Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[vinteuil]

The thought always occurs to me: if it isn't from some 1960s Western, it ought to be. Sounds like it should be entitled 'The Big Country' or something similar.

... exactly my thinking.

.

[Serial_Apologist]

... exactly my thinking.

.

It has been said that that particular theme was the big influence on later composers of music for Westerns - but I can't now remember by whom. Incidentally, that same music professor had never heard of Henri Sauguet...

[Stanfordian]

It has been said that that particular theme was the big influence on later composers of music for Westerns - but I can't now remember by whom. Incidentally, that same music professor had never heard of Henri Sauguet...

Some years ago there was Christmas Quiz on Radio 3 or 4 and Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich was asked to name a piece of music. Not only did he get it wrong, it was a recording of him playing it!

[Alain Maréchal]

these once worthy pieces

Was the Copland ever worthy?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

- the famous pentatonic melody - was played from The Wasps overture

Isn't it a Whole-Tone melody?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Isn't it a Whole-Tone melody?

Oh! Beg yer pudding - it's a Whole-Tone antecedent with a pentatonic consequent. My bad!

[Serial_Apologist]

Some years ago there was Christmas Quiz on Radio 3 or 4 and Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich was asked to name a piece of music. Not only did he get it wrong, it was a recording of him playing it!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oh! Beg yer pudding - it's a Whole-Tone antecedent with a pentatonic consequent. My bad!

It depends upon which melody you mean. One is almost whole-tome, while the following one is almost pentatonic.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It depends upon which melody you mean. One is almost whole-tome, while the following one is almost pentatonic.

Pom pi-Dom pi pompi pompi, Pom pi-dom pi diddleiddle pom (whole-tone)
Pom Pom pi-dom pi pom pi pom etc (pentatonic - it's the boldened D natural on "Pom" that stops it being entirely whole-tone, and turns it pentatonic).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Pom pi-Dom pi pompi pompi, Pom pi-dom pi diddleiddle pom (whole-tone)
Pom Pom pi-dom pi pom pi pom etc (pentatonic - it's the boldened D natural on "Pom" that stops it being entirely whole-tone, and turns it pentatonic).

Absolutely right.

[Serial_Apologist]

RVW was influenced by Debussy at that time: the Scherzo movement of the Sea Symphony, the last section to be completed, contains a swirling whole-tone passage that is clearly borrowed from the middle movement of "La mer".

[MrGongGong]

Absolutely right.

A perfect example of uni-intervalic-non-heirachical-pan-diatonicism

(gets coat.... )

[Serial_Apologist]

A perfect example of uni-intervalic-non-heirachical-pan-diatonicism

(gets coat.... )

To understand which, you don't have to be a PANtheist.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A perfect example of uni-intervalic-non-heirachical-pan-diatonicism

(gets coat.... )

But it's in these subtle ways that RVW takes and mixes varieties of pre-existing materials in highly individual ways that makes him such an interesting composer for me. It would be very foolish for anyone to presume what he's going to do - and yet the results of these unusal uses sound "natural" and absolutely "right", so that a careless listening [cf # 3651] might easily miss the elaborations going on.

[Bax-of-Delights]

My one fervent wish is that all recordings of Copland's ballet scores, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, should be locked away in a BBC vault and marked "do not open until 2025". They could join VW's "Wasps" overture and Arnold's "Padstow Lifeboat" in a justified musical purdah.
When there are literally tens of thousands of other unheard pieces it seems like lazy programming in the extreme to constantly parade these once worthy pieces to the point where regular listeners groan and reach for the off switch.

To which I would add “Appalachian Spring”.
Now playing.
Again.