Quiz: Mystery scores

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

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lukeottevanger

No, it isn't that. I will be delighted if this is a bit of the repertoire you don't know yet - you'll like this piece. I'll cobble together some clues later, but a brief description of the piece: movement 1 is somewhat based on Mood Indigo (it is a 'New York' piece); movement 2 is more 'west coast', with minimalist tendencies, a crazy cadenza and then this disco coda. Sounds bonkers, but its actually a very effective piece and not at all jokey to my mind.

lukeottevanger

The composer of the piece:

died in the early 1990s, younger than was fair.

was composer in residence at my old college, but a long time before I was there

his last piece was an 'apotheosis of the march' for brass quintet, in which the five players are called on to impersonate Margaret Thatcher, Stalin, Che Guevara, Hitler and Mao Tse Tung, using props such as hand-bag, beret, tunic, moustache....

was on a Peel Session in the late 60s (one week after the day my sister was born, so it seems, if that helps  ;D ), on which he played a selection from Cage's Sonatas and Interludes

matticus

LO 73 looks like it must be from the Book of Elements but I can't place it -- is it from Book II?

BWV20 is the fugue from BWV 997, a very beautiful piece.

lukeottevanger

Aha - no 73 is a bit of a party piece. It isn't the Book of Elements (though that's a score I wish I had). A couple of big hints:

1) try to play it through. You will find it not hard but, strictly speaking, impossible

2) as you try to play it through, try not to accent at the barlines. Let the music speak for itself. You will probably find you know it very well indeed. The whole piece works in the way that you ought to discover, so that at the end not a stone is left unturned; the cumulative effect is, in context, rather moving, strangely enough.

bwv 1080

Quote from: matticus on October 09, 2007, 10:16:37 AM

BWV20 is the fugue from BWV 997, a very beautiful piece.

Correct - its one of my favorite Bach fugues

Guido

#945
I don't know that piece at all, even with all the composer clues. I am excited to find out what it is.

Do you know the Gulda concerto? - its a hoot!

EDIT: A little bit of googling, and I will gues the composer is Tim Souster. I haven't heard of him, or the cello piece.
Geologist.

The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

lukeottevanger

#946
Quote from: Guido on October 09, 2007, 11:37:53 AM
EDIT: A little bit of googling, and I will gues the composer is Tim Souster. I haven't heard of him, or the cello piece.

That's some nice Googling! Correct - he's a very interesting figure, right at the heart of the Stockhausen phenomenon in the 60s and 70s, and an innovator in his own right, though this piece shows neither to any extent (also like the idea of him performing on Peel). The name of the piece shouldn't be too hard to find.

Nice to know I've got a quality cello+ensemble piece you don't know, Guido - there aren't too many of them around! To keep up your appetite, here's a low quality sample of the end of the last movement, including the page which I used for my example. I've started at the end of the 'minimalist' section; the music breaks off abruptly into a series of tongue-in-cheek, gestural, avant-garde poses, before momentum builds up (over ostinati on Morrocan pottery drums). This too breaks off into the Donna Summer-inspired 'Disco coda'.

Guido

Geologist.

The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

lukeottevanger

Certainly is. Nice and simple.

lukeottevanger

I gave big clues to all my left-overs a while ago, and whilst some were found, I'm very conscious of having some last dregs remaining. I'm not sure if everyone's seen those clues, so here they are again, with even more information added in places.

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. I don't think I can give more clues than this.

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. The piece is English, though I hope that is evident and dates, IIRC, from the 50s

55 - If I say this composer was the son-in-law of an even more famous composer, will that be saying too much? Well, he was, the junior partner of possibly the best-known father/son-in-law parternship in composition; his most famous work is in part a memorial to his father-in-law, and in part a memorial to his wife. This example isn't from that work, but from a slightly later, and very wonderful piece. It is taken from the third movement, and the instrumentation in that movement is much reduced from that in the rest of the piece.

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. An extra couple of clues - he is Russian, and a year off being an exact contemporary of my favourite composer.

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.

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. Extra clue - the 'model' I am talking had extreme religious delusions, but, at the height of his God-complex he died of a boil on the lip.

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.

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. Extra clue - the melody you are looking for is by another composer than the composer of this work (i.e. the work is based on another piece); also, that earlier piece is by a Polish composer.

65 - a little-known piano piece by Debussy, it has been determined. Remember where the best collections of scores online are to be found and root around....

Maciek

Quote from: lukeottevanger on October 10, 2007, 04:46:31 AM
57 -
An extra couple of clues - he is Russian, and a year off being an exact contemporary of my favourite composer.

Lyadov?

Mark G. Simon

Quote from: lukeottevanger on October 10, 2007, 04:46:31 AM


55 - If I say this composer was the son-in-law of an even more famous composer, will that be saying too much? Well, he was, the junior partner of possibly the best-known father/son-in-law parternship in composition; his most famous work is in part a memorial to his father-in-law, and in part a memorial to his wife. This example isn't from that work, but from a slightly later, and very wonderful piece. It is taken from the third movement, and the instrumentation in that movement is much reduced from that in the rest of the piece.

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. An extra couple of clues - he is Russian, and a year off being an exact contemporary of my favourite composer.

Based on these clues, it sounds like Suk and Liadov. I apologize for being too lazy to check to see if anyone has guessed these composers yet.  Of course I have no ideas about the identity of the pieces.

I'm lazy today.

lukeottevanger

Yep, that's right, guys - 55 = Suk; 57 = Liadov. Told you they were easy.

Maciek

Quote from: lukeottevanger on October 10, 2007, 04:46:31 AM
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. Extra clue - the melody you are looking for is by another composer than the composer of this work (i.e. the work is based on another piece); also, that earlier piece is by a Polish composer.

Argh! This is so irritating! >:( I wish there was some way I could drag over my monitor to the piano so I could actually really hear what this sounds like... I'll just go and leaf through my Chopin scores to see if he's guilty of being the prototype... ::)

lukeottevanger


lukeottevanger

Please forgive another new one - I just discovered this one, and thought I'd share...

Maciek

Alfredo Casella - A la Maniere de..., Premiere Serie, Op. 17

Quote from: lukeottevanger on October 10, 2007, 02:04:45 PM
.....and?

;)

Sorry, still haven't had the time to do it... :-\

lukeottevanger

Quote from: Maciek on October 11, 2007, 01:41:29 PM
Alfredo Casella - A la Maniere de..., Premiere Serie, Op. 17

yes, but a la maniere de qui?  ;D  ;D

Quote from: Maciek on October 11, 2007, 01:41:29 PMSorry, still haven't had the time to do it... :-\

How weird - you get the one I thought was hard straight away, but the one I think is one of the easiest is proving trickier...

you were on the right lines, BTW.

Maciek

I'm sure I'll be slapping my head real hard when I, or someone else figures it out. Right now I'm at the stage of "I know I know it - I just can't recognize it at the moment". ;D

Maciek

OK, believe it or not but I had no idea Godowsky's transcriptions were such an enormously thick volume (re the first clue you gave us) - that really had me searching in the wrong direction. Plus, of course, the Chopin's Studies happened to be one of the last volumes I leafed through - and you deliberately chose the LAST ONE! Argh! ;) (I actually suspected some sort of foul play, and went for all the odd meters first... ::))

It was great fun, actually! 8) :D

My answer:
LO 63 - Leopold Godowsky - Studies after Frederic Chopin - Trois Etudes... No. 2, First Version (Second Version, not all that different, is for the left hand alone :o :o :o :o :o)
based on Chopin's A flat Major, actually no. 3, from Trois nouvelles etudes

If I'll be playing through anything at all this week - it will most certainly have to be the original of this one! 8)