Name that classical trombone tune

June 28, 2012 7:52 PM

Name that classical tune! This classical music tune has bugged me for years.

The absolute pitch is almost certainly off, but the relative pitches and rhythm I'm pretty sure about. I believe the theme is first played on the trombone, and then maybe later on the cello. This isn't the beginning of the theme — the first few bars involve a bunch of glissandos that I can't enter into any of the melody search engines that I know about. So I turn to the hive mind.

This is the kind of question that'll probably be answered in ten minutes flat, but it will finally grant me some piece. Plus, since I play the trombone, I figure I should know where this excerpt is from.

posted by Johnny Assay to Media & Arts (11 answers total)

MOV file won't play for me in anything, and the MIDI file has been downloaded too many times...
posted by Jimbob at 9:08 PM on June 28, 2012

yeah, I can't get to it at all. upload to youtube or soundcloud?
posted by KathrynT at 10:33 PM on June 28, 2012

I got the MOV file to work. I just recorded it on soundcloud. Sorry for the added background static but that was the easiest/fastest way to do this.

http://soundcloud.com/vacapinta/audio-recording

Sounds a bit like the intro to Pachelbel's Canon in D to me.
posted by vacapinta at 1:19 AM on June 29, 2012

Yes "the" canon in D seems a good fit for the original description by OP as well.
posted by knz at 1:56 AM on June 29, 2012

Response by poster: It didn't even occur to me that Google Docs would have some kind of download limit. Live & learn. Here's a clean version on Soundcloud; thanks to vacapinta for putting up the cross-recorded version.

It's not Pachelbel's Canon in D; I'm pretty sure that the Canon doesn't have a trombone part at all, and it definitely doesn't have the glissandos that precede the theme I linked to.
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:20 AM on June 29, 2012

Mod note: Updated original links to Soundcloud version.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:33 AM on June 29, 2012

This is definitely not the Pachelbel Canon (originally scored for a small string ensemble, though I'm sure it's been migrated to every kind of instrumentation imaginable by now); I recognize it, but I'm thinking that it's something late Romantic. Perhaps part of some symphony. It's on the tip of my tongue. Maybe even later -- maybe -- oh God -- is it in Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite? I'm flying through it right now on YouTube, and I don't hear that exact phrase, but I hear a lot of things very similar. I'll think about this more later, and listen to the whole suite.
posted by ariel_caliban at 6:18 AM on June 29, 2012

Best answer: Hell yes, it's Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite! Start about one minute in in this video. You're welcome.

:-)
posted by ariel_caliban at 6:20 AM on June 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: It all falls into place. At one point I had it in my head that it was from Stravinsky's "Petrushka" ballet, and was confused when I attended a performance of that work and didn't hear my mystery theme. I convinced myself that I had remembered its provenance completely wrong, and forgot that Stravinsky had written another piece that started with P and ended with A. Many thanks!
posted by Johnny Assay at 6:31 AM on June 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: For the record, the theme in question seems to be part of Movement VII (Vivo).
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:13 AM on June 29, 2012

This link goes directly to the relevant part of the video.
posted by Doohickie at 1:04 PM on June 29, 2012