Philip Spiess
Nelson, Steve Collett, et al.: Good digging on operatic storm scenes! Yes, Nelson, we should have remembered those first three. But how could we all forget the storm in the "Wolf's Glen" scene in Weber's Der Freischutz? Yes, it is a supernatural storm, not a natural one, but it has winds, lightning, fireballs, tornadoes, etc. -- a devil of a storm! And I'm sure there are others, if we keep looking.
Then there are the symphonic storms: the one in Vivaldi's The Seasons; the one in the 3rd Movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F Major (cf., Walt Disney's Fantasia); the one in Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite ("Johnny's 'Call for Philip Morris'" theme). I'm sure we can find some more (Becky Payne, are you there?).
But what I'd now like to inquire about musically is this: Is anyone besides me interested in 19th-Century through the 1920s popular music, particularly songs? For years I've been collecting sheet music and recordings (I have an Edison cylinder phonograph, remember; see my picture on my "Profiles" section of this site) of such, and also collect 78 r.p.m. records -- not just Stephen Foster (though he is a Cincinnati composer), but also Henry Clay Work; band music (Sousa, of course, but including Henry Fillmore, another Cincinnati composer); operettas of the period (including The Prince of Pilsen, with its famous stock line, "Vas you efer in Zinzinnati?"); both temperance and drinking songs (the temperance songs are hilarious -- "Oh, Father, Dear Father, Come Home with Me Now"); minstrel show music ("Jump, Jim Crow" and "Old Dan Tucker"); Civil War ballads (North and South); spirituals and songs of the Underground Railroad; political campaign tunes (including "Ma, Ma, Where's My Pa? Up in the White House, darling!" -- about Grover Cleveland, who had an illegitimate child); songs about "fallen" women (my favorites -- "Midnight Rose" and "You Made Me What I Am Today, I Hope You're Satisfied"); vaudeville pieces (Sophie Tucker, Bert Williams, Fanny Brice); Tin Pan Alley ditties (my favorite, by Harry von Tiltzer, "She's Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage"); early Broadway show tunes (such as those of The Black Crook and Victor Herbert); ragtime (Scott Joplin and others); World War I anthems (the best war for great songs); "Dixie" melodies (such as those sung by Al Jolson); early jazz, crooning, and early Big Band music ("Doin' the Raccoon"); etc., etc., etc.
Anybody else interested in this stuff?
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