Back in the late 70’s/early 80’s, my local Gainesville cable television service had a channel (time, temperature, and public announcements) on which they continuously played classical music (without identifying the pieces being played). One of the pieces was a dreamy orchestral work with a chorus. It was repeatedly recycled on the air, and I loved it. But I never knew what it was or who wrote it until the other night when, on my local classical music station, 89.1-WUFT, there it was in its full glory (on the Radio Nederland-produced Live at the Concertgebouw)! Turns out it was Nocturnes for Orchestra by the late 19th/early 20th century French composer Claude Debussy. I should have known! Debussy is right up there at the top of my list of favorite classical composers. La Mer, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn, Arabesque, The Engulfed Cathedral, The Girl With the Flaxen Hair, Claire de Lune, Gardens in the Rain, and Reverie are all incredibly beautiful works!
At the same time, many years ago, that I kept hearing Nocturnes, my local cable provider would also play a very exciting piece that had a more modern (but different) sound. About six years ago, I was listening to WUFT when it came up for airplay: Czech composer Leos Janacek’s Mlody (Youth)!
And that now leaves one remaining “mystery” piece from way back then that I am waiting to make its “appearance” on my radio. Like Nocturnes and Mlody, it has a modernist sound, but my memory of it is vague. So, like Billy Joel, I’ll just say “[WUFT], can you play me a memory? I’m not really sure how it goes. But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man’s clothes!”
Debussy and Janacek were exciting, innovative composers whose works I am looking forward to collecting (one album at a time). There should be some legitimate websites out there that play classical music (with a subscription, of course). If so, I would just as soon use one of these, too. No point in just sticking around waiting for the radio to play what I want to hear! Of course, that is exactly what I’ll have to do, though, if I ever want to identify my final “mystery” piece!
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Ah, the Billy Joel reference.
ReplyDelete« And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, "Man, what are you doin' here?" »
D'you remember what you used to think those words were? It's always been one of my favourite mondegreens.
On mystery pieces by modern-ish composers, I have a story. A friend and I used to have subscription tickets to the National Symphony Orchestra, in the '80s, when I lived in the D.C. area. One time, an old friend of his was visiting, and we were all going to see the NSO play Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, a favourite of mine. The friend told of the first time he heard that piece.
He was a teen, and his family was listening to the radio. And on came a piece of music that they didn't know, but that they thought was horrible. Noise, nonsense, cacophonic garbage! And the radio station didn't announce the name, but only said that it was Bartok. Thereafter, whenever they heard music they didn't like, his family would say, "Oh, it must be Bartok," and he pronounced it, in his Boston accent, as "BAH-tawk".
He later grew to like the piece, but "Bartok" remained a "family word" for modern music that they didn't like.
(And was it you, Bill, who commented on Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's version of Bartok's "Allegro Barbaro", which ELP cover as "The Barbarian", that "It sounds like it was written by a barbarian!" ? Or am I mis-attributing that one?)
I thought, for the longest time, that the last line said, "Man, what a huge one here!" At least I wasn't out in a packed stadium somewhere belting it out, which Robert Goulet did (to our National Anthem) when he sang "By the dawn's early night"!
ReplyDeleteNo, Barry, I wasn't the one who commented about ELP's cover of Bartok. I don't know of anything that Bartok did; would that he be the one responsible for my last "mystery" piece!