Quiz: Mystery scores

Started by Sean, August 27, 2007, 06:49:47 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Larry Rinkel

Quote from: Maciek on September 05, 2007, 06:14:50 AM
I don't think he could have copied Ameriques - unless some paranormal element was involved... ;D

Google "havergal brian varèse" and read the first entry. I know I'm right!  ;D

karlhenning

Man, Maciek, I snooze, I lose!  8)

Maciek

#442
Ah, that H.B.!

Larry Rinkel

I hope I didn't upset Luke too much by making fun of this beached whale glorious symphony.

Maciek

How about some more clues for the other ones, Luke? We're not really moving ahead... :-\

greg

what's left? luke's stuff...... and?....
once that's all guessed, i'm posting my own stuff, ok?  :)

Maciek

Greg, you're not supposed to tell us whose stuff it will be! 0:)

lukeottevanger

#447
Nah, Larry, I just had to go out!

To confirm - Mr Rinkel is right - it is the HB Gothic

and Mr Rinkel is wrong - he underrates The Gothic terribly.  ;D

BTW, Larry,  - I'm not at all upset, as from my first posting of this example I was aware of your possible reaction! ;D  But, if you'll indulge me, and speaking purely musically, I've always been genuinely interested to know your criticisms of this piece - which is certainly very far from above criticism - because as you ought ot know by now, I value your insights. I suspect it is merely a matter of standards, and that mine are set rather lower than yours...

My own view on the quality of The Gothic is this, FWIW: It seems to me that works of this sort - extreme, late-Romantic, heaven-storming things of limitless ambition - call for a kind of spontaneity and even naivety on the part of the composer; something more calculating or more 'perfect' just wouldn't do, aesthetically, would strike a jarring note (that is part of the problem with Mahler 8, IMO). Brian's Gothic is flawed, seriously so, and not even the most ardent Brianite would deny it (Malcolm Macdonald, attempting a personal 'ranking' of the HB 32 places The Gothic aside at the very start, as he says it is far from Brian's finest piece but at the same time is his most important, essential one, his true masterpiece). But the flaws are necessary, are indeed part of the vision (as they are in much of my favourite music - Janacek, Ives....), and they make it a very human, brave document IMO.

Of course, if The Gothic were only flaws then it would be worth forgetting as quickly as possible, but to my mind, when it catches fire, as it does very often and for sustained periods of time, there is literally nothing like it. I have fallen out of love with Romantic music in the last few years, but to me works like this stand hors concours, above matters of style - the last five or ten minutes of The Gothic, from which my example comes, are unique, and uniquely powerful; to my mind more shattering than anything in Mahler etc. - and that is partly because they have obviously been through the fire (as Janacek would say) and are unmediated by smooth technique or calculating tricks of presentation.

oh, BTW, maximum staves in The Gothic score is something between 50 and 60 (I can't check because I'm not at home). Nothing too terrible - Ligeti is just as extreme, isn't he?  ???

However, this is somewhat off the subject of the thread...

greg

Quote from: Maciek on September 05, 2007, 08:46:34 AM
Greg, you're not supposed to tell us whose stuff it will be! 0:)
no, i didn't mean it like that lol
not the score I wrote, i just meant "some other scores" that i will post

karlhenning

Quote from: lukeottevanger on September 05, 2007, 08:51:00 AM
Nah, Larry, I just had to go out!

To confirm - Mr Rinkel is right - it is the HB Gothic

Larry pre-empted me? Splendid!  Anyway, I'm pleased that I guessed right.

Maciek

I'm sorry to have dumbfounded you though - the discussion was going completely over my head, and I assumed you meant Berlioz. :-[

BTW, I've had the "Gothic" on my computer, ready to listen to, for quite a while now (thank you, Johan :D) - I guess it's time I finally listened to it... ;D

lukeottevanger

#451
Quote from: Maciek on September 05, 2007, 08:43:28 AM
How about some more clues for the other ones, Luke? We're not really moving ahead... :-\

More clues....

OK, I'll be specific to the particular examples, then. I expect them to start tumbling in the next few minutes, because some of these clues are pretty blatant... strikethrough = found

no 9 - this is the memorial one, with a solo guitar. I was wrong when I said it only had one recording; it has at least two. I got a CD by this composer in the post today, if that helps. ;D

no 13 - this is the American one whose title, and this specific moment, refer to works from Europe (Vienna, in fact). I have met this composer, if that helps.  He had a beard, but he didn't when he wrote this piece ;D

no 21 - this is the concert version of the film score. This composer is well known for his film scores, but equally for his concert work. He is often said to have been the first to apply the term minimalism to music.

no 25 - this is the one which is an attempt to conjure up a landscape/culture. Just look down the list of instruments and you'll find it. The composer does not come from that country, but he did work there for a while. He writes complex music, as you ought not need to be told.

no 27 - this piece has been mentioned in passing on another thread (composers board) in the last day or two. The composer appears to have two Christian names and no surname.

no 28 - this piece begins with a depicition of mass-murder-as-entertainment, Roman style.

no 29 - this piece, as Larry determined, is by Balakirev or Borodin. Surely you don't need more than that!

no 30 - I chose this, so you can guess who it is by.

no 34 - is by a composer who had a run in with a swan recently.

lukeottevanger

Quote from: karlhenning on September 05, 2007, 08:56:19 AM
Larry pre-empted me? Splendid!  Anyway, I'm pleased that I guessed right.

Well, in context - given the clues he'd just been following, and his opinion of the piece, I'd say that, although not 100% specific

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on September 05, 2007, 06:03:41 AM
AH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on September 05, 2007, 06:04:10 AM
You actually bought a score to that thing?  :D

suggest that he did guess the piece first!!

Maciek

I thought No. 21 could be Nyman but I still don't think I know the piece...

Maciek


lukeottevanger

#455
Genius. Well done!!! The first movement, which deconstructs Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, and quite beautifully, if I may say so as a non-Nyman-ite. He extracts all appogiature from a passage of the slow movement and simply repeats them all (three times each in the film score, varying numbers in the concert version....or the other way round). (Well, it's not quite that simple, but nearly). The result is actually very interesting, a sort of concentrated Mozart, all the most expressive moments compressed together, but under the cool an unemotional hand of a process - it's this dichotomy which makes the whole thing work.

The whole score to the film is based on this melody, BTW, but only this part quotes it directly.

karlhenning

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,3125.msg77621.html#msg77621

Perfectly fair, all above board, and (as I say) my delight is unalloyed in all events :-)

karlhenning

Maciek, what is the Polish for "you are da man!"?  :D

Maciek

Quote from: lukeottevanger on September 05, 2007, 09:05:06 AM
no 27 - this piece has been mentioned in passing on another thread (composers board) in the last day or two. The composer appears to have two Christian names and no surname.

Could this be the post you mean?

Quote from: val on September 03, 2007, 12:08:57 AM
Great thread. Martin is one of the greatest composers of the century.

To me, his supreme masterpiece is the cycle of songs on Rilke's poems "Der Cornet", one of the most powerful and deeply touching cycle of Lieder I heard since Schubert. Lipovsek and Zagrosek are good, but I prefer the more subtle version of Jard van Nes and De Leeuw.

The cello concerto, from 1965, is another beautiful work.

Golgotha, in the tradition of Honegger's oratorios, with a more popular language, has very strong moments.

Other masterpieces of Frank Martin: Jedermann (with Fischer Dieskau!), the Requiem, the Mass for double choir and the Oratorio In Terra Pax, the 2nd piano concerto.

It is a pity but I never heard Le vin herbé.

Maciek

Quote from: lukeottevanger on September 05, 2007, 09:05:06 AM
no 34 - is by a composer who had a run in with a swan recently.

Would Resurrection (by Peter Maxwell Davies) be a legitimate guess?