Musical questions and answers thread

[Joseph K]

Er? A C clef doesn't look anything like a C ! Maybe we're talking at cross purposes.

Perhaps you should look at #1223, specifically at the bottom of the first picture of a page from Richard Hoppin's book on medieval music.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Er? A C clef doesn't look anything like a C ! Maybe we're talking at cross purposes.

The five C clefs are centred on middle C, rather than attempting to look like the letter.

But as I said earlier, at the time when the note names were formulated, the major scale (Ionian mode) did not reign supreme. The Aeolian (A-A) and Dorian (D-D) were, and the Mixolydian (G-G) not far behind.

[Joseph K]

The five C clefs are centred on middle C, rather than attempting to look like the letter.

The C clef did in fact originally resemble a C. See #1223.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The C clef did in fact originally resemble a C. See #1223.

Rather more like a K, I thought…

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There's a tune going through my head. It's something I've known for many years, but I've been going through my memory banks for days, and I just can't identify it. It starts something like this:

I may have cracked it. I’ve been watching early episodes of Ballykissangel. There’s a melody in the accompanying music in series 3 that’s remarkably similar. It’s the best solution so far.

[smittims]

The first five bars are in the Mother's aria (Hadst thou a son) in Elgar's oratorio 'The Light of Life'.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The first five bars are in the Mother's aria (Hadst thou a son) in Elgar's oratorio 'The Light of Life'.

Smittims! You are a genius! It’s been plaguing me for weeks. You are a friend for life.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The first five bars are in the Mother's aria (Hadst thou a son) in Elgar's oratorio 'The Light of Life'.

[RichardB]

It's good to see such a conundrum being resolved! Sometimes I spend days on something like this without getting to the bottom of it.

[smittims]

Glad to help. What a pleasure to see the old Novello vocal score again. Thanks for that.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Glad to help. What a pleasure to see the old Novello vocal score again. Thanks for that.

And the full score:

[Serial_Apologist]

It's good to see such a conundrum being resolved! Sometimes I spend days on something like this without getting to the bottom of it.

There was a similar one on this morning's Sunday Worship - (I know! I know! - I just have it on while relaxing in my Sunday morning bath!) The first part of the first hymn had strong resemblances to an orchestral movement by Vaughan Williams: initially I thought they were going a choral adaptation - I can never remember which piece, possibly the Four Tudor Portraits. It also happens to resemble Dizzy Gillespie's Good Bait!

There used to be a thread on the forum dealing with similarities between quite different pieces, didn't there?

[kernelbogey]

In singing Erlkoenig, the mezzo Marianne Beate Kielland, adopted a 'child' voice, when the words came from the child, in my perception deliberately singing slightly off the note.

I was reminded of a style of singing in opera, e.g. Marianne in Rosenkavalier, which employs a similar tone. What is the origin of this, and does it have a name?

18 December 2022 03:24 AM
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Nine songs with orchestra
[1. Romanze (no. 3b), from Rosamunde, D. 797; 2. Die Forelle, D. 550 orch Benjamin Britten; 3. Gretchen am Spinnrade, D. 118 orch. Max Reger; 4. Du bist die Ruh’, D. 776 orch. Anton Webern]; 5. An Silvia, D. 891 orch. Robert Schollum; 6. Nacht und Träume, D. 827 orch. Max Reger; 7. Im Abendrot, D. 799 orch. Max Reger; 8. Erlkönig, D.328 orch. Max Reger; 9. An die Musik, D.547 orch. Max Reger]
Marianne Beate Kielland (mezzo soprano), Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Kolbjorn Holthe (conductor)

[smittims]

There's undoubtedly a long performing tradition of the 'naive' voice, usually senza vibrato . Despina's disguised characters often sing this way , and there are Brahms' dialect songs , such as 'Oh Mother I want a thingy' which are often sung this way. No doubt someone with a knowledge of the history of singing can find quotations from writings of the past indicating how old the practice is.

Shakespeare's characters often turn up in disguise . There may have been a tradition of disguising the voice too. And there's Siegfried impersonating Gunther at the end of Act One of 'Gotterdammerung'.

[smittims]

'the Four Tudor Portraits. '

Maybe it was from the missing fifth Tudor Portrait. (sorry, couldn't resist that one )

It's a vast subject. There are many instances in 18th-century music: Mozart's first opera, written at the age of 12, begins like the 'Eroica' symphony (though it doesn't continue thus). Someone once asked me if Brahms knew , when he wrote 'Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer' that he was quoting his second piano concerto; I said that, through his friendship with Eusebius Mandycewski (the man who numbered Haydn's symphonies) he probably knew that both works echo the start of Haydn's sonata in C minor, Hoboken XVI no.20.