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Post by jk on Sept 2, 2020 8:50:43 GMT -5
Elagabalus (or Heliogabalus) has a reputation of being one of the naughtiest of the Roman Emperors. Whether true or not, this fascinating figure has precipitated quite a welter of artistic utterances in many fields. I'll be sticking to the music -- not by resorting to Wikipedia but by trial and error on YouTube. And my strategy seems to be paying off. Swiss "sludge/doom/metal/post-hardcore" band Rorcal lay it on thick with this dirt-encrusted gem all the way from Geneva. A single track clocking in at over 70 minutes, "Heliogabalus" is not for the faint of heart. (Clearly, Toblerone isn't the only Swiss product that hurts.) The lineup on this 2010 album is Bruno da Encarnação (bass), Ron Lahyani (drums), JP Schopfer (guitar) and Junior (vocals).
www.sputnikmusic.com/review/50464/Rorcal-Heliogabalus/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus |
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Post by jk on Sept 3, 2020 7:43:45 GMT -5
The image in this video shows part of one of my favourite paintings, The Roses of Heliogabalus by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, which is where the topic title comes from. If you thought the Rorcal outing was extreme, this impressive 2009 album by Ierophania is positively alien. I would not recommend listening to it in the dark! Apparently, these are Joseph M. and Kirill B. (don't ask me which is which). who together comprise Ierophania. :format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/A-819255-1264556321.jpeg.jpg) www.discogs.com/Ierophania-Heliogabalus/release/1886482en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roses_of_Heliogabalus |
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Post by jk on Sept 4, 2020 14:24:27 GMT -5
Not everything inspired by Elagabalus has been extreme. (Not everything, but almost everything, as we shall see.) The 17th-century Italian composer Francesco Cavalli wrote 41 operas, one of which was Eliogabalo. Written in 1667, it had to wait until 1999 or 2004 (accounts differ) for its first performance. This selection of "orchestral & choral highlights" dates from October 2016:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Cavalli |
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Post by pendlewitch on Sept 4, 2020 14:40:44 GMT -5
Esoteric and eclectic, jk! Shall we just call you esoclectic? |
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Post by jk on Sept 4, 2020 17:43:41 GMT -5
Esoteric and eclectic, jk ! Shall we just call you esoclectic? Yes of course, pw.  At least someone appreciates this topic, which I almost considered asking the mods to delete as being simply too weird, even by my standards.  |
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Post by jk on Sept 5, 2020 5:12:20 GMT -5
Well let the weirdness continue (blame pw).  If the Rorcal track can be considered extreme, this album by John Zorn is extreme within itself, alternating Zen-like moments of calm with extended passages of extreme violence:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Litanies_for_Heliogabalus |
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Post by pendlewitch on Sept 5, 2020 11:28:10 GMT -5
My lawyers have advised me to state that my comments on this thread in no way endorse the continuance of said thread or indicate any personal enjoyment of music presented therein.
(In other words, jk, you're on your own!) |
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Post by jk on Sept 6, 2020 4:36:04 GMT -5
My lawyers have advised me to state that my comments on this thread in no way endorse the continuance of said thread or indicate any personal enjoyment of music presented therein.
( In other words, jk , you're on your own!) Story of my life, pw (music-wise, he added hastily). Here's Jeremy Reed sounding a little like namesake Lou (whom he even name-checks). It seems he's also the author of Boy Caesar, in which Heliogabalus plays a key role. www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jeremy-reed/boy-caesar/ |
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Post by jk on Sept 7, 2020 7:34:08 GMT -5
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Post by jk on Sept 9, 2020 8:34:10 GMT -5
L'Eliogabalo is a rock opera written by Emilio Locurcio and recorded in 1977. Not my favourite genre but there you go.  Track Listing:
a) "Monologo D'Apertura": 1 Tutto Quello Che Mi è Stato Tolto Lo Rivoglio (1:50) b) "La Veglia": 2. Autoritratto dentro Stanze Elettroniche (6:14) 3. A Scaldarci Al Vino Dolce Dei Chilometri (0:44) 4. Giovanna Labbromorto (4:22)
c) "Il Viaggio": 5. A Scaldarci Al Vino Dolce Dei Chilometri (0:52) 6. Dal Finestrino Del Treno (4:50) 7. La Ferrovia Celeste (3:42) d) "La Visione": 8. La Primavera Feroce (2:10) 9. La Scelta Di Essere Veramente Liberi (3:22) 10. Eliogabalo Imperatore (5:18) 11. La Gente In Strada (2:52) e) "L'Attesa": 12. La Morte Di Eliogabalo (3:30) 13. Avvertenze- Finalino Per Altri Inizi (1:36) Musicians on "Giovanna Labbromorto" (apparently) :- Emilio Locurcio / voice - I Crash / rhythmic parts (!) - I Pierrot Lunaire / acoustic parts (!) - Gli Odeon / woodwinds - Gerardo Abbate / violin - Mario Achilli / drums - Ernesto Bassignano / chorus - Faffo Bianchi / sax - Francesca Cadispoti / chorus - Claudio Falco / guitars - Gildo Falco / bass - Leonardo Gatta / voice, chorus - Paolo Maestrelli / guitars - Piero Cannizzaro / chorus, mixing - Pino Sannicchio / keyboards
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Post by jk on Sept 14, 2020 12:15:40 GMT -5
More opera but without the rock this time (big sigh of relief from jk). This is an aria from Act 3 of (surprise, surprise) Eliogabalo (1669) by the short-lived Italian Baroque composer Giovanni Antonio Boretti (1640-1672). "Chi scherza con Amor" is sung by the Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński:
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Post by Silken on Sept 18, 2020 8:19:28 GMT -5
Interesting. I'll try to listen to all of them.
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Post by jk on Sept 18, 2020 12:53:27 GMT -5
Interesting. I'll try to listen to all of them. Hello S. Well that's very brave of you! I won't be linking them all but there are a lot of death metal takes on Mr E (or Mr H). He seems to encourage this aggressive genre. I'll try to keep the selection varied. None of the tracks can be described as easy listening but some are easier to listen to than others.  |
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Post by jk on Sept 19, 2020 14:09:51 GMT -5
For an album entitled Heliogábalo, this is surprisingly bright and breezy so far. The only info I can find on the wondrously named Callese Hombre Horrible is in Spanish (the band hails from Argentina).
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Post by jk on Oct 6, 2020 4:54:53 GMT -5
To counter the extreme nature of much of its music, let's bring down the curtain on this topic with an ancient silent film about young H (or E). Dating from 1911, this may be the whole thing, which includes the teenage emperor getting his comeuppance at the hands of members of his own bodyguard. Not sure about the English subtitles bit -- maybe they're in there somewhere... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus#Assassination |
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Post by jk on Dec 8, 2020 9:16:06 GMT -5
Consider this a postscript, folks. Looking through the overview of Elagabalus in art and literature at the end of the superb biography of E (or H) linked below, I discovered this painting by Leo Reiffenstein from 1891 called Ein Gastmahl des Heliogabal. It depicts the same infamous but probably apocryphal feast as that painted by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, where the unlucky guests were swamped by a deluge of flower petals:  Since I could find next to nothing about Herr Reiffenstein in English, I took the liberty of running his German wiki through Google Translate and revising it slightly: Leo Reiffenstein (born 27 July 1856 in Vienna, died 5 January 1924 in Salzburg) was an Austrian painter of portraits and historical scenes. He was the son of Gottlieb Benjamin Reiffenstein (1822–1885), a painter and lithographer who ran an art printing company. Reiffenstein studied from 1871 to 1876 at the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts under August Eisenmenger. After completing his studies, Reiffenstein worked in the studios of Hans Makart and Heinrich von Angeli. On 13 October 1876, Reiffenstein enrolled in the technical painting class of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 1880, he began exhibiting his works at the Vienna Künstlerhaus. At that time he dealt with historical subjects ("Emperor Maximilian’s Bridal Trip", "Coronation of Frederick II in Palermo"). In 1882, Reiffenstein became a member of the Künstlerhaus Wien. Three years later, his genre painting "Disputation" was acquired for the collections of Emperor Franz Joseph I. From 1893, he lived in the family's summer villa in Mondsee in the Salzkammergut for health reasons. In 1896, he settled in Salzburg and moved into a studio in Mirabell Palace. From then on, he devoted himself to mainly landscape painting. Reiffenstein had three sons; the eldest, Manfred (1894–1986), became a mechanical engineer. erenow.net/biographies/the-crimes-of-elagabalus/ |
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Post by jk on Aug 19, 2022 15:46:56 GMT -5
Well here we are again (briefly). "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General", from Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, references our H at 1:07 in this 1968 recording by baritone John Reed with The D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus & Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Isidore Godfrey: "I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's; I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox, I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus, In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Penzance |
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