Foreign cowpats needed!

[LMcD]

The dismissive term 'cowpat music' has recently been wheeled out to describe compositions of the 'English Pastoral' school. Any suggestions for similarly dismissive equivalents for the music of other countries?
May I offer 'Meatball Music' for Sweden, 'Jumbuck Music' for Australia and 'Grits Music' for the USA?

[edashtav]

Copland’s Hoe-down period, LMcD

[cloughie]

The dismissive term 'cowpat music' has recently been wheeled out to describe compositions of the 'English Pastoral' school. Any suggestions for similarly dismissive equivalents for the music of other countries?
May I offer 'Meatball Music' for Sweden, 'Jumbuck Music' for Australia and 'Grits Music' for the USA?

‘Goulash music’ from Hungary
‘Fjord music’ from Norway
‘Vendage music’ from France
‘Schnitzel sounds’ from Austria
‘Bratwurst music’ from Germany

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

May I offer 'Meatball Music' for Sweden, 'Jumbuck Music' for Australia and 'Grits Music' for the USA?

Given that you mention foodstuffs in connection with Sweden & the USA (and at least tenuously with Australia), I can't help wondering what's on the menu at your place, LMcD!

[oddoneout]

'Wafflemusiek' from the Low Countries.

Going at a slight tangent following on from the original cowpat reference, the Dutch do have a variety of their (in)famous liquorice sweets called konijn-keutels. Konijn is rabbit and the sweets are small, round and black.....3D musical notation? Sorry, too much sun...

[Richard Tarleton]

The literal translation in Spanish would be musica boñiga, or in Latin America musica bosta de vaca .

Not sure that there is an equivalent concept in Spain, unless someone knows better. Spanish composers of this era were heavily influenced by folk music, of course, (Falla, Turina....) but I'm not aware of a collective derogatory term for them.

Zarzuela is of course also a seafood dish....

[LMcD]

Given that you mention foodstuffs in connection with Sweden & the USA (and at least tenuously with Australia), I can't help wondering what's on the menu at your place, LMcD!

Paté de vaca, of course!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[ahinton]

The dismissive term 'cowpat music' has recently been wheeled out to describe compositions of the 'English Pastoral' school.

It may have "recently been wheeled out" but it is by no means of recent origin as it was attributed to Elisabeth Lutyens almost 70 years ago and, even before then, Constant Lambert had referred to the experience of listening to RVW's Fifth Symphony as resembling looking at a cow over a five-barred gate or something (can't recall the precise reference now). It's perhaps a pity that it gained the currency that it did, since RVW became the most prominent recipient of the barb and yet the term's hardly what I imgine even Lutyens would have used to describe his 4th, 6th or 9th symphonies. Its true intended purpose was, I think, as more of a descriptor of sentimental nostalgia for a golden age of English ruralia that never actually existed than as a label for "pastoralism" per se, hence Lutyens' remark about folky-wolky modal melodies played on the cor anglais (a context in which this spelling of the instrument does at least have some credibility!).

[LMcD]

It may have "recently been wheeled out" but it is by no means of recent origin as it was attributed to Elisabeth Lutyens almost 70 years ago and, even before then, Constant Lambert had referred to the experience of listening to RVW's Fifth Symphony as resembling looking at a cow over a five-barred gate or something (can't recall the precise reference now). It's perhaps a pity that it gained the currency that it did, since RVW became the most prominent recipient of the barb and yet the term's hardly what I imgine even Lutyens would have used to describe his 4th, 6th or 9th symphonies. Its true intended purpose was, I think, as more of a descriptor of sentimental nostalgia for a golden age of English ruralia that never actually existed than as a label for "pastoralism" per se, hence Lutyens' remark about folky-wolky modal melodies played on the cor anglais (a context in which this spelling of the instrument does at least have some credibility!).

Perhaps I should have said 'resurrected'. I've commented elsewhere on the criticisms levelled at the Pastoral at the time, taking as my source the liner notes to Vernon Handley's excellent recording with the RLPO.
What's wrong with a bit of sentimental nostalgia, anyway?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What's wrong with a bit of sentimental nostalgia, anyway?

Well, nothing per se - but the quality of this has gone way downhill these days.

[LMcD]

Well, nothing per se - but the quality of this has gone way downhill these days.

You're right of course - nostalgia certainly isn't what it used to be.

[ahinton]

Perhaps I should have said 'resurrected'. I've commented elsewhere on the criticisms levelled at the Pastoral at the time, taking as my source the liner notes to Vernon Handley's excellent recording with the RLPO.
What's wrong with a bit of sentimental nostalgia, anyway?

Nothing wrong with it as such, as long as it's recognised for what it is, especially when it's for something that never existed anywhere outside the purveyor's imagination! If it's present in some of Finzi's music,for example, it's not that as such that discourages me from enjoying it - I simply don't greatly care for the sound that most of it makes.

Perhaps RVW was asking for trouble - even if only inadvertently - by giving the name that he did to his Third Symphony. That said, I find it hard to figure out what's sentimental or nostalgic in a cowpat.

By the way, I think that it was Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) that made the comment about RVW and the cow and the gate some time before Lambert made a similar observation, so I stand corrected by myself!

[ahinton]

Well, nothing per se - but the quality of this has gone way downhill these days.

As someone (I can't now recall who) once said, "oh for those far-off days of Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono and the Darmstadt "school" of the 1950s and early 1960s!"...

[Bryn]

As someone (I can't now recall who) once said, "oh for those far-off days of Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono and the Darmstadt "school" of the 1950s and early 1960s!"...

None of 'em a patch on Bruno Heinz Jaja.