One Hit Wonders

[cloughie]

The BBC reduced the enormous talent and repertoire of German artist 'Nena' to just one song - 99 red Balloons.

As they do with many an act on R2 via their brain-dead playlists!

[Northender]

Purcell: Dido's Lament
Wagner: Ride Of The Valkyries/Siegfried Idyll
Britten: Sea Pictures/Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

[3rd Viennese School]

Rachmaninov Piano conceto no.2. Sometimes for variance they'll play no.2 as well

Debussy La Mer

Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending. He also wrote other stuff, like The Lark Ascending

Stravinsky The Rite of Spring. The only thing he DID write!

(except for countless other works after it in a 53 year composition period)

Chopin only EVER wrote Nocturnes.

3VS

[salymap]

Purcell: Dido's Lament
Wagner: Ride Of The Valkyries/Siegfried Idyll


Britten: Sea Pictures/Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

Not forgetting Elgar's 4 Sea Interludes Sorry............

[3rd Viennese School]

But usually its horrible screechy or boring singing, either Wagner or music from the Renainsance. And Handel. again!

Even after they've played some really good stuff!

"What a superb performance of Mahler symphony no.6 ! Well, weve now got 3 hours before nightwaves, so what better way to fill the time than play you some really boring horrible songs by Schuman!"

3VS

[mangerton]

No one has mentioned Vivaldi. Does anything Spring to mind?

[Northender]

Not forgetting Elgar's 4 Sea Interludes Sorry............

[EdgeleyRob]

I wish some of my favourie composers were governed by Aubade's law or Cloughie's law.
Oh to have even one hit aired of Alwyn,Lloyd,Rubbra,Stanford or Parry (maybe Jerusalem) etc etc etc..........(am I boring you all?).

[Flay]

Saint Saens - Organ Symphony

[Serial_Apologist]

No one has mentioned Vivaldi. Does anything Spring to mind?

Summery weather

[cloughie]

Saint Saens - Organ Symphony

Swan, Danse Macabre?

[Aubade]

No one has mentioned Vivaldi. Does anything Spring to mind?

Ah no, Vivaldi is different. He did only write one orchestral work – only 1400 times.

[umslopogaas]

Paul Dukas 'L'Apprenti Sorcier'. Perhaps because Disney grabbed it for 'Fantasia', it has become so much his signature tune that no-one is any longer aware that he did write some other stuff. Just looking on the shelves, there is 'La Peri', 'Symphony in C', 'Prelude to Ariane et Barbe Bleu' (which means, according to the sleeve note, that the whole opera exists waiting for a recording), 'Ouverture Polyeucte'. But you cant claim he's much known these days, when can you last remember hearing some Dukas?

I see that a disc of Duparc songs has got miss-shelved among the Dukas, but that is entirely another story (and someone else must tell it, French [and German] art song isnt really my thing).

[LeMartinPecheur]

Hovering my cursor over the title of this New Post I read "Radio 3 and The Other Place have a knack of reducing some composers' output to a single piece of music. So if it's Mendelssohn you nearly always get...".

My instant attempt to complete the sentence led me first to Fingal's Cave (original version played a few days ago) , then the Octet (ditto the M-orchestrated version of the scherzo) and then to the violin concerto. Other posters have added other popular M works, and have significantly lengthened the list of frequently played works by RVW and many others. I could have mentioned "I was glad" as the Parry routine selection.

So if exceptions do indeed prove (= test) a rule, I think this one snapped under minimal applied load very rapidly!

OK, Widor remains a one-hit wonder but that's really on merit, not via the vagaries of R3 selectors.

[antongould]

I beg to disagree with you but only marginally. Many composers have up to three pieces.

RVW - Tallis, Lark and Greensleeeves.
Mendelssohn - MND, Hebrides and Sym 4 (Movt 1)
Grieg - Holberg, Peer Gynt (Morning) and Wedding Day at T....
Prokofiev - Sym 1, bits of Lieu Kije and Peter and the Wolf
Ravel - Bolero, La Valse, Alborada

but then the one work Aubade does apply to:
Bernstein Candide Ov
Copland Fanfare
Walton Crown Imperial (Portsmouth Point Ov occasionally)

Not sure which "law" we have now but if I look at the analysis of Breakfast playlists for July last year the scores on Cloughie's doors are

RVW 5 items played 1 from Cloughie's list
Mendelssohn 12-1
Grieg 5-0
Prokofiev 6-0
Ravel 7-1
Bernstein 3-0
Copland 2-1
Walton 2-0

Not sure what it proves - Breakfast's Law?