Seeking music for a stage play

[Bert Coules]

I'm involved with a forthcoming theatre play one scene of which shows an early-twentienth century stage illusionist performing a trick, working silently to musical accompaniment. The routine is slow and poetic and the music should match.

What makes the choice of piece a little less easy than it might otherwise have been is that the magician's act is Indian themed. So I'd welcome suggestions for music (to be arranged for and played by a variety theatre pit band) which is (a) lyrical and poetic, (b) redolent of India in particular or the Mystic East in general, and (c) suitable for 1910 or thereabouts. Only some two minutes is required but a drastic cutting-down of something longer will be no problem.

Many thanks in advance for any thoughts and suggestions.

[vinteuil]

.

.. is 'Pale Hands by the Shalimar" too much of a cliche?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmiri_Song

.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Ip1wAqA9U

.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx_p_NkSkRQ

.

[Bert Coules]

Thanks for the thought. Is it a cliché today or has it gone past that state now, being known only to a markedly older audience? I wonder. Either way it's certainly worth considering, so I'm grateful for the suggestion. And perhaps I should check the other three numbers in the set, none of which, as far as I'm aware, I know.

[Belgrove]

Might La Flûte enchantée from Shéhérazade fit the bill?

[Pulcinella]

Holst sprang to my mind, but I'm not quite sure which piece.....
Which is not very helpful, is it?

[Bert Coules]

Belgrove, thanks, I'll have a listen.

Pulcinella, it's perfectly helpful. Like Belgrove's suggestion it's given me a definite avenue to explore. The Planets, sadly, is too late but I think some of the Indian-related stuff is from quite a bit earlier, isn't it?

[vinteuil]

Holst sprang to my mind, but I'm not quite sure which piece.....
Which is not very helpful, is it?

... well, 'orientalism' - tho' Algerian rather than Indian -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beni_Mora

and then there is his 'Indian' stuff -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savitri_(opera)

wiki helps here : I liked the sly - "Holst's interest in Indian mythology, shared by many of his contemporaries, first became musically evident in the opera Sita (1901–06). During the opera's long gestation, Holst worked on other Indian-themed pieces. These included Maya (1901) for violin and piano, regarded by the composer and writer Raymond Head as "an insipid salon-piece whose musical language is dangerously close to Stephen Adams"."

,

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If it's set in England during the first decade or so of the last Century, it doesn't have to be "authentic" Music - just something that the audience at that time would have "understood" as being "Indian", such as:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA2AAa92bqA

[Bert Coules]

Ferneyhoughgelibte, exactly so. And that piece - Kreisler's Song of India for anyone disinclined to follow the link - is a nice idea, thanks.

Vinteuil, thanks for the thoughts. Actually, "Dangerously close to Stephen Adams" is no bad thing for my purposes. Though I want a pleasing effect (and if possible the Indian/Eastern feel) a small touch of show-biz cheesiness wouldn't be disastrous.

I can't find an online performance of Maya; is it really that obscure?

LATER...

But I did somehow stumble across Victor Borge celebrating Leonard Bernstein's birthday with a new piece specially composed by Wagner, so the search certainly wasn't in vain.

[Lordgeous]

Which in turn led me to this brilliant Sondheim piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRB-HP9rPGQ

[Bert Coules]

Superb stuff, thank you. And a prodigious feat of memory from Miss Bacall; bravo.

[LHC]

How about an arrangement of some of the music from Lakme by Delibes, and in particular the Flower duet. Lakme dates from the 1880s and would have been at the height of its popularity in 1910. It's also emblematic of the Western view of an imagined, exotic India, which was particularly in vogue at that time.

[Bert Coules]

The Lakme duet is an interesting idea, thanks, though does it still carry the whiff of TV adverts about it, perhaps? Was it British Airways?

[cloughie]

How about a little of the second movement of Antar or a smidgen of Ravel's Mother Goose!

[Bert Coules]

Thanks for the thoughts. I had to look up Antar, so thanks too for introducing me to a piece I didn't know. The Ravel is an interesting idea.