Spaghetti Western Orchestra

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 May 19 - 06:36 PM

The ocarina!
Shades of Catspaw49!

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 May 19 - 05:36 PM

I think you're referring to an ocarina.

While this isn't the over-the-top Hoffnung concerts, it is a performance that illustrates versatility of musicians and their pleasure in making all sorts of music with all sorts of things.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 06 May 19 - 05:23 PM

Thank You Mr. Sage,

Great fun.

In the Few Dollars More...what is the small whistle instrument called?

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

I always thought that haunting sound was made by blowing between the thumb knuckles into cupped hands.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 May 19 - 11:02 AM

A Fistful of Dollars — more Morricone by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Whistling by Tuva Semmingsen.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 May 19 - 01:05 PM

This seems a good thread to post this link a friend recently sent me via Facebook: For A Few Dollars More—The Danish Symphony Orchestra.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 05:35 AM

The world would be a poorer place without diversity etc etc.

Exactly, which is why this common-minded reductive crap makes it all the poorer. Still, as culture implodes looking always for novel ways to re-package itself one might brace oneself for the Jubilee in which I would imagine there'll be some hilarious ironic takes on The Sex Pistols at least, thus missing the humour (and joy) that underwrote the whole thing in the first place.

I take my music, and my comedy, very seriously indeed - which is but one of the reasons I love the music of Ennio Morricone...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsfBSs5bDbE&feature=related

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 05:08 AM

The SWO were on Radio 4 last evening (Loose Ends, 6.15pm) playing "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" theme. It was mildly entertaining and I did wonder who was playing the jaw's harp that featured fairly prominently.

I think we all tend to defend our favourite pieces from "send-up" do we not?

The world would be a poorer place without diversity etc etc.

Oh and I like Hoffnung - but it's funniest when one knows something about what is being sent up. I too have the LPs, and remember the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra having a "Hoffnung" evening with assorted floor cleaners, lengths of tubing, and players whom I knew doing silly things with bits of tubing. It was a good way to interest a child in symphonic music.

Paws

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 04:40 AM

I'm assuming this re-surfaced owing to more spamming antics? But surely,if Mods have the power to remove posts, have they not the power to return the posts back to their slumbers in the vaults?

Anyway, nice to see it again, because it ties in with something I was thinking a few minutes ago whilst making breakfast, which is that music is a way of life, integral to cultural vibrancy on all sorts of levels. Performance is always going to awkward in this respect, but once it becomes just an act is ceases to be of any value whatsoever.

Anyway, let's have that last link again, eh? One of Morricone's finest & one of the finest pieces of music ever made, IMHO. Play loud!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxTTF_8Pyso

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Sep 11 - 04:01 PM

Fun is so one dimensional, Bonzo; it trivialises great art. Ennio Morricone's music operates on all sorts of levels. It's like doing a comedy send-up show of the music of Frank Zappa - or Vivian Stanshall; comedy is one aspect of their work, and even then it's pretty dark & complex and all the richer because of it.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Sep 11 - 02:01 PM

For fuck's sake it's supposed to be FUN!!!!!

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: open mike
Date: 11 Sep 11 - 01:51 PM

theramin alert...there is one of these in their arsenal...as well as an asthma inhaler...(go figure?)

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Sep 11 - 12:01 PM

going off on a bit of a tangent..

reminds me just how good the "The High Llamas" used to be,
now that was a band I'd have trusted to play Morricone with respect
and genuine affectionate admiring celebration...

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Sep 11 - 04:53 AM

Thanks, fat b****rd! Never saw it either - I couldn't get past my purist outrage over the common-minded dumbing down of such iconic music - which any such send-up amounts to really. I'm not browbeating here, BTW, just saying how I feel, personally like...

Anyway - here's my favourite ever piece of Ennio Morricone's Western music; it's over 9 minutes long & as beautifully & joyfully transcendent as anything else I can't presently think of. As a child it held me enchanted - not only because it features my name, but that was always part of its lingering appeal. Play this at my funeral please...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxTTF_8Pyso

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 11 - 02:19 AM

The tone of your last post, Jennie, seems to me just as 'browbeating' of those who didn't find it funny as you accuse them of being of you, who did? It seems that if anyone should hold an opinion different from yours, then you will go home and take your ball with you and refuse to play any more.

~M~

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Sep 11 - 12:06 AM

JennieG, I enjoyed it and I don't think there is anything wrong with having a bit of fun. So...if the purists want to disagree, fine, but they won't steal my funny bone! My goodness where this puir old world would be without with the musical humour the likes of Anna Russell, Victor Borge and others!? Thanks, again, for the link, Jennie!

For those of you who are not pleased, no one is insisting that you have to listen to it.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: michaelr
Date: 10 Sep 11 - 10:34 PM

Morricone's music is iconic, but I would not call it great art. But even if it were that, would it be too sacred to be sent up like this?

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: JennieG
Date: 10 Sep 11 - 06:55 PM

I'm bowing out of this, as apparently one isn't allowed to hold any sort of opinion about anything without being browbeaten by those who disagree. The world would be a poor place if we all felt the same about everything.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Johnmc
Date: 10 Sep 11 - 04:13 PM

Surely the issue is whether anyone watching them who didn't know the originals would be deterred from exploring them. IMOP the renditions were in themselves excellent.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Sep 11 - 08:45 AM

Ah, yes, Will. Sorry to have misexpressed: I did appreciate your attitude, and took up your phrase, with acknowledgment, purely as a useful one to reinforce the point. Rereading my post, I can see that I didn't make that sufficiently clear.

I know many people find Hoffnung funny. Just leaves me cold, I fear: but what humour appeals to any individual is notoriously a most personally inexplicable phenomenon.

~M~

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: Will Fly
Date: 10 Sep 11 - 08:39 AM

Michael, I'm suggesting that the Spaghetti Western Orchestra invests Morricone's music with an exaggerated level of irony which is unnecessary. So I'm agreeing with Suibhne - and if you'd read my post properly you would have realised that.

If you can't find humour in Gerard Hoffnung, then I can't help you. I treasure the albums of the concerts he organised at the Festival Hall - the parodies of Schonberg and the wonderful "Let's Make An Opera" - where the Valkyries ride to the stage on Vespa scooters - still have me in fits of laughter. He was a most humane and intelligent man, and a talented cartoonist and musician - his early death was a sad loss.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Sep 11 - 08:22 AM

I find myself with Suibhne on this one. Not everything is improved by being sent up. Nor does every send-up furnish any insight into the original. Jenni G, in the OP, praises this farrago by asserting that she 'will never feel the same about western movie music again'. Would she care to explain wherein lies the advantage of that? I like western movie music [Morricone, Bernstein, Moross ...], and should prefer to be left in peace to continue feeling the same about it, thank you. Why, Will, should it be 'invested with an exaggerated level of irony'? What does it, or the hearer, supposedly gain by that? If one recited, say, Donne's 'A Nocturnal Upon St Lucie's Day' or Keats' 'To Autumn' in a silly voice, would any 'exaggerated level of irony' thus achieved make the world in any way a better place? And, if so, how?

As to the "great Hoffnung" prayed in support above: I was always bored to sobs by his work, & could never make out what anyone was laughing at.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: fat B****rd
Date: 10 Sep 11 - 07:12 AM

The sitcom was called Nighty Night and was around in 2004 on BBC3 and 2.
This doesn't mean I watched it.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: melodeonboy
Date: 10 Sep 11 - 07:00 AM

It's widely known that spaghetti goes down well with cheese! :)

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 10 Sep 11 - 05:05 AM

One of Ennio's most joyful, banal, grotesque, self-parodying and yet upliftingly beautiful themes. Listen awhile & smile for the rest of the day...

Il Mio Nome E Nessuno (AKA My Name Is Nobody)

Now, what was the UK sitcome that pinched this for its main theme?

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 01:51 PM

...and then listen to his superb music track for "The Battle Of Agiers"...

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 11:57 AM

If Mudcat had a 'like' button I'd like that comment, Will! That's it in a nutshell really, although by the time Leone is producing (not directing) Il Mio Nome E Messuno (AKA My Name Is Nobody) in 1974 they both have their tongues firmly in their cheeks, so they're sending up their own parodies. Complex, eh? The main theme of this still-classic score ended up as a UK sit-com theme (can't remember what) which was indignity enough for me!

Otherwise Morricone's music is full of grotesque irony & humour - often sublime, often quite twisted, like his ultra-lounge music he did for sexed up Italian thrillers in the sixties. Amazing music which is forged from subverting popular idioms into something entirely surreal and wondrous which then goes on to influence the very pop idioms he's parodying. Try this (very groovy) Youtube playlist:

Morricone Party

Now listen afresh to his classic Western scores....

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 11:22 AM

There's an interesting point in Suibhne's comments. Leone took the idea of the Western and the Mythic West - a West which hardly existed as it's been portrayed in countless "oaters" - and twisted it into a grotesque ironic filmscape populated with exaggerated set pieces. Morricone's music parallels the visuals by doing the same with the soundtrack - taking the conventions of the music in such films and drawing them out with irony and humour. That's my take on them anyway.

So, the question is: can you take an ironic and skewed musical soundscape and subject it to yet more irony...? The Ukulele Orchestra of GB deal in bathos - taking grand statements like Eric Coates' "Dambusters" march and giving it an ironic twist. The great Gerard Hoffnung did the same when arranging the "1812" for recorders and popguns... And very well done it was. The Spaghetti Western Orchestra, as Suibhne has said, are investing Morricone's music with an exaggerated level of irony.

All a bit convoluted perhaps - and the only judgement you can actually make is whether you like it or not. I let my own ears have a listen to it and, well played though it undoubtedly is, to me it was rather over-contrived and inedible - but that's just me...

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 11:00 AM

I shall listen to it again.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: JennieG
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 08:36 AM

I listened to the whole concert, and I didn't find it trivial....it was entertaining, and surely the point of any concert is to entertain an audience? It was done with humour, but also with affection for the music.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 07:31 AM

Er - I'm just excercising free speech here; expressing my sincere opinion about the music. I'm not cautioning anyone here for liking it, so please don't presume to caution me.

Why be so precious? Because the music is precious. It goes way beyond mere 'fun' and 'accomplishment'. BUT the irony here is that in trivialising Ennio's Western scores they miss the irony that's inherent in the music anyway - this is at its most explicit in his score for Il Mio Nome e Nessuno, but it's there throughout the Dollars trilogy and never better than in Gui La Testa which is about as perfect as music gets - for me at least.

What next? Comedy Moondog? Comedy Harry Partch? Comedy Sun Ra? Or comedy Zappa (Does Humour Belong in Music)? Comedy Palestrina? Comedy Plain Chant? If the only way people are going to listen to this stuff is by making it 'funny' (oh my aching sides) then I think it really is time to despair (I really do!)

Please note: Only my opinion though, which I am, as ever, no doubt entitled too, however so unmutual to the usual Mudcat Consensus...

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,JohnnyB
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 07:07 AM

For goodness sake, behave yourself!
Why be so precious about what is essentially good fun with accomplished musicians playing fine music.
I despair, I really do.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 06:27 AM

It trivialises great art. We're living in an age of dumbed down culture for the sake of mere entertainment. Red Priest have fun with the music (not Morricone!) but it's still worth listening to. Didn't the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain do something similarly awful with Morricone recently? I despair, I really do - but then again, I'm a life-long fan of Ennio Morricone and a long time detester of 'musical comedy' in general. Ghastly...

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 06:19 AM

They are earning a living from having fun, nothing wrong with that.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 03:55 AM

Thing is it would be amazing if somebody had the nouce to do this sort of thing with DIGNITY & RESPECT (to both themselves & the music) - like Matt Berry did in his tributes to Ronnie Hazlehurst...

Matt Berry plays Ronnie Hazlehurst

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 03:49 AM

Bunch of muso pillocks being disrepectful to some of the greatest film music ever written for some of the greatest films by one of the greatest composers of our age. Morricone's in fashion right now; I see Hayley Westenra's teamed up with him for her new CD...

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: gnomad
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 03:39 AM

The BBC broadcast a TV show (about an hour) from that concert, of which I just happened to catch the tail end. It looked a hoot, and I am now hoping they will repeat it so I can watch the whole thing.

Subject: RE: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 10:04 PM

That is brill and hilarious!! Thanks!

Subject: Spaghetti Western Orchestra
From: JennieG
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 09:09 PM

The other day a concert given by this band at the British Proms was broadcast on our local public radio....it was hilarious.
Spaghetti Western Orchestra
I'll never feel the same about western movie music again........

Cheers
JennieG