Hear the William Tell overture from a country-and-western star
mainPlayed exactly as written.
From my latest monthly essay in The Critic…
The Cleveland music director, who has received successful…
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Joy and hilarity at the end of the day. Thanks, NL!
Now let’s hear him play Flight of the Bumblebee.
Glen Campbell was a top-notch guitarist. He was a highly in-demand recording session player for years before he established his solo career.
This arrangement is corny to the max, but Glen does rip out a few good licks.
The beginning sounded a bit like the theme from “Bonanza”!
And he couldn’t even read music!
Wonderful!
Most amusing
I always love the section where Rossini demands that the musicians place their instruments on their heads, “exactly as written.”
A great guitarist. He was active as a studio musician before he had his career as a singer.
More exactly, hear part of the Overture to Guillaume Tell from a country-and-western star in a transcription that is far from “played exactly as written”. It was fun, regardless.
Quite. And some of the fiddle playing is a bit ropey. I was looking forward to the cello melody and the flute/cor duet. The extra counter-melody and the drum kit don’t quite compensate. But a bit of fun.
I can’t imagine that you are serious. Regular people don’t even know that there’s more to the William Tell overture than the final section.
P.S. The orchestra, whoever they are, probably got the music the day before and had one rehearsal.
Spike Jones did this precise parody in the 1950s, and many other brilliant music parodies. Today only the older folk
remember all of those delightful take offs….I have a CD of them. If you prefer more up to date parodies, check out Weird Al Yankovic….brilliant musician and parodist. His stuff is endlessly entertaining.
I remember the Leonore Overture #3 where a pistol shot starts the violins scrambling at the end 🙂
Thanks for mentioning Spike, Lorna!
Spike did his parodies with various permutations of His City Slickers from the early 1940s almost up to his death in 1965, on disc, radio, movies, and television, and of course live stage performances.
I think “Dance of the Hours” is my favorite, and of course “The William Tell Overture” (and here comes Beeeeeeetle-Bomb).
That’s fun! It passes my “made me smile” test with flying colors.
Comparisons with Abbado or Norrington are irrelevant…
I don’t know about that; Norrington plays smokin’ pedal steel….