indy4 152 Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 This is about Bernstein's Wonderful Town. In "Christopher Street" there's a segment that seems to very clearly reference the Dies Irae. Does anybody know if this is intentional? And what is happening on the stage during this moment? It's around 2:50 of the original cast recording.Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry B 49 Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Are you serious? I'm listening to this album right now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indy4 152 Posted June 10, 2012 Author Share Posted June 10, 2012 Heh, nice coincidence. I just got it a few weeks ago and I'm really enjoying it. Do you know the part I'm talking about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry B 49 Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 I played the piano score for this show. Really hard. Yeah, the moment comes after a washed up football player and his girlfriend talk about how starved for cash they are. Each of the "fast" sections is supposed to be a parade of chaotic New York art. A circus. I guess by this point in the music the desperate and crazed New Yorkers have completely overtaken the naive tour guide's rosy presentation of the city. Actually, my other role in this show was an assistant to the stage manager, so I never saw what was happening. Who knows?Anyway... are you sure you're not developing an unhealthy obsession with this little motive? The first four notes are, of course, all over Christopher Street (do-ti-do-la, displaced as so-fi-so-mi in a lydian mode), but they're such a simple construction that it's hard to say the quote was intentional. It definitely gets a little more sinister sounding in the moment you mentioned, so maybe that was Bernstein saying, "hey, the fast theme I wrote sounds like Dies Irae." He was a very referential composer, of course. But I don't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indy4 152 Posted June 10, 2012 Author Share Posted June 10, 2012 It's quite possible...I've been hearing it in a lot of works recently. Although usually I try to check the context before labeling it as a definitive variation. I hadn't noticed that the other theme uses the first four notes to, given that and the fact that there's nothing going on on stage that's related to the Dies Irae at this moment, I'd say it's probably not intentional.Anywho, thanks for the info! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ren 75 Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Love me some solfege conversation. Will look this dies quote up now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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