Expert: Pat G - 9/4/2009

Question
QUESTION: I heard this great piece of music on the radio, I think it's a movement from a symphony in C major; I was able to jot down one of the themes; you can view it here:

(It's moderately fast and its repeated/transposed several times)

http://williamvoigt.pictiger.com/images/18522027/

Can you identify the composer and the piece ?

Thank you,

ANSWER: I sure can't place it from that. I sang through it a dozen times, and it's not ringing a bell. I'll try sleeping on it. If you can give me any additional information, that might be helpful.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello Pat,

Thank you for your reply. I have attached some other segments that I remember from this piece.

Thanks again

ANSWER: William,

What happened to the top of the page? Wasn't the title there? Or did you use some music program to write this? It's full of accidentals. It's not common to have that many accidentals in a piece that would properly be considered classical, ESPECIALLY if it's both sharps and flats.

If you typed it into the computer, try limiting yourself to either sharps or flats, but don't use both. It might make more musical sense that way. But from the look of it, I'd presume it's a more contemporary piece, possibly 12 tone, and I don't listen to that much 12 tone music, because I don't really like it. If it truly sounded tonal, and had a distinct melody, we should go back to the drawing board with it, because as it is, it doesn't compute for me.

Wish I could be of more help.

PS. I went and played it on my piano. It made a lot more sense there. I would have done this in the first place, but my piano is badly out of tune, and it won't stay in tune until I get some of the pegs replaced, so I haven't bothered to tune it.

It does sound quite melodic. But I haven't placed it yet. I'm guessing you used a program of some kind to prepare this score. So if you can get it into any kind of key (probably isn't in the key of C, or your program might have recognized it and wouldn't have put all those accidentals in it), that might help considerably.

So probably the best thing to do right now is see if you can clean it up and get rid of the accidentals. Good luck!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Pat,

I am terribly sloppy about the accidentals: that is what happens when you cross over different music programs.

Well you will be pleased to know that someone on yahoo answers has identified the piece...it's from "the dance of the comedians" by Smetana...whew what a relief.

thanks for your help.
W

ps: I dislike atonal music as well, in fact I think the term is a bit of a misnomer: tonality is always present, it is only the effect of ignoring tonal rules that produces 'atonality'; it's an exclusionary definition, like defining a cow as a "not sheep"; moreover it is always limited to conveying a singular type of experience, namely that of going insane; you will never find atonal music that sounds happy, hopeful, dramatic, sad, sombre, regal, etc, it is always dark, incomprehensible, and erratic! They should call it absurd music.  

Answer
Hello, William,

That IS a relief, because that's a piece I am not familiar with!

I guess one should never say never. My mother took a course in music composition, and the professor asked the students to write a 12 tone piece. She wrote a suite. The overall feel of the suite was somber, melancholy. She did it by writing a single melody line in most cases, with almost no instances when two notes were played at once. But she despises atonal music as well. When my musically gifted son played it, though, he said, "This is weird!"

Thanks for letting me know what the piece was. I'm glad you got the answer.