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Ellen Kaisse's avatar

I am in the midst of losing a large part of my evening to listening to various recordings of Wondrous Machine in particular, and to Hail, Bright Cecilia in general. Thanks for this, Will. Love it. I had to look it up to learn that the wondrous machine is the organ.

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Ellen Kaisse's avatar

NTT: My first thought was Ferde Grofé, because it sounds like it could be film music, and is has that easy, loping, cowboy-riding-a-horse rhythm of the Grand Canyon Suite. So I will guess American, maybe between 1930 and 1950. The harmonies are mostly unchallenging, the orchestration is relatively lush and pleasant, it’s pretty -- something meant to appeal to a large audience. So if it’s a quite serious classical composer, this could be them writing for something other than the concert hall. Maybe for stage or ballet or film. It doesn’t seem jazzy enough for Gershwin, and I don’t know many other composers of that period.

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