# Not what you thought it was



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

The 3rd movement of Jacques Ibert's orchestral work "Escales" came up on random play yesterday and for the first few seconds (before the strings came in) I thought I was listening to something by Steve Reich.






Anyone else have examples of music that can (momentarily) disorientate the unsuspecting listener?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

This happens to me sometimes, but the only thing that comes to mind at the moment is the obvious Stravinsky pieces that revamp Bach. I will try to find a link when i get home.

I always enjoy the surprise when it happens on random play.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

I'm acutely embarrassed to report that I saw Nicola Benedetti play an extract from Korngold's violin concerto this morning on the BBC Breakfast programme but I said to Mrs Hermit that it was Shostakovich. 

An appalling error and I hang my head in shame


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

I thought the radio was broken, but it was Merzbow.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

It happens to me a lot, but I am still working on honing my composer identification (fingerprinting, in Becca's terminology) skills.


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## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

Headphone Hermit said:


> I'm acutely embarrassed to report that I saw Nicola Benedetti play an extract from Goldberg's violin concerto this morning on the BBC Breakfast programme but I said to Mrs Hermit that it was Shostakovich.
> 
> An appalling error and I hang my head in shame


You mean Korngold, right?

I can't remember what piece it was, but there was some piece playing on the radio recently, and I was thinking it was some sort of modern piece for a while, only to learn that it was actually J.S. Bach!


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

musicrom said:


> You mean Korngold, right?


argh! Time to go and lie in a darkened room with a damp cloth on the forehead

original post edited


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Aramis said:


> I thought the radio was broken, but it was Merzbow.


Hearing this I can accept nearly everything else.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Just today someone in my office streamed the beginning of a piece I've never heard before, and asked me to recognize it.
It looked like an orchestra playing some kind of arrangement of Beethoven's 7th symphony.

Turned out to be a recent work by John Adams: Absolute Jest. 

Amusing.


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## Tedski (Jul 8, 2015)

Aramis said:


> I thought the radio was broken, but it was Merzbow.


I'd rather listen to 4'33" :lol:


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Of course if I'm on total random play and I'm even mixing genres, this style galante pastiche that gradually lapses into piano and pedal steel guitar with no hint of country (or even terrestrial) music at about the 3:40 mark along with several other anachronisms and incongruities might confuse me if I were less familiar with it.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Headphone Hermit said:


> argh! Time to go and lie in a darkened room with a damp cloth on the forehead
> 
> original post edited


Goldberg's compositions, such as his formidable _Violin Concerto, Op. 34_, are generally overshadowed by his career as a dramatic tenor. Here he is as Walther von Stolzing in the Peter Sellars regietheater production of _Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg_.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

When I had recently registred here I saw a post saying this is a nice piece of music and a youtube link. The link was to a video of two men attaching wires to a tree and I thought when will the music begin and suddenly I realised the sound that was created when the wires were attached to the tree was the music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Aramis said:


> I thought the radio was broken, but it was Merzbow.


Thanks. Now my computer is broken.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Those neck muscles creep me out.


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## Autocrat (Nov 14, 2014)

I was listening to the wireless in the car on the weekend, I told my son it was probably a crappy piece by some second-rate 18th century never-was. Turned out the second-rate crap was written about 30 years ago.


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