Quiz: Mystery scores

[lukeottevanger]

It is one of those. And as he's a composer you'd probably love, it is imperative that you now go out and buy all these pieces so that you can track down which one.  It is my still favourite piece by Benjamin, though it is not one of his more recent works. The clue about Turner is important - there's only one of these works that that applies to!

[greg]

Yes, sorry, I didn't see this one before!

Put me down as a Benjamin fan - though I'm afraid I still prefer his earlier works, up to about the Three Inventions. At First Light and A Mind of Winter particularly are just unsurpassable IMO. Having just claimed a feeling of kinship with the 1972 LSSO on the Brian thread (because I was a member of the orchestra long time later) I must also say I feel some kind of a connection to Benjamin (and to Judith Weir and Tom Ades) simply because he/they all studied music at the same place as me, albeit a while earlier; also, Benjamin's Ringed by the Flat Horizon, which brought him to prominence, was first performed as the winner of a university composition competition which I also, sort of, won, or would have had my piece been for smaller forces!

But of course none of that is really important except to me. What I adore about those works of Benjamin's I mentioned is their stunning aural imagination - small forces in each creating the most awesome and precisely imagined sounds. Benjamin is influenced by the spectralists - he is close to Murail IIRC - and this shows in the consumate yet unusual aural effects in some of these works (such as the big E flat pedal+harmonics towards the end of At First Light) but he isn't committed to one technique; his music has great scope and imagination.

Boris, if you liked the last movement of Ringed by the Flat Horizon you will probably like the parallel section of At First Light, which is similar in concept but more subtly coloured and almost shockingly beautiful IMO - those chords melting into each other gorgeously!

so.... it's "At First Light?"

[lukeottevanger]

That's the one. I get the sense my new clues are helping....

[Maciek]

You might be right about the Weinberger, but this piece isn't by him, sorry! It's a composer we've already had on this thread, if that helps.

So, MM 17 looks like Kilar's Angelus to me. I have a recording, but didn't recall the piece. 

Correct. I'll remove the clue.

[lukeottevanger]

In the mood for more?

119 - (I've missed off 118 because I mucked up the numbering with two no 77s earlier) - nice big sample, clear text, stylistic traits everywhere, other clues for the getting - no extras needed.

[lukeottevanger]

120 - a transcription of a great composer by another great composer.

[lukeottevanger]

121 - I've left a big clue here. This comes from the climax of one of the great little chamber operas of the last half century. A genuine little masterpiece, one of its composer's best. There's already been a score by him on this thread.

[lukeottevanger]

122 - very clear again, I think.

[lukeottevanger]

123 - the last bars of a set of pieces. Has a similarity with my 82; compared with the opening of this piece, this page also exhibits a structural similarity with my example 103

[lukeottevanger]

124 - an early work by a composer not typically associated with solo piano. I'll leave it like that, but more clues if necessary.

[lukeottevanger]

125 - the composer in his Neapolitan vein here. Spiky here, this piece is elsewhere suffused with sumptuous Mediterranean lyricism. I really admire this work in many ways, though maybe that's a bit unfashionable.

[lukeottevanger]

126 - unusually, this score comes from a CD liner note. The whole thing is reproduced over the first few pages of the booklet. One for Guido - if he doesn't know it he should learn it! It was written for and recorded by a certain recently deceased Russian cellist. I'm sure I don't need to tell you who.

127 - written as exercises for a composer-performer, who used/uses them as a basis for improvisation. The little squiggly signs above each group of notes is actually an 'infinity' sign, signifying that repetition is quite important to this composer.....

[lukeottevanger]

128 - a double canon at the ninth, though that begins to become freer on this final page. This piece was written as a counterpoint exercise, and partly in jest if the mock antique handwriting of the manuscript is a guide. But it is to my mind a very moving and beautiful work indeed. You could say that its composer is one of the big names.

[lukeottevanger]

129 - for some of this set I have taken copies of pages from a couple of books. This one comes from a book called Contemporary British Music or something of that sort, and once again it is one for Maciek. This composer used to live down the road from me when I was young.

130 - no comments just for now - some of you might well know this one straight off

[lukeottevanger]

131 - one of its composer finest but lesser-known works, and also one of my favourites. Many of his stylistic traits are visible here. He is A Big Name.

[Maciek]

LO 129 - I've never really heard or seen it but based on your description and the instruments it's scored for, and that snippet of text visible, I'm guessing it's Panufnik's Universal Prayer.

[lukeottevanger]

  Got my little clue, there, I see  No, right composer, wrong piece.... Scrub that, sorry, wasn't concentrating: YES!! right composer, right piece

132 - looks hideously hard, but there are several big clues here. Taken from the masterpiece of one of the great twentieth century composers, but one who for too long was rather overshadowed.

[lukeottevanger]

133 - this might be quite hard, and I'll happily give clues (I've left some on the score itself). But this piece has been recorded more than once, including on Naxos in the last few years, and may well be known by some here, so no more clues for now.

[Mark G. Simon]

LO 119 - Serenade to Music by RVW.

[Mark G. Simon]

LO 121 -- The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies