a leg for, "The emperor's New Waltz", next month☺☺☺
Beautiful story. The same is with public spaces and places . There is no melody, no structure , no geometry, no symmetry, no balance, that give the beauty, elegance and majesty to the city. Cities are turning into an ugly hoard. What educates mind of generations to be chaotic .
I think this could be said about a lot of modern pop music too. I think I've heard one song that I actually like on the radio in 5 years! Thankfully I recently discovered Dimash Kudaibergen who sings songs with beautiful melodies and with superb skill, blending opera, pop and Kazakh folk music. I finally have beautiful music again! Your opera sounds like lots of fun!
Alma your description is simply perfect, and can be applied to so many other areas! I do hope to see one of your shows.
Right on! I wish I were close enough to come to your new opera!
Our family enjoyed coming to "Cinderella" in San José in November and seeing you in person. I hope "The Emperor's New Waltz" will be performed in San José too.
What a great analogy, Alma! I look forward to hearing more of your beautiful melodies! Perhaps some day I can watch Des Kaisers neue Walzer!
Thank you SO much for sharing! Can't wait to listen your new melodies, best wishes
As long as musical, creative minds like yours have a passion for story telling, Opera will be alive and well.
A modern Opera, in my opinion, could be about the modern world.
It could tell of love, of tragedy.... It's up to the story teller.
I absolutely can`t await the premiere!! - Gonna be my first time in Austria but definetly not the last.
Dear Alma, thank you for being you! Too excited for the opera and everything that will come in the future😊
Brilliant! Thanks a million! Goood luck to you all along dear Alma! 😊🤗💕🙏🏻❣
"But be not discouraged; some day a real musician may appear on Urantia, and whole peoples will be enthralled by the magnificent strains of his melodies. One such human being could forever change the course of a whole nation, even the entire civilized world. It is literally true, “melody has power a whole world to transform.” Forever, music will remain the universal language of men, angels, and spirits." The Urantia Book, Paper 44, Section 1. God bless you, Alma Deutscher, for your spiritual as well as for your musical insight!
I think you are completely right about this. For me opera should have beautiful melodies and an interesting story
Can't get to the Premiere, but look forward to the DVD. Loved Cinderella. Fully endorse your ideology. Every good wish for an outstanding success. Have ordered The Last Days of the Opera.
Good point dear Alma!!! You explained your view clearly, I loved how you did it!!
It took a little girl to tell us this. Heaven be praised.
She turns 18 in a few days.
Wow, Alma, well said…great story… if music ever fails you, you have a great talent as a wordsmith and story teller.
You have so elegantly expressed what so many feel about dissonant, difficult music. Without tuneful melodies ever so many contemporary musical creations are destined for the dustbin of history. I often think that unappealing new creations represent the efforts of newly graduated academics who feel they must be "modern" and create "modern music" to be regarded as successful by their peers.Such music seems almost as if it were created with no view toward posterity at all - works that should have a "sell by" expiration date on them. Your tale of the baker very effectively defines the problem, and your conclusion about what must change is spot on - the question is backwards. Your story makes me think about Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell, remarkably skilled artists whose realism was denigrated by the critics and contemporaries of their time, most all of whom were consumed by the abstract expressionist and surrealist movements, and considered realistic representation passé. I was charmed by your Cinderella. You gave us exactly what you promised - a fresh, humorous, modern reimagination that honored the old fairy tale's concept. I was glad that the milieu - costuming and sets - remained traditional, since we were, after all, still in the world of princesses and kings. Today I sent your new San José performance link - along my own laudatory recommendations - to my 70 very good friends who love to enjoy operas in their homes. Some of them are elderly and can't easily travel, and were made very happy by all the free opera streaming from the Met and the European houses during pandemic confinement, myself included. I myself saw a few operas as a child in the 1950's, but without today's wonderful subtitles, they did not inspire me to seek out more. Only in my late 50's did I consider going to an opera again, when a newspaper article related that the Met movie-house showing would be Thais, not done at the Met in 35 years. Knowing the lovely violin "meditation", I thought I should go - after all, in doing the math, I realized I might miss it entirely if I waited for another opportunity! (Most of us only get one chance to see Halley's comet, but my daughter, bundled up in her onsie, "saw" it when 3 years old - she might get another chance!) The production values of Thais were so astonishingly good, and the now-comprehensible subtitled libretto so utterly accessible, that I have missed very few opportunities to enjoy operas new or old since that experience. This summer I'm digging up the old literary foundations of operas to read - plays, poems, and novels - as "homework" before viewings. Thank you so much for the fresh creativity you bring to music. I look forward to lots, lots more!
Musical genius and funny pundit!
This perfect presentation has ramifications for all the arts, including my own: traditional lyric poetry.
Alma, I really appreciate the way that you articulated this. I couldn’t agree with you more.
Oh, my God. I love your article. You have said so much. I have often referred in my critiques of modern literature/music as dry, loveless loaves of tooth-tough bread.
We will be there in the front row - and hopefully won't have to evict you from the seats as we did in Wexford!
Such a clever young woman! Spot on analogy my dear!
Superb!
Alma,
I'm happy to see you've retained your spirit.
You are part of a revival of beauty, and in fact, I suspect there is some destiny to you being on the forefront of the resurgence of the love of beauty. A talent like yours arising at this point in history when the Zeitgeist is shifting back to the love of beauty?
This is no coincidence.
I can't wait to hear more compositions!
I won't be traveling the seven and a half thousand plus miles to Salzburg, but I look forward to buying the opera on disc when it comes out. I do hope that's soon!
That's very lovely. You are a gift from God Alma. May God continue to bless you and inspire you. God is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
Keep listening to His voice in you.
Philippians 4:8 "For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline: think of these things."
oh how I WISH I could go
Thank you Alma
Brilliant
Thank you for this. I have tasted “modern breads”. They are not anything I would ever want to “taste” again.
Adorei o vídeo. Feliz aniversário, Alma. Você é um anjo entre nós.
Best wishes for the new opera!!
“Modern bread - it’s better than it tastes.”
You are brilliant wonderful girl!
So well said ! Bravo Alma 👏🎼🎶👍
Brilliant!
Brilliant and appropriate story! I love your music with the beautiful melodies! Personally, I only listen to music that I consider beautiful.
I love your music! I've never been to an opera. Unlikely to go. It's not that I wouldn't like to see one. But I only speak English, I'm not interested in learning a language to be Entertained , I know some are in English but not many. I don't live close to anyplace I could go to one. If I wanted to attend one in New York I'd have to travel 2,000 (3200 km) miles round trip stay in a very expensive city and miss work. I support a family. It's not a reasonable use of money for me.
Opera, if it's going to really grow needs to be more accessible. I've listened to you singing up in the sky in an interview. Beautiful song! You have a lovely voice .I'd like to hear more of your singing.
I listen to your violin concerto several times a week.
Most operas have super titles to translate the words. ☺️
There are plenty of worthwhile opera companies that I’m sure are much closer to you than New York 2000 miles away.
@@ItIsJustJudy on stage? I don't think I've ever seen acomplete opera on film anywhere .probably exist but I don't know where. The point is it's not accessible.
Understand your choice but there are many opera performances in the US outside of NY - places like Kentucky, Nebraska, Florida, etc
@@denaecoco400 I'm expext so. I'm not in a position to take an overnight trip to one for fun. I work 6 to 7 days a week. My point is thsy need to be on film for a really large audience. Closest stage production I know of is about 3 hours away by car 6 round trip. And its not opera.
You are a GENIUS !!!
This makes me nervous. I agree with her, but I wonder if she's aware of how deeply subversive her assertions are. There's a whole philosophy and worldview behind "modern" art which I've never heard Alma interact with. The dark sarcasm, that E. Michael Jones writes about, is no joke and, if she doesn't have a solid worldview underneath her preferences, it'll crush her.
God protect her.
🎇🙋🏻♀️😊😃👏👏👏👏TOTALLY Agree💯😊👍👍Looking Forward to Your New Opera Alma😊🎶🎶🎶
the academic world likes to chop everything to pieces for analysis - everything is genre categories and historical time periods and how defined everything should be in their masterly construed configurations - this, however, is the very antithesis of the organic freedom and transcendental nature of art - so the academic must always drag Art down to their dogmatic dungeons and keep everything chained in its proper jail cell - sigh, what a shame - what a tragedy - not so much for what the academics do to Art, but more I think for all the creative artists who accepted their terms
One of the things intelligence at her level can do is to take an apparently complex issue, explain its essence in simple terms, and advance a solution. I am reminded of Richard Feynman explaining the essence of science.
Very well put, Alma!
Thks Alma for the beautiful story & reading. Also congratulations on your new Opera & I note in the comments that you are now 18. When was that & congratulations on that special day. Keep up all your wonderful work in the music world. I have enjoyed all your YT posts.
Perfekt, einer der weißesten Menschen, den wir zur Zeit auf unserem Planeten haben hat gesprochen. I love so much, what you do and say, your presence is such an honor for our country - we love melodies, but on the first place we love you 💓💓💓💓💓💓🥰
ich bin gespannt, kann nur sehr gut werden
liebe Alma, mach uns Musik zurecht, zum Spielen, zum Wegtragen und Herumgehen, zum Lachen zum Weinen zum Erheben
Es ist doch wunderbar, daß Du das tun kannst, ich bräuchte auch noch schöne Stücke für die Orgeln, die da so viele verschiedene Pfeifen haben, bestimmt fällt Dir direkt das Allereinfachste ein, das sozusagen immer schon da war und ist, und das nur erst von Dir ausgesprochen werden soll.
Welch ein Grund zur Freude, Dein achzehn Jahre währendes musikalisches Wachsen erleben zu können und sich ganz gewiß zu sein: da kommt noch so viel Erfreuliches auf uns zu!!!!!
Happy Birthday Alma !🌷🌷🌷
"I get it"
🎶MELODY🎶
Happy Birthday, Alma!
For some reason I have a hunger for some bread. I'm going to the store to get me a loaf of olive ciabatta which I plan to dip into olive oil and perhaps balsamic vinegar. See you all later.
I really really eynjoyed that little story. It´s truly incredibly, how you are able to put such a deeply interwoven and widespread topic into a story that is so easy to understand. And how strongly I have to agree with you. It bothers me that you can barely find a perfomance of Goethe´s "Faust" for example (stretching your argument to cultural art generally) that isn´t displayed in some weird, modern way, having very little to do with the original.
A very important thought. For art to progress, is does not always have to take away what used to work all the time before.
brava dear Alma! Very good !
wonderful !!!
Alma, you elucidate my own feelings about modern and postmodern “high art” music so beautifully. I feel that your music fits perfectly between the logical extremes the 20th century has seen: atonal music and minimalism. I feel that atonal music may have contours and pitches, but no memorable melodies that I can follow (and I have perfect pitch, just like you). Minimalism has melodies that to me go nowhere. I’m wondering if you are familiar with the music of Friedrich Gulda. Yes, I know that Gulda is known as a performer, but he also composed music. His “Concerto for Myself” has ironically outlasted him as a performer because it is actually a “Sonata Concertante” with a framework familiar to Beethoven that at the same time incorporates a drum kit, an electric bass, and the instruction or custom of playing a cadenza with modern elements between the slow movement and the finale. The slow movement ends on F-sharp, and the finale begins on F-sharp, so the cadenza has to eventually end on F-sharp. Then the finale builds up to a bold assertion of D major (the Concerto’s home key), and through a crescendo of bedazzling rondo episodes the audience blocks out all memory of what just happened.
Ja, liebe Alma, genau so ist es !! 👍❤️❤️❤️😇😁❤️🥰😘 Bravo 👏👏👏 Viel Erfolg 🎶👑
A divine creature ❤
One wonders what the other articles are like in that book.
A primeira a curtir!!! Uhuuul!!! The first one to comment!Yaiii! A big huge from Brazil, Alma! Did you know that your name means "soul" in portuguese?
Yes but we all cant go to Salzburg. We need to get this music out to the masses everywhere. Any ideas how to do that?
Has someone given a hint, if any of your operas will be performed in Denmark ( Copenhagen or close by)?
Thank you Alma for this wonderfully thought out essay. After listening to the Met production of Don Carlos today on the radio, I am looking forward to the beautiful melodies to come in your new opera. If it's anything like your previous compositions, I shall be listening to it over and over. I have Cinderella, will there be a DVD released with the new opera?
You are sooo good ! Yes, the composer and their modern mafia is the problem ….
The audience is crowded, the concert hall is packed,
So musical presenters have to reassess their act.
The music is too beautiful, the ticket one to covet.
We have to change our repertoire because too many love it!
The audience's loyalty, too steadfast, too dependable,
These listeners are staid and dull and finally expendable.
To gain a better market slice, attract the young and bold,
Renounce the warm and lyrical - embrace the sear and cold.
Romance the avant gardists and the cultural elites,
To clear a place for better taste and free up extra seats!
Our most outstanding orchestras have been too long in bed
With so-called great composers who are white and male and dead.
So fill your program with the cutting edge by any means
And cut down your subscriber base (you know they're philistines).
Let's give the critics elbow room, allow them breathing space
While all those little people leave, with none to take their place.
Away with most of Mozart, heaps of Haydn - toss them all!
And watch as excess listeners turn and flee the concert hall!
Copyright 1998 Eileen Pollock
Dear Alma, i wish i could have a conversation with you about this topic, which has troubled me for the past 10 years.
I personally am disgusted by the new music, and find it dishonest. It seems to me that most people who seriously pursue it, are disconnected from the real world. The fact that out of hundreds of cultures around the world, only the western Europeans, and only in the past century, developed a catastrophic language of musical chaos, is for me an indication that humanity really doesn’t need this type of music. It doesn’t serve a necessary function in the society.
However, there is an elephant in the room. The type of music i despise, was a natural predictable step in the history of western music.
How does one sound “original” and “beautiful” at the same time in the 21st century?
There is no question that when we compose in the “beautiful” style of the great classical/romantic tradition, we are reviving something that ultimately lead to the the horrible “new music”.
It is like visiting a museum with an advanced version of deepfake technology. Imagine seeing Mozart in a museum compose a piece over a theme you give him.
It would be beautiful, but it wouldn’t be original. What i think is missing, is the “real”ness, in Liszt or Rachmaninoff, you really feel a progress from before. How can one now continue that exciting path of progress, without falling to the trap of crap “new” music?
Bravaaaa
Clever and aproppo as usual you are but just for those who are curious about the origins of bread, in biblical days it was. naturally fermented without yeast, as is still done in other cultures. My brother still makes it that way but it takes a week so therein maybe be a deeper truth of opera. An opera too takes a long time for all the parts to rise up and come together.
Do you still play violin? What are you playing now , what pieces?
I know Alma wrote the article for the book, however does anyone know if the story of the baker and his yeast is a story that already existed, or is it from Alma'a imagination?
There are many unleavened breads that are quite yummy. Also once can eat and enjoy both leavened and unleavened bread: they can coexist. So your analogy falls completely flat (pun intended).
🙏👏