CGF Newsletter 35: I’ll Hear What She’s Hearing

A climactic incident at the LA Phil lights up the internet

Name That Tune

This week’s Name That Tune is a Listener Joey special. Here’s your hint: this is standard piano repertoire. (Which is not to say that non-pianists know it - mwahaha.) 

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 classicalgabfest@gmail.com instead of commenting so the rest of us can have fun guessing. 

Last Week’s Results
CGF Newsletter 34
John Philip Sousa, El Capitan, “I’ve a most decided notion”

I’ve a most decided notion that Listener Jeremy is a scoundrel! Seriously though, this was a fun one, because the knowledge that JPS wrote G&S style operetta was knocking around in the back of my head somewhere, but it’s not something that often comes to the front of one’s mind.

At the very least I can give myself credit for not falling into the most obvious trap of thinking it actually was G&S. All my guesses were from the post-G&S generation: Friml, Herbert, and Romberg. Once again, nobody else dared.

Well played, Listener Jeremy!

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.

Air on the G String

If your text threads were anything like mine this weekend, they all centered around this:

The Los Angeles Times (!) reported it out:

Multiple people who attended the L.A. Phil concert on Friday reported hearing a woman making a moaning noise during the symphony’s second movement.

One attendee, composer and music producer Magnus Fiennes, described the sound on Twitter as that of a person having a “loud and full body orgasm.”

An alleged audio recording of the moment — where someone can be heard crying out during a quiet beat in the music — was making the rounds on social media. Attendees who spoke to The Times said that the clip was similar to what they’d heard.

In case you’re curious to hear.

Every Orgasm Story is a Media Story

Can we just hit pause on this whole thing for a second and talk about the absolutely glorious editorial decision-making process that had to go into this story getting full coverage by the Los Angeles Times? If I’m not mistaken, this would fall under the purview of the arts & entertainment editor, one Julia Turner, co-host of the other CGF (the Slate Culture Gabfest.)

It’s pretty insane that they ran this story, but when you think about it, it’s a win-win: the Times gets some insane, buzzy story that reads like an edition of Penthouse Forum and the LA Phil gets the kind of publicity that a nonprofit arts organization can only dream of.

This story needs to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism.

Some People Don’t Know How to Have Fun

Others Do

Classical Mixtape

Maurice Ravel, Boléro

Programming Note

The CGF feed is officially defunct (though the YouTube lives on!)

However, I (Will) am still active in the podcasting space, and if you want to hear my regular dose of hyperactive word vomit on the music of Stephen Sondheim, tune into this week’s episode of Putting It Together.