Classical Music Anthologies (a draft game)

Eye of Woland said:

Will elaborate later.

Gilbert & Sullivan - Pirates of Penzance: Major General's Song




Michel Legrand - Umbrellas of Cherbourg: Devant le Garage

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One of Gilbert & Sullivan's most famous songs, each production adds a new verse to the original lyrics. Near the end of Act I Frederic has finished his apprenticeship to a band of pirates and meets 7 sisters on a beach, falling instantly in love with Mabel. Once the Pirates catch up to them and try to marry all the sisters, they reveal their father is a Major General, enter Garnet Wolseley:


I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral.

I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's;
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus's uniform:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral.

In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin,
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery –
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy –
You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.

For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral.






The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a film musical with every word of dialogue sung, it made Catherine Deneuve a star and has kept audiences crying for almost 60 years. The storyline is nothing extravagant: 16-year old Genevieve works in her mother's umbrella store and swears eternal love with 20-year old mechanic Guy before fate and circumstance intervene. The film's eye-popping visuals, the heartfelt performances and the melancholy tinge to colourful surfaces are supported by a lush orchestral score from Michel Legrand with occasional bursts of jazz; Legrand joked about writing the score with each scene requiring 1, 2 or 3 hankies. I didn't choose the bittersweet ending as it needs the preceding 85 minutes for full emotional impact, instead I went with "Devant le Garage". It includes the main theme that would later be known as "I Will Wait For You" and it's an integral scene in the story: The umbrella store is facing bankruptcy and Genevieve's mother thinks she's too young to marry Guy, Genevieve and Guy have great plans to get married and name their first child Francoise and live happily ever after, but it's 1957 and the war in Algeria looms large...

I believe I have to make a second pick, though I lost track a bit.



Un dì all'azzurro spazio, from Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chenier (the video above has English subtitles)

Loosely based on the life of the poet André Chénier, this opera takes place in the years of the French revolution. The first act takes place in 1789: tensions are arising, but the nobles are depicted as totally oblivious of that, spending their time in their palaces, amid of balls and banquets. The opera starts precisely in such an atmosphere: during a ball, the poet Andrea Chenier is asked to recite a verse. He refuses, but upon being mocked by Maddalena, the .... who is becoming his love interest and the daughter of the Contess who is hosting the ball, he improvises a tirade against the church and the state and on the suffering of the poor.

'Stung to the core, and precisely by the young woman who will make him - or rather, has already made him - lose his head, the poet performs an "Improvviso" (i.e. an improvisation), in an outburst of rare declamatory and, given the place and the moment, dramatic power. A piece that is at once a hymn to love, a passionate declaration to Magdalena, and a lash against the corrupt morals of the nobility and the clergy. And we are in the house of nobility: courage borders on recklessness. '

The improvisation of the poet is divided in three parts. The first an hymn to love (0:38-2:07). When the poet is talking about the heavens, he keeps to a high tessitura, while when referring to the land and the homeland he descends to a medium-low tessitura ('In short: a poetic and musical representation of the perfect harmony between heaven and earth, soul and body, mysticism and sensuality'); in between comes a narrative part (2:10-3:33), 'in Allegro agitato, declaimed rather freely and expeditiously. Except in the climax of the invective ('In cotanta miseria la patrician prole che fa?' ('And before such poverty, what does the nobilty do?', Lento), where Chénier pronounces slowly, sharp like a blade, his contempt for nobility; he must have time to 'embrace with a quick glance' all the jubilant assembly gathered at the feast, and he certainly takes intimate pleasure in seeing the astonished and hostile audience.' Last (3:33 onward) comes a new hymn to love, which opens with a motif that will return several times in the opera, associated with Chenier and his love for Magdalena. The piece also makes extensive use of avoided cadences (, which create a suspension effect and prevent the musical discourse from closing. This forms what has been called a 'kaleidoscope of emotions', which embraces, with a constant tension towards the next melodic wave, all the poet's innermost feelings in what is an improvised yet harmonious outburst.

After all that, Maddalena begs forgiveness to the poet, and the ball goes on. Events soon degenerate. The revolutionaries will burn down Magdalena's palace and kill her mother; reduced to a fugitive and pursued by Gerard, a former servant in love with her and now one of the leaders of the revolutionaries, when Andrea Chenier, who has become suspect to the new regime, is condemned to the guillotine, the .... will join him in death.

Un dì all'azzurro spazio is here performed by none other than Luciano Pavarotti. Enjoy it!

duncanness said:

If @Kotromanic gets to include big band music, I should be allowed include Mother Maybelle Carter.

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I will do my darn-dest to choose a couple of the more complex compositions, and I believe I have one of them identified already.

Ahead of @HFlashmanVC ? OK.

Combining my two geographic themes is Theodora Cormanton who was born in Norway (trained in Denmark and Germany) but who died in Iowa. While still in Arendal, Norway, she was dismayed by the scarcity of musical publishers who would publish female composers--so she started her own company. When her family emigrated, she went along--and lived in in a series of farming communities in the midwest. The bulk of her compositions went undiscovered until recently. IMO her "career" points up that the ability to compose beautiful music is an individual gift that will flourish anywhere.

As to extending the game out to 20 rounds, I'd say I'm neutral on the question. I've got a healthy list of options, so if people would like to, it's fine with me.

My final three are:

Jean Sibelius - Symphony no. 5, op. 82, mvt. III. Allegro molto



Maurice Ravel - Piano Concerto in G, mvt. II. Adagio assai



Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 2 “Resurrection”, V. Im Tempo des Scherzos

duncanness said:

Because my interest is focused, I don't have the range of musical sophistication that the rest of you have. Ergo, I am probably getting more out of this than anyone else--its been a real learning session for me. I could go on for a very long time listening to such lovely music and, then, researching more deeply. That being said, I (myself) have selected only 15 pieces; my musical knowledge is limited so I'd have to repeat other selections by the same composers (a small price for me for the exposure I have been gaining--and because I truly enjoy the work of the composers I've chosen).

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Was your focus mainly on Norway? Maybe you could broaden to Scandinavia and still remain in the spirit of your theme.

FLK said:

Was your focus mainly on Norway? Maybe you could broaden to Scandinavia and still remain in the spirit of your theme.

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I could, of course. But I'm not personally familiar with Danish or Swedish music whereas many of these Norwegian composers I first heard listening to scratchy phonograph records while seated on the rug in my grandmother's house.

As an aside: when I told a Danish-American friend what I was going to do, he responded "But who else is there other than Grieg?"