172: For your delectation

A bunch of recommended media

Name That Tune

This week’s Name That Tune is a Maestro Will special. Here’s your hint: this opera shares its name (sort of) with a famous book about the outbreak of WWI.

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 171
Khatchaturian, Symphony No. 3

Nobody got this, but we all guessed Russian: I went with Shostakovich and Prokofiev with backup from Listener Gregor; Listener Eric also guessed Shostakovich, but preferred the earlier composers Roslavets and Mosolov.

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

Head to our Google Form to submit a YouTube link OR upload your own 30-second clip of an unidentified piece of classical music for us to try to identify.

Podcast Recommendations

99% Invisible did a great episode about the invention of the saxophone. Hector Berlioz is mentioned, along with a bunch of stuff about French military bands. (The episode kind of tanks when they play a clip of an interview with a funk musician who spouts the most sophomoric (and predictable) drivel about how classical saxophone playing doesn’t let the musicians express “their whole selves” through the instrument, but we can ignore that bit.)

Freakonomics Radio is doing a 3-part series on Handel’s Messiah and so far it’s quite good. They went to Dublin and London for source material and interviews, and they’ve got several conversations with the author of last year’s hit Handel book, Every Valley.

Longread Recommendation

In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of “the founding father of the American Symphony,” scholar Douglas Shadle (a friend of the pod) has written a profile of George Frederick Bristow in the New York Times that is well worth a read. Here’s an excerpt:

Bristow venerated the European classical tradition and wrote squarely within it. But, capturing a growing sense of cultural independence, he used tried-and-true genres like the symphony to tell American stories with musical sounds and imagery familiar to ordinary people.

As the United States looks toward its 250th anniversary next year, reflecting on Bristow’s accomplishments in a harsh environment for American musicians can help us appreciate the resilience required to make classical music a living, vital art in this country.

Bristow’s trajectory rose with the founding of the Philharmonic-Society (now called the New York Philharmonic) in 1842. He and his father were inaugural members, but, during its first season, older musicians forced George to substitute in theaters on nights when they were double booked. He naturally wanted to play great classical repertoire with them and rebelled.

Seeking payback, he caused all kinds of trouble, like ruining the brass instruments, greasing a cello bow and dousing the community snuff box with lamp oil. One of his first victims was his father. And the strategy worked: George performed as a Philharmonic violinist every season for all but one of the next 40 years.

There’s a lot of stuff about the underdog plight and musical politics of homegrown American composers operating in a sphere dominated by German musicians. Spoiler alert: the Germans won! In a way, it’s something to be thankful for: were it not for their domination, contemporary American musicians would have to use words like “crotchet” and “quaver.”

Tone Praise

Handel, Judas Maccabaeus: “See the Conqu’ring Hero Comes!”

Happy Hanukkah!

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