Quiz: Mystery scores

[Maciek]

Those first three bars, though, are not meant to confuse. The barline between the first and second of them is the pivot on which the work turns - from that point on an enormous retrograde a la Berg begins

Ha, ha. Now that I know what it is, it doesn't seem confusing at all.

[lukeottevanger]

Seeing as my newest set are going so quickly, here are some more! In for a penny.....

no 111 - big clues here in the substance of the music. Less of a clue, though deliciously ironic when you know the subject of the piece, is the cheeky quotation from Heldenleben in the oboe part on the last bar of this example.

If you know the tonal habits of this composer, especially in his early works, of which this is one, then the key change you see at the end of the line provides another clue - this is his favourite and habitual key contrast. But if you know him that well, you will know what this piece is anyway!

[lukeottevanger]

112 - this piece takes another work and swathes it in layers of complex figuration and dense chromaticism. The piece it is based on is one of my very favourites, and its composer considered it his finest work; IMO this later piece too, though very strange, is utterly gorgeous, and as a pianist it is one of my favourite pieces to play.

The composer of this work has already appeared more than once on this thread.

[lukeottevanger]

113 - a very well known work, its composer most public masterpiece. I take a memorable page in which a number of fanfare motives are presented; these ideas haunt many pages of the whole work.

[lukeottevanger]

114 - a piece which Guido ought to know  A beautiful, seductive and wonderfully-written work for violin and small orchestra, in a 'post tonal' (whatever that means) neo-romantic kind of vein. This composer is often known as a post-modernist, however. Whatever school he is pigeon-holed in, this is a very fine work. The centre of the piece seems to me to be based around a slightly distorted version of the subject of the D major Fugue from Book 2 of the WTC, and though I haven't read that this is intentional, I'm pretty sure, knowing the way this composer works, that it is.

[lukeottevanger]

115 - no clues to start with, I think there are many here who will get this quite quickly

[lukeottevanger]

116 - if you look carefully at the instrumentation, you will see that this piece anticipates Ligeti by decades 

[lukeottevanger]

117 - the piece that launched its composer quite spectacularly. A bonus point if you know who took loudhailer part 6 of this page in this piece's only recording.

[Maciek]

No movement in my set, so I'm adding some more clues. First, let me remind you of the previous ones:

OK. First of all, as a reminder, here are the numbers my unguessed ones: 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 24.

Here are some clues:

2 of the composers are women. The names of both female composer start with the same letter!

These composers come from 3 different countries. One of the composers is American, all the rest are Europeans.

All of the composers are contemporary.

Except for one, all of the composers can safely be called famous - meaning that they are considered to be among the very best contemporary composers of their respective countries. If very hard pressed I would unwillingly cross out one more - but the remaining 6 really are among the strictly selected creme de la creme.

Except for one, all of the composers are alive today.

Two of the composers have already had their scores featured here, and the name of one more has appeared in the (incorrect) guesses.

Three of the composers have threads dedicated to them on GMG.

OK, I know these clues are vague but we have to start with something... If there's any need for that , I'll become more specific later. Also, note that there are clues right next to the scores as well! (This might be a good time to admit that at least one of those is so highly subjective, it might even be misleading. )

And now I'm giving you one clue per piece but I have scrambled them, so you won't know which clue goes for which piece:

This piece was written for what is probably the most famous church in its country. The most characteristic part is the opening which has the choir recite the text of a well known prayer repetitively, in a slow crescendo, starting with a whisper. Only then does the orchestra come in. The composer is very well known, also for his film scores (the earliest of which are, IMO, the best thing this composer has written so far). We've had a score by this composer here before. (this was no. 17, guessed by Luke)

The most famous piece by this composer is based on the numbers 7 and 13.

The composer of this work is definitely the most famous living composer from this country. Almost a cult figure. This composer has developed a very peculiar brand of music which could be called folk inspired minimalism. The example comes from this composer's most famous work. It is the second part of a cycle comprised of four large works. It is scored for, among others, certain ancient folk instruments which in performance are usually substituted by their modern classical counterparts.

This is the last work this composer completed before death. The subject of the text the music is set to is death itself. This can probably be guessed if you identify the really obvious quote of an extremely famous theme. The largest work this composer ever wrote was an opera (this composer only wrote one). This composer's work seems to have been inspired by literature very often - for instance, this composer would entitle pieces by using the names of literary genres.

The title of this piece has something to do with the seasons. The subtitle, OTOH, evokes the Christian name of a certain very famous Romantic composer. The season evoked in the title is the time of the year when this Romantic composer died. The quotations in this piece are always very tiny, most of the music is newly written but in close imitation of the style, or at least spirit, of the composer being evoked. The composer of this piece has also written several other pieces evoking the work of other composers but they don't really form a cycle of any sort.

The composer of this work is very well known in his/her country. Still, AFAIK, there's only one CD dedicated solely to this composer's work, and that is a recording of a Requiem mass. This composer has written a series of pieces the titles of which reflect the composer's attitude towards the musical past. This is one of them. If you recognize the material the composer is using here (a piece by a certain very famous Romantic composer), all you'll need to do is take the generic title our composer uses for this series and fill in the blank. Of course, recognizing the material might prove a bit difficult.

This composer is known for a tendency to write overblown gigantic oratorios which drag on for hours. This composer started off as an epitome of the avantgarde in music but in later years moved to safer, "reactionary" positions. The title of this untypically smaller work has something to do with angels. I have to admit I'm not sure if this hasn't been included into one of the composer's larger scores - this composer is known to sometimes do that. (this was no. 20, guessed by Luke)

This composer was born in 1965. This composer isn't exactly world famous but is very well known in a certain seaside town. The piece is for a singing pianist. The text comes from a poem by a poet probably unknown in English speaking countries. He is not even known in Poland (though a small volume of his poems came out a couple of years ago).

[lukeottevanger]

Cool - I'll look through those later, though I've got some ideas buzzing around now....

I too come bearing clues! I'm determined that I'm not going to reveal the answers to my old remaining ones - though there's one here from early September! So ttt with my old clues. In places (bold) I've added new hints. I've also appended clues for those of my more recent ones (not today's batch) which still remain.

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 - Already established - this is Suk. This example isn't from Asrael, 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 - Already established - this is Liadov

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. Established - the common model for both composers is Scriabin. I'll add that each had very strong, childhood, formative links to him, hence the understandable resemblance.

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.

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.... (Greg has identified this)

69
- this is the vortex at the heart of a movement which has been called [something along the lines of] 'the greatest piece in sonata from between Beethoven and Brahms' and I won't disagree - this a breath-taking work, one which astonishes in so many different ways. The odd key is significant. The use of a single line of notes is also typical of the finely judged irony of this composer - this is the simplest sounding music of a movement with bucketloads of notes, and yet it is some of the hardest music (in an ultra-hard piece) to perform well. This example is part of a cadenza, so the irony increases. The composer was one of the three great composer pianists of the early/mid 19th century, and this is probably his finest work.

70 - As I said, the only piece I know of to use this instrumentation; wind quintet plus bass clarinet. It is youthful music written in reminiscence by an old man. Amongst other things, this composer is well-known for his use of speech-derived melodic lines, but strangely enough, this is one of the rare pieces in which we find a melody directly copied from one he heard on 'field trips' (not on this page, however)
(Mark has identified this)

72 - this composer shared exactly the fate of the composer of my 51, though a few months later. He was 25. For a while he wrote under a pseudonym (Karel Vranek). He wrote a string duo in quarter tones. This movement is a set of variations on a folksong, Ta Knezdubska vez; it comes from what is probably his finest work, a piece which has been recorded several times.

73 - I've given big clues about this one - that it can't be played by human hands; that its composer isn't the obvious one to spring to mind in this connection, but is closely connected with him; that it is entirely made up of quotations from a set of very famous pieces. The unusual tuplets here do not imply 'new complexity' techniques. Instead, they are the composer's way of making possible the simultaneous and literal presentation of all these quotations at their varying intended speeds. That's why you get a whole long line of a tune in quintuplets, and a whole long line of a tune in 9's, or in 5:3's....

74 - A famous name, bandied around a lot but not much understood. I certainly don't understand him. He is famous because, quite separately of a much more widely-known figure, he developed a broadly similar compositional technique.

75 - a record-breaking composer, famous among other things for being the longest-living and longest-writing of the established composers. Most of his music is for solo piano - he was in his early days a celebrated performer and a compositional iconoclast who at the time was habitually mentioned in the same breath as Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Ravel, Bartok, Debussy.... This piece, evidently, is not, but it is often thought of as his masterpiece. The six staves you see at the bottom are all for the piano; this is a fairly extreme example of a notational procedure he used quite a lot.

77 - We've had one piece from this composer on this thread. He's British, as has been established. He's not Elgar, as has been established. But he died the same year as Elgar, which pretty much narrows him down to one of the other two famous British composer who dies that year. I think it obvious which on he is. This piece contains a part for wordless chorus , though not on this page, with its intricate rhythms.

78 - A early 20th century Scriabin-y Russian modernist, with the strange notation on the final line (I trust you've spotted it). Not Mosolov, the other one 

82 - Also Russian, a 20th century set of 24 Preludes and Fugues. But not Shostakovich. A look at the rhythmical style here may help.

83 - Another Russian, one already found on this thread. This work has been recorded on ECM
(Greg has identified this)

84 - semi-spectralist piece inspired by a famous Tuner painting which adorns the front of the score. British composer, the last 'Thomas Ades' (i.e. best 'British composer since Britten') before the current one (and attended the same college as Ades, which is also my old one). Ex-Messiaen pupil - OM said he had an ear as good as Mozart's.
(and Greg's also identified this)

85 - There is a complex appearance to this page - nested tuplets and jagged atonal figurations - which one doesn't normally associate with this composer, whose most famous work is one of the great Popular Classics. This is a programmatic piano piece whose subject comes from a Shakespeare play whose name shall not be spoken here.

86 - A Maciek-piece. The most obvious clue about its composer is too obvious. Perhaps that fact itself is a clue, who knows? One of the few composer from his country who Maciek hasn't posted here yet    , but one of the most famous names.

87 - British composer, in his fifites. A viola concerto full of nostalgic quotations, all linked the Beethoven 'Lebewohl' horn-call

88 -12 tone composition for full orchestra. Not a symphony, though its composer wrote a few. Post-Schoenbergian dodecaphonist, Spanish by birth but adopted as English.

89 - also composer of no 105, one of the most important 20th century composers. This comes from a two-hander opera. Surely you don't need more. 

98 Had him before. Never mind the notes here, look at the style of the score.

100 written by a great musical lexocographer and wit, whose advert for 'Castoria' is one of the great musical delights I know of.

102 -  British composer of  9 symphonies. This one was inspired by a vision of multicultural harmony following race riots in the 50s (IIRC)

104 - a one-time disciple of Satie, though they fell out over a schoolboy prank. As I said, a major composer, and one of his finest but comparatively little-known works.

105 - see 89

108 - - same composer (British) as one of those I posted today

109 - same composer as no 85, but much better-known, from the same set as that 'Popular Classic' I talked about.

[greg]

LO 65- Debussy- Pièce pour le Vêtement du blessé 

[greg]

83 looks like it's by Schnittke....

[greg]

i've got LO 83- Schnittke- Penintential Psalms

(if not, that'll be surprising!)

[lukeottevanger]

Nice one, Greg.  Both correct.

[Mark G. Simon]

I recall that Jaromir Weniberger  (of Schwanda fame) wrote a set of variations on "Three Blind Mice". I believe this is LO 111.

[lukeottevanger]

You might be right about the Weinberger, but this piece isn't by him, sorry! It's a composer we've already had on this thread, if that helps.

So, MM 17 looks like Kilar's Angelus to me. I have a recording, but didn't recall the piece. 

[Mark G. Simon]

Luke, you've just given LO 70 away as Janacek's Mladi. Really, I should have known that one without the help.

[Mark G. Simon]

You might be right about the Weinberger,

As it turns out, I'm not even right about that. 

[lukeottevanger]

Luke, you've just given LO 70 away as Janacek's Mladi. Really, I should have known that one without the help.

Yes, it was a give-away, but that is deliberate; I think some of my others are give-aways too. I've been confused about some of these scores still not being guessed, so quite a few of my clues are geared towards simply getting them out of the way now!

Mladi it is, the end of the slow movement, with its peculiar 17/16 bars

[greg]

LO 84- George Benjamin......

one of these:
Altitude
Ringed by the Flat Horizon
At First Light
Fanfare for Aquarius
Antara
Sudden Time

but i don't know the rules on how many guesses you can make (i've never heard George Benjamin before, i have no idea which)