Sunday Classics preview: With these clues, you're sure to guess the mystery composer
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by KenLast night we heard a wonderful little waltz in two forms -- for string quartet and for solo piano, one obviously an arrangement of the other. (One of the things you have to guess is which is the original and which the arrangement, and who produced the arrangement if it wasn't the composer.) Our mystery composer is the subject of this week's Sunday Classics piece, and in case you haven't guessed, and haven't figured a way to cheat (I'm sure it can be done), tonight's additional clues should make it a dead giveaway.
First we have an orchestral work:
UPDATE: Sorry about the brief technical glitch. I actually tested these links -- so thoroughly that I got this one screwed up. It's fixed now. I think.
Now we have a work for violin and piano, which I will tell you straight out is an arrangement and not the work's original form. As in the case of yesterday's waltz, the arrangement may or may not be by the composer. So once again, in addition to the name of the composer, we need the name of the arranger, if different. (There's just one last question, which we'll get to after we finish hearing the music.)
Now for that final question. By now I'm guessing you not only know the composer but have figured out who did the arrangements. Tonight's two clips of course share a composer, but they have another important connection. What might that be? All will be revealed tomorrow.
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posted by KenInNY @ 9:00 PM
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6 Comments:
hmmm...I think I'm right about Dvorak. The arranger - Fritz Kreisler??
Stay tuned, Kim. We're close to the finish line: 10am PT. I had commandeered the 6am PT slot, but I swapped it with Howie (as he'll find out when he wakes up!) to give more readers a chance to hear the Saturday night selections.
Let's just say that I doubt that I would have done as well!
Ken
The piano piece is Op. 54 #4, later arranged by the composer for string quartet, as heard in the second piece.
I believe this version is by the Vlach Quartet of Prague, who have a fascinating history. Originally the Vlach Quintet, they had a second career as The Flying Vlaches, an acrobatic act. Tragically, the bassist, Karl Vlach, perished while attempting a backflip during the Trout Quintet.
Now a foursome, the troupe trooped onward, at first continuing to play the quintet literature, but with one part missing, which critics took as a touching tribute to the missing member, and which John Cage hailed as a masterstroke of modernism, but which in fact was neither. They were too cheap to buy new sheet music.
Eventually the gimmick wore thin, and the Vlaches turned their attention to the great riches of the quartet: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, The Four Tops, Coltrane, The Mills Brothers, and the particular composer at hand.
The piano version of the waltz is, I'll bet, the one by
Stefan Vaselka, who actually takes it at a more stately pace than other ivory-busters. I have always been partial to Vaselka, but only because he shares his name with the restaurant at 2nd Avenue & 9th St. that many say serves the most delicious hamburger in New York.
Speaking of New York, when I was a kid, I had an LP of this composer's most famous piece, which had as its cover picture the Statue of Liberty.
and that composer is...
[grasps throat, falls over dead]
Oh no, Woid, the suspense just might kill me -- that is, if the hamburger doesn't, or some of the farther-fetched information woven into your tale. But excellent work on the main issues. Again, it's probably better than I would have done.
Ken
Damn: so it really was Dvorak, after all.
Good quiz. :)
Alrighty! I was right bout Dvorak AND that it was originally a piano piece, hooray!!
:D
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