I've decided not to fight with the Dailykos software today, which has been flaking out today. I don't trust the save draft button right now. So I'm not going to write a big OPUS. Instead, I shall slack off and invite YOU, the READERS, to entertain ME and EVERYBODY ELSE by posting Youtube videos of some of your favorite classical music. Anything you want. And just to make it a little challenging, I suggest you show us your favorite march music!
You're intimidated by that? You can't think of any classical marches, except John Philip Sousa, and does he even count?
A march is technically anything in 4/4 time (four beats per measure) that makes you want to stomp your boots rhythmically, perhaps as you're moving forward. Apply the term as loosely as you want; nobody is being graded.
Here's a beautiful little march by Haydn.
(Note: Let's save Siegfried's Funeral March for next week. Other than that one piece, Wagner is fair game, too).
We've done this series for 21 weeks now, and I haven't posted Haydn even once, so it's about goddam time. This slender maiden of a march movement is from his "Clock" Symphony #101 in D Major.
Yes, that's #101. Haydn was one prolific bastard. Of his 103 symphonies, I can boldly put this movement up there in the top 3% of his symphonic output. This is basically a variations on a theme type movement.
From my beloved Schubert's Symphony #9 in C major, of course, there's the Andante movement. It's too long for one clip (it has a second part on youtube) but it's worth it. AND, it's conducted by my favorite conductor, Wilhelm Furtwangler, in a live 1942 recording with the Berlin Philharmonic. (And this is the best clip I'll post today, IMHO.)
I'm going to cheat for the next one. Mozart wrote any number of pieces I could have chosen, but I love this, the third movement (Rondo) from his Violin Concerto #5 "Turkish", K.219. It starts out as a waltz, 3/4, but in the middle section, it changes to a 4/4 Turkish March rhythm.
Has anybody seen Star Wars? I always sit through the credits so I can hear the music again, including John Williams' The Imperial March, the Darth Vader theme.
Is that cheating? Movie music? Hell no! Sure, it's movie music, but it is classical. It has an orchestra, a conductor, a composer and everything. I know, you've heard it too many times, yeah, yeah. But if you're so jaded you can't enjoy the Darth Vader theme, then to the Dark Side with ye!
However, the next one is a REAL cheat. When George Lucas was making Star Wars, his first, temporary working film score was cobbled together from classical music pieces. He then handed that over to John Williams and told him, "Gimme something like that."
In that first, working score, the Imperial March scenes were accompanied by Mars, from Gustav Holst's The Planets, one of the great stereo busters. And the best part: It's in 5/4 time! Tell me if this don't make you want to put on your jackboots and stomp out some liberty! Try not to trip, though.
Dude, that's violent, trippy music. But, of course, when we want violent, trippy march music, there's the other Gustav, Gustav Mahler. For instance, his whole Symphony #6, which should be subtitled "The Nazi Marching Music Symphony." But maybe the first movement of his Symphony #5 provides an even better example.
And for an equally grim march, there's always this, The March to the Scaffold, from The Symphonie Fantastique by French Romantic composer, Hector Berlioz. In the fourth movement of this program symphony, the hero/protagonist, wasted on drugs, hallucinates that he has killed his lover and has been sentenced to the guillotine. We don't just get to hear him march to the guillotine. At the end, we hear the blade cut off his head, and then a little dum-dum sound as his head rolls away. Very classy for it's time, 1830, just three years after Beethoven's death.
Hmmm... I'm not used to having this much time left. I have deliberately left out some rather famous marches so I don't hog all the glory. Can you guess which ones? Impress us all!
Next Week: More Wagner! More Tristan and some Parsifal, at the very least.