Quiz: Mystery scores

[Larry Rinkel]

I certainly haven't - I was worrying everyone else had lost enthusiasm!

Just taking an intermission, or as you on the other side of the pond would say, an interval.

[karlhenning]

I'll take a major sixth, Larry!

[lukeottevanger]

OK, in the hope to give the thread a little kick-start, some more give-away clues to my remaining ones (italics = correctly guessed):

No 44 - we've established that this is a piece of French organ music, by a specialist organ composer. I'll add that he is one of those much-lamented 'died-too-soon' composers, killed in action in WWII. As a give-away clue I'll also add that his youngest sister went on to become a famous organist in her own right. This composer's output is small, and this is one of his larger works. As you can see, the melodic writing shows the influence of Eastern musics, though this is not one of his pieces (there are some) with an 'Eastern' title.

No 50 - evidently the different script gives the game away that this piece originates somewhere relatively unusual. There are not an enormous number of well-known composers from this country, and still fewer when one discounts 'Soviet'-type composers. The composer of this piece is usually seen as the father of classical music in his country; he was the first non-European admitted into the International Music Society, of which he was a founder. This piece comes from a collection simply called 'Dances'

No 51 - Mark correctly guessed that this piece is Czech, from the inclusion of the Hussite Chorale; I've added that the defiant spirit of that Chorale is important in this piece, which comes from a time of repression and was written by a composer certainly to be counted among the most repressed. He was Janacek's finest pupil, and really his only follower, stylistically, though his music has it own individual voice too.

No 52 - this is the one written by a composer better-known for something else - music was only really a hobby for him, though he saw himself as fundamentally a composer. As I said, to the general public his name is somewhat associated with Beethoven's Ninth, Rossini's William Tell overture and various other pieces of classical music. His life was riddled with quotable bits of trivia - culling a few: he gave the eulogy at Benny Hill's funeral; attacked by muggers in NYC he fended them off with a swordstick; he considered the composer Derek Bourgeois to be his alter-ego etc. etc. etc. He wrote a screenplay for a Bond film, which has been given the following synopsis:

It revolved around an organisation called CHAOS (Consortium for the Hastening of the Annihilation of Organised Society). CHAOS has accumulated enough money to achieve its plans and is now concentrating on power for its own sake. It blackmails international figures into humiliating themselves by terrorism. During the proposed opening sequence, an airliner full of passengers is exploded as it takes off, CHAOS's response to the Pope's refusal to personally whitewash the Sistine Chapel. Bond discovers a plot to implant 'micro-nukes' in appendectomy patients, the aim being to blow up Sydney Opera House during a visit by international royals and presidents (this atrocity being in response to the US President's refusal to masturbate on live TV)

Strangely enough, a different plot was chosen for the final film. He is, to put it mildly, eminently quotable, and it would be easy and fun to spend all day unearthing gems, but I suppose I should plough on.

No 53 - as I said, an early, unrecorded work by a major composer. The text, as you can see, is from the Corpus Christi Carol, set by, among others, Britten, though this is evidently not him. The title of this text might help you with the title of this piece, however.

No 54 - This composer has already had a piece on this thread. This one, if you can't see, is a piece for five percussionist and orchestra; I already gave the clue that you could think who these five percussionists are - the answer is Nexus, who commissioned and gave the premiere of this piece. Though one would imagine this piece to be quite obscure, it was recorded by the BBC and released as part of a free BBC Music Magazine CD, and when I'm trawling charity shops for CDs, I see this issue more than almost any other. So it seems that this piece (or its coupling, the Walton 1st Symph) isn't to general tastes. Which is a shame, as it makes an utterly beautiful sound, though not, I think, amongst its composer's finest works, formally.

No 55 - If I say this composer was the son-in-law of an even more famous composer, will that be saying too much?

No 57 - The main truism about this composer is that he could have been even more successful had he not been lazy. He is essentially a composer of exquisite miniatures, whether for solo piano or for orchestra, the latter often using folk tunes or folk tales as a starting point (as indeed is the case in this example). In some respects (and only some) he is comparable to the early, Chopinesque Scriabin - fondness for extreme key signatures, tiny wraithlike piano pieces (often Preludes, a la Scriabin) etc.

No 58 - Larry's nearly got this - a male voice piece by Schoenberg; surely a little searching will reveal the title. It's an awesome work, in its own way.

No 59 and 60 - These two pieces are by different composers, but both bear an extremely strong relationship to the style of a composer of the preceding generation. Usually we would be right to see this as plagiarism, but in these cases there is particularly good reason for the likeness. Neither composer ever developed far beyond this phase of ..........esque music, because, for different reasons, both stopped composing before their styles became fully personal. The two pieces also share the same title, a generic title common to their model, and also to his model.

No 61 - A piece by this well-known composer has already been used on this thread. Strangely enough, it took longer to guess than most, even though the piece it came from is much-recorded and pretty famous. This present piece is nothing like it, stylistically, looking more like Medtner, I suppose, than the common view of this composer, but it is actually just as typical of him.

No 62 - An extremely prolific, well-known composer. The harmonic nature of the big pile-up of chords in the centre of the page reveal a technique of which this composer was an early and famous exponent (he is really the textbook example, I suppose). The work itself is simply a non-programmatic piece in a standard form.

No 63 - Look at the melody line carefully: you will almost certainly know it; on line 3 it transfers itself to the top of the left hand

No 64 - Look at the melody line.....no, just kidding. This is quite a notorious piece, partly just for the look of it. It's one of the earlier 'complexity' works, and still one of the most breathtaking to look at, and, indeed, in its bold, no-holds-barred conception. The composer has already been used as an example on this thread; you might be able to recognise the handwriting, though it's somewhat messier and more spindly on this score.

No 65 - we've had Chopin, Szymanowski and Scriabin as guesses for this piece, and its true composer is every bit as well known as them, though this piece is practically unknown. There is a melodic similarity to one of this composer's much more famous works, in line four especially.

No 67 - The wandering chordal progressions in this piece are very typical of this composer, a man who once informed a woman that he was breaking off their relationship by asking the police to set a guard on his house to keep her away. He also had two grand pianos, one on top of the other, neither of which he used for composing (and the top one of which he used to store unsolicited post). He was also the head of the Metropolitan Church of Art of Jesus the Conductor.

And here, just to start things off neatly, I repost again the fully-hyperlinked list as-it-stands:


Set by Sean:
1 - Bach - D minor Cello Suite - (Larry)
2 - Bach - E flat Cello Suite - (Larry)
3 - Bach - C minor Cello Suite - (Larry)
4 - Messiaen - Excerpt from Vingt Regards - (Larry)
5 - Messiaen - Excerpt from Vingt Regards - (Larry)
6 - Messiaen - Excerpt from Vingt Regards - (Larry)
7 - Messiaen - Excerpt from Vingt Regards - (Larry)

Set by Larry:
1 - Bach - B minor Mass 'Quoniam' - (Novitiate)
2 - Nielsen - Sixth Symphony - (Mark)
3 - Beethoven - Quartet op 95 - (CS)
4 - Schumann - Carnaval 'Chopin' - (Mark)
5 - Elgar - Cello Concerto - (Novitiate)
6 - Falla - Harpsichord Concerto - (Mark)
7 - Rzewski - The People United... - (Luke)
8 - Brahms - G major Sextet - (Luke)
9 - Berg - Wozzeck Act II interlude - (Luke)
10 - Mahler - Ninth Symphony - (Maciek)
11- Boulez - Le Marteau sans Maitre - (Luke)
12 - Petterssen - 7th Symphony - (M Forever)
13 - Carter - SQ 1 - (Luke)
14 - Shostakovich - Symphony 15 - (Luke)
15 - Monteverdi - Orfeo - (Novitiate)
16 - Elgar - String Quartet - (Luke)
17 - Gorecki - Symphony 3 - (Luke)
18 - Bizet - Carmen - (Luke)
19 - Ligeti - Etude 'L'escalier....' - (Luke)
20 - Weber - Sonata 2 - (Luke, but I refused to say because I Googled it; Guido was first to identify it)
21 - Stockhausen - Klavierstucke IX - (Luke)
22 - Handel - Orlando - (Luke)
23 - aka 1a - Verdi - Requiem - (Luke)
24 - aka 2a - Wagner - Götterdämmerung - (Mark)
25 - aka 3a - Holst - Jupiter - (Mark)
26 - aka 4a - Haydn - F minor Variations - (Luke)
27 - aka 5a Liszt - Petrarch Sonnet - (Mark)
28 - aka 6a Schoenberg - Pierrot - (Mark)
29 - aka 6 - six samples plus 'what is the link'
    Bach - Double Violin Concerto (Luke)
    Schumann - Davidsbundlertanze - (Luke)
     Mendelssohn - Scottish Symphony - (Luke)
    Tchakovsky - Serenade for Strings - (Luke)
    Webern - Symphony - (Luke)
    Ravel - Tzigane - (Luke)
    Link = all used by Balanchine - (Luke)
30 aka 21 - Wolf - String Quartet - (Luke)
31 aka 22 - Delius - Irmelin Prelude - (Luke)
32 aka 23 Wolf - Der Corregidor - (Luke)
33 aka 24  - Crawford Seeger - String Quartet - (Luke)
34 aka 25 - Lutoslawski - Third Symphony - (Luke)
35 aka 26 - Goldmark - Rustic Wedding Symphony - (Luke)
36 aka 27 - Orff - Antigone - (Luke)
37 aka 'Last'! - Bolcom - Songs of Experience - (Luke)
38 aka 41 - Shapero - Symphony for Classical Orchestra - (Guido)
39 aka 42 - Machaut - Mass (Credo) - (Luke)
40 aka 43 - Rouse - Gorgon - (Luke)
41 aka 44 - Beethoven - Merkenstein (duet op 100) - (Luke)
42 aka 45 - Markevitch - L'Envol d'Icare - (Luke)
43 aka 46 - Markevitch - Icare - (Luke)
44 aka 47 - Kupferman - Symphony 3 - (Luke)
45 aka 48 - WF Bach - Polonaise in C minor (Luke)
46 aka 49 - Grofe - Grand Canyon Suite - (Mark)
47 aka 50 - Carter - Concerto for Orchestra - (Luke)
48 aka 51 - Barraque - Sequence - (Luke)
49 aka 52 - Glass - Akhenaten - (Luke)

Set by Luke:
1 - Martinu - Symphony 6 - (Larry)
2 - Tavener - In Alium - (Larry)
3 - Feldman - Why Patterns (Mark)
4 - Khachaturian - Piano Concerto - (Mark)
5 - Ferneyhough - Sieben Sterne - (Larry)
6 - Schoenberg - Jakobsleiter - (Larry)
7 - Part - If Bach had been a beekeeper - (Karl)
8 - Scelsi - Anahit - (Maciek)
9 - Kurtag - Grabstein fur Stephan - (Edward)
10 - Havergal Brian - Gothic Symphony - (Larry 1st by exclamation; Karl 1st by use of English language)
11 - Cage - Concerto for Prepared Piano - (Maciek)
12 - Xenakis - Oresteia - (Greg)
13 - Adams - Harmonielehre - (Maciek)
14 - Ives - The Housatonic at Stockbridge - (Larry)
15 - Nancarrow - Player piano study (37) - (Mark)
16 - Tippett - 3rd Symphony - (Mark)
17 - Villa-Lobos - Bachainas Brasileras 2 (the train one...) - (Larry)
18 - Boulez - Le soleil des eaux (Maciek)
19 - Liszt - Dante Symphony - (Larry)
20 - Ligeti - Violin Concerto (Larry)
21 - Nyman - Drowning by NUmbers - (Maciek)
22 - Vaughan Williams - Symphony 9 - (Larry)
23 - Dvorak - Violin Concerto - (Guido)
24 - Finnissy - Red Earth - (Maciek)
25 - Varese - Nocturnal - (Larry)
26 - Dvorak - String Quartet op 9 - (Larry)
27 - Martin - Mass for double choir - (Maciek)
28 - Respighi - Feste Romane - (Maciek)
29 - Balakirev - 1st Symphony - (Maciek)
30 - Janacek - Suite for Strings - (Edward)
31 - Schnittke - String Trio - (Guido)
32 - Reger - Mozart Variations - (Larry)
33 - Bernstein - Chichester Psalms - (Larry)
34 - Maxwell Davies - Ressurection - (Maciek)
35 - Britten - Nocturnal - (Manuel)
36 - Boulez - Rituel - (Larry)
37 - Stockhausen - Formulas for Licht - (Edward)
38 - Enescu - Cînt Tăcut - (Maciek)
39 - Cardew - Treatise - (Maciek)
40 - Kancheli - Symphony 5 - (Edward)
41 - Martinu - Fantasie for Theremin (etc) - (Edward)
42 - Partch - Castor and Pollux - (Maciek)
43 - Kurtag - from Jatekok - (Karl)
44 - ?
45 - Rzewski - Coming Together - (Edward)
46 - Schnittke - Violin Sonata 2 - (Edward)
47 - Powell - Serebryaniy vek - (Maciek)
48 - Rihm - Jagden und Formen - (Edward)
49 - Takahashi - Sa - (Maciek)
50 - Komitas [Vardapet] - Dances - (Maciek)
51 - [Pavel] Haas - Suite for Oboe and Piano - (Maciek)
52 - Burgess - Concertino - (Maciek)
53 - ?
54 - ?
55 - ?
56 - Bryars - Cello Concerto - (Guido)
57 - ?
58 - Schoenberg - something for male voice choir, TBC - (Larry)
59 - ?
60 - ?
61 - Respighi - Violin Sonata - (Maciek)
62 - ?
63 - ?
64 - Finnissy - Song 9 - (matticus)
65 - ?
66 - R Strauss - The Castle by the Sea - (Larry)
67 - Satie - Messe des Pauvres - (Maciek)
68 - Korngold - Piano Trio - (Mark)

Set by Greg:
1 - Corigliano - Symphony 1 - (revealed by Greg)
2 - Takemitsu - Distance - (Maciek)
3 - Reich - Piano Phase - (Larry)
4 - Ligeti - Viola Sonata - (Edward)
5 - Adams - Phrygian Gates - (Guido)
6 - Kagel - String Sextet - (revealed by Greg)
7 - Prokofiev - PC 1 - (Luke)
8 - Xenakis - Jonchaies - (revealed by Greg)
9 - Debussy - La Mer - (Larry)
10 - Norgard - Symphony 6 -(revealed by Greg)
11 - Takemitsu - Corona - (Luke)
12 - Takemitsu - November Steps - (Luke)
13 - Webern - Canons op 16 - (Karl)
14 - Stravinsky - Soldier's Tale - (Karl)
15 - Lachenmann - Mouvement (- vor der Erstarrung) - (Luke)
16 - Ferneyhough - Lemma-Icon-Epigram - (Larry)
17 - Grisey - Les Espaces Acoustiques (Partiels) - (Luke)
18 - Shostakovich - Violin Concerto 1 - (Luke)
19 - Xenakis - Terretektorh - (Maciek)
20 - Xenakis - ATA - (Maciek)

Set by Guido:
1 - presumably Sorabji - ? Guido doesn't know which - (Luke)
2 - Schumann - E flat Variations - (Luke)
3 - Ives - first of 114 Songs - (Luke)
4 - Stravinsky - for the five fingers - (Luke)
5 - Barber - Piano Sonata - (Larry)
6 - Previn - Cello Sonata - (Maciek)
7 - Finzi - Cello Concerto - (Luke)
8 - Piazzolla - Libertango - (Maciek)
9 - Bernstein Clarinet Sonata - (Mark)
10 - Poulenc - Cello Sonata - (Larry)
11 - Stravinsky - Requiem Canticles - (Mark)
12 - Kodaly - Solo Cello Sonata- (Larry)
13 'buggered up'
14 - Carter - Cello Concerto - (Luke)
15 - Holst - Invocation - (Luke)
16 - Dietrich - 1st mvt of FAE Sonata - (Luke)
17 - Bloch - Suite for Viola arr. Cello - (Luke)
Couldn't find no. 18...
19 - Ives - Fourth Symphony - (Larry)
20 - really not worth putting up, Guido! This is a little fragment from a larger set by me, this bit in particular called 'A cage went in search of a bird' (from Kafka)

Set by Manuel:
1 - Prokofiev - PC 2 - (Maciek)
2 - Rzewski - Which Side Are You On - (Luke)
3 - de Beriot - Violin Concerto 9 - (Luke)
4 - Wieniawski - Four Etudes (no 2) for Two Violins - (Luke)

Set by Maciek:
1 - Szymanski - Piano Concerto - (Luke)
2- Kilar - Piano Concerto (Luke)
3 - Lutoslawski - Paganini Variations - (Mark)
4 - Szymanowski - 4th Symphony - (Luke)
5 - Serocki - Fort e piano - (Luke)
6 - Meyer - SQ 3 - (Luke)
7 - Zarebski - Piano Quintet - (Luke)
8 - Penderecki - String Quartet 1 - (Greg)
9 - Chopin - Cello Sonata - (Luke)
10 - Gorecki - Genesis I - (Luke)

Set by Steve:
1 - ?
2 - Bartok - String Quartet 4 - (Larry)
3 - Falla - Homenaje a Debussy - (Luke)
4 - Webern - op 10 Pieces - (Luke)
5 - Stravinsky - Rite of Spring - (Karl)
6 - Coltrane - Giant Steps - (Luke)
7 - Albeniz - Suite Espanola (Sevilla) - (Luke)(unconfirmed)
8 -
9 - Scarlatti - Sonata S3/K513 - (Luke)(unconfirmed)

[greg]

g11, g12- a Japanese composer wrote these. Don't think too hard. Do a little internet searching, you might find them online (that's where i found them).
g15- this is by a German composer who is the 2009 judge for the composing competition of the composer of g11/g12. Once you find out who this is, do a google image search and you might find the score
g17- who are the 2 "founders" of spectral music? the initials of the title of the whole work is "LEA" (in French), and it's composed by one of these two (it's a very long work, btw)

[greg]

LO 28 - especially heard in context, a really breathtaking piece of orchestration, IMO

when i heard Roman Festivals on the radio a long time ago, i was just amazed.....  up there with the Rite of Spring, even, one of the best orchestrations ever.

[lukeottevanger]

g11, g12- a Japanese composer wrote these. Don't think too hard. Do a little internet searching, you might find them online (that's where i found them).
g15- this is by a German composer who is the 2009 judge for the composing competition of the composer of g11/g12. Once you find out who this is, do a google image search and you might find the score
g17- who are the 2 "founders" of spectral music? the initials of the title of the whole work is "LEA" (in French), and it's composed by one of these two (it's a very long work, btw)

Ah, so 17 is Les Espaces Acoustiques by Grisey, I assume? (the thing about the founders of spectral music is confusing, mind you, as that very much depends on who you read and what you think of as spectral!)

I'll think about the others in a minute - I think a pupil is coming.....

[lukeottevanger]

to be more precise, Partiels, from Les Espaces Acoustiques, I guess.

(the pupil hasn't arrived yet!)

[lukeottevanger]

Hmm, I never looked closely enough at 12 - is that November Steps (Takemitsu)? (I once ordered that score, but it never arrived).

In which case, is 11 one of the graphic scores he (apparently) gives the Biwa and Shakuhachi soloists in the same piece? Or maybe I'm misremembering.

[lukeottevanger]

That may make the remaining one (15) Lachenmann, a composer I know too little of. Is that right?

[lukeottevanger]

Wild guess - Mouvement (- vor der Erstarrung)?

[greg]

wow, you just got 3 of them, Luke! 
just a little research and you should be able to find out that Takemitsu piece pretty easily

[lukeottevanger]

Are both my Takemitsu guesses wrong? If not, which one is the wrong one - I'm guessing the graphic score one.

[lukeottevanger]

Ring? (a wild stab in the dark)

[greg]

Are both my Takemitsu guesses wrong? If not, which one is the wrong one - I'm guessing the graphic score one.

you got the Grisey, Lachenmann, and November Steps right, the graphic one is not Ring. Different instrument. Notice that i didn't put an s after instrument. 

[lukeottevanger]

Corona? Crossing? Equinox?.....

but I get the feeling we're the only ones playing at the moment. A shame.

[greg]

Corona? Crossing? Equinox?.....

but I get the feeling we're the only ones playing at the moment. A shame.

yeah, Corona i think
i think this thread will pick back up, just give it some time

[Larry Rinkel]

Corona? Crossing? Equinox?.....

but I get the feeling we're the only ones playing at the moment. A shame.

Maybe I'll have more time for it this weekend. One of our best threads ever.

[greg]

if we get bored of this thread, we could do a mystery clips thread....

[m_gigena]

if we get bored of this thread, we could do a mystery clips thread....

I have the impression I'm about to start one through brianrein. 

[lukeottevanger]

if we get bored of this thread, we could do a mystery clips thread....

I'm afraid you might have to count me out of that one. Dial-up could well make it a little tiresome for me...