# Whyfor the credenza?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Seems like a lot of classical songs have a place where whoever's playing the fiddle or piano just takes off and plays different stuff. Don't know why the conductor let's 'em get away with that, but I think it's called a credenza. I always thought that was some kind of furniture -- even Ikea's got one, but it's called the "Bjursta," typical Ikea name (no offense to those Swedes or whoever they are).

Somebody said that Donald "Spanky" Tovey wrote a book called "How Beethoven Killed the Credenza." Maybe it has the answer but I've never been able to find it. Asked my neighbors but none of them had any books at all. Well, one old guy had a bible or at least something with a black cover.

Anyway, I can't see the furniture angle. The fiddler doesn't have even a music stand, and the piano guy just has this little bench thing. So what's up? Why's it called a credenza?


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

PSSST! This is a credenza...









You mean "cadenza". But while you are at it, could you explain to me why pianists playing a piano concerto have three movements, when I only have one per day?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Where else could you more aptly and usefully place a credenza other than that weirdly straight-line passageway after the V64 leading to the coda and I in root position, eh?

A console table







would not have been nearly enough,

a Breakfront cabinet







would have been too overbearing, so that credenza is a pretty well-chosen and placed solution to decorating that part of the movement.

They were also placed there as a reward to the soloist, good boy or girl that they were for playing all those set notes without deviating from the score for the bulk of the movement -- a little prize, like a gold star or a stick of gum.

And yep, Beethoven, meany that he was, took those prizes away from those good boys and girls, giving them just more set notes from which they again were not to deviate away from, in that very same place they used to get to play freely.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I did play a credenza when I was a kid. The thing had great drawer pull handles that swiveled. When you flip them up and let them fall they would hit the brass mounting plate with a "Plick!----ick---ick--ick-ck-k." It was a really cool. I discovered the smaller drawers made a higher pitched "Plick-ick-ck," and the larger ones a lower note, slightly different depending on what was in the drawer. So I recorded an improvised Toccata for Credenza in Q minor. I don't know what ever happened to the tape, but I'm certain Cage would have loved it.

(Read Kenoc's post carefully, y'all.)


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

bigshot said:


> You mean "cadenza". But while you are at it, could you explain to me why pianists playing a piano concerto have three movements, when I only have one per day?


Aha, I just got that...eww... >.<

And this thread made me lol. Nice one


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Seems like a lot of classical songs have a place where whoever's playing the fiddle or piano just takes off and plays different stuff. Don't know why the conductor let's 'em get away with that, but I think it's called a credenza. I always thought that was some kind of furniture -- even Ikea's got one, but it's called the "Bjursta," typical Ikea name (no offense to those Swedes or whoever they are).
> 
> Somebody said that Donald "Spanky" Tovey wrote a book called "How Beethoven Killed the Credenza." Maybe it has the answer but I've never been able to find it. Asked my neighbors but none of them had any books at all. Well, one old guy had a bible or at least something with a black cover.
> 
> Anyway, I can't see the furniture angle. The fiddler doesn't have even a music stand, and the piano guy just has this little bench thing. So what's up? Why's it called a credenza?


I know a dude with a piano and one of those benches and the bench is actually a kind of case and if you open the top and look inside the bench you might find some stuff to smoke that really helps you understand all of these things, at least briefly. Plus it makes them even funnier.

That's what he told me, and I'd like the world's law enforcement agencies (hello, friends!) to know that I have no personal experience with the piano bench in question so I'm taking it on hearsay.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

It's not a credenza, it's a cadential, and it has to to with the credentials of the soloist in question. 

Beethoven mucked it all up when he insisted they play what he wrote. Ever since, all creativity in music has been lost.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

science said:


> That's what he told me, and I'd like the world's law enforcement agencies (hello, friends!) to know that I have no personal experience with the piano bench in question so I'm taking it on hearsay.


I'm gonna tell the NSA on you! No, wait, guess I don't have to...


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## Guest (Jun 25, 2013)

Dear Wit,

You have made a thread that I thought was funny. I have enjoyed it very much, even though I don't really know very much about furniture. (I love awooden furniture just as much as wooden, though, I know that.)

Your bitter enema,

Fop


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I don't unnerstand this thread at all.

That Credenza guy was real funny on Seinfeld but I don't remember there being classical music on the show.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I don't know what Alkan thought about credenzas, but he claimed there was money to be made in cadenzas.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I actually bought one of Alkan's credenzas a few years ago at an estate sale. Certified authentic. Everyone was jealous. Envious looks everywhere. Then I did my demon laugh thing and chopped it up with an Abe Lincoln axe I'd earlier bought at a pawn shop. (The head had been replaced twice, the handle three or four times.) Like Cage said, the audience was the music. 

I'm trying to get a Coco Chanel original Crayola crayon and then I'll buy a Jackson Pollock... 

Creative destruction, just like Schumpeter taught. I can practically feel the economy growing in my veins.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

La Credenza di Tito ?


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

CypressWillow said:


> "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."


Badda-Bing !!!!!


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

bigshot said:


> PSSST! This is a credenza...
> 
> View attachment 20118
> 
> ...


That was a KenOC type joke ,you should be ashamed and of course he'll now use it for ever.
As far as credenzas are concerned I have heard quite a few pianists who play what sound like credenzas.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

It really doesn't matter what skills you possess, piano playing, whatever, unless you have the credenzas to show for it.


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## dionisio (Jul 30, 2012)

Petwhac said:


> Badda-Bing !!!!!


When i though i was out, they pull me back in


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

bigshot said:


> But while you are at it, could you explain to me why pianists playing a piano concerto have three movements, when I only have one per day?


Pianists are big Guinness drinkers, that's why. They're addicted to the old black & white...


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Kieran said:


> Pianists are big Guinness drinkers


All Guinness drinkers tend to be big - that's why they call it *stout*! :cheers:


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Taggart said:


> All Guinness drinkers tend to be big - that's why they call it *stout*! :cheers:


I'm tall and slender, buddy, but I have a big.........................heart! :tiphat:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I thought Guinness drinkers liked Guinness because they had something in common - a big head? 

(Oh no, now I remember - it was because they both have dark, mysterious depths....)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Kieran said:


> Pianists are big Guinness drinkers, that's why. They're addicted to the old black & white...
> 
> View attachment 20148


Pianos are just bars designed so that if you get bored drinking, you can bash out a tune if you feel like it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Kieran said:


> I'm tall and slender, buddy, but I have a big.........................heart! :tiphat:


I though you were going to say schwanzstucker...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I though you were going to say schwanzstucker...


Well any Tom....or Harry could see that one coming!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> It really doesn't matter what skills you possess, piano playing, whatever, unless you have the credenzas to show for it.


I think that's "Credenzials."


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