November 25 - Virgil Thomson (The Musical Birthday Series, 2nd Annual Cycle)

Virgil Thomson (25 November 1896 – 30 September 1989) was an American composer and music critic. 

[For last year's verses on Ethelbert Nevin and Franz Xaver Gruber click here.]

Pigeons on the Grass

Virgil Thomson, Gertrude Stein,

Worked together, it was fine.

She wrote words with little sense,

He wrote notes with no pretense.

Gertrude, when the plot was flimsy

Lost herself in verbal whimsy;

Virgil wrote a score that purged

Any logic that emerged.

Could this duo have success?

Yes is yes is yes is yes! 

 

 

 

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Faintly Saintly Quaintly

When preparing Four Saints in Three Acts

They were little concerned with the facts.

A disarming profusion

Of charming confusion

Atones when the logic is lax.

 

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Mother Superior

In the 40s came the call

To write The Mother of Us All,

Which tells the tale of Anthony,

(No, not the saint, but Susan B.)

 

 

 

 

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November 24 - Teddy Wilson (The Musical Birthday Series, 2nd Annual Cycle)

Teddy Wilson (24 November 1912 – 31 July 1986) was an American jazz pianist.

[For last year's limerick on Scott Joplin click here.]

Review

When Wilson sat down at the keys,

With polished and suave expertise,

His elegant swing

(A miraculous thing)

Was the breezy quintessence of ease.

  

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Bolshevik Name

 

He was dubbed the "Marxist Mozart" by Howard "Stretch" Johnson due to his support for left-wing causes.... -- Wikipedia  

When you’re given a musical nickname,

Whether grand sobriquet or a hick name,

It has to be said,

If your leanings are Red,

It might be a hope-it-won’t-stick name.

 

 

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November 23 - Krzysztof Penderecki, Jerry Bock (The Musical Birthday Series, 2nd Annual Cycle)

Krzysztof Penderecki (23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was one of the preeminent Polish composer of his time.

[For last years limerick, also on Penderecki click here.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Changed Perspectives

Yet those early works, which at the time struck so many as so arresting in their dramatic challenge to convention, now indeed seem – for some listeners at least – shallow, simplistic, or even opportunistic. Penderecki’s subsequent manner, meanwhile, retained the endless chromatic melodic sequences and tritones of the earlier manner in the context of a thematic tonality that could now prove simply banal. -- obituary in The Guardian

 

When Penderecki made his splash

With clusters in a sonic hash,

He took the music world by storm

With something quite outside the norm.

The shock (and yes, it was profound)

Engendered by this mass of sound

Has faded now that no one’s flustered

When a score is densely clustered.

Limerick by way of an envoi

He soon moved away from such sonics

To works that were rooted on tonics,

Which seemed dull and dour,

And devoid of the power

That distinguished his past histrionics.

 

♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪   

 

Jerry Bock (23 November 1928 – 3 November 2010) was an American composer of Broadway musicals including Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorillo!, and She Loves Me.

 

Bock, Bock, Bock

It’s Fiddler that everyone goes to,

But Bock wrote additional shows, too.

He said, “Someone should

Do my others, they’re good,

And I’d like to make money on those too.”

 

 

 

 

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November 22 - Cecil Sharp (The Musical Birthday Series, 2nd Annual Cycle)

Cecil Sharp (22 November 1859 – 23 June 1924) was instrumental in the revival of interest in English folk song and folk dancing.

[For last year's  tribute to Benjamin Britten click here.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morris or Less

[T]he interest generated by Sharp's notations [of Morris dances] spread the practice to urban areas, and resulted in certain Sharp-preferred morris styles to be popularized above other regional styles. -- Wikipedia

Men in white with ribbons prancing

Means a side is Morris dancing.

Amateurs with one ambition:

Keep alive this odd tradition.

When these modern urban men

Pretend they’re country folks again,

Let’s admit that here and there spots

Strike us as a little ersatz.

Grab your bells, your fife, your harp,

And blame it all on Cecil Sharp.

 

 

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November 21 - Malcolm Williamson (The Musical Birthday Series, 2nd Annual Cycle)

Malcolm Williamson (21 November 1931 – 2 March 2003) was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen’s Music from 1975 until his death. 

[For last year’s variety pack of short items on Ernest Charles; Coleman Hawkins; Björk; Sigfrid Karg-Elert click here.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bucking Buckingham

However, controversy attended his tenure, notably his failure to complete the intended "Jubilee Symphony" for the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 1977. He became less prolific in "Royal" works during the last twenty years or so of his life… --- Wikipedia

Williamson was none too keen

As Music Master to the Queen,

It’s an honor to be named,

But who can say he can be blamed -

Who in modern England toils

To satisfy the whims of Royals?

 

 

 

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