By the wonderful David Munrow and his Early Music Consort of London. I miss the days when not just the costuming but the music for historical dramas was *right* too. Even the theme music. Here, David Munrow has based the opening theme for 'Elizabeth R' closely on William Byrd's setting of Browning à 5 (listen to 0:20 to 0:33 of this theme, then to 1:38 to 1:50 of the Byrd below). Munrow's choice to make his own setting of Browning for the theme of 'Elizabeth R' surely nods towards a version of the song going around in Elizabeth's day with the lyrics, "The leaves be green, the leaves be green / God save Elizabeth our Queen".
just when i thought my bond to martha jones couldn't get any deeper, i found out that her theme 'martha triumphant' has similarities to hagood hardy's 'anne of green gables' theme, one of my favourite pieces of music of all time.
I am nearly two episodes in to 1899. It's totally my thing. Weird nautical Victorian gothic with a beautiful redhead woman, a handsome sea captain, and a creepy child, like I am there for that.
So far it's what you'd expect. Ominous music, beautiful creepy late Victorian elegance, secrets abound, etc etc.
Then I I just got to the bit where someone knocks on the Captain's door. He answers. "Captain, I think you should come with me" they say in an ominous mystery voice.
*cue jolly 70's jazz funk fusion*
And now I'm bang off kilter because HENRY MANCINI DOES NOT FIT IN THIS SCENE.
I pause and panic text someone to tell them about this weird musical whiplash.
Then realise oh shit no I paused like four notes in. It's fucking Deep Purple. This makes no sense at all. Pretty sure it's Child in Time which ok, thematically makes sense, but has the aesthetic nuance of a fucking sledgehammer.
Or maybe it's brilliant. I should probably play another four notes worth before judging, but now I have to offload this huge probably over reaction and also somehow square the fact I thought the first bar of Child in Time was like Baby Elephant Walk or some shit.
Drammi gotici by Ennio Morricone
Broken Silence / Rustblade
2018
Soundtrack / Film Score / Stage & Screen / Theme / Film Music / Original Score / Modern Classical / Television Music / Experimental / Avant-Folk
Intentional Cheese: Bobby Previte and Michael Kammers jump on the Library Music Train with BAD TV - Instrumentals Vol. 1 “Music for the Televsion In Your Mind”
GET READY FOR A NERD RANT FROM A NERD WHO LOVES OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH
let’s talk classical music
now, the first episode this properly comes up in is episode 5 when they’re on the french ship. there’s the harpsichord that ed plays sea shanties on, very cool, the harpsichord was invented around the 1400s so totally fine right? BUT this is the upper crust. the richest of the rich. and music was seen as a social standing, so they’d want the newest possible thing to show just How rich they are. the piano was invented around 1700. so why, pray tell, is there a harpsichord instead of the very new, very fancy piano? loving it
let’s talk about episode 6. in the fuckery, the swede sings part of a beautiful aria (which unrelatedly he starts in the middle of ? sir why did you start there just start at the beginning) called “Voi che sapete”, composed by Mozart in, get this, 1786. the show was set in 1717, which means THE SWEDE HAS THIS ARIA NEARLY 70 YEARS BEFORE IT WAS ACTUALLY WRITTEN! mozart hasn’t even been BORN yet, he was born in 1756!!
this bit is related, but talks about historical badness and mutilation so feel free to skip to the end but. voi che sapete is typically sung by a mezzo soprano, which is an estrogen affected vocal fach. so either the swede is a) a countertenor, the rarest of all voice parts, b) trans but with the wrong actor (nat faxon is very clearly a testosterone affected voice using head voice), or c) the swede is castrati, aka he had such a pretty voice pre-puberty that the rich and famous took notice and said “this man’s gonna be a Star some day let’s cut off his dick” and so he was castrated and then later in life said “you know what? fuck this. i’m becoming a pirate” which is, historically, the mostly likely outcome and therefore the swede just . doesn’t have balls.
the morale of this story is that david jenkins said fu k historical accuracy be gay do crime and i 100% agree classical musician out
I truly think this is the best "made for media" song of the 2010's. And while anything from Phineas and Ferb is TOUGH competition, there's simply so much raw emotion in this song. I feel like I'd get emotional even if I'd never watched the show and heard this completely unaware of the context and backstory. It's so powerful and heart wrenching. Thank you, Deedee & Rebecca
there's something especially delightful to me that they tell us dean's favorite songs. it's already very pleasing that the licensed music can be music he picked to play, even though I'm not always on board with his specific taste there's enough intersection that I do want to listen to some of it regularly. and I can sink into a little bit of the headspace of that episode, for better or worse. but with the ones called out as favorites, it's extra special somehow. tasty character details my music tilted brain enjoys simmering in