Works similar in style to "Le Sacre du printemps" and the "Scythian Suite"?

[Mirror Image]

It's uploaded to Youtube: (and there's a mediafire link in the description)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3imEtW-4v80

Kudos, Karlo. Much appreciated.

[listener]

a find by Norman Lebrecht,
  "But then came Strauss's Alpine Symphony. That they'd go hell for leather was expected. That they'd invest each note with a degree of sensuality was also unsurprising. But that there would be maturity and musicality too was not in the script. But there it unmistakably was. Following an amble by the brook that appeared to include a hanky-panky stop-off – at least that's how I made sense of their obscene portamentos, the sort of portamentos that could undo bra-straps and whip off knickers – and a sojourn at a waterfall that not only cascaded and shimmered as any self-respecting waterfall should but also played scratchily with our faces, they returned to their long wind up to the mountaintop.

Here one witnessed one of the greatest passages of orchestral legato I've ever heard. Dudamel led them up as one, leaving behind a melody that was as epic as it was heady. One got the sense of airlessness at this peak, a sense of oxygen-deprivation that almost seemed to be turning the Alpine vista psychedelic. Certainly, on the descent, the three trombones and tuba appeared to give voice to the mountain itself and, with one last rumbly sneeze, shook us hiking interlopers off. What was interesting was how little one could attribute this vivid phantasmagoric journey to sectional triumphs. Each had spirit, but only the violins stood out in terms of technical and textural virtuosity. Otherwise this was about team effort and collective intensity and a bit of Dudamel magic."
                                                                                                     Igor Toronyi-Lalic

[petrarch]

The Le sacre – Amériques connection is even clearer in the 8-hands version of the latter.

Stravinsky claimed he could pinpoint the myriad places in Amériques Varèse directly lifted from Le Sacre. Be that as it may, I love both works equally and in my mind the images each evokes are so radically different that the quotation or even plagiarism doesn't bother me at all.

[Karl Henning]

I think highly of Amériques, indeed. The relation is not a matter of either plagiarism, nor quotation, quite. Varèse's piece is all his own.

[Cato]

Kudos, Karlo. Much appreciated.

Yes!  YouTube is awesome in this respect!

And here is Leo Ornstein's Suicide In An Airplane complete with the score!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS0x3u6pH3w

[Mirror Image]

I think highly of Amériques, indeed. The relation is not a matter of either plagiarism, nor quotation, quite. Varèse's piece is all his own.

+1

[Mirror Image]

Yes!  YouTube is awesome in this respect!

And here is Leo Ornstein's Suicide In An Airplane complete with the score!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS0x3u6pH3w

Very true, Cato. Thanks for the Ornstein link.

[eyeresist]

There was a 1970's recording on Melodiya that was a real barn-burner: Rozhdestvensky and Yuri Yelnikov!

If you can find it somewhere, that is the one to have!  The Ashkenazy is good, but he does not have Yelnikov!

I thought Yelnikov was awful, off-pitch and overly strained. I don't know why that recording is so highly rated, apart from rarity value.


For the thread, the Ravel orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is (at least in part) a close relative of the aforementioned works.

[Cato]

I thought Yelnikov was awful, off-pitch and overly strained. I don't know why that recording is so highly rated, apart from rarity value.

Do you have the score?

And of course he's strained!  He is exorcising Chaldean demons!!!        

You would be "strained" too! 

[listener]

Honegger: Pacific 2-3-1

[petrarch]

I think highly of Amériques, indeed. The relation is not a matter of either plagiarism, nor quotation, quite. Varèse's piece is all his own.

Of course, I agree. The point was that Stravinsky himself disagreed .

[Karl Henning]

Well, but then, he was an interested party ; )

[snyprrr]

Look into some Ginastera?

[Luke]

I agree with Stravinsky - the points where the Rite is essentially copied in Ameriques (and also in Arcana) are very evident; I can pick them out of the score too, one by one. But I agree with you guys too (and I said it originally, too) - Ameriques is a stunning maasterpiece which paradoxically, despite the Riteisms, is Varese through and through, and that if Stravinsky was carping, he was missing the point. In fact, when I get home in a few minutes after a b*** of a day at work, I think I need to crank Ameriques up to 11. 

[Karl Henning]

I agree with Stravinsky - the points where the Rite is essentially copied in Ameriques (and also in Arcana) are very evident; I can pick them out of the score too, one by one. But I agree with you guys too (and I said it originally, too) - Ameriques is a stunning maasterpiece which paradoxically, despite the Riteisms, is Varese through and through, and that if Stravinsky was carping, he was missing the point.

I make no doubt you said it originally (and more originally than I); but I promise I did not plagiarize your evaluation! : )

[eyeresist]

Similarly, on first listening the Scythian sounded obviously Rite-inspired to me, but now it sounds like pure Prokofiev. I wonder how that change came about? It would probably take a detailed analysis of the score, and Prokofiev's composing style, to find out...

[Karl Henning]

Similarly, on first listening the Scythian sounded obviously Rite-inspired to me, but now it sounds like pure Prokofiev.

My own experience (long erewhile) was similar.

[Mirror Image]

My own experience (long erewhile) was similar.

+1

[mszczuj]

The deep inspiration of The Rite in the musical language of The Scythian Suite is obvious. But it is the great complex masterpiece of the great master. So for me there is  nothing contradictory to find it the pure Stravinsky one time and the pure Prokofiev other.

[mszczuj]

I suppose the same could be said about Vermeulen Symphony No.2. (I suppose this is that Dutch Le Sacre of some guy)