Lyrics for Pathetique sonata

[AeolianHarp]

In 1933 John Murray Gibbon published a book called Magic of Melody in which he examined the relationship between music and lyrical forms.

Mr Gibbon wrote some lyrics for some well known classical pieces. Here are his lyrics for the Pathetique Sonata.

[Decrepit Poster]

Man, this is tough on me. But then I can't sing my way out of the wet paper bag. I can sort of croak out the very beginning, so long as you don't expect the notes to be on pitch. But when it repeats at the octave I struggle, and sound very like Florence Foster Jenkins on the high B-flat (and likely the A-flat too). At measure 17 it falls apart, partly because 1) I often have problem syncing words with written notes (all through the piece), 2) certain words are hard to read, and 3) in general I'm woefully out of practice at score reading. Still, it was fun totally mucking up one of Beethoven's most admired movements.

(I gotta admit...singing the very opening in my "comfortable" range, with the upper octave laughable attemptable, that one passage where the notes go low into the bass was beyond me. Had to take it up an octave...not that it improved things.)

Oh! Did you get a chance to watch / listen to the Sue Perkins "First Love" episode? What did ya think?

[AeolianHarp]

Man, this is tough on me. But then I can't sing my way out of the wet paper bag. I can sort of croak out the very beginning, so long as you don't expect the notes to be on pitch. But when it repeats at the octave I struggle, and sound very like Florence Foster Jenkins on the high B-flat (and likely the A-flat too). At measure 17 it falls apart, partly because 1) I often have problem syncing words with written notes (all through the piece), 2) certain words are hard to read, and 3) in general I'm woefully out of practice at score reading. Still, it was fun totally mucking up one of Beethoven's most admired movements.

(I gotta admit...singing the very opening in my "comfortable" range, with the upper octave laughable attemptable, that one passage where the notes go low into the bass was beyond me. Had to take it up an octave...not that it improved things.)

Well bravo for your efforts! I haven't even listened to it with these lyrics yet, and it had certainly not occurred to me to attempt to sing them... Though then again it might be just the thing to scare those 2 pesky Mice in my house to move out...

Oh! Did you get a chance to watch / listen to the Sue Perkins "First Love" episode? What did ya think?

Goodness I forgot! Thanks for reminding me- I'll watch it this week.

[Chris]

Billy Joel also put lyrics to this melody in the chorus of his song, "This Night":

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uz7KMVUEH4[/YOUTUBE]

[AeolianHarp]

Thanks for that Chris. By the way how do you embed videos into your posts?

[Chris]

You can only do it with YouTube videos. When you are typing out a post, you will see some buttons up above. One of them is the YouTube logo. Click that, and it will place YouTube tags into your post. Then just paste the URL of the YouTube video between them. One thing to note - the URL of the YouTube video might start with https. If it does, change it to http.

[AeolianHarp]

You can only do it with YouTube videos. When you are typing out a post, you will see some buttons up above. One of them is the YouTube logo. Click that, and it will place YouTube tags into your post. Then just paste the URL of the YouTube video between them. One thing to note - the URL of the YouTube video might start with https. If it does, change it to http.

Ah, that would be why it didn't work- I forgot to take the s off the https! Thanks Chris.

[AeolianHarp]

Ok I just listened to that Billy Joel- that is so weird how he used that- I mean I can hear where he used some of the adagio; it is it and isn't it if you know what I mean!

[Chris]

Yes. It's strange that he chose that song, which is a tribute to the music of the early 60s (as is that entire album) for which to use a Beethoven theme. I think it really works, though. He explicitly credits Beethoven on the album sleeve.

[AeolianHarp]

Yes. It's strange that he chose that song, which is a tribute to the music of the early 60s (as is that entire album) for which to use a Beethoven theme. I think it really works, though. He explicitly credits Beethoven on the album sleeve.

Yes I saw he gave Beethoven ( only rightly ) credit for the chorus!

Have you heard the Fawlty Towers theme?

[grace65]

Another song which is influenced on classical music is Phil Collins, "A grovey kind of love". The music is heavily based on Muzio Clementi's Rondo movement of sonatina on G major op 36, no 5.

[AeolianHarp]

Another song which is influenced on classical music is Phil Collins, "A grovey kind of love". The music is heavily based on Muzio Clementi's Rondo movement of sonatina on G major op 36, no 5.

Oh really! I didn't know that either. I will have to check both of them out.