# whistling in classical music



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I was listening to this lovely rendition of Claire de lune






and a few other similar videos, and I was wondering if any classical composer has ever written something using whistling. I know Morricone used it for some soundtrack, but I'm curious to know if there are also examples that are specifically thought as elements of a classical composition.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

The People United Will Never Be Defeated by Rzewski is the only one I can think of.


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## Burbage (Nov 27, 2007)

I doubt there'll be many.

The human whistle produces an almost perfect sine wave - mathematically neat but dull to listen to, a feature it shares with the glass harmonica, which was reputed to drive its players and/or hearers mad, much as whistling can do in the context of, say, an office.

An early electrical instruments, the Theremin (c. 1928), was similarly afflicted though, for one reason or another, couldn't quite produce a perfect sine wave, so it still crops up from time to time, but mostly in small doses where an unsettling effect is required.

The Ondes Martenot, another electrical instrument invented at around the same time, can also produce sine waves but gave the player/composer a range of other waveforms (timbres) to choose from, which is what they tend to do. And that, I suspect, is why the Ondes has found, and maintained, a place in the concert hall (at least those that program Messaien, Honegger etc), where whistlers, theremins and glass harmonicas have fallen out of any fashion they were ever in.

I may be wrong. Perhaps the legacy of a virtuosic whistling tradition survives; a suitcase, perhaps, gathering dust in a Budapest loft, stuffed with hoarded commissions from the shining lights of nineteeth-century Vienna, remains to be discovered. But if that were so, then the musical establishment would have had to conspire to remove all trace of them from the public and private records, and swear never to mention them again for the best part of two hundred years, and I can't see them managing that.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Classical? Maybe, but surely a classic: go to 2:50





And there are whistling parts in Arthur Pryor's "The Whistler and His Dog"


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Burbage said:


> I doubt there'll be many.
> 
> The human whistle produces an almost perfect sine wave - mathematically neat but dull to listen to, a feature it shares with the glass harmonica, which was reputed to drive its players and/or hearers mad, much as whistling can do in the context of, say, an office.
> 
> ...


Interesting point of view, but are you sure that whistle is a almost perfect sine wave are you saying? I mean, if I whistle I can definitely produce a sound that is not so pure but more breathy in a way. And I find a lot of similarities with other similar instruments like the theremin and the ondes martenot you mentioned or the musical saw (that I've seen used for classical music and the result was brilliant), but still with its identity, maybe also due to the small imperfections going from a note to another. And in the end, I don't find it dull, at least personally I really enjoyed the sound of it in the video above (not to mention that Chartrou is clearly a phenomenal whistler, I wonder what is his range singing and if it's even remotely close to his whistling).
Or to mention another piece, I've always absolutely loved this little melody, where a whistle can be heard over strings:
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/wilderworld/episodes/2006-12-16T22_55_54-08_00

But in any case, I can see your point and the limited expressive range of it could be the reason for the lack of interest from composers.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I could be wrong, but ... I think the song below was originally an aria that Arrigo Boito cut from his _Mefistofele_ opera, possibly because it was too risqué, or simply too devilish, for his era.






Apparently, though, Boito did like the whistling enough to retain a smattering of it for the ending of the aria "Son lo spirito che nega".






I sort of prefer the discarded aria, but then: what can account for one's devilish tastes?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Sonnet are you sure that you posted the right song? I mean the first one, because it says it's a Frank Loesser song, and onestly it sounds like an american song from the fifties

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_Corner_(show_tune)


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

*6:23
*


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

norman bates said:


> Sonnet are you sure that you posted the right song? I mean the first one, because it says it's a Frank Loesser song, and onestly it sounds like an american song from the fifties
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_Corner_(show_tune)


I have the original cast album of Loesser's _The Most Happy Fella_, from which the song originated. The very large score actually draws (in part - not Standing on the Corner) on late 19th century Italian opera. Often an opera singer is cast as the lead male. Here's Giorgio Tozzi.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I think Britten's Spring Symphony has some whistling in it.

I am reminded of a time in primary school where one music lesson included a requirement for us to whistle. I couldn't (I only learned when I was 20 - I was working as a temporary road sweeper and whistling just came naturally) and was condemned and sent out of the class by the teacher.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Crumb's Makrokosmos:


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

norman bates said:


> Sonnet are you sure that you posted the right song? I mean the first one, because it says it's a Frank Loesser song, and onestly it sounds like an american song from the fifties
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_Corner_(show_tune)


As submitted ... "I could be wrong...".


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Robert Vollstedt (1854 -1919) was a German composer of waltzes very much in the Viennese idiom. His most famous was the "Jolly Fellows Waltz". I have a very old Boston Pops/Fiedler record with it. Towards the end the fellows are straggling home from wherever just before sunrise when they whistle the primary waltz tune. The only Youtube I found was a Sousa Band recording from the turn of the century. Go to the final full one minute to hear it.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Fabulin said:


> *6:23
> *


good examples, I knew the Twisted nerve (big fan of Hermann) but it's the first one I've heard the other one, it's interesting to heard two whistles harmonized, which is closer to what I'm particularly interested to hear. I wonder if there are examples of a whistle together with a violin or a clarinet or something like that.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

chu42 said:


> Crumb's Makrokosmos:


this is a fantastic example, and it sounds great!


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

I think there is a work by Schnittke which features a little whistling but I can't remember which.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

elgars ghost said:


> I think there is a work by Schnittke which features a little whistling but I can't remember which.


 "Moz-Art" for Two Violins


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

RICK RIEKERT said:


> "Moz-Art" for Two Violins


Well remembered, Rick - have a cyber-beer on me.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Sagittarius from Mikrokosmos -- very nice music IMO


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I think that in the original handwritten score of the Fifth Symphony by Beethoven, a part for a whistler tooting the opening GGG E-flat was scratched out by the composer at the last minute prior to sending the score to the publisher. Apparently Beethoven didn't foresee that many _would_ whistle this tune even though it was deleted from the actual score. Also ....

Oh, wait a minute.

Today is June 1, not April 1. Hey, sorry. This old mind doesn't operate as efficiently as it once seemed to. Alas ....

But, at least I can still whistle Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, for what it's worth.

*Note for norman bates: No need to comment on this post, norman, please. -- SONNET CLV


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Karlheinz Stockhausen, Klavierstuck 13.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

For some reason a lot of Schubert makes _me _whistle along.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

In his Symphony No. 1 (In memoriam Dresden, 1945) for wind band, Dan Bukvich incorporates whistling near the end as part of a recreation of the sounds of the firebombing of Dresden, Germany during WWII.






In the climactic tango from hell in the _Faust Cantata_ Schnittke briefly calls for the chorus tenors to whistle with the flexatone.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

norman bates said:


> good examples, I knew the Twisted nerve (big fan of Hermann) but it's the first one I've heard the other one, it's interesting to heard two whistles harmonized, which is closer to what I'm particularly interested to hear. I wonder if there are examples of a whistle together with a violin or a clarinet or something like that.


The only thing I know is that such use of whistling was considered a novelty when Ziehrer premiered the waltz. I think you might have better luck sticking to the 20th century.


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