106: Profiles in Pettiness

Missing articles, royal lieges, and a messy bitch who loves drama

Name That Tune

This week’s Name That Tune is a Maestro Will special. No real hint other than that it’s a composer I’m living with a lot these days.

As always, your goal is to provide as much accurate analysis as possible. First try to get the nationality, year, and genre, then make educated guesses about the composer and — if possible— the piece. If you know the piece immediately, send us an email at toneprose@substack.com instead of commenting so the rest of us can have fun guessing. 

Last Week’s Results
Tone Prose 105
John Field, Nocturne in C Major (identified both as No. 7 and No. 13)

Listener Jeremy set out to stump our own Joseph with this one, and stump him he did! But Joey didn’t take the obvious bait (Chopin) and instead tried out a few other early Romantic piano composers, namely Mendelssohn, Schubert, and the Schumanns.

Leave it to Listener Eric to swoop in (via email) with the exact composer and piece, even noting the lack of a standardized numbering system for these works. Bravo Eric!

Think you can stump your fellow Listeners? Go ahead and try!

Head to our Google Form to upload a 30-second clip of an unidentified piece of classical music for us to try to identify.

NEWS!

In local (to me, Will) news, the Seattle Symphony has announced the appointment of Xian Zhang as its new music director. That’s all well and good, and I look forward to her tenure, but what’s confounded me is the bizarre style and grammar choices by the writers and editors of the Seattle Times. Just what exactly is going on here?

I felt this disturbing premonition that THE Seattle Symphony might be trying to do some idiotic rebranding thing, but then I realized the writer was doing the same thing to other orchestras:

Seems to me these folks have rewatched The Social Network one too many times!

Y topic

Errolyn Wallen CBE has been appointed Master of the King’s Music by His Majesty King Charles III. From the Crown’s website:

The Master of The King’s Music is an honorary appointment made by the Sovereign. The appointment is conferred on a musician of distinction who has added to the musical life of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. 

The office of Master of The King’s Music was created in the reign of King Charles I and the Master served as the head of the Sovereign’s band of musicians. The tradition of a private band formed by the Sovereign ended in 1899 with the creation of a separate Queen’s Band. Since the reign of King George V the role has carried no fixed duties and often the Master will compose pieces for special Royal occasions such as Royal Weddings, Jubilees and Coronations, should they wish to.

If it were me (Will) you wouldn’t be able to stop me from writing a neo-Handelian march for every conceivable occasion from the King’s morning yoga session to his afternoon tea. There would be a masque every night. He really should appoint me after Wallen’s tenure is over, or maybe just kick her out and give it to me right now. Think what a message that would send — an American monarchist at the helm of the royal music apparatus. It would be a bold first step in reversing the miscarriage of justice that took place in 1776.

Gettin Jiggy wit it

The saga of early-music-specializing conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner (aka JEG aka Jiggy for those not in the know) took a jaw-droppingly bitchy turn this week, but before we get to that, a bit of catchup. Late this past July, JEG announced that he would be stepping down from his position as artistic director of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, a wildly successful and influential organization that he had founded 50 years ago. This was the result of a report of his scandalous behavior after a concert in 2023, when he punched a tenor in the face after said tenor exited the stage from the “wrong side”.

When this story emerged last year, it was a big surprise for many casual classical music fans, but for those in the know, it was part of a disturbing pattern of behavior. JEG has a reputation in British musical circles as a petty tyrant. I (Will) have heard some really disturbing tales of harassment and at one point I was on a crusade to have them brought to light in a professional journalistic publication. Now, seemingly, everyone knows that he’s a bad guy, though I think when the floodgates finally open, people will be shocked.

[I always think it’s worth giving a little info on Gardiner’s background: he’s the partial heir to an enormous family fortune built on his great grandfather’s Victorian-era drapery business. JEG’s father, Rolf, was a Nazi-sympathizing back-to-the-land folk-dance enthusiast, and Jiggy himself continues to own and operate the family’s organic farm.]

Perhaps it will surprise nobody that this literally entitled (and, admittedly, talented) musician has decided that he’s not going to take his dismissal from the company he founded lying down. Just yesterday, he announced the formation of a new venture, the Constellation Choir and Orchestra.

Here’s the kicker though: the Monteverdi Choir (Gardiner’s old band) is scheduled for a European tour in the coming months. Gardiner has now booked the Constellation group in the exact same tour venues performing the exact same repertoire:

Don’t hate the game — hate the playa!

Tone Praise

Lully, Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs

This is the kind of thing I (Will) would write for King Charles III every single day.

Tone Prose is a co-production of William White, Joseph Vaz, and the Listeners (i.e. you.)