I know this is a long shot, but in a late season of MASH, true MASH fans will recall a USO group gets ambushed and stuck at MASH due to HQ’s restrictions on all non-essential movement until further notice. Anyhow, towards the end, one girl plays this fast-paced classical piece on the piano. It starts an octave or two in the bass cleff and swiftly moves into the treble cleff by basically repeating the same notes in each octave. As a WAG, I’d have to say Rochmoninoff (sp?). I’d have to say that because I can’t spell it!
So, might there be a MASH fan who knows classical music in the lounge tonight?
I’m no classical music expert, but from Wikipedia, it appears that the episode was called “That’s Show Biz” and is episodes Z419 and Z420 (it was a two-part episode) and from a web search of the episode title, I found web pages that claim the piece was Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
The most popular part of the Rhapsody is variation 18, the “andante cantabile”. But being “andante” (literally, “walking” pace) I don’t think it really fits the OP’s description. One of the variations 20-23 is a better fit, but not perfect. You could find a recording at the library and listen to it. Or listen to excerpts on Amazon, such as this: Amazon.com
Perhaps it’s the middle portion of his most famous piece, the prelude in C sharp minor. But that doesn’t quite fit the description, either.
Damn, I just saw that episode a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think it was Rachmaninoff (I definitely would have remembered if it had been the Paganini Rhapsody), but I could be wrong. Chopin, maybe? Part of a Beethoven sonata? My money’s on Beethoven.
That could be it. The more I think about it, the more I recall that it was a solo piano piece, not originally piano and orchestra. And I’m thinking, one of Beethoven’s more powerful sonatas.
Beethoven, hmm? I just flashed on the “Pathetique” sonata, the “allegro” portion of the first movement after the “grave” (slow) introduction. Amazon excerpts will probably only have the slow part.
Yeah, I remember the episode, if not the title of the piece. The setup was that the woman played the accordian and Winchester was jabbing her for not playing a “real” instrument. She sat down at the piano and played that section – much faster than the Midi file in the link, though. She then explained to Winchester that it was a lot easier to carry around an accordian than a piano.
