Spine-Tingling Reaction To Modern Operatic Performance by Barbara Hannigan

There's so much great music out there that I want to share, and I've got a lot of posts building up in the back of my head begging to be written. But the problem I keep running in to is, I go on Youtube looking for a couple of examples, and before I know it I've spent the entire evening watching performances that blow my mind.

I grew up in a scarce time for music. I'd have to save money for expensive cassettes and CDs, and then wait until we went to a shopping center to agonize over which to buy. And it was a hard decision, since there was no way to hear the stuff before you purchased it. Don't get me started on the dismal quality of radio in 1990s New England.

Now I'm the kid in the candy store. It's a good thing music doesn't make us fat.

Anyway, tonight I'm just going to share where I ended up in tonight's musical rabbit hole. I've got a post coming up about strong female performances, the need for operatic voice in heavy metal, and... well, I'm still working the rest out.

Until that's ready, enjoy opera singer Barbara Hannigan singing a piece composed by Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen. Put on headphones, if you've got 'em.

I've not encountered anything from this composer or this singer before, but this piece absolutely floored me. The subtle build, the dissonances just on the edge of hearing, the clicks and swishes from unconventional use of instruments, and that soprano voice descending the chromatic scale in micro-tones - I've never heard anything like it. And although I'm not usually a big fan of symphonic music, this symphony is being put to use in ways that explore and expand boundaries, without smashing them in the way of many modern composers.

It set my spine tingling and gave me that full-body galvanic skin response people supposedly get from ASMR videos, where whispers and clicks and closely recorded gentle actions are supposed to relax and stimulate at the same time. Here's an explanation of the phenomenon, and here's a channel with a good introduction if you want to give that a try. (Some of the ASMR videos out there are downright creepy, but hey, whatever floats your boat.) Anyway, they've never gotten a reaction from me anything like this piece did.

More to come. But maybe this'll send you chasing down a YouTube rabbit hole of your own for the evening.