What is this music?

Cafe Society
1

In this video*, starting at 18:46 is a snippet of an orchestral piece that I really like, but I don’t know what it is. Does anyone know?

*The video is an ad/feature Monty Python made for Birds Eye peas in 1971. Quality and sound a bit iffy.

Thanks in advance.

2

I don’t think that’s a “real” piece of music that one can find anywhere else. By that I mean I suspect it was composed for this video. Maybe some musicians will weigh in, but to my minimally trained ear, it just sounds like a series of simple chords that don’t go anywhere in particular.

However, the video is hilarious!!

3

It sounds like a funeral march (or at least that type of piece), but not one I recognize. ThelmaLou might be right.

4

I’m thinking it was probably music written for the show, as I know a lot of classical music, and I don’t recognize it. Possibly, though, this music was written to sound like the main theme of the finale of Dvorak’s 9th Symphony (starting at about 23 seconds in this video, once you get past the Jaws theme opening.)

5

Sounds very Russian. I’m thinking of Glinka or Mussorgsky here.

6

I don’t recognize it. Perhaps it was written for the skit to sound Russian-ish, just like the remaining music was written to accompany the screen action and set a mood.

7

Wow, what a great piece of Python ephemera. Thanks for linking this.

As for the music… yeah, I’m thinking its familiarity is that it is so close (but not quite) to the famous movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, as Emily says. Alas I can’t tell you its exact identity either. One tip is that I know a lot of Monty Python music, both for the TV show and Holy Grail, was culled from the De Wolfe Music catalogue, which dates back a hundred years or so and consists of all types of incidental stock music that has been heard in thousands of commercials and TV shows. Wouldn’t surprise me if they’d used one of the catalogue’s ‘soundalikes’ to create sort of a vibe that merges Dvorak with hints of the famous “Volga Boatman” folk song.

8

It is reminiscent of “The Great Gate at Kiev” from Pictures at an Exhibition.