Experiments in style: More musical variations

Why?

Greetings!

In the last ‘experiment in style’ I looked at musical variations, for the simple reason that the original idea — Exercises in Style, by Raymond Queneau — had been inspired by Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

In this post I wanted to explore this a little further, and raise a couple of questions. But mainly the purpose of this post is to share more examples of variations, for your enjoyment.

Do they always work?

I think the answer to this depends on what the musician is trying to achieve. For instance, although the Hooked on Classics rendering of well-known classical pieces isn’t as good as the originals, if they were intended to get people interested in exploring classical music for themselves then perhaps they were a good idea.

Do they work musically?

I think some do, and some don’t. However, it does show what amazing music the originals were to be able to reworked and mangled and yet still be, in most cases, listenable to!

I’d love to know what you think of some or all of these variarions. One of them is, in fact, a parody, which isn’t quite the same as a variation. It still works very well though in my opinion.

And now, for some music

The music featured here comprises:

• Hooked on Classics.

• Curved Air’s Vivaldi.

• Asturia’s Vivaldi.

• Bach’s Air on a G String.

• Jacques Loussier’s Air on a G String.

• Dudley Moore’s Beethoven Parody.

• Victor Borge playing the William Tell Overture backwards.

• A disco version of Beethoven’s Fifth.

• A mash-up of Vivaldi and Led Zeppelin.

• Les Dawson getting “Oh you beautiful doll” badly wrong.

Hooked on Classics

Curved air’s Vivaldi

I think the beginning and ending of this isn’t too bad, but the middle is cacophonous. It’s a hard rock version.

Asturia, electric strings quartet playing Vivaldi’s Storm

Bach’s Air on a G String (original)

Bach’s Air on a G String — jazz version

Dudley Moore’s parody of a Beethoven sonata

He captures perfectly Beethoven’s tendency to say, “I’m finishing now; hang on, I’m definitely finishing this time; wait a sec…!

Victor Borges plays William Tell backwards

A Fifth of Beethoven, by The Walter Murphy Band

2Cellos play a Beethoven and Led Zeppelin mash up

Les Dawson’s version of Oh you beautiful doll

Well, what do you think?

I’ve scheduled another variation of the ‘Bang on the head’ story for 14:00 UK time on 21 January 2024. See you then.