Sunday Classics preview: It's a Guess the Mystery Composer(s?) Quiz!

UPDATE below, where (most) questions are answered


No, this isn't one of our mystery works. It could have been if it weren't fully identified in the clip! Still, Stravinsky's Greeting Prelude will give you some idea of where we're going tonight, if not necessarily where we're headed.

by Ken

We have three mystery pieces tonight, each performed twice, by anywhere up to three composers, and tomorrow night we're going to have three more pieces, by anywhere up to three composers, some of whom may be the same. To make it easier, this time we have a master composers' list, from which all of the composers this weekend (however many of them there are, or is) are drawn:

Alban Berg
Hector Berlioz
Leonard Bernstein
Johannes Brahms
Benjamin Britten
Claude Debussy
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Charles Gounod
Olivier Messiaen
Carl Nielsen
Jacques Offenbach
Hans Pfitzner
Sergei Prokofiev
Maurice Ravel
Camille Saint-Saëns
Arnold Schoenberg
Dmitri Shostakovich
Johann Strauss Jr.
Richard Strauss
Igor Stravinsky
Sir Arthur Sullivan
Hugo Wolf

(This is one of those moments when I really wish I knew how to do columns. Wouldn't this list look neat in two columns?)

Mystery Work A

But enough fooling around. Let's plunge right in with our first mystery selection. Why don't we start with an easy one? Everybody knows this one.
(1)

(2)


Mystery Work B

This is another pretty easy one, if you happen to be familiar with it, less easy if you're not. It's an orchestral arrangement, done under unusual circumstances, and it's the arranger -- and the circumstances -- we're looking for, not so much the original composer, although it might be nice to give him at least a shout-out. The original composer and our arranger, by the way, knew this little morsel under quite different names. If I told you the name applied by the arranger, you would probably have no idea just from that what the original piece was. But you could Google that title, so I can't tell you.
(1)

(2)


Mystery Work C

Sometimes I think this is the greatest piece of music ever written. At any rate, it's as great a piece of music as we appear to have any need, or use, for. Note in particular the trio section (at 2:03 of the first performance, 2:10 of the second), introduced by that bugle-like piano fanfare (1:52 and 1:56, respectively). Heaven! I expect you may have some questions about the second performance, but you can save yourself the trouble of asking. I don't know. Probably it's explained in the liner notes, but I don't have the record. I've lived with and loved the first performance for a lot of years; the other one I just downloaded. Extra credit to anyone who can 'splain for us.
(1)

(2)



FRIDAY NIGHT BONUS!

This work provides a link between the mystery works above and a work we're going to hear Sunday. This is a most remarkable little piece -- first for the remarkable journey it travels to wind up where it does (you're missing some important context hearing it by itself, but even this part of the journey is pretty remarkable), and second for the way it manages to get there. The first recording unmistakably shows its age (it's from . . . no, I can't tell you; someone will try Googling that!), not to mention some scrappy orchestral work, but I love its spunk.
(1)

(2)



UPDATE: IN WHICH (MOST) QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED

[A] GOUNOD: Funeral March of a Marionette

Once upon a time the principal tune was instantly recognizable as the theme from the TV mystery anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I wonder now how many people under, say, 40 have even heard of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

(1) Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler, cond. RCA, recorded May 10, 1963
(2) BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Yan Pascal Tortelier, cond. Chandos, recorded 1999

[B] SHOSTAKOVICH (arr.): Tahiti Trot

Don't ask me why, but Vincent Youmans' "Tea for Two" (written, with lyrics by Irving Caesar, for the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette) has always been known in Russia as "Tahiti Trot." Here's the Wikipedia account of the curious circumstances that produced this 1927 arrangement: "Shostakovich wrote it in response to a challenge from conductor Nikolai Malko: after the two listened to the song on record at Malko's house, Malko bet 100 roubles that Shostakovich could not completely re-orchestrate the song from memory in under an hour. Shostakovich took him up and won, completing the orchestration in around 45 minutes."

(1) Philadelphia Orchestra, Mariss Jansons, cond. EMI, recorded March 1996
(2) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, cond. Decca, recorded April-May 1991

[C] SCHOENBERG: Die eiserne Brigade (The Iron Brigade)

for string quartet and piano

The wonderful Decca recording was made as part of a deadly serious five-LP set of Schoenberg's Complete Works for Chamber Ensemble as performed by the London Sinfonietta directed by David Atherton. By the way, the piece was written in 1916 while the 41-year-old composer was languishing in military service during World War I. Again, don't ask me about the singing and animal noises in the Gall version.

(1) London Sinfoniettta: Nona Liddell and Joan Atherton, violins; Donald McVay, viola; Jennifer Ward Clarke, cello; John Constable, piano. Decca, recorded Oct. 1973-May 1974
(2) Stanislas Quartet; Jeff Cohen, piano. Gall, recorded c1991

[BONUS] SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 6 in B minor,

Op. 54: iii. Presto

(1) Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. Columbia/Sony, recorded March 26, 1945
(2) Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, cond. Chandos, recorded May 1985


IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S PREVIEW, AND THEN SUNDAY --

As noted, we have three more Mystery Orchestral Works -- let's call them D, E, and F, which either are or aren't connected to tonight's Works A, B, and C. And who knows? There might be another bonus. Once the composers have been identified, we can fill in the missing credits -- titles, performers, that sort of thing. Actually, I thought we might include that information, but that would just be playing into the hands of the Mad Googlers.

In Sunday's post we'll hear, well, more music!


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

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