Mild und leise

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Mild und Leise, which means "fair and gentle" in German, is the opening line of the Liebestod, the final aria from Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde. It is one of the great moments in operatic literature, ending the opera as Isolde sings over the body of her beloved Tristan:

Mild und leise wie er lächelt, wie das Auge hold eröffnet --seht ihr's, Freunde?

Mild und leise is also the name of an 18-minute synthesized composition by Paul Lansky, made in 1973 on the IBM 360 mainframe. It is one of the very first pieces of music made with a computer. The piece was eventually published on a record titled "Electronic Music Winners" after it won a contest held by the International Society for Contemporary Music. Lansky based the piece on harmonic ideas from the Wagner opera. Years later Jonny Greenwood, guitarist of Radiohead, found "Electronic Music Winners" in a record store, and used a sample of the track as the foundation for Radiohead's song "Idioteque".

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