William Tell Overture (abridged)
(NOTE: Album covers and artist images are not available due to certain lega… Read Full Bio ↴(NOTE: Album covers and artist images are not available due to certain legal restrictions imposed on last.fm by Wendy Carlos.)
Wendy Carlos (born November 14, 1939, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island) is a composer and electronic musician. Carlos trained as a composer and worked as a recording engineer before her 1968 Switched-On Bach became the first classical music album to be certified platinum. This, and subsequent albums, brought the Moog synthesizer to wider public attention, and her 1971 soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange introduced the vocoder. Other notable work includes soundtracks for The Shining and Tron. (Her first six albums were originally released under the name Walter Carlos.)
In 1992, Carlos released Switched-On Bach 2000 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of her first album, featuring a re-recording of the album using digital synthesizers and computer-assisted recording with an added introductory composition (Happy 25th, S-OB) styled as a birthday fanfare for the project.
Wendy Carlos (born November 14, 1939, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island) is a composer and electronic musician. Carlos trained as a composer and worked as a recording engineer before her 1968 Switched-On Bach became the first classical music album to be certified platinum. This, and subsequent albums, brought the Moog synthesizer to wider public attention, and her 1971 soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange introduced the vocoder. Other notable work includes soundtracks for The Shining and Tron. (Her first six albums were originally released under the name Walter Carlos.)
In 1992, Carlos released Switched-On Bach 2000 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of her first album, featuring a re-recording of the album using digital synthesizers and computer-assisted recording with an added introductory composition (Happy 25th, S-OB) styled as a birthday fanfare for the project.
William Tell Overture
Wendy Carlos Lyrics
We have lyrics for 'William Tell Overture' by these artists:
We have lyrics for these tracks by Wendy Carlos:
Creation of Tron You tell me that you're leavin', I can't believe it's…
March from A Clockwork Orange Freude! Freude! Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus El…
Only Solutions NOTE: The lyrics listed here for Only Solutions were transc…
Theme from A Clockwork Orange Life is a miracle There's a theory for everything Like a flo…
Theme From A Clockwork Orange (Beethoviana) Life is a miracle there's a theory for everything like a flo…
Two-Part Invention in D minor This little volume (the result of meditation and experience)…
Water Music: Bouree Breaking up is hard to do When you turned and you…
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
More Genres
No Artists Found
More Artists
Load All
No Albums Found
More Albums
Load All
No Tracks Found
Genre not found
Artist not found
Album not found
Search results not found
Song not found
@scottryanjohnson5145
While there are some instances where she used that technique, saying that "she performed everything an octave lower and then simply sped up the tape 2x" is simply not entirely accurate. In her interview in Keyboard Magazine, with Dominic MilanoCarlos discusses that at times she used the performing at half-speed option on occasions. But there are many instances where she played at actual speed. Her keyboard technique was known by colleagues and associates as substantial - I have known some of them - and she plays the organ, and also has a Steinway grand piano in her living room. It is not for show...while admittedly reclusive, she is known to be a very down-to-earth and extremely practical person.
She grew up as a pianist and composer, built a computer at something like the age of 10.., and there are many instances of recordings throughout her "pre-digital" career, where the 1/2 speed option would have greatly hampered the bass register and dynamic range, and being the immensely talented physicist, engineer, composer and performer, that is something she was and is acutely aware of.
If one has ever played and laid down tracks and woven them together, in the meticulous manner that she did, using a keyboard and a multi-track, one quickly learns that one has to be able to play the material most of the time at regular tempo. It allows for very important subtle phrasing, the expressivity of both dynamics as well as playing around the "metronomic beat", which is what most other performers doing electronic music have settled for, or simply cannot pull off...and even with MIDI, the results tend to be mechanical and lack "Performance Value"; a term that she and her amazing collaborator and producer, Rachel Elkind coined, and took the greatest pains to always focus on as paramount...something that is often even lacking in the majority of "acoustic" performances of classical music...there are a myriad of places where that comes to mind throughout her albums...even an instance here is the rubato required at the ending of the abridged version of the William Tell presented here, which was no doubt done "in real-time".
Yes, it is an essential technique at times, and perhaps you didn't mean to imply that, but the statement "that she recorded everything an octave lower and then simply sped up the tape 2x" - the word "everything" being rather admonishing and slightly pejorative - is kind of is misleading. She is also a gifted percussionist, and from Clockwork Orange, she actually used real tympanies in her recording of the Ninth Symphony's Scherzo movement, which she also performed and recorded for the film.
Also, for instance, in her recordings of the various Brandenburg Concertos (among all her other Columbia Records albums, and indeed some of her later albums such as Beauty in the Beast), her amazingly buoyant rhythmic bounce, and always with a musical breath of phrasing. That can only be achieved when playing at actual speed for the majority of the passages; the subtle use of rhythm, which she is phenomenally adept at, and is a constant aspect of her performances, is clearly reflective of that truth.
Sadly, due to copyright issues, the CD-reissuings of her albums have not been available for almost all of her recordings, but a few. However, the albums can be found on eBay...I'd encourage you to get some and listen to them more critically.
When playing certain types of instrumental music that is extremely fast, where it is not actually idiomatically possible to play at the keyboard (such as extremely fast string passages), then yes, the technique is necessary, and she had no qualms about using it; but music that is slow to moderately fast, she would have performed at the actual tempo...for all of the reasons above...and to not compromise the audio quality of her recordings: the frequency range and the noise ratio would have been greatly compromised and something she and Rachel Elkind, also a producer and a recording engineer, never have simply would had put up with such a compromised recording and performance.
Maybe others do...or use MIDI, but she has always been vehement about performance value and the utmost audio quality. As such, recording everything at half-speed, and causing the loss of audio fidelity and musical quality that would had suffered as the consequential result, would be simply completely unacceptable to Carlos and Elikind. Give them some credit!
Yes, the extremely fastest passages in this piece were done that way, but the less "prestissimo", more moderate allegro passages/parts, as well as of course, the slower-moving materials, were almost certainly not. The frequency response makes that clear, even on vinyl. As does the phrasing, and the musical fineness. She can actually play...and play well. She practiced and practices; to think that she is anything less than an accomplished professional is just a very wrong notion.
For the record, no pun intended, Carlos actually performed a live concert in the mid-'90s at Belkin Auditorium, in NYC, where she played life with Anthony Newman, one of the world's greatest players and interpreters of Bach, Beethoven - even the Chopin Etudes (I heard in person; I studied with him and ended up producing numerous recordings of his), and the organ works of Franck, Mendelsohn, and Liszt, and so much else.
Newman is known for his astonishing technique...and rather fast tempos..and rubatos and ability to improvise...and that, for instance, reflects that Wendy Carlos is a keyboardist that can keep up with one of the greatest keyboard virtuoso's out there....the concert was called Bach to Bach, I believe. (I think I have misspelled the name of the hall, but it's late and I can't remember the exact spelling :-)
Lastly, her groundbreaking score for the film Tron, is an example of remarkable musical and compositional craft - and was way ahead of its time. And it is full of widely different affects and is extremely musically effective, and her performance is incredibly expressive. All of these aspects reflect evidence of being performed in real-time - and it is musically quite complex at times even just from the synthesizer side of the score (let alone her coordinating an orchestra, chorus, and an organ - all in different locations - to create this "ahead of its time" remarkable film score. It in many ways, anticipates the Matrix score. It would be impossible to play these complex rhythms musically and effectively and accurately at half-speed. Someone recently uploaded a Suite from Tron to YouTube - you might really enjoy it, as well!
Cheers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5RcNuQXuR4 -
@thecoronga1685
YOU ARE INVITED!!
@DannerFelix40312
This is my favorite Classical Music in my whole life 2022.
@MarioGuy283
Me too
@Thoracius
The manic sound is thanks to the fact that she performed everything an octave lower and then simply sped up the tape 2x.
@scottryanjohnson5145
While there are some instances where she used that technique, saying that "she performed everything an octave lower and then simply sped up the tape 2x" is simply not entirely accurate. In her interview in Keyboard Magazine, with Dominic MilanoCarlos discusses that at times she used the performing at half-speed option on occasions. But there are many instances where she played at actual speed. Her keyboard technique was known by colleagues and associates as substantial - I have known some of them - and she plays the organ, and also has a Steinway grand piano in her living room. It is not for show...while admittedly reclusive, she is known to be a very down-to-earth and extremely practical person.
She grew up as a pianist and composer, built a computer at something like the age of 10.., and there are many instances of recordings throughout her "pre-digital" career, where the 1/2 speed option would have greatly hampered the bass register and dynamic range, and being the immensely talented physicist, engineer, composer and performer, that is something she was and is acutely aware of.
If one has ever played and laid down tracks and woven them together, in the meticulous manner that she did, using a keyboard and a multi-track, one quickly learns that one has to be able to play the material most of the time at regular tempo. It allows for very important subtle phrasing, the expressivity of both dynamics as well as playing around the "metronomic beat", which is what most other performers doing electronic music have settled for, or simply cannot pull off...and even with MIDI, the results tend to be mechanical and lack "Performance Value"; a term that she and her amazing collaborator and producer, Rachel Elkind coined, and took the greatest pains to always focus on as paramount...something that is often even lacking in the majority of "acoustic" performances of classical music...there are a myriad of places where that comes to mind throughout her albums...even an instance here is the rubato required at the ending of the abridged version of the William Tell presented here, which was no doubt done "in real-time".
Yes, it is an essential technique at times, and perhaps you didn't mean to imply that, but the statement "that she recorded everything an octave lower and then simply sped up the tape 2x" - the word "everything" being rather admonishing and slightly pejorative - is kind of is misleading. She is also a gifted percussionist, and from Clockwork Orange, she actually used real tympanies in her recording of the Ninth Symphony's Scherzo movement, which she also performed and recorded for the film.
Also, for instance, in her recordings of the various Brandenburg Concertos (among all her other Columbia Records albums, and indeed some of her later albums such as Beauty in the Beast), her amazingly buoyant rhythmic bounce, and always with a musical breath of phrasing. That can only be achieved when playing at actual speed for the majority of the passages; the subtle use of rhythm, which she is phenomenally adept at, and is a constant aspect of her performances, is clearly reflective of that truth.
Sadly, due to copyright issues, the CD-reissuings of her albums have not been available for almost all of her recordings, but a few. However, the albums can be found on eBay...I'd encourage you to get some and listen to them more critically.
When playing certain types of instrumental music that is extremely fast, where it is not actually idiomatically possible to play at the keyboard (such as extremely fast string passages), then yes, the technique is necessary, and she had no qualms about using it; but music that is slow to moderately fast, she would have performed at the actual tempo...for all of the reasons above...and to not compromise the audio quality of her recordings: the frequency range and the noise ratio would have been greatly compromised and something she and Rachel Elkind, also a producer and a recording engineer, never have simply would had put up with such a compromised recording and performance.
Maybe others do...or use MIDI, but she has always been vehement about performance value and the utmost audio quality. As such, recording everything at half-speed, and causing the loss of audio fidelity and musical quality that would had suffered as the consequential result, would be simply completely unacceptable to Carlos and Elikind. Give them some credit!
Yes, the extremely fastest passages in this piece were done that way, but the less "prestissimo", more moderate allegro passages/parts, as well as of course, the slower-moving materials, were almost certainly not. The frequency response makes that clear, even on vinyl. As does the phrasing, and the musical fineness. She can actually play...and play well. She practiced and practices; to think that she is anything less than an accomplished professional is just a very wrong notion.
For the record, no pun intended, Carlos actually performed a live concert in the mid-'90s at Belkin Auditorium, in NYC, where she played life with Anthony Newman, one of the world's greatest players and interpreters of Bach, Beethoven - even the Chopin Etudes (I heard in person; I studied with him and ended up producing numerous recordings of his), and the organ works of Franck, Mendelsohn, and Liszt, and so much else.
Newman is known for his astonishing technique...and rather fast tempos..and rubatos and ability to improvise...and that, for instance, reflects that Wendy Carlos is a keyboardist that can keep up with one of the greatest keyboard virtuoso's out there....the concert was called Bach to Bach, I believe. (I think I have misspelled the name of the hall, but it's late and I can't remember the exact spelling :-)
Lastly, her groundbreaking score for the film Tron, is an example of remarkable musical and compositional craft - and was way ahead of its time. And it is full of widely different affects and is extremely musically effective, and her performance is incredibly expressive. All of these aspects reflect evidence of being performed in real-time - and it is musically quite complex at times even just from the synthesizer side of the score (let alone her coordinating an orchestra, chorus, and an organ - all in different locations - to create this "ahead of its time" remarkable film score. It in many ways, anticipates the Matrix score. It would be impossible to play these complex rhythms musically and effectively and accurately at half-speed. Someone recently uploaded a Suite from Tron to YouTube - you might really enjoy it, as well!
Cheers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5RcNuQXuR4 -
@Thoracius
@@scottryanjohnson5145 Alright, I guess I was largely misinformed on the topic!
I do have the old stuff on vinyl (Switched-On, Well-Tempered, etc.) They are great recordings, regardless of the technique used (or not used) to accomplish the manic high speed runs. I did have a couple of the digital albums as well with the difficult tunings -- weren't as much to my taste, but I appreciate the experimental nature.
@sammywestenberger9303
You’re welcome
@kpete9219
THE BEST!!!!!!!
@danielhodson6411
My alarm
@DannerFelix40312
To bad that other William Tell Overture Finale only had a few seconds of screentime in 1 minutes, by the way great video Classical Music.