Quiz: Mystery scores

[lukeottevanger]

I see Larry here - not sure if you'ver seen no 115 Larry (pg 54) but that is one I think you'll know. In addition to the others I mentioned - 89, 109, 113...

[karlhenning]

The harp part is quite chaste - keep your eyes fixed on that.

Hah! You got me to look.  The print is pale, but if there's a harp there, it's eluded me! 

[lukeottevanger]

At least it isn't pink....

[lukeottevanger]

Ah yes, sorry, piano. I was, quite understandably, looking through half closed eyes.

[lukeottevanger]

I'm really not doing well on the paying-attention-and-thinking-things-through front at the moment, as you may have noticed.

[karlhenning]

Well, you are burning the oil, lad!

[lukeottevanger]

Yes, but not right now. No such excuse at the moment.

[Maciek]

BTW, I meant to guess a few days ago that Maciek's no 20 might be Penderecki's Song of the Cherubim. To be honest, I' very incertain about this - it doesn't really match those bits of the piece I've heard - but the piece would fit some of Maciek's clues.

Bad performances, good clues. You're right. I think it's a pretty good piece, and I generally think everything Penderecki writes for choir is almost always at least very good.

Over the last week I've been reviewing my opinion of Penderecki - this was triggered by my first exposure to his 8th Symphony (well, the part he has written so far - he says it will be more than twice as long when it's finished). I liked it very much. Also, I've been relistening to his Credo, and must say I enjoy that very much too. So maybe it's just the Polish Requiem that I hate (except for one or two movements). And that one Symphony whose number I have promptly erased from memory...

On another note, as much as I'd love to take a guess at one of yours, Luke, I really don't have time to give them a good look at the moment. I'll also try to add some clues to those of mine that are still left unguessed - maybe later tonight, or perhaps tomorrow, or....................

[Guido]

Ok Ok... Wild Nights movement of John Adams' Harmonium - I really want to hear it now.

[Guido]

114 - a piece which Guido ought to know  A beautiful, seductive and wonderfully-written work for violin and small orchestra, in a 'post tonal' (whatever that means) neo-romantic kind of vein. This composer is often known as a post-modernist, however. Whatever school he is pigeon-holed in, this is a very fine work. The centre of the piece seems to me to be based around a slightly distorted version of the subject of the D major Fugue from Book 2 of the WTC, and though I haven't read that this is intentional, I'm pretty sure, knowing the way this composer works, that it is.

Is this the one you referred to more recently (below)? I don't think I know it.

There's another one in here you ought to know too, if you look back at my clues. (I don't mean the solo cello one.)

[lukeottevanger]

Is this the one you referred to more recently (below)? I don't think I know it.

I didn't say you knew it. I said you ought to....

[Guido]

Yeah I know - I look forward to it being revealed.

[greg]

Over the last week I've been reviewing my opinion of Penderecki - this was triggered by my first exposure to his 8th Symphony (well, the part he has written so far - he says it will be more than twice as long when it's finished).

ok, interesting...... i have a question. This is from his wikipedia article:

   

* Symphony No. 1 (1973)
    * Symphony No. 2 Christmas (1980)
    * Symphony No. 3 (1988-1995)
    * Symphony No. 4 Adagio (1989), winner of the 1992 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition
    * Symphony No. 5 Korean (1991-2)
    * Symphony No. 6 (in progress)
    * Symphony No. 7 Seven Gates of Jerusalem (1996), for voices and orchestra
    * Symphony No. 8 Lieder der Vergänglichkeit (2004-05), for voices and orchestra

are you referring to his 6th symphony or 8th? It says the 8th is finished (though i've never found a recording of it)..... i assume you're talking about the 6th, right? And if he's calling it the 6th the 8th, that's even more confusing!

how'd you get to listen to the first part of the 6th/8th?

[Maciek]

Greg, those are just crude, uninformed lies. The version of the 8th that can sometimes be heard performed is about 30 mins long. Penderecki says the Symphony will last about 70 minutes when he completes it. So it's not completed and that's probably the reason it hasn't been recorded yet. (Also, I have reason to doubt I will actually still like it when it's finished - right now it's a great song cycle - but 70 minutes? come on! will this guy never learn?)

If you like, I can upload the performance I listened to. It has a glitch or two but nothing tragic.

[lukeottevanger]

Ok Ok... Wild Nights movement of John Adams' Harmonium - I really want to hear it now.

Correct. And your wish is my command: a snippet (low quality) of the relevant section, from a point a few moments before my quoted page to the musical equivalent of the lighting of the post-coital ciggie. If I write that it is pornographic again, does that mean more people will listen?

Words (Dickinson), as you hear them here, all much repeated and mangled in the music:

Wild Night
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury //

Were I with thee
Rowing
and rowing
Ah the Sea
Might I but moor
Tonight in Thee
rowing in Eden....

Adams achieves this simple but powerful effect through what he calls (or called at the time) harmonic 'gates' - drastically slowed down chord changes so that each shift takes on great force. This is a more subjective, romantic use of harmony to that in e.g. Steve Reich, even though the technique itself is similar. It actually takes Adams quite close to Sibelius and Bruckner territory, two composers who also often slow down harmonic rhythm so that chord changes become 'tectonic' in effect. About 'Wild Nights' specifically, Adams says that the 'successive shifts of key ('gates') are abrupt transitions that act like a continuously accelerating centrifuge...'

[Guido]

Wow - I want to hear the rest of the piece!

For anyone that is interested (no one...?) I messaged Luke that I thought Rachmaninov Symphony no.2 is positively pornographic - the amount of musical orgasms it contains is obscene! Probably my favourite piece by Rachmaninov (and the 2nd and 4th PCs....)

[lukeottevanger]

Indulge me...

I have a friend whose score collection dwarfs any other I know outside libraries. The really odd thing, though, is that he hardly has any scores from the core repertory - everything is outlandish, huge, peculiar, ultra-obscure, record-breaking.... it's his obsession, and it leads him down amazing routes. He approaches composers fearlessly, phoning them up, writing to them, even visiting them at home, and almost always gets a positive result (composer just want to be loved!). For instance, I was chatting to him a while ago, and he excused himself thusly: 'can I come back in a minute, Luke, I'm just MSNing with Horatiu Radulescu'; another time he traveled to Orkney hoping to meet Maxwell Davies, and ended up staying the night...

Anyway...a long time ago he sent me a disc with a few scores scanned in, one of which is one of the most beautiful scores I've seen - hand-engraved as faultlessly as a Crumb score, but covered with graphic designs. It is not actually too obscure (that is, the composer is one many here will have heard of), so maybe someone will be able to hazard a guess (though I know I wouldn't if I didn't know it!). For a change, two sample pages - but any of the score would have done

[Lethevich]

Chorus and tape... semi famous composer... psychadelic manuscript... Tavener - The Whale?

(total shot in the dark )

[lukeottevanger]

No - if Tavener is a semi-famous composer, I suppose this guy is a demisemi-famous one at best. Though still a known name.

HOWEVER - this is a good guess, and on the strength of it and the fact that I need more of mine to be guessed, I will give you the huge clue that another of mine from the last week or two is from The Whale.

[greg]

Greg, those are just crude, uninformed lies. The version of the 8th that can sometimes be heard performed is about 30 mins long. Penderecki says the Symphony will last about 70 minutes when he completes it. So it's not completed and that's probably the reason it hasn't been recorded yet. (Also, I have reason to doubt I will actually still like it when it's finished - right now it's a great song cycle - but 70 minutes? come on! will this guy never learn?)

If you like, I can upload the performance I listened to. It has a glitch or two but nothing tragic.

sweeeeeeeeet