# Music to watch fireworks to?



## Tom Martin (Nov 22, 2010)

Hello All,
I am new to the Forum and would like to ask you all a question. I am starting a new project for next summer which is a new idea for a pyrotechnic show for the company I work for. The idea behind the show will be a battle between two people fro two different firing sites. Obviously this will not be a real battle but a pre planned and calculated show and fired to music.
So the question I would like to ask is : could any of you suggest some good classical music, or any music for that matter, that sounds like two 'people' having a battle. The show will be between 20 to 25 mins long so will probably include several pieces.
I will then use this music as the main substance for the track I put together before writing the the pyro to go with it.
any help would be most appreciated, thank you
Tom


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2010)

Well, I think that one of the obvious pieces that I have certainly heard accompanying fireworks displays is Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

Otherwise, there is also Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks, but I don't know if that would have the bombastic quality you might be hoping to achieve.


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## LindenLea (Feb 4, 2007)

Well first of all, all fireworks/bonfires are evil - _period_ - and they should IMO be banned by law, since a) they reduce my lovely gentle dog to an undeserved gibbering wreck every November and New Year, and I am left having to clean up her vomit after she has been made violently ill and scared to within an inch of her life, b) they traumatise wildlife and are directly responsible for the terrorising and grim deaths and maiming of 100's of harmless creatures/pets on and around November 5th every year (I don't particularly care if people are burned/maimed by them, it's their own stupid fault for buying and igniting them) and c) it is a direct infringement of my civil liberties to have to endure repeated nights of *deafening* explosions at 10-11pm at night in the vicinity of my house, and there is apparently nothing I can do and no action that I can take by law to prevent it from happening whenever the firework-user chooses to go on an explosions-fest...and these days this can be at any time of year - there was a wedding at a hotel in our village in August, followed, on a beautiful, serene, peaceful English summer evening, by a 20 minute firework display which they must have been able to hear in some parts of Scandinavia.

...but!!!!!!.....

......since I see you are in the Hatfield/Brighton areas, and therefore several 100's of miles from me, thus making it somebody else's problem, then if you must go ahead with this, be sure to include the *finale of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, Wagner's Tannhauser Overture, perhaps Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet, and Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No.1...*combined these works should last around 30 minutes, and those people whose hearing hasn't been permanently damaged by the fireworks explosions will - if you turn it up loud enough - enjoy some rousing music.

So enjoy the music!...but if somebody approaches you with a hose-pipe, and drenches all your pyrotechnics just as you prepare to ignite them, then I'm afraid I'm with him!!


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Wellington's Victory (Beethoven's Battle Symphony) is good for fireworks but isn't good for much else.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

How about _Cloudburst_ from Ferde Grofe's _Grand Canyon Suite_--have a listen:

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## CageFan (Dec 2, 2010)

How about starts with "La Marseillaise"





then change it to Beethoven's Turkish March Op.113





In between add John Cage's Our Dream will Come




 (haha..that would make a good mediator)

SORRY, if it sounds too obvious for two men fighting


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Like good sex, about ten minutes, building to a spectacular climax. Severely editing Bolero would do the trick.


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## CageFan (Dec 2, 2010)

Vaneyes said:


> Like good sex, about ten minutes, building to a spectacular climax. Severely editing Bolero would do the trick.


Bolero-Ravel is absolutely enchanting...!
I will be walking on the cloud if I should listen to it. :tiphat:


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

Beethoven, 1st symphony, 3d mvmt


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I'd add something by Walton, the final movement of the 1st symphony, perhaps?


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## Rondo (Jul 11, 2007)

Stravinsky's _Firebird_, parts of "Light Calvalry" overture. In a less creative way, some of John Williams' or Sousa's work would also be very fitting.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Stravinsky's "Fireworks" Op. 4 ? Quite colorful.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

Depending of the level of organizedness (that is a word, right? If it isn't, I just invented it), I'd suggest Ives' Country Band March. But Music for the Royal Fireworks works well too. I've actually watched fireworks to Music for the Royal Fireworks, and it did work very well.


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