Quiz: Mystery scores

[Luke]

This quotation - the 'Merry Peasant' from Schumann's Album for the Young - is used a couple of times early on, before the cyclone and 'Over the Rainbow,' associated with Dorothy and her homely schoolgirl's adventures

[Karl Henning]

14 reminds me of Hoketus (in its process . . . I think the actual score for Hoketus is more specific).

[(poco) Sforzando]

Yes, Professor Marvel...

The Merry Peasant (or Farmer), of course! I do know that one in the F major piano version, but who would have thunk it from the glittering orchestration. (And where do you get these scores, anyway?)

Along these lines, have you picked up from that film what seems like a direct quotation from Mendelssohn's Scherzo in E minor, op. 16/2? I knew the film before the piece, and then I opened the Mendelssohn one day and said, they stole that for the film! I guess that's how Hollywood worked in those days. I think it's used in the sections where the witch's monkeys are flying around. If you've got the whole film score, please have a look.

[Luke]

Karl - it isHoketus - that's the score I have, I've never seen another, but I can easily imagine a realised performing version being more specific.

Larry -I will take a look. Watch this space...

[Karl Henning]

Karl - it is Hoketus - that's the score I have, I've never seen another, but I can easily imagine a realised performing version being more specific.

Cool!  One's memory is a dicey thing, but I have what I take for a vivid memory of listening to the piece while reading the score with Louis in the room at Buffalo.  But that detail (the sort-of-image of the score I seem still to have in view) may be mistaken!  Of course, the important thing is, I got to know the piece so well that, seeing this score of your'n, I immediately made the association 

[Luke]

Actually, Larry, I don't need to look - as soon as I reminded myself of the Mendelsshon I realised you are right. I've played WOOZ from vocal score thousands of times for school productions etc, and there's a brief passage which I always knew reminded me of something else. Now I know what. I'll post a score comparison in a couple of minutes....

[Luke]

Identical!!! Tut tut tut.  It's more obvious comparing the vocal score to Mendelssohn's original, too. I wonder if you can work out which is which 

[Luke]

...this is the orchestral realisation in WOOZ:

[Luke]

Cool!  One's memory is a dicey thing, but I have what I take for a vivid memory of listening to the piece while reading the score with Louis in the room at Buffalo.  But that detail (the sort-of-image of the score I seem still to have in view) may be mistaken!  Of course, the important thing is, I got to know the piece so well that, seeing this score of your'n, I immediately made the association 

You lucky fella!

[(poco) Sforzando]

Identical!!! Tut tut tut.  It's more obvious comparing the vocal score to Mendelssohn's original, too. I wonder if you can work out which is which 

I haven't a clue. But it may be that Hollywood in those days didn't mind pilfering various public-domain scores for the incidental filler music (while of course the main songs were originals). I remember also a sentimental '30's movie - it may have been That Hamilton Woman, but I don't want to pull it up off YouTube to check - where the background music included Chopin's Rainbow Prelude, Tchaikovsky's None but the Lonely Heart, etc.

Personally, I find this kind of discussion much more interesting than all the tut-tutting about "who's going to be the maestro," and that sort of thing.

[Karl Henning]

(* chortle *)

[Luke]

Couldn't agree more!

[Karl Henning]

Your mystery scores generally mystify me so utterly, I rather surprised myself by picking up Louis there . . . .

(To be clear: I do enjoy the mystification!)

[Luke]

I haven't a clue. But it may be that Hollywood in those days didn't mind pilfering various public-domain scores for the incidental filler music (while of course the main songs were originals). I remember also a sentimental '30's movie - it may have been That Hamilton Woman, but I don't want to pull it up off YouTube to check - where the background music included Chopin's Rainbow Prelude, Tchaikovsky's None but the Lonely Heart, etc.

And of course, not quite note-for-note pilfering, but certainly not far off at all, is this sort of thing, from much later. This is only one of the most blatant examples (and in fact one can find more such examples without even looking further than these two pieces, as there are more striking similarities than just this passage). I'm not decrying it, either - when one needs to write the vast reams of effective music a film score calls for it is inevitable one is going to fall back on successful examples from the past for help. Merely observing...

[Karl Henning]

Yup.

[Luke]

Your mystery scores generally mystify me so utterly, I rather surprised myself by picking up Louis there . . . .

(To be clear: I do enjoy the mystification!)

Pleased to hear it! As I've said before, I like to choose ones which have something interesting about them too, not just ones which are hard to identify. If I was just looking for the later I would choose others than the ones I do choose. I also try to choose pages which show the interesting feature - as in the Schumann quotation from WOOZ - and hopefully these are clues, too.

[Karl Henning]

I appreciate that!  My own selections tend to be far less imaginative.

[Luke]

Yup.

To my mind there's less of an excuse when a less pressed-for-time composer than Williams engages in this sort of thing, and I'm reminded of a composite image I posted last September in a little post-identification discussion of a mystery scores by Walter Niemann which I'd posted. Here it is again:

[Karl Henning]

Yikes

[Karl Henning]

Discovering just how rhetorical a question Has he no shame? really is.