Quiz: Mystery scores

[EigenUser]

1 looks like it might be Rachmaninoff Symphony no.2, 4th mvt

Roughly the same era, but a totally different school of thought as far as composing is concerned! If it helps, these are the first few notes of the entire piece (quietly, relatively slowly).

[EigenUser]

Yes! But the '20' was a coincidence! I didn't know the opus number.

Still missing 1, 2, 7, 14, and 15. I'll give answers soon if no one gets them.

1 -- Webern's Six Pieces for orchestra (beginning of the first one, though notated poorly from memory)
2 -- Debussy's Jeux, near the beginning (that mysterious 3/8 scherzo-like section after the slow introduction, with tambourine)
7 -- Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 2, the last couple of measures from the 1st violin part
14 -- Haydn's Symphony No. 79, the first few measures from the bassoon part
15 -- Messiaen's Chronochromie, the introduction, from the piccolo/flute, xylophone has something similar, too.

I'm surprised that no one got the Webern, but it was probably because I didn't remember it correctly. The notes are still correct, though.

[EigenUser]

25. One of the scores I got for Christmas.

[lescamil]

25. One of the scores I got for Christmas.

Looks like Morton Feldman's Coptic Light.

[EigenUser]

Looks like Morton Feldman's Coptic Light.

Nice!

[listener]

bump to get them out of the way, repeating the images to save looking for them
607  is quite a familiar number,     608 does not appear to have been danced to, 610 is waiting for an unusual soloist, should be a snap.

[EigenUser]

bump to get them out of the way, repeating the images to save looking for them
607  is quite a familiar number,     608 does not appear to have been danced to, 610 is waiting for an unusual soloist, should be a snap.

607 is Honegger's Pacific 2.3.1.

608 looks kind of like Bartok, but I can't tell. Is it Dance of the Trees from The Wooden Prince?

[listener]

607 is Honegger's Pacific 2.3.1.  YES

608 looks kind of like Bartok, but I can't tell. Is it Dance of the Trees from The Wooden Prince?

nope, American.

[Luke]

610 is Maxwell Davies - Orkney Wedding With Sunrise. With my recent investigations into piobaireachd that proved a bit of a cinch!

[Sean]

Luke I'm wondering if you know of any art music for bagpipes? Nine notes and an outdoors level volume seems to mean nobody writes for it.

[Luke]

Well, there's the above Maxwell Davies piece, famously. Tavener's Celtic Requiem has a bagpipe part IIRC.... I will think about it some more...

[Karl Henning]

Harmonicas, all right.  Accordions, sure.  Musical saws, why not?

But bagpipes may just be where the line is drawn . . . .

[Luke]

Once, I'd have agreed with you. Maybe I still do... but since I've been immersing myself in all that stuff I get it more, I have to say. Maybe not in an 'art music' context, but in its place. Watch this

OK, these aren't the great highland pipes of fame and cliche, these are smallpipes, quieter, more intimate, but the repertoire is the same, this a proper piobaireachd, and from Skye, too...

[Karl Henning]

Once, I'd have agreed with you. Maybe I still do... but since I've been immersing myself in all that stuff I get it more, I have to say. Maybe not in an 'art music' context, but in its place. Watch this

OK, these aren't the great highland pipes of fame and cliche, these are smallpipes, quieter, more intimate, but the repertoire is the same, this a proper piobaireachd, and from Skye, too...

I'm but jesting, anyway . . . one of my colleagues here in Boston, Dan Meyers, plays (among many things other) smallish pipes.  Come to think of it, I should write a chamber piece . . . .

[Sean]

Very pleasant...

I do have a bagpiping friend, long term member of the Wolverhampton Pipe Band. Just bought himself some sort of electronic practice chanter, similar sounding to that on the link.

[listener]

610 is Maxwell Davies - Orkney Wedding With Sunrise. With my recent investigations into piobaireachd that proved a bit of a cinch!

Quite right, I had thought the 'Scotch snap' (the opposite of the Hungarian one) might have been a clue.   To finish off that set, the remaining one is Henry Cowell's Synchrony.   The opening two-and-a-half (or thereabouts) minute trumpet solo might have been a clearer lead.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Quite right, I had thought the 'Scotch snap' (the opposite of the Hungarian one) might have been a clue.   To finish off that set, the remaining one is Henry Cowell's Synchrony.   The opening two-and-a-half (or thereabouts) minute trumpet solo might have been a clearer lead.

Sorry, don't know either of those works, and as for bagpiping my response is not unlike Shylock's mention of those who "when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose, / Cannot contain their urine." Is then everything guessed? It's taken only four months to resolve these two. Perhaps I should upload a few myself, and cause a few headaches too.

[Sean]

I'm calling at my local library tomorrow, and will take my camera. Their collection of scores isn't going to be much and indeed might not exist at all but if there are any guidelines to a good quote to think about let me know, I guess.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Luke I'm wondering if you know of any art music for bagpipes? Nine notes and an outdoors level volume seems to mean nobody writes for it.

Verdi uses an Italian bagpipe, which he calls a cornamusa, in the second act of Otello (the choral passage serenading Desdemona). But I'll be damned if it's ever registered on me in performance one way or another.

[Sean]

Okay, I didn't know that; I can say I bought the Levine recording years ago.

You'd think someone would have a go at writing a concerto.