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Uplifting Thoughts for the Isolated and Depressed in Times of Plague

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He’s quite good, this Mozart guy, should go far! ;) By the way, that Soprano is f*cking gorgeous.. I’m having impure thoughts unsuitable for this thread!…:rolleyes:
well, I have sung that myself - not half so well, her voice is beyond envy, it's perfect. But you can have impure thoughts of Eul singing impurely. :devil:
 
well, I have sung that myself - not half so well, her voice is beyond envy, it's perfect. But you can have impure thoughts of Eul singing impurely. :devil:
Sounds like an invitation… to post “The Fair Singer” by Andrew Marvell

The Fair Singer​

by Andrew Marvell

To make a final conquest of all me,
Love did compose so sweet an enemy,
In whom both beauties to my death agree,
Joining themselves in fatal harmony;
That while she with her eyes my heart does bind,
She with her voice might captivate my mind.

I could have fled from one but singly fair,
My disentangled soul itself might save,
Breaking the curled trammels of her hair.
But how should I avoid to be her slave,
Whose subtle art invisibly can wreath
My fetters of the very air I breathe?

It had been easy fighting in some plain,
Where victory might hang in equal choice,
But all resistance against her is vain,
Who has th’advantage both of eyes and voice,
And all my forces needs must be undone,
She having gained both the wind and sun.
 
“Sombre” version of BBC tv news theme, to suit the sombre times.. they removed most of the percussion and now you can hear some rather lovely harmonies in the strings and brass. The excellent aerial photography doesn’t hurt it, either.
It reminds me more than anything of the Halo videogame soundtrack, which turned out to be a surprisingly sombre and plangent affair.
 
Because today marks 150 years since his birth, here is Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Sir John Barbirolli and the Sinfonia of London

Oh I love that.. it’s so English, it makes the Shakespeares stand up on the back of my spitfire .. I love The Lark Ascending too, though it is widely disparaged by music snobs.
 

I found an interesting video about J.S. Bach's influence on popular music and I find this topic quite uplifting. Six songs and their Bach sources are named here.

1. Simon an Garfunkel - Brige Over Trouble Water / Bach - Passion Chorale "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded" ("O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden"). Melody by Hans Leo Hassler (1601), harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach (1729).

2. Simon an Garfunkel - American Tune / Bach - Passion Chorale "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded" ("O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden").

3. The Beatles (Paul McCartney) - Blackbird / Bach - Bourrée from Suite in E minor for Lute, BWV 996.

4. The Beach Boys - Lady Lynda / Bach - "Jesu, Joy of Men's Desiring" ("Jesus bleibet meine Freude") from Cantata BWV 147.

5. Jem - They / Bach - Prelude in F minor from WTK, Book II, No. 12, BWV 881.

6. Procol Harum - A Whiter Shade Of Pale / Bach - Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068.

Also in the comments I found another interesting example:
The Beatles - Penny Lane / Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047 - I. Allegro.

Please write what examples of such influence you could give? I mean more hidden influence, not direct arrangements like those done by Jethro Tull, Ekseption, etc.
 
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Some months ago, I stumbled over some German internet discussions about similarities in famous and historical pieces of music. I am knowing not much enough about the history of music to decide if this all is correct, but I can try to translate a part of these discussions. These discussions started in another place about the big difference whether a piece of music is played "in der Dur- oder in der Moll-Version" (in English probably: "in the major or in the minor version").

Quotations from this German internet discussion:


1.
Folk song melodies are often widespread, or to put it another way: a folk song is often not "limited to one people" - e.g. B. Centuries ago some travelers "brought" a melody from their home country to another region. It may then have developed somewhat differently over time in the "old homeland" and in the "new area", but the similarity / relationship can still be heard very clearly. (For example, in many "folk songs" in the USA it is easy to recognize that they originally come from Ireland or the Alps, for example - that's why "classic" yodelling is also used in country music.. .)

And citations of folk songs (and other well-known melodies) are always a common "trick" - at least in the "Moldau" Smetana has expressly resorted to it, he wanted the country through which the Moldau flows in this program music to be "folkish " describe.

Many states use folk songs or other "well-known" melodies as national anthems, so it may well be that the Israeli anthem (consciously or unconsciously) is based on this folk song - the melody of the German anthem also comes from another song ("Gott erhalte Franz, den Kaiser", Austrian imperial anthem by Joseph Haydn)

Williams' film music is obviously a deliberate quote from the Israeli anthem, since the film is about the assassination of Israeli athletes and the Israeli secret service Mossad.

2.
The melody we are talking about has its origins in the Renaissance song "La Mantovana": "The rondo-repeated main theme consists of a melody that also appears in the 17th-century Italian Renaissance song "La Mantovana" and is also used, with slight modifications, in the Swedish folk song "Ack Värmeland", the Israeli national anthem "HaTikva" and the German-Austrian children's song "Alle meine Entchen" = "All My Ducklings".



... but you can also find more here:


3.
Hence the melody:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Mantovana

Incidentally, musical quotations are nothing unusual in the art of music. So there is no reason for many absurd conspiracy theories, which you can find often about all kinds of similarities in historical examples of the original music themes.
 
Oh I love that.. it’s so English, it makes the Shakespeares stand up on the back of my spitfire .. I love The Lark Ascending too, though it is widely disparaged by music snobs.
Feeling in need of uplifting, I thought I'd play this - I hadn't noticed your post, Monty, but I'm glad to dedicate it to you :)

 
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