Can you help me recall a piece of music?
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Jeruba (
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April 5th, 2013
Here’s what I remember:
• It would probably fall under the “classical” umbrella, but only if you opened it very, very wide.
• The composer is definitely a man and an American, and I’m pretty certain it was a 20th-century composition (or possibly late 19th).
• My memory indicates that it was by Aaron Copland or Charles Ives, but I can’t find a title in their lists of compositions that sounds like it would be what I remember. If not, then I’d say it was by someone who’d most likely be grouped with them in terms of period and type of music.
• To the best of my knowledge, I’ve heard this piece performed live only once, most likely in the early 1970s, by a Harvard orchestra or band, guest-conducted by Peter Schickele, and I think it was held in Memorial Hall; at any rate, it was definitely on the Harvard Campus.
• The main thing about it was that it was meant to sound like a small-town band, and the composition itself incorporated deliberate mistakes to lend authenticity to the sound. I thought it was brave of the composer to do that and even braver for a nonprofessional ensemble to play it in public.
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6 Answers
Check out Peter Schickele“s repertory, including PDQ Bach. It certainly sounds like one of his compositions. He is great fun!
@Sunny2, it was because I was a big Schickele fan that I went to the concert. But he was not the composer. It was a serious composition (humor and all) and not like one of Schickele’s hilarious musical pastiches or parodies.
“Old Home Days Suite,” by Ives?
Are you sure it wasn’t the piece that Harvard commissioned from him in 1974, Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion? I don’t see any references to him being a guest conductor with the Harvard Band, only doing his own (under his name and as PDQ Bach) stuff. His own website is so complete for recent works; it’s a real shame that it doesn’t extend very far into the past.
Recent performance here
Well, @glacial, from this distance I can’t give you certainty, but I think the answer is no. Two reasons:
First, I was already familiar with his compositions from radio programs and had attended one of his concerts before, so I wasn’t confused about what was his and what wasn’t. I remember being somewhat disappointed that this particular fairly long selection was not what I’d come to expect from Peter Schickele. As I’m recalling it, there was no comical stage business associated with this piece—only the deliberate discords that were written into the music. And I’m practically positive that the ensemble consisted of Harvard students.
Second, I have a somewhat fuzzy recollection of hearing him perform the piece you cited too—maybe even in the same program.
The year could have been 1974, but I’d have put it earlier. It had to be before mid-1977 because that’s when I left the area.
If either Ives or Copland wrote a piece such as I’ve described, I’d like to know what it’s called. (Thanks for the good suggestion, @bkcunningham. I just can’t fit my recollection to that description.)
Is it this piece?? Peter Schickele conducted and arranged the piece for Harvard Band. It was played at Harvard in 1975. The composer is PDQ Bach. It’s called Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion.
Oops! I just saw that @glacial already posted that. I did find that he guest conducted at Harvard in March 22,1975. Here is a newspaper article stating that.
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