Dave Brubeck's "Fare Thee Well Annabelle"

I'm still making my way through the CDs I got for Christmas.  All I have left are some Dave Brubeck albums.  To-day I listened to the first disc of a two-disc set that combines three albums.  It's just a small thing, but I noticed that at about 5:44 in "Fare Thee Well Annabelle" from Jazz: Red Hot and Cool, Brubeck quotes Bach, specifically the chorale movements (VI and X) of Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147.  It's not an exact quote, but it's enough to recognize.

The Association's "Like Always"

This morning I skipped ahead a bit and listened to The Association's Greatest Hits, and I noticed a couple things about "Like Always."  I had to figure out the part to confirm it (and I'm still not that sure), but there's a descending line in the backing vocals (which I think is chromatic - D, C#, C, B) during the line "Things are gettin' better" during the last verse.  There's some friction there between the music (the downward line that implies sadness or disappointment) and the lyrics (that have an uplifting sentiment).  In some ways, it's a foreshadowing of the spoken part at the end:  "You know I don't know what to do about that girl / She just comes and goes and goes and goes and goes."  At first, the girl makes his "troubles seem funny and small," but then she "comes and goes."  There's the same positive and negative aspects in the "Things are gettin' better" juxtaposed against that descending backing vocal line.

I got thinking about the song again after I listened to it, and I realized that in the middle, where there are numerous vocal parts, one of them ("Slip, slip away" at about 1:38) has a rather large interval between the two syllables of "away," demonstrating distance.  I had to figure it out to discover that it's a fifth (E to A).

And while looking up all of these things to write about it, I discovered something else.  The backing vocals during the first half of the last verse remain on an A note.  There's a stasis in pitch apparently to reflect the line "I've been too long in this groove."

Corelli: 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6: Concerto No. 7 in D major

Over the last week, I've been listening to The Argo Years by Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the Fields.  To-day I got to the last disc, which contains selections from various composers' concerti grossi, and I noticed something about Corelli's (Concerto No. 7 in D major from 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6).

A few days ago, I wrote about a diatonically-descending line that skips octaves after every pair of notes in his Concerto No. 12 from the same work.  It's also in Concerto No. 7, specifically in the third movement:

(notation found here)

As in Concerto No. 12, it's primarily in the cello part, but pairs of adjacent notes are also in the other instrumental parts (although the viola is ascending rather than descending).

Finding this feature again furthers the confusion that I talked about last time, but - if nothing else - I found a similarity between two concerti in this Corelli work.

Handel: Messiah, HWV 56

I just listened to Handel's Messiah.  Last summer, I listened to it fairly regularly as part of an-other project, and I ended up writing a lengthy post about it, but listening to it this time, I found something new... sort of.

I'd noticed before that in Part II, No. 23, Handel puts in a cross-shaped figure in the vocal melody for the first "He was despised":

(notation found here)

A few years ago, I read John Eliot Gardiner's Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, and he illustrates how Bach does this in Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4:

I've been fascinated by this feature since then.

Listening to the Messiah this time, I heard (and then confirmed via the score) a cross-shape for "acquainted" later in "He was despised":

Back in June, I wrote how that first cross figure (for "He was despised") "provide[s] an example of one of the forms in which Christ was despised - the crucifixion."  Similarly, the cross-inscription for "acquainted" links what's described in the text ("a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief") with its cause.

Corelli: 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6, Concerto No. 12 in F major

Yester-day I listened to Corelli's 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6.  I noticed something in the first movement of the last concerto (No. 12 in F major), but it's not so much something I want to point out as it is something that confused me.

What I thought I heard (and what checking the score revealed to be true) was pairs of notes played at alternating octaves that trace a diatonic descent.  In the example below, it's in the cello part in measures 19 and 22-23:

(notation found here)

It sounded familiar to me because this is the fourth classical piece I've found that feature in.  I first read about them in Bach's cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 in John Eliot Gardiner's Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, and then I discovered they're also in Bach's Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068:

(notation found here [BWV 4] and here [BWV 1068])

Then about four months ago, I found the same feature in Grieg's From Holberg's Time, Op. 40:

(notation found here)

At the time, I was reading a book of Grieg's letters and found one where he mentions Bach's cantatas.  Since he was obviously familiar with Bach and since the Holberg Suite was meant to be written as an evocation of an older style, I postulated that Grieg took that octave-skipping feature from Bach.  Now that I've found it in an-other piece from the same era (the early 18th century), I'm not so sure about that.  As a composer, Bach wasn't well-known in his lifetime, so I don't think that the same feature showing up in Corelli's piece is evidence of his influence.  It seems like that octave-skipping might just have been a common baroque feature.

The Temptations' "Funky Music Sho Nuf Turns Me On"

Yester-day I listened to the first disc of the Temptations' Anthology, so I'm listening to the second disc to-day.  I noticed something about "Funky Music Sho Nuf Turns Me On."  At about 1:07, there's a vocal phrase that stays on a single note for just over three whole measures, dips a little before rising again, and then trails off as it descends.  It sounded familiar to me because an almost-identical phrase is in Sly & the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song," which I listened to as part of their Anthology a few days ago.  In "Sing a Simple Song," it first appears at about 0:40.  The two phrases start on different notes, but the intervals are the same (they might start to diverge near the end though).

I lookt up the dates in the liner notes, and "Sing a Simple Song" is from 1969 where "Funky Music Sho Nuf Turns Me On" is from 1972, so it seems that the Temptations took that phrase from Sly & the Family Stone.

The Moody Blues' "The Story in Your Eyes"

I'm listening to the Moody Blues' Every Good Boy Deserves Favour for the first time (I got it for Christmas).  The only song I already know from the album is "The Story in Your Eyes."  I was thinking about it before I even started listening, and I realized something that should have been obvious from when I wrote about the song a few weeks ago.

In the final verse, there's some internal rhyme in the line "And it's certain that the curtain's gonna fall."  To some degree, the certainty is emphasized because of that internal rhyme, like the words' starting to resemble each other represents the inevitability of the end.

I'd noticed that internal rhyme last time, but it wasn't until to-day that I got thinking about why it's there.  Incidentally, there's a Glenn Miller song - "Wishing (Will Make It So)" - that does a similar thing with the same "certain"/"curtain" rhyme.

The Beatles' "Old Brown Shoe"

This morning I listened to the second disc of the Beatles' Anthology 3, and I noticed a small thing about "Old Brown Shoe."  (It's in the single version too, but it's clearer in the version on Anthology 3.)  The melody of the vocal part descends at the end of the line "You know you pick me up from worse and try to drag me down," so you get the impression of the "drag[ging] down."

Argent's "Lonely Hard Road"

This morning I listened to Argent's eponymous and debut album, and I noticed something about "Lonely Hard Road."  During the first half of the song, the backing vocals are panned to the right, but after the tempo change at about 2:39, when they appear again, they're panned to the left.  If those backing vocals are assumed to be static; their apparent shift from right to left is actually the movement of everything else to the right.  So between those shifting backing vocals and that tempo change, the singer/speaker seems to have made some progress in his walk.

The Beatles' "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"

An-other thing I noticed while listening to the Beatles' Anthology 2 is the time change in "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" (it's in the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band version too).  After the line "And of course Henry the Horse dances the waltz," the song changes from 4/4 time to 3/4 time - the time signature that waltzes are in.