"Weird" Instruments in Classical Music

[pjme]

Honeggers Jeanne d'Arc in Brussels (not a Theremin, but the ondes Martenot....) The sound can sometimes be deceptively similar.

https://www.facebook.com/LaMonnaieDeMunt/videos/528260467751273/?_rdr
The ondiste is Philippe Arrieus

Isn't there an anvil in Bax' 3rd symphony and in Walton's Belshazar??

[Maestro267]

Yes. A single strike in the first movement of the former and a couple (but only within a few seconds of each other) in the latter.

[ritter]

Honeggers Jeanne d'Arc in Brussels (not a Theremin, but the ondes Martenot....) The sound can sometimes be deceptively similar.

https://www.facebook.com/LaMonnaieDeMunt/videos/528260467751273/?_rdr
The ondiste is Philippe Arrieus

Very interesting, pjme, thanks! I saw Jeanne d'Arc a couple of months ago fully staged here in Madrid, but ondes were barely audible. A pity!

[KevinP]

Bill Russo's Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra, and also his Street Music.

The odd instruments being harmonica, electric piano, electric bass and 'drums' in the popular sense.

[Peter Power Pop]

Weird instruments? For me, nothing beats Malcolm Arnold's Grand, Grand Overture, Op. 57. It's scored for three vacuum cleaners, one floor polisher, four rifles, and a full symphony orchestra.

https://youtu.be/6bHB3F6o3AY

[vandermolen]

Honeggers Jeanne d'Arc in Brussels (not a Theremin, but the ondes Martenot....) The sound can sometimes be deceptively similar.

https://www.facebook.com/LaMonnaieDeMunt/videos/528260467751273/?_rdr
The ondiste is Philippe Arrieus

Isn't there an anvil in Bax' 3rd symphony and in Walton's Belshazar??

OK thanks - my mistake.

[vandermolen]

Weird instruments? For me, nothing beats Malcolm Arnold's Grand, Grand Overture, Op. 57. It's scored for three vacuum cleaners, one floor polisher, four rifles, and a full symphony orchestra.

https://youtu.be/6bHB3F6o3AY

I agree - good to see you back here.

[pjme]

Jon Leifs deserves a mention, I think.
I wasn't able to consult scores, but he does use anvils, stones, "lurs" (brass) in several scores ( the Saga- symphony, Hekla....).
YT has a good performance of his organ concerto from Stavanger.

[Maestro267]

Erik Satie's ballet Parade includes a typewriter, a pistol, a lottery wheel and a "bottlephone"

[pjme]

Erik Satie's ballet Parade includes a typewriter, a pistol, a lottery wheel and a "bottlephone"

Ah, Satie! The "percussion section" of the orchestra has also "flaques sonores" - sound puddles.
https://www.youtube.com/v/i-iuk92GL9A

"piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, E♭ clarinet, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons
2 horns, cornet, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba
timpani, triangle, snare drum, side drum, cymbals, bass drum, 2 sirens (high and low)
typewriter, tam-tam, tambourine, pistol, lottery wheel, slapstick, "flaques sonores"**, xylophone, bottlephone"

[Peter Power Pop]

I agree - good to see you back here.

Thanks, Vandermeister.

I went down a pop music rabbit hole for quite a while, but I'm now back listening to classical music. (I'm currently on a Scheherazade kick, and bought five Scheherazade CDs yesterday. Somebody stop me!)

[vandermolen]

Thanks, Vandermeister.

I went down a pop music rabbit hole for quite a while, but I'm now back listening to classical music. (I'm currently on a Scheherazade kick, and bought five Scheherazade CDs yesterday. Somebody stop me!)

Excellent! Although I suspect that you need to buy many more to catch up with your Planets collection 
Scheherazade was the very first piece of classical music that I liked when I was about 14. My mother had an LP of it (Reiner, Chicago SO). I was humming it to myself at school one day when another boy said 'I know what that is...my mum also listens to it'.

[Peter Power Pop]

Excellent! Although I suspect that you need to buy many more to catch up with your Planets collection 
Scheherazade was the very first piece of classical music that I liked when I was about 14. My mother had an LP of it (Reiner, Chicago SO). I was humming it to myself at school one day when another boy said 'I know what that is...my mum also listens to it'.

I came late to the Scheherazade party. I was a very late developer with classical music. Here in Australia, I grew up listening to the Top 40 on AM radio. I only became interested in classical music because I'm a guitarist (bass guitar, to be precise) and had a "History of the Guitar" book that talked about the classical guitar. It led me to buying this as my first classical CD in about 1985 (I was 24):



From there, my listening grew to include more and more classical. Nowadays it depends on the mood I'm in as to what I'll listen to. At the moment, it's Scheherazade all the way.

[Peter Power Pop]

Excellent! Although I suspect that you need to buy many more to catch up with your Planets collection 
Scheherazade was the very first piece of classical music that I liked when I was about 14. My mother had an LP of it (Reiner, Chicago SO). I was humming it to myself at school one day when another boy said 'I know what that is...my mum also listens to it'.

I dare say a lot a mums were familiar the music of Scheherazade back then. Classical music used to be more of a thing than it is now.

[pjme]

Rimsky Korsakov - that made me think of Mlada , and the use of pan pipes in the Cleopatra-scene of the opera-ballet.