# Cats in Music



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Are there many musical depictions of cats? There's the Pas de Caractere from Tchaikovsky's _Sleeping Beauty_ featuring Puss in Boots, but my favourite has to be the cat from Prokofiev's _Peter and the Wolf_ (go to 1:47 in this video - if you haven't seen this animation before, you should watch the whole thing; it's brilliant!  ).


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## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

I struggle to think about cat music just now... Please, no Lloyd Webber references!

There is _Les lions jaunes _(The yellow lions) from Pierre Mercure's _Cantate pour une joie_, which I featured way back in one of my earliest blogs on TC:
http://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/206-internet-graduation-concert.html

And then, there is Tom from Tom and Jerry:
http://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/217-itywltmt-s-klassical-music.html

And Leroy Anderson's _Waltzing Cat _- which you can find easily on YouTube.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Kitten on the Keys! By Zez Confrey. The "kitten" really plays with the keys at 1:53


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Rossini wrote his duet for two amorous cats and piano. It's priceless. The text is entirely meow ! A number of great singers have recorded it, such as Schwarzkpf and De Los Angeles , and the great accompanist Gerald Moore was at the piano .
Check youtube.


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## Trout (Apr 11, 2011)




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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

That cat is both enormous and hilarious, very believable catlike essence. Liked how the crow **** on him.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> That cat is both enormous and hilarious, very believable catlike essence. Liked how the crow **** on him.


I know! Love it! The cat has more hilarious moments in the full production.


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## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

How could I forget... Copland's early scherzo "The Cat and the Mouse"
http://pianosociety.com/cms/index.php?section=139


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## Guest (Dec 20, 2011)

Scarlatti's "Cat Fugue"? I'm not sure if it depicts a cat, but the word is in the title!


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Ravel's Cat Duet. 

I think Rawsthorne composed something called Practical Cats but I don't know anything about else it, such as whether it's based on T.S. Eliot's poems or not.

I remember as a kid reading a book about cats called Pyewacket - it would have made a good basis for an opera, I reckon.


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

I think Nora is adorable.





My kids made me learn how to play the Nyan Cat song on the piano...


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## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

elgars ghost said:


> Ravel's Cat Duet.


I am not familiar with that one. The only Ravel duet I know that comes cloese is "Puss in Boots" (le chat botte) from the Mother Goose suite.


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## Guest (Dec 20, 2011)

elgars ghost said:


> I think Rawsthorne composed something called Practical Cats but I don't know anything about else it, such as whether it's based on T.S. Eliot's poems or not.


He did, and it is.

And it's delightful, too!


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

superhorn said:


> Rossini wrote his duet for two amorous cats and piano. It's priceless. The text is entirely meow ! A number of great singers have recorded it, such as Schwarzkpf and De Los Angeles , and the great accompanist Gerald Moore was at the piano .
> Check youtube.


This is hilarious.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)




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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Leave it to Erik Satie to write a 57-second cat song.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

itywltmt said:


> I am not familiar with that one. The only Ravel duet I know that comes cloese is "Puss in Boots" (le chat botte) from the Mother Goose suite.


_Duo miaulé_ pour Le Chat et La Chatte en _L'enfant et les sortilèges_


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

itywltmt said:


> I am not familiar with that one. The only Ravel duet I know that comes cloese is "Puss in Boots" (le chat botte) from the Mother Goose suite.


itywltmt - it's from his opera L'enfant et les sortileges.


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## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

Thanks to both of you... I learn something new every day!:tiphat:


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Then there is a whole opera staffed entirely by cats: Hans Werner Henze's _The english cat_ (which I saw in London many years ago).








And who could forget _Chansor du chat_ by Jean Absil (1893-1974) (poem Tristan Klingsor) "One of the best cat songs ever written" according to the OUP _French song companion_


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I composed a piano piece for my cat!, see the todays composers section


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## pjang23 (Oct 8, 2009)




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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> _Duo miaulé_ pour Le Chat et La Chatte en _L'enfant et les sortilèges_


Ravel was a cat person:


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

RVW & Foxy. Some resemblance.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Vaneyes said:


> RVW & Foxy. Some resemblance.


wow, that cat looks like a wolf!


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

pjang23 said:


>


This is Nora again


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Great thread. Many good things here. Some light things. Love the Rossini & Rawsthorne - there's a great version with Simon Callow narrating.

I used to have a tape with this song,_ Il Gato Triste (The Sad Cat)_, played HERE by jazz-classical fusion guy from the 1970's, *Chuck Mangione*. I think he composed it as well?...


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Stravinsky with cat in 1947 Hollywood. He had three--Pancho, Vassily Vassilyevitch Lechin (Vaska, for short), and Celeste.


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