# Castles in the air



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

If you were to be famous for one of the reasons mentioned in the poll, what would you like to be noted for?
Write a brief profile of this famous alter ego of yours, and how s/he excelled.
Describe your style of singing and the operatic roles you excelled in.
Or describe the sort of orchestral work you'd like to write, and what the critics said about it.
Give a synopsis of the plot of the opera you wrote, and so on. 

Fantasy - tout court. 
But the wittier the better.

Not expecting oodles of replies - but one lives in hope.
Thanks to anyone who ventures. :tiphat:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I think I'd like to be a famous singer more than anything. It would be wonderful to be a violin virtuoso, but the flesh quails before all that practice. Being remembered for your compositions would be fine, but you'd have to spend a long time on your own in your study thrashing it out. Conducting - I've never known what all the fuss is about! :devil:
I'd be quite tempted by being a famous musical biographer, as I enjoy writing. Maybe I could write a best-selling detective story about Lully, or about how Leclair met his death. Or if I wrote a biography of someone who died not too long ago, I could go round interviewing people who knew him or her, and I do so enjoy talking to people.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Although I'd love to be a biographer or music critic, I already have enough academic material at my fingertips to satisfy my curiosity. 

I'd choose to be a virtuoso fortepianist! My second option would be a famous conductor (of a Symphony Orchestra).


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

I've popped down instrumentalist - early keyboards - clavichord, virginal, spinet, harpsichord, simple organ - playing a repertoire from 1490 to about 1650. This would (inevitably) involve a fair amount of musicology and criticism and discovery and editing of sources.

Imagine doing a tour of English music from Richard Allwood to Richard Wynslade via Byrd, Dowland, Gibbons, Lawes, Tallis, Taverner -great fun!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

But no - a singer. 
_*'She had a pure but very expressive mezzo-soprano voice, and, although in her youth she appeared in a television production of Carmen, she specialised in baroque operas - when performing as Dido in Purcell's opera, she once famously stopped the production in its tracks when the conductor of the orchestra broke down in tears! In her later years, she made the role of sorceress in the same opera her own.

She also gave a definitive performance as Sesto in Handel's Giulio Cesare.

The cd that she made of French courtly love songs - Fourteenth-Century Fire - became one of the best-selling early music productions of all time.

She undertook her last stage role at the age of eighty-four, and for eight years after that gave regular concerts for charity.

She died just a few weeks short of her hundredth birthday, a day after her fitting for the dress she'd planned to wear while singing to the fellow residents of her nursing home.'*_


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Composer. Classical instrument mostly, that improbably sells. Maybe a "post-minimalist" type who catches on with the pop/rock crowds but without being overly repetitive. Writes the occasional film score. Dies while still cool. 

I struggle to imagine myself as a performer because of nerves.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Distinguished critic and musicologist Manxfeeder came to prominence when he championed appreciation of music from ceiling fans. His treatise demonstrating how tape hiss has a legitimate place in the overtone series spurred a renewed interest in cassettes and vintage Sony Walkmans. His influence is credited with the presidency of Julliard being granted to Kenny G.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

I would like to be a condposianingographitic.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> But no - a singer.
> _*'She had a pure but very expressive mezzo-soprano voice, and, although in her youth she appeared in a television production of Carmen, she specialised in baroque operas - when performing as Dido in Purcell's opera, she once famously stopped the production in its tracks when the conductor of the orchestra broke down in tears! In her later years, she made the role of sorceress in the same opera her own.
> 
> She also gave a definitive performance as Sesto in Handel's Giulio Cesare.
> ...


:clap: Love it!
You could use Ingélou as a stage name.


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## Guest (Apr 14, 2015)

Well, need I say it? I voted for Beethoven !!!


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

TalkingHead said:


> Well, need I say it? I voted for Beethoven !!!


You wish to be dead?


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

My exact choice wasn't there: I'd be a famous composer of instrumental AND choral works. I've long admired the works of Barber, Bernstein and Copland (my own "BBC") who were all capable of writing instrumental, vocal, choral, operatic works. In addition, Debussy, Ravel, Faure, Griffes, Hanson, Gershwin all wrote instrumental and vocal works. 

It's part of the skill of being a good well-rounded composer -- one has to know how to create a melody that suits the mood of the words, as much as how to create melodies that suit the instrumental ensemble for which he's writing.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Can I be Mahler?


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Philanthropist / producer: putting musicians and composers together, commissioning and/or making their projected work possible , clearing obstacles and allowing the public to hear exciting new works and ensembles.

...if I can dream


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

My dream would be to be able to play guitar like Johnny Winter could, and be able to sing decently (not necessarily beautifully as i would want to play more blues and folkish stuff so a coarse, rough voice fits). Then I would like to be able to write some really good songs with great messages as well as cover favorite songs of others--if I can do them any justice.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Scottish bagpipes, yeah. Famous, yeah - in Vermont & New Hampshire - for the sweetness of my sound.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Composer of . . . EVERYTHING!


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Me, as famous opera, vocal composer in the 18th century.


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## manyene (Feb 7, 2015)

I have chosen the role of a famous critic, largely because as a teenager this was one of my ambitions, having read Tovey's essays. I have no performing skills, despite several attempts;I would never be a composer after finding I had inadvertently copied a theme of Debussy's thinking it was my invention. I did write several crits of concerts, and once, even a programme note, but that was as I got before reality set in. I suppose membership of discussion forums is a kind of substitute for this ambition??


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Musical biographer, since I'd hate to be _really_ famous. I'm not sure if those other people (with the possible exception of classical music composers) can leave their homes without being pestered by rabid fans.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I'd like to be known as the obnoxious pre teenager that dropped a live frog down the decolletage of the Wagnerian Soprano as the curtain raises for Die Walkure.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I'd like to be a composer of 12-tone pop hits.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I would be a great harpsichordist, devoting my life to Bach: the WTC, Keyboard Partitas and Goldberg Variations.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Blancrocher said:


> Musical biographer, since I'd hate to be _really_ famous. I'm not sure if those other people (with the possible exception of classical music composers) can leave their homes without being pestered by rabid fans.


It's worse than that actually, to be really famous - my fans will even invade my home and ask questions like "When you will release your next STI?" "Have you studied idiot theory or do you just rely on your natural stup... talent when you compose your thread ideas?" "What's the creation process like? What are your sources of inspiration?" "Was Einstein right or will mankind someday run out of stupid ideas?"


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2015)

Dim7 said:


> "Was Einstein right or will mankind someday run out of stupid ideas?"


Cosmologists have now solved this conundrum: Man's stupidity has been found to be actually physically larger than the known universe. Current thinking is that much of the stupidity is "hidden" in dark matter.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2015)

I'd be a groupie.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2015)

dogen said:


> I'd be a groupie.


I get two likes for this, and both from a female. 

Is this where gender emancipation has led us? :devil:


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

dogen said:


> I'd be a groupie.


Aren't you already my groupie? That's how I interpreted your friend request, and all the other friend requests as well. I mean, obviously the word "friend" is not to be taken literally here? "Friend" implies equal rather than hierarchical kind of relationship, and obviously that cannot exist between us.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2015)

Dim7 said:


> Aren't you already my groupie?


Well naturally, my fantasy for this thread was for a more _public_ basis for my position, rather than the private one currently.
At least it was private till you just posted.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

dogen said:


> I'd be a groupie.


I think this was probably what I meant when I chose 'famous singer'. 

I can't say that there's anyone around today whose groupie I would aspire to be, though. I think I should change my choice to 'musical biographer' as a) I do have a couple of research projects of that nature on the go and b) it's pretty much the closest you can get to being a groupie when the object(s) of your adoration is no longer living.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2015)

Figleaf said:


> it's pretty much the closest you can get to being a groupie when the object(s) of your adoration is no longer living.


That needn't be a barrier. I can recommend developing a good fetish for a relic of the deceased.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Vesteralen - Legendary poster at Talk Classical. Renowned for his incomprehensible babble in prose. He mysteriously disappeared after his 1999th post, never to be seen or heard from again, thus prompting innumerable Stupid Thread Ideas on the anniversary of his disappearance, like "Whatever Happened to What-His-Name" and "The Vesterwhosis Tribute Thread".


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

dogen said:


> That needn't be a barrier. I can recommend developing a good fetish for a relic of the deceased.


A lock of hair would be nice, but I draw the line at body parts!


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

Figleaf said:


> it's pretty much the closest you can get to being a groupie when the object(s) of your adoration is no longer living.


Although there are some obscure subgenres in the deathmetal or gore-scene that found ways to get closer. Maybe better not go there.....:lol:

I'll be a famous composer, please. And an excellent pianist at that. Dream on, yep, castles in the air......


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