Compare and Contrast

  After watching both performances of Franz Schubert's Heidenrosiein, I believe Barbara Bonney's rendition of the song was most vocally effective. I also believe the message conveyed through her performance was more truthful. Her ability to take the song and express true emotion behind it truly touched my heart. While her performance encompassed a variety of dynamic elements, her vocals were still soothing to my soul. Barbara Bonney approach to the song with a more melodic sound painting each word that she sang to express meaning. While Barbarra also sang with emphasis, she still remained true to herself singing with a legato flow.
  I believe Schreier's approach to the song was much more aggresive. As singers, we have to constantly be aware of how each performance is progressing. While each performer can hit or miss every so often, we never want to make the mistake of over-performing. In the Schreier's case i believe he over performed which took away from his performance. However, there were many good qualities of Schreier performance as well. Schreier sang with diction; articulating each word he sang. Schreier has a very powerful voice which often times attracts attention. Schreier sang with a variety of dynamics such as; vibrato, diction, and word painting. When painting his words he sang so gracefully which was like butter...it was so beautiful versus singing with heavy vibrato throuhout the song or over annunciating the lyrics for dition purposes. 
  Overall i believe each performer was in their element doing what they do best. While we often judge the performance of others, no one has the right to try to compare one artist vocal performnace to anothers. Everybody's gift is different and everyone's reason behind doing what they do is different. We all tell a story through our perspective art. 
  Concerning the poem, i believe rose represented the young girls virginity. However i believe that the young girls intentions were to suduce the older gentleman into sexual relations which caused him to fall from grace losing his purity. This not only caused the older gentleman his spiritual life but his natural life as well.