Name That Tune
This week’s Name That Tune was submitted by Listener Jeremy. Here’s your hint: this composer married twice. No Googling!
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 74
Vivaldi, Concerto for Viola d’amore in A minor
Listener Laurie did a masterful job of sussing out not only the composer and (basically) the instrument, but also the film I (Will) was referencing! The Favourite was the movie soundtrack that includes this track by Vivaldi. She bolstered her bucket with Handel and Telemann, both good ideas. Joey bandwaggonned with those, adding Purcell and J.C. Bach.
Congrats also to first-time NTT guesser Listener Gregor, who wrote in to guess Vivaldi!
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.
HBD JV!
Folks, it’s Joey’s birthday, his 27th if I (Will) am not mistaken. Three cheers for a great friend, co-editor, and fellow artist, and many happy returns!
Opera NEWS!
From a report in the Associated Press:
The Los Angeles Opera has scrapped plans for the world premiere of Mason Bates’ “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” this fall because of finances. The work will instead open with a student cast at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
Bates’ composition, based on Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, is a co-commission with the Metropolitan Opera and was to have originated at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Oct. 26. Instead, it will have four performances from Nov. 15-22 at the Musical Arts Center in Bloomington, Indiana, then move to the Met as planned for its 2025-26 season.
“It was a very ambitious and therefore expensive project, and unfortunately in the current conditions, it wasn’t something that we can manage,” LA Opera CEO Christopher Koelsch said. “Operationally we are kind of back to pre-COVID normalcy in terms of income. The audience is back and both earned and contributed revenue is stable. The big difference is the cost structure is not pre-COVID.”
I (Will) don’t have too much more to add about this, but it is a fascinating story that encompasses some of America’s most prominent musical institutions and the darling of its composer set. This might necessitate another opera trip to IU to see how it all shakes out.
10,000 Improvisations Strong
My (Joey’s) former teacher, Emile Naoumoff, is quite the personality. A hearty eccentric with a prodigious ear and talent, he was Nadia Boulanger’s “last disciple,” and is a fixture of the Indiana University piano department, always marching to the beat of his own drummer.
On YouTube, he happens to be quite the personality too. Since March 8, 2011, he has been uploading improvisations at an astonishing speed, often up to 5 a day. Some of these are truly outrageous, like this one where he’s lying down while playing. Most of them have a strong French flavor, with a Fauré-esque tonal language and plenty of gorgeous chords with whimsical counterpoint.
Other videos on his account include stream-of-consciousness pedagogy about any number of musical topics, which he calls Emilessons: he discusses technique, repertoire, composing, interpreting, even Brahmsing! Fittingly, his most recent is called “Improvisation is like life,” as he discusses improvising at the piano with his signature beatific smile.
Speaking of those Improvisations. Two days ago, he uploaded his 10,000th Improvisation (above), a 70-minute affair that is bombastic from start to end, no-holds-barred in terms of emotional expression. One of the greatest musicians I’ve ever known, Naoumoff certainly deserves the (photoshopped?) YouTube plaque featured at the beginning of the video. I know these improvisations have given joy to many, even if most of them don’t have more than 30 views.
Here’s to 10,000 more!
Tone Praise
György Ligeti, Nonsense Madrigals 5. The Lobster Quadrille
For no other reason than that I (Will) was in the mood for it.
Tone Prose is a co-production of William White, Joseph Vaz, and the Listeners (i.e. you.)
Happy Birthday, Joey! Hope you have a great day and have the opportunity to celebrate in style!
NTT: geographically, I would guess this music is from Jersey or Guernsey, which is to say, it seems somewhere between England and France. A hint of Debussy lingers in the air, but also maybe Frank Bridge? Delius? Perhaps it’s Rebecca Clark. That’s my bucket.