My apologies to anyone who normally visits Trrill for regular people music. I go through these mini-phases of caring about opera. I've been on a Wagner kick, as you can see. Perhaps the proper way to segue out of Wagner and back into another love of mine, electronic music, is to offer up a couple selections that encompass both simultaneously.

Isao Tomita is, technically speaking, an electronic composer, but he gained much of his fame from his Moog synthesizer arrangements of well-known classical music, much in the vein of his predecessor Wendy Carlos. He's done a number of original projects, including film music and (oh, I just can type this without laughing a little) the theme music for the 1956 Japanese Olympics gymnastics team. His arrangements, though, are fascinating for their variations on colors and textures, which are often vastly different from the originals. Wikipedia says that he employs Klangfarbenmelodie, but because he often keeps entire phrases in a particular voice, it's not always easy to characterize his work with that term.

Here's a bit from his 1978 album Kosmos. It's a medley of three themes?the Ride of the Valkyries from (duh) Die Walküre and overture to Tannh?user, bookended by the opening to Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra,





I can hear you saying "cheesy," but remember that this stuff wasn't tracked on a fancy piece of computer software. It was played and voiced by hand. That's some painstaking knob twiddling and switch flipping, folks.

After playing at the 1984 Ars Electronica festival (suspended above the Danube in a glass pyramid, as seen above), he was invited to regale celebrants at a concert commemorating the centennial of the Statue of Liberty. The live performance was recorded and issued as an album entitled Back to Earth. From that album, here's his arrangement of another Wagner hit—the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde.





Gorgeous, like the original… except in this version, the two lovers get whisked off to space by flying saucer.

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Also, on the Wagner tip, I am very proud to hear that our very own Seattle Opera announced a new International Wagner Competition. The inaugural screamfest will be held in August 2006. Contraltos, pull yourselves together. You betta reprazent with a nice "Gerechter Gott" or something. I'm not tryin' to sit in that hall listening to damn Leb' wohl's and In fernem Land's all day.