Sonic Asymmetry

Mikhail Glinka: “Ouverture to Ruslan & Ludmila”

ミハイル・グリンカ：「ルスランとルドミラの序曲」

TIME COMMITMENT: 4 minutes

This seductive opening literally explodes with ceremonial power.  As it advances at frantic pace, the opera will repeatedly bristle with eruptive potential, but this volcanic energy should not distract from the composer’s dilemma.  Glinka’s oeuvre remained didactically syncretic.  Although he drew profusely on traditionally logorrheic folk songs of the Eastern plains (instrumental music was long frowned upon and even formally opposed by the Orthodox Church), he made his mark as the pioneer of Western forms in Russian music.  For this great musical nation, it all started here.

MUSIC

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruslan_and_Lyudmila_(opera)

A REFLECTION

You listen to the peal of distant thunder

The rumbling voice of violent waves and storm

And hear the village shepherd’s lonely cry

And then you send your answer

But hear no echo, there is no reply

This also, poet, is your nature

Aleksandr Pushkin: “Echo”