Man, do I miss you people. I hate not having regular access to the board… That’s what happens when you get a real job, I guess.
And! I’m a college student!
My first Understanding Music and Culture class was last night. Cool prof, wide range of ages in the class (teens to 70s for God’s sake) and we get to attend four concerts during the semester in place of lecture. Woo hoo!
20% of my grade is a “Composer Impersonation” - I come into class and act like a famous composer, giving their life story etc. in a (hopefully) entertaining manner.
Anyone know a good composer I can impersonate? Not Mozart. He’s been done. And done very well.
John Cage - one of my music history professors called his work ‘controlled chaos’ - take everyone outside the classroom for the outdoor version of 4:33 [Three movements -Tacet, Tacet, Tacet]. Purists may say this is tampering with the score (ought to be performed indoors).
My personal favs are Mahler and Bruchner - nice Alpine, Sound of Musicky feeling to their works. {And nothing like the Kindertotenlieder to get rid of guests who have overstayed their welcome - works faster than the ‘Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’.}
BTW, congrats on college. Do you know which concerts you are attending? Let me know - I and others can probably pull up some old history and composer notes (ah, the days of music history classes. One of my favorite courses ever.)
I’ve always been a fan of Franz Liszt. I don’t know about doing an impersonation, though. How well can you do a Hungarian accent? You’ve most likely heard his stuff. His “Hungarian Rhapsody #2” has got to be the most popular cartoon tune of all time. Remember Daffy Duck & Donald Duck doing dueling pianoes in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? That’s what they were playing. Amazingly hard to play! I’ve got the music, and I’m still trying to get through the beginning.
How about Charles Ives? He was one of the greatest American composers of the 20th century, but he also worked a normal day job. He said that anyone who had to make a living from composing wouldn’t be free to be artisitic.
Of course he was a bit of whack job. What can you expect from someone who would use Charles as a first name?
Ooooh! Oooooooh! Do Erik Satie! He was one CRAZY little fucker. And it’d give you the opportunity to wear pince-nez and a derby.
Who was that other nutjob who composed a lot of stuff for the piano…his name began with “A” and he died when a huge shelf of piano music fell over on him…HE’D be good, too. You’d have a real slam-bang finish.
Hmmm. Seven years of music school (B.M and M.M.) and I can’t even spell Bruckner. Ei!
Sidenote: Want a real kick? Get “The Anna Russell Album?” (yes, the ? is part of the title) and listen to her 20 minutes synopsis of Wagner’s ‘Ring Cycle’. We d@mn near fell out of our chairs laughing when the professor played this in class. Right up there with P.D.Q. Bach’s ‘1712 Overture’ [Warning - Digital balloons!].
“Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” - Johannes Brahms
You could choose Tchaikovsky. Mince into the class to the tune of the Sugarplum Fairy, remembering that the man you are impersonating was a homosexual who desperately tried to keep his sexuality in the closet.
Wow, that was offensive, Dvous. Hmm… I think I may have aftereffects from another post that someone I didn’t want came in… I see the humour now.
Wagner would be really good to do. He was a dirty old man with a loathing personality. He just wasn’t nice. He was even more intense than Beethoveen has been characterised.
There are other composers that could be more easily characterised by their hobbies. Bach liked numerology for instance, Gesualdo was a melomaniac (crazy in regards to music…his mania forced him to compose music constantly), etc. Some would be easier to do as the spouse or friend of the composer rather than the composer himself. For example, Mozart’s wife would read the paper to him while he was scribing the music. He felt it was horribly boring.
Where can I find P.D.Q. Bach recordings? I’ve gone to at least a dozen stores and they always say, “Don’t you mean J.S. Bach?” or, “We have C.P.H. Bach; that’s probably who you want.” But nobody has (or has even heard of) P.D.Q. Bach.
