Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Anna Egan Returns!

Fresh from her Salzburg studies, my operatic sister Anna Egan expresses her gratitude to all the benevolent DarwinCatholic readers who supported her financially and with prayers. Just for you, here are two songs we recorded tonight by the sophisticated method of placing an iPhone under a hat on a chair equidistant from singer and piano. As always, she is accompanied by A Hack.

"Chacun A Son Gout" by Johann Strauss, from Die Fledermaus. Anna workshopped this song in Salzburg.

UPDATE: We re-recorded this morning, experimenting with the phone NOT under a hat, and using the mute pedal on the piano for the first time ever (honestly, who's ever used the mute pedal?), and Anna comes out much clearer. The piano is still lousy, though.






"When I Am Laid In Earth" by Henry Purcell, from Dido and Aeneas.
UPDATE: re-recorded this morning, but the mute pedal only controls the piano, not the kids. Sorry about the chatter around 2:15.


My sincere apologies to everyone whose Google Reader keeps showing new posts from DarwinCatholic when it's only me messing with different takes. Recording is an art, not a science.

8 comments:

Catholic Bibliophagist said...

Alas! When I try to play it, I get a button that says, "Do not support the file extension."

Darwin said...

Fixed the files! Give it another listen.

--MrsD

Banshee said...

They're both "When I Am Laid in Earth". (Bad Murphy! Bad!)

Brandon said...

Suburbanbanshee beat me to saying that they were both the same.

But it's quite lovely; getting such an excellent result under thrown-together conditions is one of the marks of true artistry.

mrsdarwin said...

Now I'm not going to say what I thought when SuburbanBanshee pointed that out, but it's fixed now, I THINK. Let's try this again...

Great artists must suffer, I guess.

Brandon said...

Yes! I get them both now.

mrsdarwin said...

Okay, two fresh takes up, both utilizing the surprisingly effective mute pedal on the piano. Too bad it doesn't magically make me hit all the right notes... But Anna is clearer!

Catholic Bibliophagist said...

Yay! Both files work for me now. Most impressive.