Quiz: Mystery scores

[Guido]

Is the Lipatti actually no.218? The link says 219 which is the Messiaen unless I am very much mistaken.

[lukeottevanger]

There was some confusion there - I got something mixed up, either the numbering of the files or the numbering on the list. But I think my links take you to the right files, anyway. I've changed the filenames on my PC so that they make sense - what is 219 here is definitely the Lipatti; the Messiaen is 220.

At some point I will update the old PDF file I made with the first 300 odd scores on it with all the more recent ones - did you know we've had 594 now! At which point I'll try to make the numbering make some kind of final sense!

[greg]

ANSWER - Lipatti, of course; his Sonatina for the Left Hand

i looooooooooove how you word that 

[lukeottevanger]

The 'of course' is meant in the context of my clues. Of course. 

[lukeottevanger]

Anyway, guys, let's focus! My new ones remain, starting at no 276, of which all are by very famous composers, and of which only a couple are 'little-known' pieces.

The other remaining on, no 272, is by a slightly less well-known name, but you all know of him, some of you very well indeed, and he's been on this thread before. And, of course, 272's title includes the name of the composer of 278 and 279.

[lukeottevanger]

We still need the title for the Schreker piece, too - no 271. I didn't reveal it because it is linked to the title of one of the other pieces, as my earlier clues suggest.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Looking at #279, I seem to see/hear a quotation of Rossini (William Tell)...

[Chrone]

Looking at #279, I seem to see/hear a quotation of Rossini (William Tell)...

Actually 2 William Tell quotes simultaneously: the ranz des vaches (flute and cor anglais duet in the original, flute and oboe here) and the final "Lone Ranger" bit (in the brass).

So I'll go with Schickele.

[lukeottevanger]

You're all latching on to the big clues - but perhaps you didn't see my last post on this piece (previous page). M guessed at Shostakovich 15, sensibly (as that piece quotes William Tell too), and in the process of saying 'no' I gave some other clues...

The composer is very well known - and getting him will help with 278 and 272 also, of course. You all know his name and probably many of his pieces; however, of those who hang around this thread I associate him most with Guido; Johan also, perhaps, given his listening tendencies.

[Greta]

Exams....glad I've finished mine, for now! Hence playing around on GMG...

Luke - You would be surprised at my lack of knowledge in the mid-century, I can say I'm not familiar with Kagel, Alban, Haba, or even much Feldman. I would like to be! But so much music and so little time....

And your 7-year-old sounds like my kinda girl, quite precocious! You will have to post "her" set sometime soon! 

I am preparing some as I write...will post tomorrow.

[lukeottevanger]

Exams....glad I've finished mine, for now! Hence playing around on GMG...

It all seems quite long ago for me now, but I only sat my last university exam 11 years ago. I just returned from walking my children to school, and I was thinking about poor Guido as I plodded through the puddles - he's at the same university I attended so I can picture fairly precisely what he's going through.

Luke - You would be surprised at my lack of knowledge in the mid-century, I can say I'm not familiar with Kagel, Alban, Haba, or even much Feldman. I would like to be! But so much music and so little time....

Very true! - but for 'Alban' read Alkan, and he's not 20th century - he's the third member of the triumvirate of great pianist-composers born in the early 19th century, along with Liszt and Chopin, and he complements those two geniuses very well. He was the only pianist Liszt was scared to play in front of, I believe. He has a remorseless, hyper-virtuosic style all his own, a bizarre mix of classicism (in matters of proportion, tempo etc) with the most extraordinary flights of Romantic fancy (as in my no 257 and by the title of Sforzando's no 35, an Allegro Barbaro which predates Bartok's by at least half a century). His music shows a very sophisticated understanding of the implications of virtuosity upon form, texture and so on. In fact, it's extremely prescient in that sense: Alkan at his best doesn't use virtuosity for its own sake (or not only that, at any rate) but as a musical parameter in its own right. He's pretty much unique in his time for this, and this attitude to technical difficulty not as something 'outside' the notes which the performer has to deal with but instead as a component equal to harmony, counterpoint etc with which the composer balances his music) inescapably calls to mind the concerns of composers like Ferneyhough, believe it or not! (Chopin occasionally does something similar, e.g in some of the etudes where there is an equation between harmonic complexity/tension and difficulty for the performer; but the audience may not be aware of this, however). Alkan seems to be aware, IOW, that the struggle a performer has to get around the notes is itself a part of the music, that an audience is attentive to its ebb and flow just as they are to the rest of the various more obviously musical aspects of the piece. That's my theory, anyway! 

Alkan's famous Concerto - for solo piano, i.e. no orchestra, which is made up of three of the etudes from his set in all the minor keys which also includes a four movement Symphony - has been called 'the greatest piece in sonata form between Beethoven and Brahms' and I go along with that entirely. The more one studies it, the more impressive it becomes, for its integration of virtuosity into formal matters, as I said, but for all sorts of other things too. A page from its first movement cadenza was an earlier score sample of mine, no 69. What is amazing here is that for what is traditionally the area in a Concerto in which a soloist can indulge in the splashiest, most extravertly impressive virtuosity, Alkan has the insight to thin things right down to a single line of repeated notes - we've heard enough banging and crashing already, especially in the passages where the piano emulates the orchestral tutti. And yet at the same time this passage is perhaps the hardest, most risky thing in this incredibly hard work, fully fitting for a cadenza - ultra fast repeated notes with any mistakes cruelly exposed: Alkan judges degrees of virtuosity perfectly to climax at this point. The cadenza also functions as a kind of eye-of-the-needle - a place where everything is literally squashed into a narrow space, which somehow acts as a kind of catalyst, making the return of the 'orchestra' on the 'other side' all the more effective. The whole piece is an absolute must-hear, one of the very finest works for solo piano in the romantic repertoire, certainly one of the most original. Alkan emphasizes the very extremity of this piece by writing its first movement in an exceedingly odd and extreme choice of key, G# minor. It is also, therefore, by default, one of the very greatest pieces in that key too 

And your 7-year-old sounds like my kinda girl, quite precocious! You will have to post "her" set sometime soon! 

She's certainly a bit special, though I would say that - a reading age of 14+ by the time she was 5 or 6. Her musical interests are just starting to take off - she's still at a very basic level, but she's really trying to write things down properly. I put her earliest effort up on my own composer's thread if you want to see it!  0:)

I am preparing some as I write...will post tomorrow.

Great, Greta (cool, an anagram! ) - will look forward to seeing them!

[lukeottevanger]

Many many free Alkan scores (though not the Concerto, or not last time I trawled this site, a couple of years ago), for those who want them.

[lukeottevanger]

I see Mark's looking at this thread - Mark, I'm sure you know the William Tell-quoting piece too.

[lukeottevanger]

And your 7-year-old sounds like my kinda girl, quite precocious! You will have to post "her" set sometime soon! 

Yes, I suppose I should - especially as I gave so many answers yesterday. She chose the last three of these four scores, based on the spines of the scores catching her eye more than anything. However, she chose well, I think....

LO 287

[lukeottevanger]

LO 288

[lukeottevanger]

LO 289

This one is really hard, I think - it's never been recorded AFAIK (and I've looked countless times!) - so I've left in as many verbal clues as I could. Which may end up making it too easy!

[lukeottevanger]

LO 290

This one will be easier, though, I suspect, for some of this thread's inhabitants. Where's Sforzando, btw? All tango-ed out?

[Guido]

Is 272 from one of Howell's Clavichord pieces...? I can't check because Amazon isn't working for me at the moment, and I still haven't heard those pieces (well I did once on the radio, but it was ages ago). A complete shot in the dark because you said it was dedicated to someone, who is the composer of 278 and 279, and mentined me in conjunction with the composer. Apparently three of Lambert's clavichord pieces were arranged for cello and piano which I never knew about, and it explains what Amaryllis Flemming was playing in the '40s as she mentioned some pieces by Howell's but I didn't think it would be the wonderful Fantasia or Threnody as neither of these were published (or premiered) until the 80s. That Alkan sounds great - you really have a knack for making all composers sound endlessly fascinating and exciting! I'll add it to the now terrifying Amazon shopping basket list... I've promised myself that I won't buy anything else until I've listened to everything in collection. I've bought 2 and half feet worth of CDs this term... that's in about 5 weeks... mental.

[lukeottevanger]

Is 272 from one of Howell's Clavichord pieces...? I can't check because Amazon isn't working for me at the moment, and I still haven't heard those pieces (well I did once on the radio, but it was ages ago). A complete shot in the dark because you said it was dedicated to someone, who is the composer of 278 and 279, and mentined me in conjunction with the composer. Apparently three of Lambert's clavichord pieces were arranged for cello and piano which I never knew about, and it explains what Amaryllis Flemming was playing in the '40s as she mentioned some pieces by Howell's but I didn't think it would be the wonderful Fantasia or Threnody as neither of these were published (or premiered) until the 80s.

You're good!! Yes, it is one of the Howells clavichord pieces. Those pieces, though, are equally for piano, especially those in the second book, Howells' Clavichord, which are generally fuller-textured and require more sustaining capability. This one certainly works better on that instrument; clavichord is so far away from the style of the piece referred to here that its use here would be completely incongruous! On my clavichord recording of the two books, this is one of the ones omitted.

And I may as well say, then, that as all the Howells clavichord pieces in his two sets - Lambert's Clavichord and Howells' Clavichord - are given Fitzwilliam Virginal Book-style titles referring to English musicians (Ralph's Galliard; Berkeley's Hunt; Dyson's Delight; Boult's Brangill; Rubbra's Soliloquy and dozens of others) you can safely assume that the composer referred to in the title of 272, who is also the composer of 278 and 279, is English. And more famous than Howells.

That Alkan sounds great - you really have a knack for making all composers sound endlessly fascinating and exciting! I'll add it to the now terrifying Amazon shopping basket list... I've promised myself that I won't buy anything else until I've listened to everything in collection. I've bought 2 and half feet worth of CDs this term... that's in about 5 weeks... mental.

Check PMs in a minute or two...

[Guido]

More famous than Howells and prone to quirky quotations and parodies... I'll go for Arnold... Haven't ever heard a piece of his apart from one movement of the solo cello piece which seems nice enough. He wrote an abortion of a cello concerto in the late 80s that Julian Lloyd Webber was too embarrassed to record. He had wanted to couple it with the Walton concerto (such a great piece!  ) as the two had been good friends but once he played it through he realised that he couldn't. Oops, it might not be Arnold! (Arnold's Antic from Howells' Clavichord is my guess)