

#Classical music tag yourself torrent#
Even Moore’s performance, where the form is the fun, only draws laughs from the audience at two points: the introduction, when we first hear the modally mixed subject, and the final torrent of cadences, repeated over and over with a knowing look at the audience. Its satire is brief, focused, and has a sense of punching up, as it mocks the verbose conventions of the Psalms heard at Evensongs all over England.īy and large, these examples work because they use their intricate and creative music as a vehicle to poke fun at external subjects, be it the church, the psalter, the idea of a Baroque bassooning Beegee, or the fantastical notion that the Match of the Day theme tune will ever be changed. Bailey’s musical predecessors Richard Stilgoe and Peter Skellern also manage to show the genre’s potential in their deliciously concise satire “Chant,” from their 1985 album, “Who Plays Wins.” “Chant” is a 30-second intro to a song that imagines a conversation between two warring clergymen it ends with a lament to their mutually dwindling congregations.

To his credit, Bailey’s live orchestral show, “Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra,” is a marvelous affair, its crowning achievement coming as Bailey buries a reedy rendition of The Bee Gees’ “How Deep is Your Love” under an entire Baroque trumpet concerto. There’s Alastair McGowan on Satie, a vivid history of a colorful character punctuated by impressions and Kieran Hodgson’s show “Maestro,” which also turns to character work as it seamlessly combines a passionate personal narrative with extended skits about Sprechgesang. This genre generally gets more interesting when the proceedings move away from pure pianism, although Victoria Wood’s “The Ballad of Barry and Freda” lives on with its ragtime accompaniment and bawdy lyrics (“Not bleakly, not meekly / Beat me on the bottom with a Woman’s Weekly”). A thing becomes funny, essentially, because it changes mode. Moore’s parody requires more knowledge of the form (Is it really a parody? Or more an elaborate demonstration of a detailed knowledge of classical form, good enough to drag any random tune through?), but the crux of the joke stays the same. Consider then Bailey’s magnum opus, a version of the soccer roundup show “Match of the Day” theme tune re-imagined as a Klezmer folk dance, which, you guessed it, turns from C major into C minor. Maybe not…), but the overarching comedy derives from something we know in C major appearing in C minor. Moore’s skit works very obviously on two levels (maybe there’s a drearily convoluted postwar subtext involving Moore turning the Kwai theme, a tune synonymous in Britain with rude songs about Hitler, into a tongue-in-cheek heroic-Teutonic musical journey. Has this form of classical music comedy changed much since then? Compare Moore’s performance with British stand-up Bill Bailey’s turn on “The One Show” from 2012. It’s clever humor, and both the audience and the performer are in on the joke.
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Alford’s march “Colonel Bogey,” made famous as the song the soldiers whistle in the war movie “The Bridge Over the River Kwai.” Moore escorts the theme through the form, with all the trappings you might expect from a sonata: a tempestuous Allegro with hand crossing, German sixth chords, an elaborate Alberti bass and impulsive harmonic switches.

Moore sits at the piano, playing a minor version of Kenneth J.

Transport yourself back to the 1960s, to Dudley Moore in black-and-white, parodying a Beethoven Piano Sonata. While Burnham’s flash production and pervasive unease have all the hallmarks of the 21st century–“Look I made you some content / Daddy made you your favorite, open wide” is a lyric that strikes at the heart of the modern creative anxiety–it’s a format that has its roots in a rather establishment form of comedy. These Ditties, like “F Sharp” by Tim Minchin, or Bo Burnham’s “Art Is Dead,” ultimately seek to retain the bashful, self-effacing performativity of a group of musicians secretly gagging for a “quiet genius” tag.Ĭomedians like Minchin and Burnham have made that niche their own over the past decade. Is classical music funny? The Witty Ditty Industry, made up of (mostly) white men in their 30s, would probably reply singing “Of course not!” Their retort would be snappily harmonized, with enough panache to make whoever questioned their authority look a bit silly but not quite enough commitment to suggest this retort is entirely ironic.
