Eternal search for one piece of classical music

[Guest]

Ever since hearing a piece of classical music around 1985 (background music on a VHS video tape), I have been on a never-ending quest to find this piece of music. HMV, independent record stores, iTunes and Amazon playlists haven't yielded any results.

Last year, the BBC TV series "The Apprentice" played an extract of this music in an episode entitled 'Condiments'. On YouTube, there is a brief clip of it 02:45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-vEiVaN5B0

Is there anyone out there who knows what this piece of music is? It's not Dance of the Knights or any other common piece of music. It's very dramatic and I am surprised it hasn't featured in any of the Classic FM Hall of Fame lists, nor been played on BBC R3. I have the radio on almost all the time and hope that one day they will play this music, so I can pester the BBC to find out.

More than 25 years have passed and I still can't find one piece of music despite us now living in a digital world.

[Beef Oven]

Dvorak Symphony #9

P.S. Bet you recognise the second movement too

[Beef Oven]

Ever since hearing a piece of classical music around 1985 (background music on a VHS video tape), I have been on a never-ending quest to find this piece of music. HMV, independent record stores, iTunes and Amazon playlists haven't yielded any results.

Last year, the BBC TV series "The Apprentice" played an extract of this music in an episode entitled 'Condiments'. On YouTube, there is a brief clip of it 02:45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-vEiVaN5B0

Is there anyone out there who knows what this piece of music is? It's not Dance of the Knights or any other common piece of music. It's very dramatic and I am surprised it hasn't featured in any of the Classic FM Hall of Fame lists, nor been played on BBC R3. I have the radio on almost all the time and hope that one day they will play this music, so I can pester the BBC to find out.

More than 25 years have passed and I still can't find one piece of music despite us now living in a digital world.

Dvorak Symphony #9

[Nick Armstrong]

Dvorak Symphony #9

Heard you first time, Beefy!

Parco - it's the third movement, starts at around 25' in that youtube version. And welcome here!

I know the feeling about 'the eternal search' - I had the same experience, I heard a piece used at the end of one episode of a BBC2 drama, a piano piece... I couldn't find it anywhere... I wrote to the BBC, to the producers (inc Peter Fincham, currently controller of ITV, who sent me a very nice response), to the composers of the series soundtrack: nobody could remember the piece that had been used. This all lasted about 6 or 7 years...

I then managed to post a clip as you just did, in a thread on the predecessor to this Forum - and a kind soul came up with the answer. (It was a Percy Grainger arrangement of a John Dowland song - I was able to find the score and now often play it on the piano. Such a relief !!!!)

[Beef Oven]

Heard you first time, Beefy!

Parco - it's the third movement, starts at around 25' in that youtube version. And welcome here!

I know the feeling about 'the eternal search' - I had the same experience, I heard a piece used at the end of one episode of a BBC2 drama, a piano piece... I couldn't find it anywhere... I wrote to the BBC, to the producers (inc Peter Fincham, currently controller of ITV, who sent me a very nice response), to the composers of the series soundtrack: nobody could remember the piece that had been used. This all lasted about 6 or 7 years...

I then managed to post a clip as you just did, in a thread on the predecessor to this Forum - and a kind soul came up with the answer. (It was a Percy Grainger arrangement of a John Dowland song - I was able to find the score and now often play it on the piano. Such a relief !!!!)

I had the same thing about 35 years ago. All I had were a few words of a song I heard fleetingly on the radio one afternoon.....

"When the wicked
Carried us away in captivity
Required from us a song
Now how shall we sing the...."


That's all I can remember. Still don't know the actual song

Can anybody help?

[Pabmusic]

If this thread had been live at the time of the coronation in 1953 - it's a thought experiment, so anything's allowable! - the New World Symphony would have been one of the classical works best known to ordinary mortals. It would still have been Dvorak's N0. 5, of course.

Its star has faded rather, and I think that's largely because of over-exposure in 'popular classics' concerts and programmes, and of course in Hovis ads. It can certainly bring out the less-pleasant side of some people who enjoy making supercilious comments (absolutely no-one on these boards, of course) and it seems to be lumped with the Flower Song from Lakmé, or the opening of Carmina Burana as something 'not quite acceptable in polite society'.

Which is all so sad, because it's a great work.

[Beef Oven]

If this thread had been live at the time of the coronation in 1953 - it's a thought experiment, so anything's allowable! - the New World Symphony would have been one of the classical works best known to ordinary mortals. It would still have been Dvorak's N0. 5, of course.

Its star has faded rather, and I think that's largely because of over-exposure in 'popular classics' concerts and programmes, and of course in Hovis ads. It can certainly bring out the less-pleasant side of some people who enjoy making supercilious comments (absolutely no-one on these boards, of course) and it seems to be lumped with the Flower Song from Lakmé, or the opening of Carmina Burana as something 'not quite acceptable in polite society'.

Which is all so sad, because it's a great work.

A great work indeed. It is possibly a desert island disc for me, along with Bolero, The Ring, Bruckner's 8th, La Mer and The Sleeping Beauty (Tchaik).

Years ago I took my daughter to a Dvorak 9 and Verklarte Nacht concert with the express intention of freeing her from Hip-Hop shite. I very intelligently chose these two unassailable works and could not believe my luck when they came up in the same programme one afternoon at the RFH.

Coincidentally, the following week she racked up a £30 bill on my iTunes account on Hip-Hop downloads I guess my plan was flawed

[Pabmusic]

...Years ago I took my daughter to a Dvorak 9 and Verklarte Nacht concert with the express intention of freeing her from Hip-Hop shite. I very intelligently chose these two unassailable works and could not believe my luck when they came up in the same programme one afternoon at the RFH.

Coincidentally, the following week she racked up a £30 bill on my iTunes account on Hip-Hop downloads I guess my plan was flawed

Not really flawed, if all you wanted was to expand her musical horizons (in the hope, perhaps that she'll prefer something else). The real problem would be if you were actively trying to wean her off hip-hop - such strategies don't work (I too have a daughter).

[Beef Oven]

Not really flawed, if all you wanted was to expand her musical horizons (in the hope, perhaps that she'll prefer something else). The real problem would be if you were actively trying to wean her off hip-hop - such strategies don't work (I too have a daughter).

All I wanted to do was expand her musical horizons and thereby cause her to drop Hip-Hop

She responded very well to the G&S operettas that I had taken her to from the age of 7 - she adores the Mikado. I thought that like me, once she heard Dvorak's #9, it would be all over bar the shouting

She's a young woman now and she still listens to crap music - where did I go wrong?

[Pabmusic]

All I wanted to do was expand her musical horizons and thereby cause her to drop Hip-Hop

She responded very well to the G&S operettas that I had taken her to from the age of 7 - she adores the Mikado. I thought that like me, once she heard Dvorak's #9, it would be all over bar the shouting

She's a young woman now and she still listens to crap music - where did I go wrong?

My daughter is 30 - so it was more a case of hoping she'd go beyond the Spice Girls and Boyzone. But she was so much surrounded by other types of music that it became 'normal' to her, and she's got a fuller musical appreciation because of it. We always talked normally about her music. But she doesn't exactly go out of her way to listen to much classical stuff.

Charles Darwin spent many years studying barnacles, so much so that when some of his children were shown round a friend's house, they asked in all innocence "Where does your father do his barnacles?" That's the sort of attitude my daughter grew up with - Dad's (or Mum's come to that) music is just a part of everyday life.

[Beef Oven]

My daughter is 30 - so it was more a case of hoping she'd go beyond the Spice Girls and Boyzone. But she was so much surrounded by other types of music that it became 'normal' to her, and she's got a fuller musical appreciation because of it. We always talked normally about her music. But she doesn't exactly go out of her way to listen to much classical stuff.

Charles Darwin spent many years studying barnacles, so much so that when some of his children were shown round a friend's house, they asked in all innocence "Where does your father do his barnacles?" That's the sort of attitude my daughter grew up with - Dad's (or Mum's come to that) music is just a part of everyday life.

Maybe I just had the music going too much - morning, noon & night. People tend to switch off if it's ubiquitous.

[MrGongGong]

She responded very well to the G&S operettas that I had taken her to from the age of 7 - she adores the Mikado. I thought that like me, once she heard Dvorak's #9, it would be all over bar the shouting

She's a young woman now and she still listens to crap music - where did I go wrong?

I think the key phrase is

"G&S"

(dum de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum)

[cloughie]

All I wanted to do was expand her musical horizons and thereby cause her to drop Hip-Hop

She responded very well to the G&S operettas that I had taken her to from the age of 7 - she adores the Mikado. I thought that like me, once she heard Dvorak's #9, it would be all over bar the shouting

She's a young woman now and she still listens to crap music - where did I go wrong?

With G&S and Hip-hop - total lost cause - does she like Bolero? All she needs now is an infusion of Mr GG's choice items and she'll be beyond redemption!

[Bryn]

I think the key phrase is

"G&S"

(dum de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum)

I disagree. To me the problem as you state it is decidedly ill-defined without the crucial word "operetta". G and S Music offer a very fine service, providing life-food of the highest quality, incuding much strong Beefy provender.

[cloughie]

I disagree. To me the problem as you state it is decidedly ill-defined without the crucial word "operetta". G and S Music offer a very fine service, providing life-food of the highest quality, incuding much strong Beefy provender.

I think S's main problem was G - mind you he probably dum de dummed all the way to the bank!