You want me to play this....how?!

[kishnevi]

From ClassicFM
http://www.classicfm.com/discover/music/bizarre-performance-directions/

[jochanaan]

Very nice!

There is also Carl Nielsen's instruction to the snare drummer in Symphony #5: "play as if at all costs you must stop the progress of the orchestra."

[Mirror Image]

There is also Carl Nielsen's instruction to the snare drummer in Symphony #5: "play as if at all costs you must stop the progress of the orchestra."

Haha. I like this one a lot. I wonder if the 'timpani battle' in his Symphony No. 4 has similar instruction?

[EigenUser]

There were a few from playing Adams' Gnarly Buttons in college. The violins had to play "with a brutal, scratching sound" (or something like that) at the end of the first movement. I happily did so . I remember the clarinet soloist even laughing at my enthusiasm.

My favorite one is in the manuscript score of the Ligeti PC. In the fifth movement, he tells the horns (who are asked to play a note that is arguably out of range) "In this octave! It is possible! Please practice. Thank you." Sadly, it didn't make it into the typeset version.

Ades' Asyla instructs the pianist to slam the keyboard cover closed in the 1st movement.

[DaveF]

There is also Carl Nielsen's instruction to the snare drummer in Symphony #5: "play as if at all costs you must stop the progress of the orchestra."

All Nielsenites know that story, so I was greatly disappointed not to find it in the full score, which has the much tamer direction The side drummer now improvises entirely freely with all possible fantasy, although from time to time he must pause. (Must he? Why?).  Perhaps it appears in the side-drum part.

Top of the silly time-signatures is the bar of 2/3/2 (two-thirds over two) in Le marteau sans maître (a bar consisting of two triplet minims).

[Pat B]

The violins had to play "with a brutal, scratching sound" (or something like that) at the end of the first movement. I happily did so .

Some of us didn't require a special instruction to do that.

[amw]

My favorite one is in the manuscript score of the Ligeti PC. In the fifth movement, he tells the horns (who are asked to play a note that is arguably out of range) "In this octave! It is possible! Please practice. Thank you." Sadly, it didn't make it into the typeset version.

In the typeset version of Adès's Chamber Symphony there's a high B-flat on the bass clarinet with an instruction that basically says "Yes, this note is on the instrument! Play at pitch, not an octave lower". I asked a bass clarinet player whether Adès was right and was told basically, yeah, the note is marginally playable, it just sounds awful.

All Nielsenites know that story, so I was greatly disappointed not to find it in the full score, which has the much tamer direction The side drummer now improvises entirely freely with all possible fantasy, although from time to time he must pause. (Must he? Why?).  Perhaps it appears in the side-drum part.

I think Nielsen revised that direction a few times. The first edition just says "cad. ad lib."

Time signatures: More Adès, whose Piano Quintet is written almost entirely in time signatures like 2/7, 10/12, 4/5 and 1/6. Tuplets (do you see).

[EigenUser]

Some of us didn't require a special instruction to do that.

Actually, I went to the music store yesterday. As I entered and walked past the counter, a parent and her daughter (maybe 8 years old) was there talking with an employee. A violin was on the counter. All I heard was the employee say (in a way as kind as possible) "Basically what I'm trying to say is that it isn't the violin -- it's you."

I've played those student-quality violins before (you know, the kind with the really thick wood and cheap plastic chin rests -- often with the music store company written on the body of the instrument). It is definitely the violin!

[ibanezmonster]

Time signatures: More Adès, whose Piano Quintet is written almost entirely in time signatures like 2/7, 10/12, 4/5 and 1/6. Tuplets (do you see).

Unfortunately cannot find a free pdf online of this score. Anyone have a pdf or are there any other works with time signatures like these with a free score online?

I've had the idea of writing meters like 3/7, 4/5 and such but to the best of my memory haven't seen it even in works by Stockhausen and Ferneyhough, for example. I'm assuming something like 3/7 would be 3 septuplet values?

[DaveF]

I think Nielsen revised that direction a few times. The first edition just says "cad. ad lib."

It was probably altered after the notorious Langelandsbæltssymfoniorkester performance of 1934, when the drummer (one R. Langgaard) removed all his clothes and ran amok through the orchestra screaming and hurling buckets of stage blood.

[Mirror Image]

It was probably altered after the notorious Langelandsbæltssymfoniorkester performance of 1934, when the drummer (one R. Langgaard) removed all his clothes and ran amok through the orchestra screaming and hurling buckets of stage blood.

Seriously? I've read Langgaard was quite jealous of Nielsen's success. One has to wonder why the need for the animosity? Did Nielsen flick off Langgaard out in public?

[jochanaan]

Haha. I like this one a lot. I wonder if the 'timpani battle' in his Symphony No. 4 has similar instruction?

It doesn't; but the dynamic levels for the timpani hover around fff.

[Mirror Image]

It doesn't; but the dynamic levels for the timpani hover around fff.