He had another tune, but he stole it. One and done.
Do any of those names start with B or end in Mozart? Welcome to WFMT, where it’s always Pledge Drive.
When did FMU go classic rock?
Copland’s music is mostly garbage, but he’s still a better composer than Bernstein. I can tolerate Bernstein as a conductor, although I can’t think of any of his recordings that are standouts.
You’ve made a good choice with that radio dial. I think WFMT is one of the finest stations in the country.
I’ve got to respectfully disagree on the Copland, however. Yes, his stuff is recognizable. Yes, it is rigidly tonal with all those easy-listening open fourths and fifths. But I don’t think his tunes are any more similar to each than Hayden or Handel. And if I’m wrong – if they are all the same – than I guess I’m OK with it because I find that tune so much fun to listen to.
At first I thought you made this error on purpose. Like, you knew that the “beef” song was from Rodeo and were making a point that it doesn’t really matter because, hey, it’s all the same song anyway!
Care to share any more from that experience?
The first CD I ever owned was a Copland CD, given to me for Christmas in 1990 by my grandfather. Upon discovering Copland (with that gift), I simultaneously learned that Copland had died just a few weeks earlier. (And Bernstein a couple months before that – Q4 1990 was not a good one for American composers!)
It was a little sad learning that I had been alive at the same time as this fellow but only realized it after he was dead. (I was just a kid – so there’s nothing I could have done about it – but it still somehow felt like a missed opportunity to meet/see/hear him in person.) You having dinner with Copland vicariously makes up for my missed opportunity in some odd cosmic sense, I feel.
I’ll give a shout out to Vaughan Williams’ Second symphony (“The London”), one of my all-time favorites.
Yes, WFMT played John Williams yesterday. Now, that was part of a live concert the station was broadcasting, so the real question might be, “did they program any John Williams?”
Hey, don’t look back here to the percussion section for much sympathy.
But if you knew Stephen Foster was born on the fourth of July, you could have won this morning’s music quiz (and a $30 gift certificate to Tre Kronor)!
Yeah, my music teacher back in high school played us about 5 minutes of Rodeo once. “This is Copeland,” he said, “American composer, well thought of.” He picked up the needle on the record. “The other side has another of his big hits, I forget whether it’s Appalachian Spring or Billy the Kid,” he added, reaching for another record, “but it doesn’t really matter because it sounds exactly the same as this one.”
How right he was.
Yeah, I heard that. “American song writer born in the 1820s,” I figured, it’s Stephen Foster, who else could it be? “Hymie Zuckermann, blacksmith in Bucksport, Maine, famous for humming his own compositions as he nailed shoes onto horses” ?
I don’t phone into radio stations for prizes short of one million dollars. Hockey tickets aren’t even in it.
OK, its late and we’ve been discussing this for a while.
Would anyone like a snack…?
“Fanfare for the Common Man!” My fave!
Narrated by James Earl Jones!
Eh, De Niro did his shout and repeat thing once too often, but Stallone wasn’t terrible in it, and I’ll always watch Ray Liotta and Harvey Keitel play bent cops.