Quiz: Mystery scores

[Maciek]

22 looks like it could be from Chopin's Waterloo?

[Luke]

Correct - by Benjamin Wallfisch. Crazy piece!

[Karl Henning]

Go, Maciek!

[EigenUser]

This game is depressingly one-sided...

I wish I could get more of these. Posting scores is easy! It's the actual knowing part that is difficult.

I am still shocked that the Mackey was guessed. I could have sworn that piece was pretty much unknown. I only know of it because I saw it played live when I was in 10th grade. That was the first time I ever heard of it and I was moved immediately. My parents both looked pale and disturbed after the performance. I was also in a solemn mood at the end, but I was far more used to modern classical music than they were so I wasn't totally "stunned". The idea that music can have such an effect on people is really remarkable to me.

Seriously, though, the Mackey Ars Moriendi is a phenomenal SQ. Fortunately, a recording exists.

[Luke]

This game is depressingly one-sided...

Personally, I'd like some more to guess, or some clues on the existing ones. As far as mine are concerned, I'll put some clues up shortly...

[Maciek]

What was the clue for the Milhaud? I assume that the Mackey clue was the "heartbeat" tempo, which I did on purpose because I thought it would be harder.

For the Milhaud it was two clues, actually. But the main one was the tempo marking: "Alerte et Léger". It seemed pretty uncommon. (And then the second clue: the number of the movement.)

The Mackey was tough (but eventually solvable, as it turned out) - the heartbeat, in my case, worked as a false lead. I still have to listen to it in its entirety (certainly intend to). The sobbing glissandos reminded me very much of Kulenty's Cradle song, which is a piece I like very much, and if I ever get my hands on the score (highly unlikely), I'm sure I'll post something from it here. A very sad piece, its writing is connected with the composer's loss of her daughter.

(What I mean is Cradle song for piano trio - it appears she has also written a string quartet with the same title, for Kronos, no less! - but I've never heard it, apart from a 2 minute snippet on her site. )

Nice! Both pretty crazy-cool pieces, IMO.

And new discoveries for me.

Peanuts - no, sorry.

According to my sources, there was a Frida with curly hair in Peanuts?

Correct - by Benjamin Wallfisch. Crazy piece!

I found a sample of the score online, though not the insane page you gave us. It reminds me of a mocking and slightly scary description of a (fictional) avantgarde piece. The description was written by Henryk Czyż (Polish conductor, Schumann's Paradis, Penderecki). My memory is hazy, but I think that, among other things, the orchestra was to destroy their instruments. This was obviously at a stage when Czyż became less enthusiastic about some of the music he once championed.

Personally, I'd like some more to guess

I do have some ideas. The problem is time.

[Karl Henning]

According to my sources, there was a Frida with curly hair in Peanuts?

I think you're right.  FWIW, that was the first association which came to my mind, as well

[Luke]

According to my sources, there was a Frida with curly hair in Peanuts?

Possibly, and that may or may not have something to do with this piece, I'm not sure, but not directly, anyway. However, the strip cartoon aspect is very relevant!

[Dax]

Frida with curly hair is from Stripsody by Cathy Berberian!

[Luke]

She certainly is!

[Maciek]

Ta-dah!
Cheering and applause.

[Karl Henning]

Give the man a Peppermint Patty, a beagle, and a baseball glove.

[Maciek]

Actually, this all seems very much in the mood of the piece, doesn't it? Listening to it now on Spotify. A [the?] Frida bit comes around the 4th minute in the Theatre of Voices/Hillier rendition. How you could decide on any specific segment to post I don't know.

Oh, and incidentally - though it would be difficult to name two more constrasting pieces in one post: I see that a new recording of Kulenty's Cradle song is available on Spotify too, at least from my location.

[Maciek]

I'd like to make 2 suggestions:

1. That we merge this thread with the old score quiz and that we try to keep the numbering scheme more or less consistent (is it still doable at this point??).

[And, to use a Candace-Flynn-an intonation: by we - I mean I (in the first instance) and you (in the second) and by try to - I mean do and by more or less - I mean perfectly. ]*

3. That, occassionally, those of us who have posted quiz scores post an update (what has been answered, what hasn't, that sort of thing), and possibly links, including links to hints or something like that (how did we do it on the old thread exactly? I'm trying to check, but there was so much rambling did we ever actually get around to posting any score quiz questions over there? )

These are suggestions, mind you, so I'm not trying to pressure anyone into anything. Rather, I'd like to solicit your opinion(s).

Footnote:
* - Because how could I expect anything less than that? Seriously, though, I hope it is clear that the snappy/pathetic attempts at humor are all tongue in cheek. I do mean it when I say these are just suggestions.

[Maciek]

On a tangent, just to prove to you that I did take a look at the old thread, here is a hilarious exchange:

465 - Beethoven??

No. But one of the few composers whose fame is roughly on that level (just a wee bit less, I suppose)

Brahms??

No. Someone in between. One of his most famous pieces.

In terms of fame or chronology? Schubert??

[Luke]

Yes, the level of discourse was impressive, wasn't it 

On the old thread I did spend an inordinate amount of time keeping score (of the score scores  ) and posting updated lists of what had been found and what was waiting to be identified. It took ages, and it was an ongoing process, but that thread got so huge that it needed to be done. I think to merge the scores of this one and that one would take forever, which I don't really have any more, but I agree that ideally it would be nice to make the two run together...

[amw]

#11


#13


#14

Still unguessed.

There's a pretty big clue in the score of #11 (big enough that someone who's never heard the piece could still potentially figure it out) but it also is the only piece by its composer for that particular combination of instruments. Not a totally uncommon one.

13 and 14 are more obscure. The combination of nationality and time period in 13 is certainly unusual, though not extremely so; perhaps more notable will be the anticipation by ~40 years of what was, until about 1950, the most popular Romantic symphony.

As for 14, what does its musical style suggest? What does its typesetting suggest? (I've cropped out the publisher's name, but if you've seen scores by them before you should recognise the house style.)  The composer is rarely ever discussed on GMG—why might that be?

[Luke]

Prompted by Maciek, I've been looking back at the old thread for fun - wow, I spent a lot of time on it in those days! Both in setting hundreds of them, in keeping the scores and clues up to date, and in really beavering away on any that I didn't set! So far this time I haven't really done any of that, I've just said the ones that spring out at me, but now, with these thoughts in mind I've done a tiny bit of digging on amw's 11, and I think it's Lachenmann's Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied. The others might be harder...

[Luke]

Ha! Maybe not. Looked at 14 for the first time properly, suddenly it rang a bell - it's van Dieren's 2nd, isn't it?

[amw]

Yes to both.

I'm really surprised that I've been unable to find any recordings of the van Dieren quartets—just scores floating around. You'd think someone would have tackled them at some point in the past century or so.