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stuart macrae
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« Reply #75 on: 10:31:35, 11-08-2007 » |
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I know what you mean, Ollie - I find Nono's titles completely unrememberable - and sometimes also embarrassing ( Al Gran Sole Carico d'Amore anyone..?) When I was a student I used a few Gaelic titles/place-names for pieces, and they can be pretty unpronouncable in the wrong hands... MhadhaidhBoreraig (charmingly described as Bottomrage by the percussionist in the first performance - the trombonists were subtler, merely blacking out the last four letters of the title in their parts...  ) and even a mixture of Gaelic and English: Allt na Measarrach (from the bottom up) - Ah, I think I've found my new winner. |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #76 on: 10:51:12, 11-08-2007 » |
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I think this has been brought up before in another thread, but Roger Reynolds is in the front rank of contributors here. For example -
Focus a beam, emptied of thinking, outward...
Transfigured Wind I-IV
Watershed I-IV (the sequel to the previous series?)
Will you answer if I call?
... brain ablaze... she howled aloud
last things, I think, to think about
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quartertone
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« Reply #77 on: 13:42:09, 11-08-2007 » |
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Dai Fujikura is something of a veteran in this field. Have a look at the list: http://www.daifujikura.com/un/listofworks.htmlHis programme notes are also mines of involuntary humour. Maybe it's unfair to poke fun at non-native English speakers, but just look at this: Daryl Runswick, who taught me as an undergraduate at Trinity College of
Music has been a major influence on my work. When I started my studies I
knew no modern music. I entered the college with ambitions to be a film
composer. Daryl opened my mind to the realities of modern music, in the
same way that Laurence Fishburne opened Keanu Reeves' mind to the realities
of life in the "Matrix". However, Daryl did not give me any pills. And we
did not spend our afternoons running over ceilings doing cool karate stunts!
However, despite this obvious failing (I am the only composer of my
generation who cannot run on the ceiling and do karate) he taught me a great
deal, although we disagreed about everything: |
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martle
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« Reply #78 on: 14:17:54, 11-08-2007 » |
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Most of the humour there, if such it is, seems pretty voluntary to me.  |
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Green. Always green.
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #79 on: 14:36:09, 11-08-2007 » |
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I quite like au grand soleil d'amour chargé myself... Geschmackssache |
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quartertone
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« Reply #80 on: 14:38:34, 11-08-2007 » |
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Most of the humour there, if such it is, seems pretty voluntary to me. OK, then it's just cringeworthy. |
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quartertone
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« Reply #81 on: 14:42:24, 11-08-2007 » |
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I quite like au grand soleil d'amour chargé myself... Geschmackssache I don't think translation into any language will make that title sound better... |
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Colin Holter
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« Reply #82 on: 02:19:14, 13-08-2007 » |
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Fujikura would have done well at my most recent alma mater, where naming pieces with a single adjective followed by a single noun was the rule of thumb.
Or, if you prefer, the Thumb Rule.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #83 on: 10:51:20, 13-08-2007 » |
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Thumb
That famous adjective. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #84 on: 10:58:48, 13-08-2007 » |
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naming pieces with a single adjective followed by a single noun was the rule of thumb.
Did they get that rule (with appropriate tweaks) from Robert Ludlum? (Er, tinners, 'thumb' does actually qualify the noun 'rule' there, which we would have thought to be fulfilling a quintessentially adjectival function...) |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #85 on: 11:20:24, 13-08-2007 » |
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(Er, tinners, 'thumb' does actually qualify the noun 'rule' there, which we would have thought to be fulfilling a quintessentially adjectival function...)
(Er, in a general sort of sense, yes - or, let's say, in a specific sort of sense but not in the specific sort of sense that suggests (wrongly, you might argue) that English grammar is predicated on a rigid distinction between nouns (whether or not used adjectivally) and adjectives. Rules like 'single adjective followed by a single noun' sound a bit like they come from the rigid-distinction school of thinking to me, and I suspect wouldn't be too happy with 'thumb rule' ...) |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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richard barrett
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« Reply #86 on: 11:25:44, 13-08-2007 » |
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What is this, World Pedantry Day?
(how's that for a title)
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dotcommunist
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« Reply #87 on: 11:37:38, 13-08-2007 » |
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Dai F's website program notes certainly makes for some very amusing reading:
"I've always wanted to be a fish. I imagined that in this piece, sometimes you see big fish which are made out of a shoal of smaller fish. Often these leave the water and start flying. I also imagined the water in which they were swimming, freezing suddenly, then cracking into lumps of ice which float up into the air. Now the fish, which are still flying, are gamboling around the ice cubes. Here I see the reflections of the light on the bodies of those fish!"
...does hot tip Daryl Runswick also give courses in program-note writing???
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ahinton
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« Reply #88 on: 13:50:33, 13-08-2007 » |
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What is this, World Pedantry Day?
(how's that for a title)
I'd not use it myself, but I'd give it the thumbs-up in principle - or as a rule; maybe even Another Heavenly Pedantic Day? (ouch, sorry!)... Best, Alistair |
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« Last Edit: 13:58:10, 13-08-2007 by ahinton »
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ahinton
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« Reply #89 on: 14:53:04, 13-08-2007 » |
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Perhaps Alvin Curran has something approaching a monopoly on such things (with apologies for any repetition[!] of any examples already cited earlier):
Oh Brass On The Grass Alas
Passing Notes (would nervous performers of this avoid s***ting bricks?)
Sinking Piano
Fried Dice (three fried dice?)
Genetically Altered Radio (any thoughts on this one, Richard?)
Spare Ribs And Short Circuits
Four Flukes
Endangered Species (don't tempt me!...)
Music Is Not Music (you don't say?...)
My Body In The Course Of A Dream
Just This As If It Had No What
Edible Weeds (now that's a killer of a title if ever there was one)
Lenz (does Veronika know about this one?)
Unsafe For More Than 25 Men
...and there's plenty more where they came from, but that's surely plenty on with which to be going...
Best,
Alistair
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