Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The Music is the Message?

I noticed that, for the entrance of the Clintons, the Marine Band chose to play the first movement from Ralph Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite. I am less interested in the choice of a British composer than I am with the title of the song that is central to this particular movement. The title is "Seventeen Come Sunday;" and those of us who know the words are probably wondering if there was a hidden message for Bill in this selection!

2 comments:

Wes said...

Probably no more message than was in the fact that the instrumentation for the John Williams arrangement, Air and Simple Gifts was the same as that for Oliver Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps.

Stephen Smoliar said...

Actually, I thought about the instrumentation more in the frame of the "Tashi trend." True, Tashi was formed to play the Messiaen but then took on a life of its own. No, I am still more inclined to examine selections of martial music on "occasions of State!"