Have you any classical melodies that, once you've heard them, become stuck in your mind? For me, a recurring earworm is Josef Suk's Fantastické Scherzo, Op. 25. After hearing it, I find myself humming or whistling it the rest of the day.
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Earworms
- Thread starter Kemosabe
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One that I find myself humming along with a lot is 'Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme' (BWV 645) by J.S. Bach. I think this would be a perfect tune for a wedding recessional, as to me the chorale melody and the melody played in the strings in the original Cantata have always reminded me of the ebb and flow of a marriage, yet when played with the right registration and tempo has a very joyful sound.
For some reason, I've never heard BWV 645 in a wedding - perhaps because it is fairly obscure. I grew up with an organist in the family, so I'm one of the few people I know who truly enjoys the art and music of the classical organ.
As played by Mattias Havinga
For some reason, I've never heard BWV 645 in a wedding - perhaps because it is fairly obscure. I grew up with an organist in the family, so I'm one of the few people I know who truly enjoys the art and music of the classical organ.
As played by Mattias Havinga
I grew up with classical music but only started listening to it on my own in the past half-dozen years. Some melodies have been stuck in my head for 60 years and I still don't know what they are. The identifiable ones I do find myself humming occasionally are "Great Gate of Kiev" from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition", the march from "Aida," Gliere's "Russian Sailors Dance," bits of Vaughn Williams' "English Folk Song Suite," the opening of the Peer Gynt Suite, and snatches of Dvorak's New World symphony No. 9.
One of the older memories that I've just recently identified and am still humming pieces of now and then is the Toy Symphony by Mozart -- LEOPOLD Mozart! Who the heck hums Leopold Mozart but not Wolfgang? Me.
One of the older memories that I've just recently identified and am still humming pieces of now and then is the Toy Symphony by Mozart -- LEOPOLD Mozart! Who the heck hums Leopold Mozart but not Wolfgang? Me.
A couple more that linger in my head upon my hearing them: Zdeněk Fibich's Village Dance and Johannes Brahms's Waltz No. 15.
All right, here's another: The Andante cantabile from Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11.
Posts from another thread that criticized twentieth-century classical music reminded me of another earworm: the menuet from Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel. In the video below, Pierre Boulez ably conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker, and oboist Albrecht Mayer gives a masterly performance.
Watching that reminds me how Ravel likes to build music around fringe instruments, like the oboe, for example. He gives the flutes and clarinets a good workout in his Bolero. It's definitely an earworm. While this has perhaps become a tired workhorse for some, I enjoy this performance because it is pretty energetic. Dudamel really gets into it at the end:
A bit more energetic than Boulez.
Anyone old enough to remember the movie "10" -- other than those who loved it and remain obsessive about it -- is probably sick of "Bolero" today. Must admit that I look elsewhere for music when the station I'm tuned to gives Ravel another spin.
The part of that movie I remember is not the music.
If anyone can inject some flavor into a tired or less enthralling piece, it is Dudamel. It's worth viewing some of his presentations in Venezuela before he moved to LA to see how he can frequently make something out of nothing. And the story of how he helped take serious music to the kids of lower income families is astounding.
As a note, my daughter, who is an attorney, has helped several dozen members of Dudamel's orchestra in Venzuela get refugee visas for the US where they are now living outside the grasp of the Maduro government.
It's worth mentioning that Ravel composed his tribute to Couperin originally as a suite for solo piano. He orchestrated it a few years later.
Much as Mussorgsky composed Pictures at an Exhibition for piano. Ravel orchestrated it so beautifully that you seldom hear the piano version on radio at all.
Do the Chavistas not like that style of music? 😁
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