Canon in D by Pachabell.

Hmm, I'm not so sure if it's even famous anymore, but at one point Faure's Pavane was definitely in the public's consciousness. Nowadays it's his Requiem (with good reason) that musicians know, but there's so much wonderful Faure out there -- yes, I admit I have a soft spot for him!

Another Faure gem some might recognize: the Sicilienne from Pelleas and Melisande.

Actually, this is precisely NOT what the thread is trying to find. That's a piece that even relatively uneducated listeners likely could pin to Beethoven.

But I don't believe they would know it's Beethoven. I stand by my choice.

Just in case anyone wants another version of the words to the Wagner bridal chorus, we used to sing:
"here comes the bride, fair, fat and wide. Slipped on a banana skin and went for a ride"

And a tune for P*D - what about La donna e mobile from Rigoletto. Slightly more likely to be known lately because of the fad for pop tenors, but still ...

That's my impression as well. BUT, ask them if they know what the anthem to the European Union is and who wrote it and they'll just blink at you.

How about the "Entry of the Gladiators" by Fucik?

Is that ...er ... orff the record?

Cheers!

:)


By the way, here's that clip from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCt28z7DHW8&feature=related

I could have sworn there was another big scene where the toons are jumping around and making a ruckus to this music... maybe I'm making it up!

:D

You know, a fairly well known living composer refuses to listen to anything by Orff because of his Nazi sympathies. Personally I can't stand Carmina because, to my ears, it must be the single most overrated piece of art music in the general public's consciousness.
When my choir was assigned to perform it, I begged the head of my school's choral department to reassign me to another choir. He agreed to do so partly because he agreed with me!

A well-known living composer who is a Nazi sympathizer? Or a dead man with Nazi sympathies? Are ghosts interested in earthly politics? Apparently, pieces of music do occasionally have sympathies. Some Wagner chunks have Nazi sympathies, for example, although Wagner himself did not. It's all very interesting...

Gosh, you'd think grammatical ambiguities would be clarified by context. Guess not!

Orff, unlike Karajan or Gieseking, seems never to have been "tainted" by his Nazi sympathies. So how did he rate? Probably because of the filthy nature of Carmina and Catulli, (which Goebbels seemed to have missed) and then Orff's benign music for children.

But like Strauss and Pfitzner (look up the term dour German and there will be a picture of old Hans), Orff got out alive.

Okay, but aside from the operas Ariadne and Boheme, there is no Karajan in my CD collection. Gieseking, aside from some Debussy which he seems to have had a knack for, is utterly overrated.

The problem is, things just came too easily (per our recent thread about talent?) for Gieseking. When asked what was the hardest part about learning the complete Beethoven sonatas, he reportedly replied: "memorizing them, but even that wasn't very hard".

It shows in his (recorded) piano playing, and I will not deal with a pompous German who always gives the impression of just skimming over the great Everests of the piano repertoire.

Indeed. Things were just too easy for him. What an arse.

I'd think it obvious that sometimes they are and sometimes they are not. In this particular case, what would be the context supposedly clarifying the intended meaning?

Couldn't care less, Janus. Wasn't trying to catch anything.

Martha Argerich probably found playing the piano as easy as -if not easier- than Gieseking, but at least here we're dealing with an individual of enlightened liberalism. She is a very caring person, yet tends to keep her political views quiet. (George W is not one of her idols.)

Contrast it with Gieseking, who, like Karl Bohm, made an issue of the fact that he stayed in Germany during the War. Bohm, so typically, could only say: "I was bombed just like the others". He was bitter about it. Furtwangler was too.

But I don't think Gieseking ever got over it. I do not think he ever played in the US post WWII, but at an appearance in Vancouver BC, he was said to have been very rude to both his agents and admirers.

He didn't care to be on the loosing side.

If he didn't care to be on the losing side, I guess he'd rather have had his fuehrer finish off the remaining millions of undesirables across Europe. Such a distasteful business, I suppose. Isn't it wonderful that men of culture could be so above all of that petty politics stuff.


Whoops, quite OT.

Up until last year, I myself didn't know Grieg's Peer Gytn Suite. So I think thats one that people would recognize, especially from movies (Inspector Gadget for example), and not know who it was by. I also find that people don't know that Tchaikovsky wrote the Nutcracker or that Bach wrote the famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

I just thought of another one. Delibes Pizzicati from Syliva. Another one that's heard on tv and in movies, that most people probably recognize.

This all reminds me of an extraordinarily famous composer, whom few people seem to know!

Harold Arlen.

Edward Jablonski's biography mentions a story where Harold Arlen was riding in a taxi when he heard the driver whistling "Stormy Weather".

Arlen asked the driver to name the composer, to which the driver replied, "Irving Berlin", then Richard Rodgers, then Cole Porter.

When Arlen said he[/b] had written the piece, the driver said "Who are YOU?"

Practically everyone on this forum would recognize at least a dozen of his tunes. Rather than list them, here is a fascinating link.

How about Chopin's Prelude in C-minor and his Fantasy Impromptu B-section.

John

Whenever I can't quite place a Beethoven work over
ClassicFm radio ... it always turns out to be
something by Schubert which I instantly forget.

Whenever I can't quite place a Beethoven work over
ClassicFm radio ... it always turns out to be
something by Schubert which I instantly forget.

Schubert's theme from "Rosamunde", isn't that the piece they play int the cartoon with the two little mice when something is sad or very romantic?
Mozart's "Elvira Madigan" theme?
Chopin's first piano concerto from "The little Girl who lives down the Lane"? (Maybe I'm dating myself now......)

Wow Whippen Boy...

You caught me on that one!

How many know who wrote JOY TO THE WORLD?

Issac Watts?

Who wrote Jingle Bells?