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Andy D
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« on: 22:50:05, 28-03-2007 » |
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I've just been listening to Edgard Varèse's Ionisation from Pre-Hear last June. It reminded me of one of the music starters I once heard on University Challenge. The excerpt was undoubtedly, to my ear, Ionisation, since it is a percussion work which has a very distinctive part for siren. The students suggested Shostakovich. No, said Paxman contemptuously, it's Stravinsky's Rite of Spring!!  Anyone else got a favourite blunder, either their own or someone else's? |
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MabelJane
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« Reply #1 on: 23:04:20, 28-03-2007 » |
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I recall hearing this from Henry Kelly on Classic FM a few years ago...
"And now, as it's Hallowe'en, I'm going to play you Handel's Firework music!"
And from a deputy head at school to the whole school listening to music at the beginning of an assembly:
"It's Ravel's Bolero and as you can hear it gets faster and faster and faster!"
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #2 on: 23:05:13, 28-03-2007 » |
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I'm told that Henry Kelly once introduced a 'Symphony in J Minor', and apparently the 'J' was not simply the result of his accent when applied to a 'G'.
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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autoharp
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« Reply #3 on: 23:35:22, 28-03-2007 » |
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Or the chap who ordered "Could I but express in song" from Foyle's who was later told that no reference could be found to a "Buttock-pressing song" by Kodaly . . .
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #4 on: 23:38:41, 28-03-2007 » |
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Talking of Henry Kelly, was the story about him saying 'and that was Dvorak's New World Symphony. It doesn't say who it was by' apocryphal?
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #5 on: 23:44:28, 28-03-2007 » |
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Or the chap who ordered "Could I but express in song" from Foyle's who was later told that no reference could be found to a "Buttock-pressing song" by Kodaly . . .
I've often wondered the origins of that tale - does anyone know the original source of it, or is it an urban myth? |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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roslynmuse
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« Reply #6 on: 23:45:29, 28-03-2007 » |
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I certainly heard it in connection with Forsyths in Manchester...
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #7 on: 23:48:01, 28-03-2007 » |
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I certainly heard it in connection with Forsyths in Manchester...
Ah - I heard it in connection with Chappells. I wonder if most music shops in the country have such a story associated with them....?  |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #8 on: 11:01:54, 29-03-2007 » |
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Talking of Henry Kelly, was the story about him saying 'and that was Dvorak's New World Symphony. It doesn't say who it was by' apocryphal?
This thread could become something of a homage to Henry Kelly, and I have it on good authority that he once said "and that was Goldberg with one of his fabulous variations" ... And it's not so very long since Pet Rock on Afternoon Performance described a performance of the prelude to Lohengrin as the prelude to Parsifal ... |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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A
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« Reply #9 on: 11:56:48, 29-03-2007 » |
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I can't remember when I heard it , but it was on 'the other classical music radio programme'.....
'Magic Flute' opera by Wagner.... I didn't know he had written one !
A
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Well, there you are.
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A
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« Reply #10 on: 11:59:08, 29-03-2007 » |
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I did have a nice comment on a GCE ( as it was then) mock exam where the student was writing about Symphonie Fantastique , Berlioz ... he refered to the idee fixe ( can't do acute accents!) as 'Edale Phitts'. I have no idea even now quite what he thought it was!
A
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Well, there you are.
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roslynmuse
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« Reply #11 on: 12:28:17, 29-03-2007 » |
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Canteloube's Songs of the Aubergine...
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #12 on: 13:04:25, 29-03-2007 » |
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And it's not so very long since Pet Rock on Afternoon Performance described a performance of the prelude to Lohengrin as the prelude to Parsifal ...
Only a generational mistake, though. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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George Garnett
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« Reply #13 on: 13:30:22, 29-03-2007 » |
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the student was writing about Symphonie Fantastique , Berlioz ... he refered to the idee fixe ( can't do acute accents!) as 'Edale Phitts'. I love it! I don't know why but Edale Phitts sounds the sort of person who will inevitably need rescuing after attempting to cross the Atlantic in a balloon. There's a vaguely comparable one which has entered the language in a small way. Daniel Dennett, the philosopher, tells of a student who referred in an exam paper to a 'fantasy echo' group of writers and thinkers. The phrase was so strikingly original and apt and fitted so wonderfully to the context that it was almost a disappointment to discover that the student had merely misheard 'fin de siecle'. Dennett was so taken with the phrase that he went on to use it in his paper 'A Fantasy Echo Theory of Consciousness'. |
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #14 on: 14:28:59, 29-03-2007 » |
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Mwhahaha! I'm fairly sure it was Sean R. of the Irish brogue who asked Evelyn Glennie in an interview "What's musical about hitting something?". To this day, I am still mildly surprised that the interview didn't cease at that point.
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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