Name That Tune
This week’s Name That Tune is a Maestro Will special. Your hint is that Joey thinks the NTTs are too hard, and this one will do nothing to assuage his fears. I doubt very much that anyone will identify the piece or the composer, but the fun is in the listening, the guessing, and the analysis, people!
As always, your goal is to provide as much accurate analysis as possible. First try to get the nationality, year, and genre, then make educated guesses about the composer and — if possible— the piece. If you know the piece immediately, send us an email at classicalgabfest@gmail.com instead of commenting so the rest of us can have fun guessing.
Last Week’s Results
CGF Newsletter 35
Scriabin, Piano Sonata No. 2, mvmt. 2 (finale)
This was a Joey special, and isn’t Joey special for having chosen it? I think we all fell into his trap, with many primary guesses for Rachmaninoff (and secondary guesses by Listeners Jeremy, Ellen, and Laurie.) Scriabin turned up as a secondary guess by me and Listener Christopher. Other names mentioned were Medtner, Brahms, and Liszt.
Congratulations to Listener Marcello for writing in immediately with the correct answer!
Think you can stump your fellow Listeners? Go ahead and try!
Head to our Google Form to upload a 30-second clip of an unidentified piece of classical music for us to try to identify.
It’s Pulitzer time
As always, my logline about composition awards (which applies doubly to the Pulitzers) is that they say more about the awarders than the winners. By that, I mean that every year, the number of works produced that could be considered masterpieces is, practically speaking, infinite. OK, it’s probably only 10 or 20, but for the purposes of awarding a prize, it might as well be infinite, because you can only give out one. So you’ve got to pick one of them, and whatever you pick, it’s not going to be an objective choice; that goes with the territory in the arts.
So what does the Pulitzer Prize committee wish to say about itself this year? Well, clearly they are still in the business of trying to even the score in terms of awarding People of Color, and good for them for that. But more interesting is that this is the first time EVER that the award has gone to a collaborative team. I also think this is perfectly right and good and a valuable step in a new direction.
Is the Pulitzer an Old Man’s Game?
I had this hunch about the Pulitzer: it seemed to me that when I was really paying attention to it (in the late aughts) the prize had become more of a “Lifetime Achievement” award than a reflection of what was happening in the actual world of music composition. In the last 5 years, it’s seemed to me that the committee was trying to reverse this trend.
So I did a little research and I charted the ages of the winners. Here’s what you get:
I would say that my impression was not entirely wrong: as the years progress, one finds more winners in their 70s and 80s. But it’s a noisy chart with few clear trend lines. If you’d like to check out the details they’re here.
The details are worth looking at though, because the bigger impression one gets is that it’s not necessarily so great to win the Pulitzer. As I look at the list of composers, I would say that I’ve only heard of about half of them (and most of those only because they won the Pulitzer!) The grand majority of these folks have seen their music fall into total obscurity, and I don’t anticipate any major reappraisals. When’s the last time you heard a piece by Roger Reynolds (1989), Mel Powell (1990), or Lewis Spratlan (2000)?
The Monarchy is Definitely an Old Man’s Game
Complete order of service (including all the musical selections)
A quick and dirty review of the music at the coronation of King Charles III:
The above video starts with a little bit of Handel’s “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” and the orchestra sounds superb. The group was conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano.
If you want to hear the whole musical selection, you can listen on the BBC here (thanks Listener Jeremy!) and you can hear the King himself talking about the coronation music here.
Pretty Yende then joins the action and sounds great on her first song but terrible on her second. Like... what???
“I was Glad,” that most indomitable of all English anthems, has gotten the LUXURY TREATMENT this time around, with a brilliant new scoring by John Rutter and a fantastic performance by the combined forces. “Vivat Regina” has become “Vivat Regina Camilla” and “Vivat Rex Carolus.”
The director of the choir is none other than Andrew Nethsinga, organist and master of the choruses at Westminster Abbey. Most importantly though, Andrew is the cousin of friend of the pod Listener Satish!!
I’m going to give the new music commissioned for the service a big collective “meh”. That’s not to say I didn’t like some of it, but some of it was not good at all. The big loser for me as the Welsh thing that Bryn Terfel sang. And I could have lived without any popular music.
“Zadok the Priest” was exquisite, and used perfectly for the anointing.
Of course the big headline about this service was that it would feature a new anthem by Dame Sir Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. I couldn’t help but notice that it was part of Queen Camilla’s coronation, not exactly the main event... 😏
What the hell is the Wiener Philharmoniker Fanfare doing in there? Strauss? Really??
Look, overall, it was amazing, it was the perfect comfort food that I needed on an extremely busy day (in spite of the fact that I had literally 100 other things I should have been doing), the costumes were fabulous, and the performances were world class. Vivat Rex Carolus indeed!
Classical Mixtape
Ludwig van Beethoven, Andante con variazioni for mandolin and fortepiano
I’m in an extremely Beethovenian mood of late, so when this charming little number popped up in my feed, I couldn’t have been more delighted. Who would have guessed that the 26-year-old Beethoven would have concocted such a charming little confection? Not I!
If you’re in the mood for the monumental Beethoven, might I recommend his 9th symphony? Streaming tickets of my recent performance with Harmonia Orchestra & Chorus are now available for purchase. Access runs from May 13–20. Not only do I guarantee that you’ll enjoy it, but by purchasing a ticket you’ll be doing a valiant deed to support a great cultural organization!
CGF Newsletter 36: Vivat!
NTT: Orchestrationally and melodically, my first thought was Tchaikovsky, but I don't know that I'm as sold harmonically that way (plus probably need to make a more obscure guess for the hint). Maybe shouldn't have read Laurie's guess before my own because I could buy it being from a stage work but with that might lean more toward the French side with Thomas or Massenet.
NTT notes: lush, way-too high strings, cymbal crash, big round brass, totally tonal with high Romantic chromaticism. Using that it is an (obstinately) obscure pick, I'll go with some random unknown piece by: Grieg, Puccini, or... hell.... Humperdinck!
And I think I'll ask ChatGPT to make me a piano recital of music by the less popular Pulitzer prizewinners.