Quiz: Mystery scores

[Guido]

OK so of mine - the Piazzolla one still hasn't been guessed... not an obscure piece, but this is a piano trio arrangement so maybe not the instrumentation that you are used to (I believe the arrangement was either made or sanctione by the composer though).

The film music is by a very famous film composer, who writes alot of very beautiful stuff for piano and strings. He's done some of the biggest 'intelligent' movies of recent years (i.e. not your standard idiot's action heavy, light on plot film). The film this is from was one of the most famous and best films of the 90s.

[Guido]

Where is Luke?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Where is Luke?

I was asking that myself. But it was a Bank Holiday in the UK, so perhaps he was out with the whole family...

[Maciek]

Today, he is listening to chamber music by you-know-who.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Today, he is listening to chamber music by you-know-who.

Ah, the poor poor man... (This man is going to bed!)

[Maciek]

Good night! 0:)

[(poco) Sforzando]

I was asking that myself. But it was a Bank Holiday in the UK, so perhaps he was out with the whole family...

Banking?

[Chrone]

The film music is by a very famous film composer, who writes alot of very beautiful stuff for piano and strings. He's done some of the biggest 'intelligent' movies of recent years (i.e. not your standard idiot's action heavy, light on plot film). The film this is from was one of the most famous and best films of the 90s.

"The Piano" by Michael Nyman?

[lukeottevanger]

Hello!

Yes, I was away for the Bank Holiday. And I returned to find very little had happened on this thread, so I've had nothing to respond to!

[lukeottevanger]

Guido - your film music one: Elfman? Kilar? It's similar to some of their work, but not exactly the same as any that I know. 

[Guido]

No. These 3 ninetees films that I talked about were all really major hollywood films, one of which is surely one of the most universally loved films ever.

[lukeottevanger]

Oh God, it's Thomas Newman, isn't it! American Beauty. The really famous bit, too....

[lukeottevanger]

A (fairly) educated guess - is the Piazzolla from his 'Four Seasons' set Cuatro Estaciones porteña? I have the following reasons:

1) I'm sure I know this tune - though so many Piazzolla tunes have roughly this shape and harmony it's hard to be 100% sure - but I don't think its on the six Piazzolla discs I have. However, I used to have Gidon Kremer's recording of the Cuatro Estaciones (now lost) so perhaps that is where I've heard it, if indeed I have.

2) At some point in the past I have seen this work in an arrangement that looks a little like this one, I think. (Again, relying on memory here)

[Guido]

Yes you are right on both accounts! The Piazzolla is the winter movement.

Thomas Newman is one of my favourite film composers - a case where his music very often truly makes a film - American beauty would not be the same without that score. I think the scores for The Green Mile and The Shawshank redemption are almost as good.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Just weighing in. In the US we don't usually speak of "bank holidays," but there are 10-11 federal holidays on which the banks, public schools, and federal offices are closed. Some of these holidays - January 1, Memorial (formerly Decoration) Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas - are observed by most businesses (except that many stores remain open on Memorial Day); some of the others - Martin Luther King, Presidents' Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans' Day - are less likely to be "celebrated" by the average store or business.

(Perhaps we can work in a Charles Ives connection here.)

[lukeottevanger]

Does that mean you've guessed? That I'm at work on a Bank Holidays Symphony?

[(poco) Sforzando]

Does that mean you've guessed? That I'm at work on a Bank Holidays Symphony?

Now we don't just guess actual scores; we also guess scores that haven't yet been written.

[lukeottevanger]

Ooooh, oooh, my turn! I guess that Saul will write something called 'Prelude in F flat minor' in the next few years.

[lukeottevanger]

Lots of mine left. Looking through my old clues, I am shocked some of these haven't been identified, to the extent that I haven't been able to hold off from the odd    (  ). Anyway, some even-more give-away clues added to the older ones, now, especially for the older scores:

219 - ? - - you know it's by a great pianist who was the protege of a great violinist-composer. I may not have mentioned this before, but it also shares a characteristic with a score of Bartok than Guido tested us with a week or two back.. NEW CLUES - the violinist-composer was also this composer's godfather; this composer died young, of Hodgkin's disease; he was taught by Nadia Boulanger, Charles Munch and Dukas. And - to emphasize - he's very famous (as a pianist). What more do you need?

232 - you know the composer (Feldman). And also that it's a  piano solo. And that, strangely enough,  it isn't one of those listed by Sforzando, which were:

Two Intermissions
Intermission 5
Intermission 6
Piano Piece 1952
Extensions 3
Three Pieces For Piano
Piano Piece 1955
Piano Piece 1956 A
Piano Piece 1956 B
Last Piece
Vertical Thoughts 4
Piano Piece (To Philip Guston)
Piano Piece (1964)
Nature Pieces For Piano
Variations
Intermission 3
Intermission 4
Intersection 2
Intersection 3
Intermission 6

but that this list contains the title of this piece several times over.

234 As stated earlier, the composer was much better known as a prodigiously gifted, prematurely deceased pianist with an impressive repertoire ranging from the classics to Boulez and Sorabji. As revealed above, either this one or no 219 is by John Ogdon. NEW CLUE and as should be obvious from the new clues to 219, that one isn't by Ogdon....   

238  Not a composer associated with the piano, which instrument isn't very well suited to the technical concerns he developed later in life. This piece, slightly earlier, isn't quite there yet. It refers to the music and culture of an Asian country often bypassed by western composers looking for an Eastern fix. That country is Tibet; this composer visited Tibet and Nepal, I believe, and was greatly influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism. There have only been one or two composers directly influenced by Tibet, and this piece is this composer's most obviously Tibetan work. And it's not Glass; nor is it one of my favourites, Jonathan Harvey. NEW CLUE - surprised you need it. This composer is better-known as one of the finalists in the Champion's League this season. 

244 Look at the technique involved here; the composer is quite clear then. We had a piece by this composer a long time back, and Mark identified it then - he spotted that the piece was a complex canon at various speeds, as is this one, though it's much simpler here. Who composes such things? NEW CLUE - oh, come on!!! A complex canon at various speeds Composer lived in Mexico.  COMPOSER IDENTIFIED - Nancarrow

245 The one with the repeated letter (R ) beginning each constituent title, and whose collective title reflects this. Shall I spell it out for you? R, then R, then R, then R...... 

255  The mysterious composer, who shared the interest manifested by the composer of 238, but not at the time of this early piece. NEW CLUES This composer was born on Christmas day - or January 6th, depending on your calendar. At Conservatoire, he wrote a fugue which became required learning for subsequent generations of students at the same institution - but fugue is not a form for which he is known. He and his son have both featured on this thread. PIECE IDENTIFIED - Scriabin, Fantasy for 2 pianos

257 The one by the composer who is obvious from the context of the discussion, which is an earlier work than his more famous pieces in the genre, but equally inventive and ground-breaking. NEW CLUES The composer, obviously, is Alkan - I hope you all got that far, though no one said so. It's hard to do more than emphasize that this is a (relatively) early piece in a genre in which he later wrote his greatest masterpieces

260  An extremely uncompromising score by a composer who's been on this thread quite a few times, I think, but who's best known for less abrasive stuff. NEW CLUES. Maciek would know this, and the composer has been on the thread before, more than once. His best-known piece - extremely famous - is about as far in style from this work as can be imagined. PIECE IDENTIFIED - Gorecki, 5 pieces for 2 pianos

261 Today my six year old daughter, who can only play in simple five-finger positions, tried to sightread a piece by this very famous composer. NEW CLUE Try saying back that last sentence in French. PIECE IDENTIFIED - Stravinsky, Tango

262 Equally famous composer, very-little-known early work rediscovered after his death. NEW CLUE The composer of the previous piece (261) was responsible for the most quoted aphorism about this composer, something about excavating gemstones. PIECE IDENTIFIED - Webern, Movement (or Sonata) for piano

263
NEW CLUE This composer was and is interested in alternative tunings, and the resulting music was labelled 'irresponsible'; but the composer was encouraged by Shostakovich to continue on this 'mistaken path' Later music uses the Fibonacci sequence as a structural determinant. COMPOSER IDENTIFIED - Gubaidulina

264 Look in detail at the score; the composer is possibly the best-known of the early experimenters with this sort of thing. NEW CLUE Well, honestly, has anyone looked? 'This sort of thing' = micro tonality. 

265  Looks hideously tricky, I know, but actually this piece is one of its composer's best -known pieces, due to its being a coupling on a very well-received disc of a few years ago, whose highlight work is one of the two or three finest and most famous concertos for the solo instrument you see here. The score sample itself contains an unusual orchestral touch which might help you find the work, too. NEW CLUE That well-received disc features three pieces for viola and orchestra from the same country - one piece of juvenilia; one very well-known concerto; and this piece. The two initials of the (well-known) solo violist are the same letter. PIECE IDENTIFIED - Eotvos, Replica

267 Obviously, one of a set of variations. Look carefully and you'll uncover the theme (also look at the footnotes); the composer has been on this thread before NEW CLUE When this composer was on this thread before, it took me ages to work out the title of the piece, which eventually turned out to be something mythological. But the work of this composer's which I return to most is his version of the Musical Offering. PIECE IDENTIFIED - Markevitch, Handel Variations

269 and 269b The two quotations are found 1) in the bottom line-and-a-half (quotation from an early work, the composer's great popular 'hit' and 2) at the beginning, in the chords of the left hand and the pedal note above (quotation from the beginning of a wonderful later work, already on this thread) NEW CLUE - I love this composer, and it sucks that you can't guess him because I'm desperate to upload some samples of this piece! His most famous work - on Radio 3 at the weekend - is a double memorial for orchestra, and this piece is an intimate companion piece to that work, though it memorialises only one of the two deceased. PIECE IDENTIFIED - Suk, O Mamince

271 This is the piano reduction of a work in a genre which Schoenberg was, I think, the first to  work in. Composer is a contemporary and compatriot of Schoenberg. NEW CLUES Well, I could go down the line of verbal clues, I suppose, though I tend to think that sort of thing is pretty horrible//awful/terrible/dire/shocking etc. (though I think so in German). The lead actor in my favourite film shares a first syllable with this composer. The lead character in one of my childrens' favourite films likewise. The other syllable? Er, I'll just have to think about that one.....
COMPOSER IDENTIFIED - Schreker

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

269 and 269b

Your clues make me think of Josef Suk, who wrote the 'Asrael' symphony after Dvorak and his own wife (Dvorak's daughter) died (iirc).

So - Josef Suk?!