That academic year is just around the corner, so it's time to sharpen those no. 2 pencils for another quiz! (If you missed it: some choice answers from the last one.) Once again, all hail Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, from whence I shamelessly plagiarized this idea.As before, either leave your answers or a link to where we can find your answers in the comments. Do include the questions in your response, if only for my sake—I can't keep two queries in my brain simultaneously, let alone ten. You may begin the test... now.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
EXTRA CREDIT:
For opera nerds: If you had to choose:
a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill?
b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
61 comments:
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
The loop of Shostakovich 5 that runs through Morrissey's "The Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils" is a favorite. The best insular quotation is Marc-Andre Dalbavie dropping Color into his Piano Concerto, but Berio's Sinfonia is the best, because it changes how you hear the original.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Do recordings of Nino Rota's symphonic suites from his movies count? They're movie music. If not, John Williams's Christmas disc with the Boston Pops.
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Almost anything by Steve Reich. "Chamber Sonata No. 5" is only slightly duller than most of his titles.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten, who had talent.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Tie—Peter Pears and Sue Mingus.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Wellington's Victory.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Lt. Kije and more Prokofiev in Woody Allen's Love and Death
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Mozart's Requiem with Andrea Bocelli. Not intended to be crossover, but that's where it ended up.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Gaye, because we have the same initials.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
John Corigliano. No, wait, Philip Roth. He would've taken Mahler's post-Freudian hang-ups to the next level.
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
I'm told that the recording of Gabrieli's canzonas and sacrae symphoniae with the Chicago, Cleveland and Philly brass from the 1960s is entirely incorrect. I also don't care; I can't hear them performed any other way.—Marc Geelhoed
1. Best quotation: With Berio already taken, I'm going with Schickele's "Last Tango at Bayreuth."
2. Best crossover album: Anything by the Swingle Singers
3. Good piece, bad title: Would it be missing the point to choose Julius Eastman's pieces, whose titles I'm not in a rush to write?
4. Britten -3.5
5. Favorite spouse: I got dibs on Alma Mahler!
Yeah, I just wanted dibs on Alma, so I'm not going to worry about the rest of it right now.
I'm in.
My answers
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
I like quotation from Mozart' "The Marriage of Figaro" in the dinner scene of his "Don Giovanni," but then again I like the dinner scene in Strauss' "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" where the mutton course is introduced with music used to represent the sheep in his "Don Quixote." Both have onstage orchestra, by the way: maybe the two are related--homage-wise, that is.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
I can't say it's the best crossover recording "ever made," but I do love Die Singphoniker's "Serenade" (they sing a bunch of Beatles songs as well as "Zair vair bells on zhu hill" from "The Music Man")
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
I just can't think of one. If I like a piece I usually just accept the title, even if it's goofy.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Alma Mahler
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Richard Nanes' Symphony #2, "The False Benediction." Actually the title is rather descriptive of the piece.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
It's not a warhorse, but I love the constant use of Brahms' Third Symphony (in various forms) in "Aimez-vous Brahms," also known as "Good-bye Again."
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
I really didn't like Yo-Yo Ma's Piazzolla "Soul of the Tango" recording. I can't say it's the worst crossover recording, just the one that comes to mind that disappointed me the most.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Sam Cooke
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Breugal the Elder
EXTRA CREDIT:
For opera nerds: If you had to choose:
a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill?
b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
Merril and Pons.
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Heifetz playing solo Bach.
My answers are here: http://www.nobleviola.com/wordpress/2007/08/24/back-to-school-quiz/
Let me try that again:
my answers
My answers may be read here:
http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2007/08/its-the-annual-.html
ACD
Uh, here:
http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2007/08/its-the-annual-.html
ACD
Hmm, tough one.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Not the most subtle or elegantly set up, but it's gotta be the Tristan quote in Debussy's Golliwog's Cakewalk.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Uri Caine's Mahler album, hands down. (Sorry, which way was the crossover supposed to go?)
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Kindertotenlieder. How cheery.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
To be the black sheep, I'll take Tippett.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Does Peter Pears count?
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
The Book with Seven Seals.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Beethoven's 9th in Die Hard.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Anything involving Il Divo.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Pass.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Ernest Hemingway. Can you imagine the weltschmerz?
Here's my link...
http://violistinvermont.blogspot.com/2007/08/soho-dog-quiz.html
How fun! Thank you.
Done and done. And I mean done:
http://skittlesmaze.blogspot.com/2007/08/quiz-time-blogz-r-fun-via-soho-dog-1.html
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
How about "Ich habe genug" in the Berg concerto. Also, the second movement theme of the Brahms First piano concerto being an ornamentation of the opening theme of the first movement is rather remarkable.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Bryn Terfel's "Rogers and Hammerstein" album. Or the Ensemble Modern's Frank Zappa album.
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
"The Rural Juror." I mean, 'The Identity Triad."
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Tippett didn't write "Grimes."
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Alma wins forever.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
"I Was Looking At The Ceiling And Then I Saw The Sky."
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Ligeti by Kubrick.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
That Kiri/Jose/Lenny "West Side Story."
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Gaye, because my high school chorus master told us a story about him every day.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Klemperer's St. Matthew Passion. And Stokowski's Bach arrangements, although they are perfectly suited to THEIR time.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
I'm a sucker for "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean" near the end of Ives' 2nd symphony.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
"Meister Eckhardt and Quackie"
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten, but just by a nose - Tippett's well worth digging into
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Gotta be Alma Mahler.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
With few exceptions (Berlioz) any piece entitled Te Deum is usually aptly named (zzzz....).
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
The Rabbitt of Seville (of course)
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Anything involving the 3 tenors (together or separate)
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Sam's a fascinating guy (read Dream Boogie, Peter Guralnick's biography of Cooke) but Marvin's still the Man.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Frank Gehry
I'm in. Those of you picking Merrill over Tibbett are just wrong.
1. Best quotation: already answered -- Figaro in Don Giovanni
2. Best classical crossover: John Williams and Friends
3. Great piece with a terrible title: Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (okay, it's not great)
6. Terrible piece with a great title: War and Peace
7. Warhorse in a movie: Also Sprach in 2001 (best, not favorite -- it's an icon)
9. Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye: Cooke
a) Tibbett or Merrill: Tibbett
b) Galli-Curci or Pons: Galli-Curci
Historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love: Victor de Sabata conducting the Mozart Requiem -- it sounds like Verdi.
Woof, woof.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Keith Emerson quoting Dick Hyman's Minotaur during the 1973-74 versions of Aquatarkus.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Hahahahahahaha. A trick question, I see!
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
I don't know if it's a "great" piece, but Dessicated Embryos by Satie springs to mind.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Another trick question! Britten is simply one of the very greatest opera composers who ever lived, easily in the second tier behind Verdi, Wagner, Puccini and Mozart. Poor Tippett, so earnest, such a very poor composer.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Alma Mahler. What a life she had.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
To steal from Marc, Wellington's Victory.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
O Fortuna from Carmina Burana in Oliver Stone's The Doors.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
All of them.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin Gaye, for I Heard Through The Grapvine and the What's Going On album.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Kandinsky, he loved music.
For opera nerds: If you had to choose:
a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill?
Robert Merrill, Tibbett wore out his voice pretty quickly.
b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
Lily Pons, a gorgeous voice.
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love
I not an early music nerd (I don't like much before 1890, really), but I've always loved how totally wrong Kirstin Flagstad's recording of Gluck's Alceste is.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
The Tristan quotes in the third act of Meistersinger. For about 30 seconds Wagner suddenly transports us into a parallel universe. Runners up: Beckmesser’s serenade in Ginastera’s guitar sonata, and “We shall overcome” in Tippett’s The Knot Garden. And “Jesus loves me” in the Ives fourth violin sonata.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Peter Hoffmann sings Bernstein show tunes. Great style, almost perfectly idiomatic pronunciation (though “Cool” comes out more “Kuhl”). Jose Carreras eat your heart out.
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Three entries:
Soixante-quatre durées (Messiaen)
* * * (Schumann)
Klavierübung (Bach)
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Since the voting seems to be going 100% the other way, I’ll cast my vote for the guy who set the phrase “Soho the dog” in an opera.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Helen Carter (after all, Elliott only composed all that complicated atonal music just to please her). Or maybe Vera Stravinsky, who seems to have married Igor without having bothered to divorce either of her two previous husbands.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene (not really a terrible piece, maybe, but the title has a musical memorability that the piece doesn’t)
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
I’d go with the Blue Danube in 2001. The Richard Strauss, Khachaturian, and Ligeti excepts are used in an “obvious” way, the Blue Danube still throws me for a loop.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Classical Barbra
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Sam Cooke (but with no strong feelings either way)
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Ingmar Bergman
EXTRA CREDIT:
For opera nerds: If you had to choose:
a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill?
Probably Tibbett, though I haven’t really heard enough.
b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
Francesca Cuzzoni or Faustina Bordoni?
Patsy Cline or Maria Callas?
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Dinu Lipatti playing “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” – the most beautiful piano playing ever recorded.
Dammit, I knew there was a legitimate Tristan quotation someplace that I should remember. True confession of the week: I don't like Meistersinger all that much.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
The quote of the chorale 'Es ist genug' in the finale of the Berg Violin Concerto. I was very interested in A.C. Douglas' mention of Bruckner 9 because I have never noticed Ring/Parsifal there.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
May I use this to name my favorite pop crossover, Birgit Nilsson's cover of 'I Could Have Danced All Night'?
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
The Rachmaninoff Paganini Variations (because it does not begin to prepare us for its beauty).
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Cosima Wagner (heinous, granted) slams the piano lid shut on this category, in spite of the unforgettable Sir Peter.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Satyagraha. (I am not a fan, no.)
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
The Ode to Joy in 'A Clockwork Orange'. (Perhaps not Hollywood.)
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Would have been Barbara Streisand's Bach cantata record if Glenn Gould's fantasy had come true.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
I am thinking Knut Hamsun, Paul Klee.
The Casals cello suites define the notion of interpretation in the modern time as inaccurate as we may perceive them to be (but remember Hindemith's Bach comment wondering how someone playing with no vibrato could have sired all those kids...).
Great blog, Matthew.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Ives' entire Fourth Symphony, and I don't know the names of any of the quoted music, just the fragmentary tunes.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Joe Jackson's "Heaven & Hell," a true oddity written for Suzanne Vega, Dawn Upshaw, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Brad Roberts (of "Crash Test Dummies").
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
"Maometto Secondo" by Rossini, the original Italian version of the French "Siege of Corinth."
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Love Tippett, but Britten was God.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Echoing everybody else, you've gotta go with a three-way tie of Cosima (for her crazed lineage and diary if nothing else), Alma (for wildly extending herself beyond Gustav) and Peter Pears (who really should get the nod because Britten's music was written for his odd voice).
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
"Til Eugenspiel's Merry Pranks" by R. Strauss
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Prokofiev's "Lt. Kije" in "The Horse's Mouth," way before Woody Allen
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Have to agree with one of the previous panelists, "Classical Barbra," though it's not as scary as her rendition of Lennon's "Mother" on another album
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin Gaye is another one of the many faces of God and his music is aging brilliantly
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Buckminster Fuller (Cowell meets John Cage?)
Inter Glossa wrote: "I was very interested in A.C. Douglas' mention of Bruckner 9 because I have never noticed Ring/Parsifal there."
———————————————————
Hint #1: In the last movement (Adagio) — several times.
Hint #2: It's a compound quote.
ACD
And bringing up the rear. (Link!)
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Ha ha! You didn't say classical music! I could say when Lenny's "America" shows up at the beginning of Metallica's "Don't Tread on Me"!
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Alarm Will Sound/Aphex Twin "Acoustica"
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
This is actually the hardest one to answer. Probably La Monte Young's naming system for his performances. They're difficult to drop into conversation. (Just as he is himself!)
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten, unless Tippett has written something for the guitar and then I might have to reconsider.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Does Anne-Sophie Mutter count? For safety's sake I'll say Alice Coltrane, also.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Zappa's "I Promise Not To Come In Your Mouth." Sorry Frank, too noodly this time. And there go everyone's web filters.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Cavalleria Rustica in Godfather III almost makes the film watchable.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
I'm really surprised that no one has smashed the Sting Dowland album yet. But now Josh Groban! Barf barf barf.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin Gaye, if solely for his rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Frank Gehry, or Michaelangelo Antonioni
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Chopin’s “Funeral March” as quoted in Act 1 of “Tristan und Isolde.”
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Frederica von Stade’s “My Funny Valentine”
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
H.R.H. Prince Harry
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Talk about Sophie’s choice.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Minna Planer Wagner, as played by Yvonne de Carlo in the Wagner biopic “Magic Fire.”Anyone remember who played Richard?
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
“The Turn of the Screw”
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Luciano Pavarotti in “Yes, Giorgio.”
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Anything by Solti.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
MG
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Benjamin Britten
EXTRA CREDIT:
For opera nerds: If you had to choose:
a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill?
Tibbett
b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
Galli-Curci
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
“Giulio Cesare” with Beverly Sills, Norman Triegle, Julius Rudel conducting.
phineas57: 5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Minna Planer Wagner, as played by Yvonne de Carlo in the Wagner biopic “Magic Fire.”Anyone remember who played Richard?
I saw this once. I have no memory of Richard, but I do recall Peter Cushing as, I think, Wesendonck's husband. Well-known (possibly apocryphal) story about this movie: Erich Korngold, who adapted the music, was pressed into service as Hans Richter in one scene when the actor who was cast in the role failed to show up.
That Yvonne certainly had a thing for composers, didn't she?
sfmike: Joe Jackson's "Heaven & Hell" was adapted into a stage musical at Boston Conservatory (one of my employers) last year. I didn't get to see it, but the adaptation might start making the rounds.
Another set of answers.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
The big polytonal palaver of folk-tunes in Biber's "Battalia." Like Ives two centuries early.
Or Satie's quotation of Chopin's "Funeral March" in his "Dessicated Embryos." He labels it, "From the famous mazurka of Schubert."
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Zappa's orchestral albums.
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Kassia's "Using the Apostate Tyrant As His Tool."
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten, but stop ripping on Tippett. The string quartets, for example, are lovely.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Least favorite is more fun. Amy Beach's husband? Henry Purcell's wife? She supposedly locked him out when he came home drunk from one too many boozy glee-sings. He slept on the doorstep, caught a chill, and died.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Michael Nyman's "Self-Laudatory Hymn of Inanna and Her Omnipotence."
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
"Mike's" melancholy Bach in "American Movie."
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
The choristers of Westminster Abbey singing adult-listening hits of the seventies. "I'll Do Eet My Way," sung with perfect Anglican diction.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Gaye, Gaye, Gaye.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
e. e. cummings.
EXTRA CREDIT:
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Busoni's Bach transcriptions. Or, it has to be said, Paillard's famous, drippy Pachelbel, which takes an undistinguished piece and makes it a full-blown wedding cliche.
mta
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
In Faith No More's song "Malpractice" on Angel Dust there's a nice sample of Kronos playing Shostakovich's 8th string quartet. I think it was my first exposure to Shostakovich.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
--
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Density 21.5 just doesn't quite seem to fit the piece it's attached to.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Following the crowd, Britten
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Why not Clara Schumann?
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
I'm drawing a blank here.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Ooh Ooh, this probably doesn't count, but how about the Puccini in Barney Gumble's entry in the Springfield film festival?
Otherwise, I'm not enough of a movie-goer to come up with anything more original than the Blue Danube in 2001.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
I've heard precious little of it, but I generally find that anything involving opera singers and popular music to be terrifying.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
A lot of people have been saying Frank Gehry, so how about Rem Koolhaas? Also, it'd be interesting to see what Haruki Murakami would do if he were writing music instead of writing it into his novels.
Good one!
Ok, I'm in!
Alan Badel portrayed Wagner in "Magic Fire."
Read all about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Fire
Density 21.5 is the density of platinum, the material of the flute that the piece was written to be played on. I would actually put it in the class of a bad piece with an appropriate title.
Hey Elaine,
The justification of the title does not necessarily make it an apt one...
-Nissim
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Variations on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninoff
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Anything by The Kings Singers
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Can't think of one. I usually just accept the names.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten, hands down
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Clara Schumann
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Can't think of any
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
The Ride of the Valkyrie in Apocolypse Now.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
ANYTHING by Andrea Bocelli. EEEEK
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Tough choice, but Marvin Gaye
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Picasso. Imagine the possiblities.
EXTRA CREDIT:
For opera nerds: If you had to choose:
a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill?
b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
Merrill and Pons
I'm going to have to pull out the score before offering to arm-wrestle with Elaine about Density 21.5, one of the pieces I kept after the great flute-music purge a few years ago. I seem to remember liking it, but it has admittedly been a while.
> Chopin’s “Funeral March” as quoted > in Act 1 of “Tristan und Isolde.”
Measure number, please? or page number, if you've got the Dover edition handy.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Quite obscure, but a brilliant quote: “O Solo Mio” at the end of John Carisi’s Moon Taj (on Gil Evans: Into the Hot)
Or, Zappa quoting the Ligeti Chamber Concerto – note for note! – in Times Beach II (on The Yellow Shark)
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Edgar Meyer, Joshua Bell, Sam Bush, and Mike Marshall – Long Trip Home (can’t believe no one’s nominated Edgar yet!)
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District - Shostakovitch
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Sue Mingus
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
And God Created Great Whales – Alan Hovhaness
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams in Master and Commander
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Stan Kenton Plays Wagner (for the concept and arranging – though the performance is amazing)
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Sam Cooke
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Edward Hopper – imagine the populist Copland with a dark, sparse side
EXTRA CREDIT:
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Pablo Casals – Bach Cello Suites
Another great piece with a terrible title: Stravinsky’s Подблюдные (Podbliudniye, which Taruskin translates "Songs sung in the presence of the bowl") – though the title of the 4th song, “Puzishche,” translated “Fatso” in the marvellous Musica Russica edition, is great. (Hey, I’ve conducted Stravinsky’s “Fatso.”)
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
MADONNA: "Deeper and Deeper," quoting "Vogue"
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
--Mozart "Non piu andrai" quote in his "Don Giovanni."
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
--Anything sung by Thomas Quasthoff. Currently, the somewhat mis-titled "Jazz Album."
--Excerpt: Cesare Siepi singing "Some Enchanted Evening."
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
--Shostakovitch's "Limpid Stream."
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
--Britten.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
--Harmony Ives.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
--Glass's "Aknaten"
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
--The entire score to "Excalibur." "Carmina Burana" and lots of Wagner, who I'm sure would have appreciated knowing that he composed the "Theme from 'Excalibur'."
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
--Stop it, you're hurting me.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
--Marvin Gaye.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
--Richard Serra.
EXTRA CREDIT:
For opera nerds: If you had to choose:
a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill?
--Like I would tell you if you looked fat in that dress.
b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
--Don't care. Ask me about mezzos.
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
--Stokowski's Bach orchestral transcriptions, played by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music? Saint-Saens' use of Offenbach's can-can tune for the Tortoises movement of the "Carnival of the Animals".
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made. I know most think it kitschy, but I always admired the invention for the Yo-Yo Ma/Bobby McFerrin collaboration.
3. Great piece with a terrible title. It's hard to think of a more misleading title than to refer to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as the "Choral".
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett? Britten, but I have no argument better than personal taste.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.) I'll be cruel here and say Antonina Milyukova. One can argue that Tchaikovsky doesn't write his greatest work without going through that marriage.
6. Terrible piece with a great title. Salome Dances for Peace
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie? "March of the Toreadors" in "The Bad News Bears". Saw this in the theatre in 1976, and was totally unprepared for that music as comic commentary, supplanting Khachaturian's "Saber Dance", which is probably still the go-to piece for "hey, this is funny". I was rolling in the aisles, and may have been the only one in the theater.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made. It was mentioned before, but the recording of "West Side Story" with Dame Ti Kanawa as Maria was an idea that should have stayed on the drawing board.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye? Unfair to compare artists in two different genres, but Gaye ranks higher for me within his area.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer. Douglas Hofstadter, author of Godel, Escher, Bach. Anyone who can make fugues out of prose could have done so with music as well.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Pretty much anything in Petrouchka.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky's Russian song collections are the only thing that immediately come to mind.
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Thomas Ades' "These Premises Are Alarmed" (well, maybe not 'great' but ...)
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Yep, it's Britten.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
With the Hovhaness whale piece already taken, maybe Nono's "Prometeo, Tragedia dell'ascolto?"
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
The snatch of Mozart's Requiem in The Big Lebowski.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Just too many.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
A tough one, but I think Sam Cooke.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Franz Kafka. Would've made Mahler look like a piker.
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Tristan chord in Meistersinger or Beethoven 5 in Ives 2nd Sonata
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Still waiting for a good one.
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Webern's many "Pieces". What is a piece ?
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten. Universal composer and not only English.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Cosima, first spouse impresario - high priest ...
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Rage over a lost penny
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Rossini's Guillaume Tell in Tex Avery's cartoons
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
West Side Story with Operatic singers who should never had ventured there.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Who ?
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Vermeer
EXTRA CREDIT:
For opera nerds: If you had to choose:
a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill?
Tibett
b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
Pons
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Lipatti playing Bach, Chopin and Mozart K 330.
In a moment of temporary insanity I forwarded the latest Soho the Dog quiz to Opera-L, not quite realizing that it was going out to nearly 1500 readers. I expected a lot of the listers would get their knickers in knots over the Galli Curci vs. Pons and Tibbett vs. Merrill questions, but, no, it was the Crossover topic that really got the opinions flying. The responses may be read in the Opera-L archives at
http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A0=OPERA-L
(go to August ’07, weeks 4 and 5)
A sampling appears below:
David Shengold:
Leaving aside the wonderful sides laid down by Eileen Farrell and Dorothy Kirsten—just about the only two postwar opera singers I listen to with pleasure in pop standards—my vote goes to the Sylvia Sass LP in which she does, among much else, "Flashdance" and "I Don't Know How to Love Him" in Hungarian. She's quite terrific!
Hermann Prey overdoing "Raindrops keep falling on my head" and "My Way", on the other hand, is so appalling it's funny.
Eri Tu:
Didn't Peter Hoffman (Helden-tenor) record something like "The house of the Rising Sun"? I seem to recall something like that.
Farrell's first venture I'VE GOT THE RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES is quite interesting. Same for Kirsten.
Bob Rideout:
I find the phrase "Best Crossover" something like an oxymoron, in that I've never heard a really, really good one, in either direction.
The classically trained singers that I've heard inevitably sound less than spontaneous, to be charitable, and their diction is invariably too "correct" and too lots of other things that I don't want to hear. It never sounds anywhere near as easy or natural as that which we hear from good pop singers, (not to mention "great") many of whom I love as much as I do opera singers. The reverse is certainly true, in my limited experience with those who would like to be, but never will be great opera stars. But, we have to define crossover, I guess. Many Broadway musicals lend themselves very well to the talents of the opera singer, or at least some opera singers, and Italian songs along with a huge inventory of numbers like "Road to Mandalay" and "Comin' through the Rye" have been wonderfully performed by bazillions of opera and concert artists.
Having said that, I never want to hear "Stormy Weather", "The Party's Over" or "My funny Valentine" sung by another "serious" singer again, as long as I live. NEVER! EVER!
Marie Lamb:
My nominee for the worst crossover album I've ever heard is Jan DeGaetani's "Classic Cole." JDG has been a favorite of mine for 30 years, but when that release came out, it seemed like the vocal equivalent of Margaret Thatcher doing a pole dance.
Michael Delos
I think my vote goes to "Eleanor Steber Live at the Continental Baths", which is available as a podcast:
http://img667.libsyn.com/img667/5f01aae04715f960b08e1f0a8071cb10/46d3955e/6862/1038/ELEANOR_STEBER_CONTINENTAL_BATHS.mp3
She still has a bit of voice left... the comments in between numbers are delivered in a butch baritone, with VERY crisp elocution... she says all sorts of things she shouldn't have, noteably quoting the Sermon on the Mount, "wherever two or more are gathered together"..... Oy gevalt!!
Her selections range from the sublime to the risable. The highlight for me is her 'Vienna, City of my Dreams' with a violinst who hadn't tuned his violin since the 1920's. Anyway, nice to see an opera star bringing culture to the masses, wherever they are ..... Enjoy, MD
mrmyster:
I sadly have to agree about the ill-advised appearance of Mme Steber at the Continental Baths; Mr Delos is quite right -- the comments are terrible, her faux grandezza just so vulgar etc. And, I understand her appearance in a bath house cost her the teaching position she had at Juilliard. A mess. And it wasn't even crossover, to be realistic.
Steber always sang popular music with her full operatic tone. And that was a big mistake -- "Every time we say goodbye" became Manon's farewell, etc. I always thought D. Kirsten was the best operatic crossover singer; she used her full range, but a smaller tone, and she did not try to embue with "grandeur." It worked, and she understood microphones.
Nobody could best Steber with Mozart, but Dorothy beat her every time with Cole Porter and Jerome Kern. I will say, for Victor Herbert -- who was really operetta -- Steber could do it very well.
Kenneth Wolman:
Hands down...Michael Bolton, "My Secret Passion." Unforgettable, like a dream of being buried alive in a mountain of dog waste. To hear this guy sing "Pourquoi me reveiller" is to know why God made us mortal, i.e.,so
that one day death would remove the memory of the experience.
James Grant:
When I think of memorable -- NOT in a good way -- crossover I think of two of my favorite artists in less than wise career moves: Domingo and John Denver in "Perhaps Love," -- which, you'll recall has Denver singing a perfectly fine little ditty for himself and then Domingo swoops in and sings the same melody and seems to be under the impression that it's a recently discovered Puccini aria being performed in English with guitar!
hermine:
What about Thomas Quasthoff singing JAZZ SONGS eh?
what about William Shatner and Rocket Man and all that other stuff?
What about Mae West singing Great Balls Of Fire?
What about Peggy Lee singing Riders In The Sky?
Come on you hepcats, get WITH it!
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Definitely all the quotes in Berio's Sinfonietta. It's obvious, but it's also truly excellent.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made. I'm thinking Swingle Singers!
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Beethoven's Egmont Overture... it makes it sound dumpy. Makes me think of eggs, which are not something that blend well with music.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett? Britten, by far!
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.) Felicia Montealegre Bernstein. She was pretty terrific. I also admire Sylvia Smith, the wife of Stuart Saunders Smith.
6. Terrible piece with a great title. Ravel's Piece en forme de Habanera for oboe. It's nothing like a Habanera, and it's barely even a Piece. Also, sadly, Leonard Bernstein's Whitehouse Cantata.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie? I'd say a bit of the old Ludwig Van in A Clockwork Orange. And all the Rossini in there, too.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made. I have to agree, I hate Kiri Te Kawana and Jose Carreras singing West Side Story. It's just disgusting.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye? Marvin Gaye, I guess.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer. Ogden Nash, the punny, word-inventing poet
Don't close the door yet! Here are my answers at Ionarts.
1. "Tristan" in Debussy's "Golliwog's Cakewalk"
2. Cathy Berberian sings The Beatles (ghost arranger: Berio)
3. "My Father Knew Charles Ives" - not actually a great piece, I just wanted to sound off about tthe title.
4. Britten, but why don't you just make your point?
5. William Colvig!
6. I've written so many, it's hard to choose just one!
7. While the Marx Bros. come to mind in this category, they really need a special citation, as does What's Opera Doc?". So I'll go with "Ride of the Valkeries" in Apocalypse Now - surely I won't be the only one to make this claim.
8. Fortunately, this is not my area of expertise! I dunno, if I can't come up with something after ten minutes, maybe it's time to move on.
9. Now, that's just mean! Can I sacrifice myself instead?
10. Mark Morris; Vladimir Nabokov
1. Richard Strauss: 1948 Im Abendrot, quoting his "Ideale" motiv from 1889 Tod und Verklärung
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
The Petroushka quote in Shostakovich's Baba Yar, "My Mother's being beaten by a clerk" as the mother is, presumably, being shaken like a puppet. Otherwise I always thought Mahler ended his First symphony with the scherzo from Beethoven's Ninth.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Heifetz doing Berlin's White Christmas (78 era) OR on film: Flagstad singing Walkure in the Big Broadcast of 1938. A whole album of good crossover? Well. Bach Organ orchestrated, I'm not sure where its crossing to what?
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Symphony of a Thousand, a title begging for an editor's wrath.....
Maybe Hansel und Gretel?
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
I'm currently reading Arthur Rubinstein's sexual and gastronomic adventures (his Autobiography) I may have an answer soon....
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Liszt, From the Cradle to the Grave (actually I like it, everyone else seems to hate it).
Meyerbeer, Robert le Diable.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
That little bit of Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead in the opening of Citizen Kane.
Oh, Oh, The little bit of Holst that David Bowie keeps turning off in The Man who Fell to Earth, that tells you where he's from (I guess).
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
So little time, so many Boston Pops records....
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin Gaye - Mr Multi-track!
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
El Lissitzky, imagine the counterpoint and over-lay, plus he could to a lot just by tilting the angle of vision.
EXTRA CREDIT: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Lipatti Bach, I am not sure if it fits "hopeless?"
Gregg
Gregg Deering
classicaldomain.org
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (Bryars)
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
SYR 4: Goodbye 20th Century (Sonic Youth)
Punk Side Story (Schlong)
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Hail To The Thief - Radiohead
Before the Willenium - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
Cucumber Castle - The Bee Gees
(...too bad you didn't ask for terrible pieces with terrible titles, there's no shortage of those...)
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Britten. Not even an "if I had to" choice.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer?
John Lennon
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Rucke di Guck (Scelsi)
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Apocalypse Now - may be an obvious answer, but how can you beat it?
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
The Tallywood String Quartet Tribute to Clay Aiken
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
As a singer - draw. As a composer / producer / everything else - Marvin.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Clyfford Still
David Lynch
Issey Miyake
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Sweet By and By in Ives's Second Orchestral Set, third movement (From Hanover Square North, at the end of a tragic day)
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Jazz Sebastian Bach by The Swingle Singers
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
I counter an earlier mention of Turn of the Screw as a terrible piece with a great title.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
I'm woefully ignorant of all things Tippett so I should preclude myself. I do love Britten though, so....
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Vera Stravinsky
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
The Past is in the Present (Schuller). Not a terrible piece, I just happen to like the title a lot more.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Rossini's William Tell Overture in The Clockwork Orange
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
"I could have danced all night" - Renee Fleming at the Nobel Prizes
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin Gaye
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
I second David Lynch
1. i'm surprised that nobody, as far as i can see, has yet mentioned schubert's quotation of the 'ode to joy' theme in the last movement of the c major symphony.
pencils down over at WTB!
http://pianophilia.blogspot.com
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
I've always liked the way the music ends up being part of Beethoven's 4th Piano concerto all along, in Gorecki's Lerchenmusik. I'm thinking that there's also a double-nested quote within a quote in some piece I've heard, but I can't think of it right now.
And it was darned clever of Beethoven to quote "Tico Tico" in the last movement of one of his piano concertos, since it hadn't even been written yet.
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
The Messiah Remix on Cantaloupe - you didn't say crossover from where to where.
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Beethoven. Sonata op. 109. I mean, that's all? For some of the best music ever, and it's just "sonata" plus an opus number? Seems wrong, somehow.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Tippett, because I spent a marvelous day with him many years ago and I still remember him as one of the most extraordinary people I've ever met. I would almost swear that he glowed with some sort of radiance.
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Bill Colvig. Great legs.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Götterdämmerung.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
My memory isn't designed to retain this type of information. I can barely remember the non-Hollywood stuff. I thought the use of Mozart in Bergman's Magic Flute was sort of cool.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Mile Davis's Sketches of Spain. Everybody seems to think it's so great, but that Concierto de Aranjuez is plain awful.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin Gaye.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Sol LeWitt would have been incredible. But, wow, there are so many possible directions this could go. Maya Lin, Goya, Calvino, Rothko - well, the mind reels, in a pleasantly stimulated way.
EXTRA CREDIT:
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Pletnev's Scarlatti.
Addendum to "Best classical crossover" - as always happens, you click, and then you remember something. Here it's the Hyper Beatles album by Aki Takahashi - that's got to be some sort of crossover and it's definitely great.
Had a go. Have a look at http://pianogeek.wordpress.com/2007/09/10/sohos-quiz/
1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Schnittke's cadenza for Beethoven's violin concerto... which begins with the Joachim cadenza from the Brahms!! Unreal; why isn't Schnittke more famous?
Do I get extra points for picking a piece of music within another piece of music within another piece of music?
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
So shoot me, McFerrin/Ma's "Hush" album appeals to child in me in the same way that Woody Guthrie's nursery rhymes and Tintin do.
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
After wracking my brain (read: killing 15 minutes of company time) and coming up short, I come to the conclusion that great pieces transcend or at least legitimize their titles.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
B & T: 1!
B & T: 2!
B & T: 3! Shoot!
B: Rock.
T: Scissors.
B: Nothing beats rock!
5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Did I just read somewhere that Cornelia Foss conducted an affair with Glenn Gould? Think about it. How messed up does Lukas have to be?
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Cummings ist der dichter. Sometimes I feel like Boulez is the luckiest fart in all of postwar composition. Anything he did, Messiaen did better. Except conduct Mahler.
7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
This may not exactly count: Having Fantasia 2000's whales migrating to the Pines of Rome was inspired programming.
Depends on its warhorse and/or Hollywood status: the Part "Cantus" in Fahrenheit 451.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
I will admit to no such knowledge.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Wasn't one of these shot dead by his own father? I choose that one.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Ambrose Bierce would have written the most grotesque, witty, and carnival-y dirges. Plus, history needs a good disappearing-composer story.
Gah! Kyle is right on No. 1. There are fewer more sublime moments than when the Sweet By and By emerges in the Ives 2nd Orch Set. Gah!
I don't think anyone's mentioned the Tristan love potion quotes in "Albert Herring." Good times, and more of a quotation than Ives' use of "Jesus Loves Me" (my previous choice) which is used as a primary theme. I'm changin' my answer.
Great piece with a terrible title.
Die Freischuetz. I like saying it, though.
Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Alma's been snagged. So, I'll go with Pauline Strauss, who kept Richard on a short leash and begging for treats.
What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Wagner in Excalibur. It makes the movie.
Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Shakespeare=Mozart+Beethoven
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Thomas Beecham's Messiah. Lush lush strings.
Post a Comment