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Originally Posted by Huinesoron
First off, as an Amarie solo it is still Finrod's Dreme - he's dreaming/having a vision about his wife in her loneliness. The canon has "still Beren dreams that thou dost sing"; the Zong turned that into a semi-duet, but it could easily be played straight.
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Hmm. I just feel like it's thematically out of place for Finrod to see Amarie's forgiveness before he actually dies and returns to Valinor/Mandos. On the other hand, in the Zongverse this song follows Camp, where Finrod is somehow heartened by Beren's absurd love, so perhaps dreaming that things will be alright in his own love affair is not out of place.
As a side note, was Amarie actually his wife in the text? In the Sil she is just "the one he loved", no word of "wife". I think I like her more that way, it adds flavour to Finrod's uncertainty and self-doubt and questioning about the meaning of life and his life in particular.
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Originally Posted by Hui
But I do want to do it as a duet, so the question is: can we make the lines line up better?
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Well, that's gonna screw with any pretense at making Finrod and Amarie musically different - so good thing that I gave up on that as a failed and futile task long before.
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Originally Posted by Hui
The thematic split is between Amarie's wounded heart, and Finrod's yearning one.
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That is a very good description, and I agree with your revised split. You have convinced me about a Finrod-gazing-back-on-Helcaraxe perspective. ^.^
The Listen stanza then becomes entirely Amarian, which, as you say, really cuts down Finrod's lines. If we really wanted, parts of that stanza could be sung as alternating lines, or sung together (like the bitter bread whatnot), to give Finrod more screentime. But from a semantic standpoint, I think the whole thing is probably Amarian.
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Originally Posted by Hui
A whole bunch of 2022 recordings. We already have one (Renunciation) from the same person, but it looks like there's at least 3 or 4 showings covered here. They're mixed in a bit with the Lay of Leithian musical, and I don't see any of the Daeron material, but we should get them on the list at some point. (The Epilogue shows up at least once! I think that's pretty rare.)
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Oh my goodness me! That is a LOT of recordings! It will take a good while to look through all of these!
So far I only watched one of the Truths (it uses the music similar if not the same as my favourite of the variations, but the actual singing/acting is good but no cigar), and the multi-person duet that is the Duel (which descends into hilarity as the two Finrods and three Saurons shamelessly start singing "we" instead of "I", and then the Finrods decide they are turning evil too so it finishes of as 5 Saurons). This seems to be the new cast that is running with the Zong and is keeping it alive.
I made a sketch of
Prison Duet a while ago. This one is surprisingly difficult to sketch, I feel like I still don't have the melody down properly. Repeating with the solo and the duet version, cause they have different cords. As usual, a check for tempo and pitch before launching into anything. Though with my current level of busyness I doubt I will be launching into anything anytime in the next couple weeks. I had a sketch of Hate too, but I recall I couldn't decide if I can sing Melian as written or if I would have to shift everything down a little... And if I would tolerate shifting everything down a tone after it's scored...
EDIT: now also watched a
Dream, which was VERY interesting. I really like Luthien's singing, her voice is just so songbird and flowy, perfect Luthien. I barely started frowning at Beren's ferocity, thinking that they were again going for the uncouth outlaw "ruffian" version of Beren, when I noticed he has shackles on! I suppose in this version they placed Beren's Dream in TIG where he actually does dream (which is a nice nod to canon but I don't think it works in the Zong, and I can't tell how they've re-ordered the songs here to accommodate this change). So his fierceness is actually very fitting in this context, and not at all jarring. I love how they finish the song as well - the harmony is so beautiful, and I wish I heard this before we made
our Dream so I could attempt to copy (but maybe we steal it for Showdown?). And acting-wise, how Beren seems to be soothed to rest by the memory/dream of Luthien - it's so good! ^.^