The music of Alywn Surplice, who has a funny name if you consider that his surname is also a vestment, is seldom heard.
Surplice was Director of Music at Bristol and Winchester Cathedrals. I don't believe he had any connection to Gloucester Cathedral, seen in the opening of this YouTube clip.
Note that American Episcopal congregations are familiar with the textual alteration "stars of the morning", which is a very different image than the "sons of the morning". Sung this way, the context for the rest of the hymn is quite different.
Maybe that's why I've always been ambivalent about this text.
Labels: Epiphany, funny names, hymns
For your consideration: English composer, violinist and organist Obadiah Shuttleworth
Labels: funny names
Church musicians just finished with an "all Buxtehude all the time" 2007, and now, here's Sinden.org pointing out the fact that 2008 happens to be the 300th anniversary of the death of English composer and organist John Blow (scores).
Blow's one of those minor English composers whose name (along with that of William Crotch) is not often featured on concert posters.
Tired of anniversary years? Don't hold your breath. 2009? Purcell's 350th (birth), Handel's 250th (death); Haydn's 200th (death), and Mendelssohn's 200th (birth).
Labels: Blow, funny names, William Crotch
The airport has just paged someone named Dewey Decelheimer.
Labels: airports, funny names
Pick truly hot Bach tune.
That's just one of the anagrams you can make from "Oliphant Chuckerbutty". Are there others anagrams, you ask?
And it's maybe the best anagram to offer up some biographical possibilities. Chuckerbutty (usually starting a sentence with a last name lends it some authority) played the organ both in the church, hence the Bach tune, and the cinema, hence the hotness of the aforementioned tune.
But let's face it. You can't have the name Oliphant Chuckerbutty and be anything other than an organist.
After learning your name at a cocktail party, imagine the following scenarios:
Scenario one: wherein Oliphant is a plumber
Q: So, Oliphant, what do you do for a living?
A: I'm a plumber.
Q: Um, I'm dangerously low on cocktail shrimp. See ya.
Scenario two: wherein Oliphant is an organist
Q: So, Oliphant, if that is your real name. What do you do for a living?
A: I'm plumber.
Q: No you're not. Aren't you the one that wrote that Paean by Oliphant Chuckerbutty?
A: Yes, it's just a little fanfare sort of ditty, just under three minutes. It starts out with a stereotypical fanfare kind of idea rising 1, 2, 3 deal accompanied by sixth, fourth and a third respectively. It has a few quirky bits, and carefully registered, could be interesting.
Q; Hm, I seem to be running low on cocktail shrimp. Can I . . .
A: I have to take issue with the rather boring and unsteady performance provided by Kalena Wheeler on this week's Pipedreams program. It just wasn't up to snuff. I mean, if you're going to play my music, you can at least play it well.
Q: Hey, do you know about the Chuckerbutty Ocarina Quartet?
A: Ha. Chuckerbutty. That's a funny name.
Labels: Chuckerbutty, funny names, organ
It seems my musings on Crotch have generated some interest in his music.
As of today, "Lo! star-led chiefs" is available on the Choral Public Domain Library thanks to someone named Thomas Strode. Thanks Thomas!
Also available is Crotch's boring, over-repetitive "Comfort, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant"
So, download some Crotch today!
And since it seems all of his music must be in the public domain, we can all look forward to the availability of more free Crotch in the future.
Unrelated: Chord hat
Labels: CPDL, funny names, William Crotch
William Crotch has a funny name. I know this because choristers laugh when you say it. Also, on a few copies of the choristers' music, his last name is circled.
So, ha ha. Very funny. But who is this William Crotch exactly? Well, turns out his name may be funny, but Crotch was a serious musician.
The son of a carpenter (like Jesus?), Crotch was a musical child prodigy. At 18 months, he was already picking out tunes on the family house organ (also like Jesus?)
Now, back in the time of Crotch (is that a good name for a band, or what?), the circus was a popular form of entertainment. Unlike today, however, circuses (pronounced: SIR-cuh-sees) consisted not of animal entertainment, but mostly child entertainment. It is for this reason that persons with Dwarfism were often employed by later circuses: they were the new "children" in an era of oppressive child-labor laws.
HIDDEN (a Crotch size clarification): There's nothing small about our Crotch. He eventually reaches full size.
In the circus, William Crotch resided in a tent that contained an organ, whereupon he would bedazzle his listeners with his improvisations. These were probably not great musical feats, but for a two year old to improvise chords to a melody learned by ear is certainly something. Also, he got free cotton candy.
HIDDEN (inappropriate remark): One wonders if this tent had a fly, and whether it was open or closed.
Today's "soccer moms" descend from a league of overbearing "circus moms" who enlisted their young children in these precocious presentations of prodigy. Crotch's mother, Isabella, accompanied Crotch and the circus on a grand world tour.
HIDDEN (another one): It was in this way that her young Crotch gained much exposure.
Anyway, long story short. Crotch the freak-show boy-wonder grew up to be Crotch the mildly adequate composer. Though he did play the organ at Kings College, Cambridge, which is pretty cool.
Incidentally, when I program my own concerts, I want to end up with a poster that looks like this:
Crotch
selections from Palestine
also, music by Bach, including his
Air on the G String
Crotch also may have provided the basis for Louis Vierne's Carillon de Westminster if he did indeed design the Westminster Chime.
Crotch the painter: Crotch's talent didn't limit itself to music. He was also a painter.
Alma mater tangent: It is with not a small amount of pride and a tinge of nostalgia that I note that an image search for crotch brings up a number of unflattering pictures of Paris Hilton and photo taken in an Oberlin music theory classroom.
Labels: Advertising, funny names, King's College (Cambridge), Oberlin, organ, William Crotch
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