folk into classical goes, how many times?

[calimac]

When barondave offered to trade home-made CDs, he wrote about what goes into the mental process of compiling a pop-song collection. But what could I, with my classical and folk leanings, send to him in return?

The key to my decision came when he told me, apropos of folk music, that his favorite instrument is the hammered dulcimer, with the bagpipe also on the list. Disbelieve it if you may, but this information immediately shot my mind back to classical.

Of course: I should send him the world's first (and only, so far as I know) concerto for dulcimer and orchestra, the Tennessee mountain flavored Blackberry Winter by Conni Ellisor. When I got it out and listened to it again, I realized that it's for strummed and quill-bowed dulcimers rather than hammered, but oh well, you can't have everything.

The inevitable next thought was for An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise, a surprisingly light-hearted piece by the formidable Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, an orchestral tone poem into which a highland bagpiper in full fig strides, playing, near the end, and I'm not exaggerating, because I've seen it performed with the composer conducting: the door of the auditorium opened and there the piper was.

And what could outdo that except a movement from the epic Relief of Derry Symphony by Shaun Davey (best known as a film composer), into which what comes striding near the end is an entire drum and pipe marching band, no less? (This is the only recording of a symphony I've ever bought in a folk music store.)

Next, The Stone by John Mock, a delightfully tuneful dance-medley work pairing an orchestra with a whole four-person Irish folk band of fiddle, tinwhistle, guitar, and bodhrán.

Fearlessly extending the definition of folk instruments just a little, fill up the remaining space with the rarely-heard uncut version of Aaron Copland's ballet Rodeo, featuring a solo passage for deliberately out-of-tune barroom piano.

For the concluding fillip, surgically extract the original version of the final scene of Copland's ballet, the Hoe-Down, and replace it with its amazing arrangement by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and that makes it a CD.

Happy listening, your lordship.

Comments

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Based on the works I know, that sounds like a potentially delightful collection! I'm afraid I'm so hidebound that I would have led with some far better-known, and therefore more obvious, works containing a cimbalom (hammered dulcimer), such as Zoltán Kodály's "Háry János" Suite, Claude Debussy's "Le plus que lent," or Igor Stravinsky's "Ragtime for Eleven Instruments."

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

There's dulcimer in other parts of Hary Janos, too. Not just the suite, as far as memory still serves.

I have that version of "La plus que lent." Sounds darn wacky to me. Is that Debussy's own? The LP isn't clear on the point.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

There's dulcimer in other parts of Hary Janos, too. Not just the suite, as far as memory still serves.

Oh, I'm sure; but the Suite is easy to find in multiple recordings.

As for the Debussy, I just don't know; it could be the orchestration is by the composer himself, or it could be André Caplet, Henri Büsser, Charles Koechlin, or another one of Debussy's cronies.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Good ideas, actually. But two of those I don't have, I was thinking in terms of British and American folk-inspired music, and so help me I do not keep the cimbalom in my same mental box as the folk dulcimer.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Well, if it's a good arrangement, I could picture the Hoe-Down played by four guitars. Of course, I have the composer's piano version (and ELP's enthusiastic cover version), and the hope of someday being able to play it from the sheet music I've had for years now.

Thanks!

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Track 5, the middle movement f Blackberry Winter, is playing now. What a nifty compilation! I haven't heard of any of these artists or any of the pieces except Copland. Thanks for the introduction. I've liked all the cuts so far, with The Siege of Derry being especially interesting in a martial sort of way.

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

Now *I* want to hear that mix. (I am fond of hammered dulcimer and bagpipe myself, and I have heard bits of the Relief of Derry before, but I had no idea it was available anywhere!)

[rwl.livejournal.com]

I think there's even more unusual stuff than that out there. Prof. Peter Schikele, in his radio program, once included a movement from a Concerto for Orchestra and Jew's Harp. Can't remember the composer's name, though.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Probably J.G. Albrechtsberger, the intimidatingly-named composer who taught Beethoven, and - so Beethoven later said - was a better teacher than Joseph Haydn.

The whole thing is great!

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Thanks muchly! Definitely iPw (iPod worthy), and may see some air time.