The Omniscient Mussel » Weeks 1-10

Quiz #10: Like Clockwork

Miss Mussel — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:22:17 +0000

Ladies and gents, quiz lovers one and all…..this week’s winner is Ian Goh who wrote in with To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence, a song cycle by Gerald Finzi composed intermittently between 1921 and 1956. In addition to being now officially awesome at life, Ian has reached into the dark recesses of his memory to posit that the cycle is “not a hardy setting and it’s not precisely datable beyond 1920s because it was only collected into the eponymous cycle after his death.”

Anyone else know for sure?

The performer for this week’s quiz installment is none other than the young Canadian baritone Michael Adair. He makes the occasional comment in these pages under the name Frère Mussel. You can work the rest out.

If you wish to hear the rest of the song cycle or a cracking version of Danny Boy, head on over here and click on audio.

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Quiz #10 Clue One

Miss Mussel — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:42:01 +0000

An additional track has been added to the player and here are your clues:

1) The composer was born in the year Queen Victoria died.
2) He trained at Yorkminster Cathedral in England.
3) He was Jewish.

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Quiz #10

Miss Mussel — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:50:39 +0000

It’s that time again Quiz Fans!

This week’s prize: confirmation that you are, as you have up until this point only suspected, awesome at life.

Have a listen and send name of piece, composer and date of composition to the OM Mailbox.

Further samples will be posted each day this week until the winner is announced.

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Quiz #9: The Day You’ve All Been Waiting For

Miss Mussel — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:59:48 +0000

[Drumroll] The Super Ultimate Winner of OM Quiz #9 is none other than Roger Miller. Unless the intertubes exist in the afterlife, it’s probably not this Roger Miller but nevermind.

The answer is Claude Debussy String Quartet in G minor Op 10 (fourth movement) completed in 1893.
The mass of responses flooding the OM mailbag indicate that the Quiz was a little more of a softball than Miss Mussel intended but that’s ok. As always, your participation is much appreciated as the game’s not so fun if Miss Mussel is the only player.

Our Quiz #9 Super Ultimate Winner Roger deserves special mention achieving the OM Quiz record for fastest correct answer. Those interested in breaking it next week will have to respond less than six hours from time of posting. Just so you know. You might need to set your alarm.

The recording used this week was the a 1996 album by the Tokyo String Quartet also containing the Ravel SQ and a piano trio by Fauré. It’s really quite an excellent recording, so if you don’t have any of these opi nestling comfortably on your shelves, adopt them today.

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Quiz #9: Clue One

Miss Mussel — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:29:05 +0000

Miss Mussel has decided against adding another track this week. She has confidence in your guessing abilities.

Have another listen and consider the following clues:

1) The composer was chronically unlucky in love.
2) He only wrote one string quartet
3) In the year the piece was written, a crash on the NY Stock Exchange started a depression.

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Quiz #9

Miss Mussel — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 04:57:35 +0000

MORNING CAMPERS!!!!!!!

(Apologies for any obnoxiouness in this post. Miss Mussel gave up carbonated beverages of all sorts for Lent and is now flying high courtesy of the Coca-Cola company)

Here’s this week’s quiz. Miss Mussel hasn’t yet decided if she will add other movements for this one. Begging emails will be given some consideration.

Composer, Title, Date of Composition are all you need to be declared the Super Ultimate Winner of OM Quiz #9.

Send your guesses/answers in an email. Comments relating to how much fun this quiz is and how much you look forward to participating each week may be left in the space below this post.

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Quiz #8: In By A Nose

Miss Mussel — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:49:31 +0000

It was a close finish this week but Miss Mussel is proud to announce that Mark Kim has written in with Heinrich Biber Mystery Sonata No. 10 The Crucifixion c. 1676. Hurrah!

There are a great many interesting things about these sonatas and indeed Biber himself. Very thorough liner notes to a recording are available here, so rather than Miss Mussel pinching and reproducing them in this space, it seems more convenient if you just head on over and read them at your leisure.

The complete sonata will be labelled properly and place on the left sidebar later on in the morning. i.e. after Miss Mussel obtains the requisite amount of beauty rest.

Buy the recording here.

Thanks again to all that played and better luck next week.

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Quiz #8 Clue Two

Miss Mussel — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:11:21 +0000

One reader is almost there…just a few refinements away from claiming this week’s prize: 15 seconds seconds of confirmation that yes, you are the smartest person that ever lived.

Another track has been added to the player. Here are a few more clues.

1) Scordatura. Seriously, there’s a lot of it in this one.
2) The answer is as yet a mystery however Miss Mussel has it one good authority that it is more sorrowful than joyful or glorious.

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Quiz #8 Clue One

Miss Mussel — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:54:49 +0000

There’s been one guess of Lully so far. Lukewarmish but off in the right direction. Perhaps the additional track and these fabulous clues will help illuminate the answer.

1) The composer had a family member called Anna Magdalena
2) He lived and worked in Salzburg
3) Around the time the piece was composed Antony Van Leeuwenhoek discovers bacteria, observed with the microscope and Antonio Stradivari makes the Fleming violin.

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Quiz #8

Miss Mussel — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 06:12:42 +0000

Morning Quiz Fans,

You know the drill.

Name of composer, date of composition and name of piece.

Guesses to hello@theomniscientmussel.com so as not to spoil the fun for the others. Comments that don’t reveal the answer are most welcome in the public comments box.

Winners on Weds or whenever the answer comes in. Whichever is later.

Clues daily.

Listen here.

Good luck.

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Quiz #7: Sweet Victory

Miss Mussel — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:15:09 +0000

This week, Jonathan Bellman of DialM fame was first in with Pilgrim’s Progress by Ralph Vaughan Williams, composed 1921. The first performance was giving at the Royal College of Music, London on 11th July 1922.

[The opera was performed in many incarnations, so this is technically right. The full staged version wasn't performed until 1951, with final edits undertaken as late as 1952]

Your prize: one extra-large portion of satisfaction at being right, is in the mail, as they say.

Here’s some background on the piece pinched very nearly wholesale once again from the New Grove Dictionary.

Although an agnostic, Vaughan Williams had a strong sense of music as a social force, involving himself in church music and regarding it (in the days before radio) as one of the few regular musical focal points for a community. Early in his career, he planned to make an opera from Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, not because he shared Bunyan’s religious outlook but because he regarded it as a universal dramatic allegory. In the final version of his opera (which he preferred to call a morality), he altered the name of the protagonist from Christian to Pilgrim because ‘I want the idea to be universal and appeal to anybody who aims at the spiritual life whether he is Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Shintoist or 5th Day Adventist’ (as he wrote to Rutland Boughton in May 1951).

The prelude and epilogue were based on the hymn tune ‘York’, which he connected with Bunyan because of its Roundhead associations; it also opens and closes the opera. In 1921 he made a one-act opera from the episode The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains. This had many performances between the wars and was incorporated into the opera as Act 4 scene ii with its ending changed.

Vaughan Williams worked on Acts 1 and 2 from 1925 to 1936. He then decided that the opera was unlikely to reach the stage and used some of the themes in three of the four movements of his Fifth Symphony (1938–43). His interest was reawakened in 1942 when the BBC commissioned a radio dramatization by Edward Sackville-West of The Pilgrim’s Progress (first broadcast on 5 September 1943). For this he provided 38 sections of incidental music. He resumed concentrated work on the opera from 1944 to 1949.

Though lacking much of the conventional trappings of opera, The Pilgrim’s Progress, in the hands of a sensitive director, can be a remarkable theatrical experience; and the music sustains a level of meditative rapture, relieved by the colourful Vanity Fair scene, which sympathetic listeners find spiritually and emotionally powerful.

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Quiz #7 Clue One

Miss Mussel — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:02:57 +0000

Another track has been added for your listening pleasure.

Here are your clues:
1) The composer considered a career as an orchestral violist but his family pooh-poohed the notion.
2) He was afraid he was going to die before completing the composition.
3) A Society bearing his name was founded in 1994.

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Quiz #7

Miss Mussel — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 06:35:16 +0000

Hope everyone enjoyed Friday’s pub quiz. It was difficult to choose questions that would appeal to a broad audience without making something that was too hard for most people. Was this an OM success? Discuss.

Now, onto the weekly name-that-tune quiz. The winner needs to provide the title, composer and date of composition. Additional examples and clues will be provided each day until someone guesses.

Give it a listen and send your guesses to omniscient.mussel at the mail that is g, dot com.

Bonne chance, tout le monde!

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Quiz #6 Pencils Down Everyone

Miss Mussel — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:18:29 +0000

Congratulations to Roberto Corsi who was first in with Anton Bruckner’s Mass No.1 in D minor, first performed in 1864.

The whole piece won’t be posted in the sidebar this time because it’s enormous (read: bandwidth monster) but the Kyrie and Sanctus will be up for your future listening pleasure.

Unfortunately Miss Mussel hasn’t the time at the present moment to elaborate on the history of this piece or to source any fascinating anecdotes. Instead, she will just list these facts. There will be a test later, don’t you worry.

This Mass is one of four Bruckner wrote in addition to the more well known Te Deum. No slouch in the prolificity department, he also managed over 50 psalms, choruses and sacred cantatas

If you’re looking for other examples of Bruckner’s Motets. They are simply lovely. Miss Mussel is partial to Tantum Ergo and Locus Iste, but they all have their individual charms. Steer clear of the St Brides Naxos disc. It is, in a word, atrocious. Rather try the DG Gardiner recording. The Naxos has the complete motets but DG has a decent choir (Monteverdi)

This was the first major piece Bruckner composed after hearing Wagner (Tannhauser and Tristan & Isolde).

Although considered by us now to be a good start, it would be another 20ish years and seven enormous symphonies before he was really recognized as kind of a big deal. Maybe he should have played jazz flute instead. Anchorman anyone? No? Ok.

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Quiz #6: Clue Two

Miss Mussel — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 05:41:15 +0000

Ok, there have been some people circling around the correct answer but no one has, as of yet, committed with their guess. Musings on late Romantic are near to the bullseye while suggestions of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms or Bruckner are various degrees of hot and cold. On to the clues:

Yesterday’s
1) The composer was a late bloomer
2) He liked beer

Today’s
1) This is an early work.
2) He wrote more than one in this format.
3) When the piece was written, Milliard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln or James Buchanan were president of the United States.

No new movements added today as the others won’t give you any more of an idea. Once you have an idea of the composer, it’s time to start googling….or sorting through your enormous collection of music.

Have another listen while you search

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Quiz #6: Clue One

Miss Mussel — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:11:33 +0000

Apologies for being late with the clue this morning, folks. It’s the final week of manuscript writing for Miss Mussel’s book project and, as you might expect, it’s pedal to the metal.

Another movement has been added to give you a bit of a hint and here are a few clues.

1) The composer was a late bloomer
2) He loved beer

Have another listen. You may want to wait to be somewhere you can crank the speakers to a satisfactory level. This piece makes a wonderful envelope.

Note to Michael M (you know who you are): Foiled, good sir

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Quiz #6

Miss Mussel — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 06:38:13 +0000

Miss Mussel has a cracking piece for you this week, if she may say so.

Name of Piece, Composer and Date of Composition are the vitals plus any other pertinent facts you came across over the course of your research.
Winner announced on Weds or as the answer comes in, whichever is later.
Musings may be posting in the comments but guesses should be sent via email to keep it fun for everyone.

Have a listen. First clues up tomorrow.

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Quiz #5: The Winner

Miss Mussel — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:32:10 +0000

This week’s winner is Richard Hiebert from Vancouver who has written in with the correct answer of JS Bach Sonata No.2 for Solo Violin BWV 1003.

Well done to you sir.

Update: Looks like Miss Mussel is going to have to fire her fact checker. The correct answer is Sonata No. 3 BWV. 1005 Have a listen to the whole sonata on the sidebar.

Richard wondered if the lutenist was Nigel North. In fact the player in question is this guy.

He’s called Eliot Fisk and it seems that he’s quite the bigwig at The New England Conservatory. The album the sound samples were taken from is this one.

It seems that this week’s quiz was a mite too easy for most readers. Miss Mussel thought that hearing the piece on another instrument would make guessing a bit tricky. It seems she has underestimated your abilities! This is a mistake she can assure you will not be made again. Well not on purpose at least.

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Quiz #5 Clue One

Miss Mussel — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:47:34 +0000

An additional track added today to help you work out what the mystery piece is. Have a listen while you contemplate these clues.

1) The composer came from a musical family.
2) He wrote other pieces for this instrument
3) The manuscript for this and the other pieces in the series was very nearly destroyed when someone thought it would make good butcher paper.

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Quiz #5

Miss Mussel — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:02:46 +0000

Happy Monday, folks. We’ve had quiz representation from the horn, cello, oratorio and the symphonic sections of the musical world. This week, we are going to wade into the world of..well we’ll get to that later.

Have a listen.

This week, Miss Mussel is going to add another bit of the piece each day in addition to written clues.

1) As usual, clues will be given throughout the week until someone writes in with the answer or Wednesday, whichever comes later.
2) Thinking out loud is ok in the comments but any actual guesses should be made via email so the fun isn’t ruined for others.
3) The requirements are Title, Composer and Date of Composition.

Also, if you know any random facts about the piece in question, please feel free to pass those along as well.

Ok, that should about cover it!

Bon chance, tout le monde!

PS: phoning a friend is allowed

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Quiz #4: And the winner is….

Miss Mussel — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:02:13 +0000

Giorgia from Opera Bouffe. She correctly identified the movements as belonging to Cello Suite No. 3 Op. 87 by Benjamin Britten

Honourable mention must go to Damiel who wrote in with the Cello Suites in general. He beat Giorgia to the finish line but wasn’t able to give the specific information required. OM judges are persnickity like that.

The cellist was Denise Djokic.

Here’s a bit of a look into the relationship between Britten and Rostropovich (the cellist pictured yesterday) from Slava himself:

“Meeting Britten was a very significant moment in my life, but when I met him for the very first time I was completely idiotic. Because of the Iron Curtain that cut my country off from the outside world I only knew one work by Britten, the Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. It is, of course, a set of variations on a theme of Purcell, but even though I could tell that this was a fantastic new musical language that was far more recent than Purcell, I thought that maybe Britten was somebody from the past who was no longer alive.

Well, in 1960 at the Edinburgh Festival I had just given the first Western performance of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto, and afterwards Shostakovich came backstage with one other gentleman. Shostakovich said, “Slava, may I introduce you to Benjamin Britten.” I laughed like mad — what a marvelous joke. But then when I saw the expression on Shostakovich’s face I quickly thought that maybe this was the real Benjamin Britten.

Immediately Britten said to me that the performance I had just given had affected him so much that he hoped I would agree to see him. I told him what a wonderful honor this would be, and we made an appointment for the next day in my hotel in Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales. The next morning, before he came, Shostakovich told me, “I have got bruises on one of my ribs because while you were playing the concerto last night Britten kept digging his elbow into my side whenever he was excited by your playing.”

Then, when Britten arrived he came to my room and asked if I would accept his invitation to write a sonata for me. He said that if I did accept he would perform the piano part with me, but he had only one great wish to ask me in return: that I play it with him in his Festival in Aldeburgh. I told him I was so honored, and about a year later we had our first time together in Aldeburgh. We played an entire recital: the Debussy Sonata, the new Britten Sonata and the Schubert “Arpeggione” Sonata. From that moment I was a slave of Benjamin Britten! (Source: Andante)

In addition to the three cello suites (Op 72, 80 & 87), the partnership resulted in a Cello Sonata Op 65 and a Cello Symphony Op 68.

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Quiz #4 Second Clue

Miss Mussel — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 05:38:08 +0000

No one has written in with the answer as of yet, an OM quiz record so far. Perhaps yesterday’s clues were a bit vague.

Let’s narrow it down a little:
1) The opus number is a not a prime number, nor is it even.
2) The composition was written in either 1964, 1967 or 1971 making the Presidents either Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon.
3) The piece is dedicated to this guy.

Have another listen and get those thinking caps on!

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Quiz #4: First Clue

Miss Mussel — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:37:05 +0000

Giorgia has speculated Britten as the composer. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. That is for Miss Mussel to know and you to find out.

Today’s clues are:
1) The opus number of this piece is greater than 2(12+6) and less than 5(26-2)/(129-(64)2).
2) This work was composed between the presidencies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter.
3) The composer was a man.

Listen again, here.

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Qu’est-ce que c’est? #4

Miss Mussel — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:03:03 +0000

For this quiz installment, Miss Mussel has decided to wade into the solo string repertoire.

Have a listen and puzzle it out in the comments.

Clues will be given each day until the correct answer, consisting of the composer, work and date of composition, is sent along.

Good luck all and as always, don’t forget to tell a friend.

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Quiz #3 And the winner is…….

Miss Mussel — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 05:42:50 +0000

Well, there are two winners, really. Due to the feed complications, it only seems right to mention all of the people who wrote in with the correct answer.

Frere Mussel and Jeff Matthews both came up with:

Belshazzar’s Feast by William Walton premiered at Leeds in 1931.

Well done to the both of you.

Here’s a bit of information about the piece pinched wholesale from the New Grove Dictionary:

Commissioned by the BBC, Belshazzar’s Feast (1930–31) is a sardonic inversion of the ‘dramatic cantata’ beloved by Victorian composers and audiences. Osbert Sitwell’s libretto consists of cunning juxtapositions of Old Testament excerpts that draw implicit parallels between the excesses and downfall of the Babylonian monarch and the opulence and eventual implosion of Edwardian society. Rather than using Biblical texts to express religious sentiment, Sitwell uses them to titillate. The audience at the première must have been discomfited by the perverse innuendo of the cantata’s opening line: ‘Thus spake Isaiah: Thy sons that thou shalt beget, They shall be taken away/And be eunuchs in the palace of the King of Babylon’.

Walton’s music colludes fully with Sitwell’s text in its intent to subvert Edwardian mores. The real protagonists of Belshazzar’s Feast, the captive Jewish people represented by the chorus, react with the ferocious indignation of powerless outsiders forced to serve an oppressive society. Walton, himself a Lancastrian outsider at Oxford and in London, vividly contrasted the searing anguish of the Jewish slaves with a caricature of the garish ostentation of Belshazzar’s court. A parody of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches erupts as a paean of praise to Belshazzar’s God of Gold to cleverly characterize Babylonian decadence through a specific reference to an Edwardian musical style.

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Quiz #3: Clue Two

Miss Mussel — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:11:40 +0000

The choral extravaganza that is this week’s quiz is extravagantly choral mostly due to its choral extravagance but also because it is chorally extravagant in its extravagance (chorally speaking, that is).

Sorry. Miss Mussel was just taking a little walk down memory lane back to the days when she was starting out as a writer and pimped herself out for keyword stuffing gigs.

ANYWAY….

Without further adieus, here are the clues.
1) The composer’s first and last names begin with the same letter.
2) The piece is, on the surface at least, about a dinner party that happened in the Bible. And no, Judas wasn’t there.

Yesterday’s clues were:
1) The text is in English, so that eliminates all of continental Europe as a possible source except for Gibraltar.
2) The composer failed his BA exam three times but in the end was awarded seven honourary doctorates.

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Quiz #3: First Clue

Miss Mussel — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 05:04:24 +0000

Ok folks, we’ve got some choral music on this week.

Here is the first round of clues:

1) The text is in English, so that eliminates all of continental Europe as a possible source except for Gibraltar.
2) The composer failed his BA exam three times but in the end was awarded seven honourary doctorates.

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Qu’est-ce que c’est?: Week 3

Miss Mussel — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:13:13 +0000

Good day all. Here’s this week’s quiz.

What’s required is title, composer and date of composition. Clues will be given each day until the end of the week or until someone writes in with the correct answer. The winner will not be announced before Wednesday, so as not to ruin it for those that are still puzzling it out.

As always, thinking out loud in the comments helps Miss Mussel formulate clues that are actually helpful. In the interests of keeping it fun for everyone, when you arrive at the “I’d like to solve the puzzle” stage, send your guess along in an email.

Here’s the link.

Don’t forget to tell a friend and happy guessing!

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Hornucopia: Pencils Down Everyone

Miss Mussel — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:57:50 +0000

The winning answer has been received from none other than Opera Bouffe herself.

This weeks mystery music was Six mélodies pour cor à pistons et piano composed in 1840 by Charles Gounod.

Miss Mussel and her horn colleagues used to sneak into the concert hall at university and take turns accompanying each other playing these lovelies. The first one also provided a good contrast to the concerto at auditions.

Here is the full track listing:

1 — Larghetto bien pose
2 — Andantino
3 — Andante
4 — Larghetto
5 — Andante cantabile
6 — Andante ben marcato

Thanks for playing and better luck next week.

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Hornucopia: Clue 2

Miss Mussel — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 07:51:14 +0000

Three quick clues this morning:

1) The composer is French
2) The genre his is most known for is opera
3) He won the Prix de Rome in 1839.

Let’s have some guesses!

Listen again here if for no other reason than these are really lovely pieces.

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Hornucopia: Clue One

Miss Mussel — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:09:01 +0000

Ok. So no one had a guess yesterday, which means one of three things:

1) You don’t understand French.
2) You aren’t really into this guessing game.
3) You have absolutely no bloody idea where to begin.

Let’s sort out the first one. Qu’est-ce que c’est simply means what’s this.

The next possibility isn’t really flattering to Miss Mussel’s ego, so she’ll just ignore it. Plus, the blog has acquired five new subscribers overnight (welcome!), so that can’t be it.

That leaves us with you have no idea where to start guessing. Suggested mode of attacking the problem: start with the composer first and you should be able to find the rest of the information floating around the intertubes.

1) 19th century composer famous in mostly one genre.
2) These pieces cannot be played on a natural horn.
3) Valves were invented in 1815.

Anyone getting warmer?

Have a listen again, grab coffee and ruminate.

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Qu’est-ce que c’est?: Hornucopia Edition

Miss Mussel — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:10:32 +0000

The name that tune game was quite a success last week so Miss Mussel, knowing a good thing when she sees it, is going to stick with it. Plus, it’s just plain fun, why not? Pardon the excruciating elisions and archaic double meaning in the title. Some things are just too good to resist.

Have a listen to this week’s offering.

If you are a horn nerd, please refrain from posting your guess in the comments until at Wednesday to give other people a chance to work it out. You can always send a note. The winner will be announced Friday or as soon as answer is received. (after Weds, that is).

It’s helpful if you post your guesses in the comments because then Miss Mussel can give clues that are actually helpful therefore increasing your chances of achieving sweet, sweet victory.

As per last week, Miss Mussel is after piece name, composer and date of compositition.

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We Have A Winner

Miss Mussel — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:42:59 +0000

Giorgia from Operabouffe has written in with the answer.

Romanian Concerto (1952) by Gyorgy Ligeti of all people.

The piece only came to Miss Mussel’s attention last year as the result of a program note commission and what a find it was. Here’s the scoop:

Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006)
Romanian Concerto (1952)
Andantino
Allegro vivace
Adagio, ma non troppo
Molto vivace

When he wrote this piece, Ligeti was a harmony and counterpoint professor at the Budapest conservatory, from which he graduated in 1949. It would still be four years before him and his wife would escape from Hungary by hiding under postbags on a train bound for Vienna. He later moved to Cologne and became, along with Stockhausen, a crucial member of the avant-garde movement.

Those familiar with Ligeti’s later work could certainly be forgiven for thinking Bartók wrote this piece. The Concerto does owe a debt to Bartók, it’s true, but a much larger one is owed to the communist Hungarian government. Much like Shostakovich, Ligeti was cut off completely from all things Western and under obligated to compose the tonal, folk-influenced pieces the government favoured. The Romanian Concerto is one of the few works from this period that Ligeti did not consign to juvenalia.

This piece very rarely programmed, likely because it is so different to Ligeti’s later works. It is a shame really, as the Concerto is an imaginative setting of Romanian folk music as well as a promise of the Ligeti to come. The first complete UK performance was in 2003, at the Barbican for the composer’s 80th birthday celebrations.

Ligeti’s skill at orchestrating for a precise colour is immediately evident in the first movement. The opening unison cello melody is shaded with a pair of clarinets and later on Ligeti scores a flute and bassoon duet.

An exuberant dance melody bursts in on the tranquil country scene established in the Andantino as it heralds the beginning of the second movement. It’s as if a rambler has stumbled upon a village fête with the fife and drums, gypsy fiddler and brass band out in full force. A final unison figure echoes the liveliness of the opening.

The opening clarinet dissonances and solo horn in the third movement are the first moments of this piece to really sound like Ligeti. He makes use of string techniques such as tremolo and sul ponticello (bowing at the bridge) in order to create an ethereal background for the solo cor anglais. These effects, along with many others, are used extensively in Ligeti’s later work.

Once again, serenity is shattered as a pair of trumpets announce a change of pace, recalling the final movement of Dvorak’s eighth symphony. A folk melody soon emerges from frenetic orchestral murmuring and it is taken in turns throughout the band. This frantic pace is maintained until finally solo instruments begin to play themes on top of each other halted only by a fortissimo trumpet outburst. 10 unison chords are not enough to extinguish the solo violin and it continues playing while the solo horn reprises its third movement melody. The orchestra gets the last word in however and one final, diatonic chord brings the piece to a close.

It is easy to attach meaning where there is none, however it does not seem too much of a stretch to think of the ending as an aural illustration depicting the suppression of the individual and creative ideas. Even though the soloists were assimilated in the end, the Hungarian government was not impressed and these final dissonances, which seem mild to modern ears, resulted in the Concerto being banned.

Buy the recording here.

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Quiz #1 Second Clue

Miss Mussel — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:08:28 +0000

Things are heating up in the Name That Tune contest going on here at The Omniscient Mussel this week.

The amnesiac or purposefully mysterious Sine Nomine has guessed Orff or Copland. While these are plausible, they aren’t possible mostly because they’re not the right answer.

Here are a few more clues:
The piece was written in 1952.
It’s first full performance in the UK was given in 2003.
Dissonances in the final movement resulted in the piece being banned by the composer’s government.

Admin Note: It appears as if the address hello[at]theomniscientmussel[dot]com isn’t working at the moment, so if you’ve sent along a guess or a comment, please redirect it to omniscient.mussel[at]gmail.com. If you’re a spammer, don’t bother. Miss Mussel is happy with the size, shape and stamina of all parts of her anatomy.

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Quiz #1 First Clue

Miss Mussel — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 07:37:07 +0000

Guesses so far have veered towards an English composition. The first movement and Miss Mussel’s anglophilia do make this a good, albeit cold, guess. The second movement is a sort of general country dance that could occur in nearly any country, so it’s not much help. The third and fourth, on other hand, are better. The scale used in the third movement isn’t really typical of English music nor is the theme of the fourth. To Miss Mussel, it sounds rather like Gypsy music. [*ahem*...that was GYSPY MUSIC as in there aren't really a lot of gypsies in England]

In regards to the composer, you will very definitely have heard of him. This isn’t a game for obscurantists.

Keep those guesses coming. More clues on Wednesday.

What’s this all about? Have a listen and get in on the game. Also, tell all your friends.

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Come On Then, Have A Guess

Miss Mussel — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:34:40 +0000

Can anyone identify the piece, composer and year completed? There’s about ten seconds of silence at the first, so don’t be too hasty in turning your speakers up to eleven.

Send your thoughts in an email or drop a guess in the comments. A clue will be given each day this week until someone comes up with the right answer. If no one can manage it, all will be revealed Friday afternoon. Happy brain-wracking!