ah-ah-ah-oh-oh-oh-damn

October 6, 2007 6:34 PM

[choral music filter] I heard a song on an Austin classical radio station a few months ago I've been desperately trying to identify....

I was in my car when I heard it, and was blown away. I made a point to listen to the dj to hear what it was, but a large freight truck drove by right then and I cursed the gods who sent it my way RIGHT WHEN the dj named the composer.

God cursing aside, the song was all or mostly choral, male and female... I didn't notice any instruments. It seemed to be a repeating theme, of major(ish) chords that would slowly descend down the scale into more minor and somewhat unnerving dissonance. It kind of felt like heavenly joy being torn apart at the seams and descending into hell. This theme would then repeat again, with a slight variation. Each repetition seemed, in my memory, to last about a minute or less.

I DID catch the dj saying something about a note on the composition, to the effect of "to be played in the summer, by water" or something in that vein. The name metioned that I could not discern due to noise seemed to be short, and possibly french.

Any ideas?

posted by Espoo2 to media & arts (15 comments total)

It would help a lot to have, if not some selection of words from the song, at least some idea of the language it was in. Any more info you can possibly give in that vein would help a lot, even if it's just "it wasn't English" or "it sounded like something Russian-ish."
posted by Rallon at 6:42 PM on October 6, 2007

Yeah, I don't think anyone is going to be able to tell you based on that description.
posted by ludwig_van at 7:01 PM on October 6, 2007

You could go to the website for the radio station and check out their playlists from the past few months. I presume you know the date and roughly what time of day you heard the song. KMFA Classically Austin 89.5 has playlists going back quite some time on their website. Just select the month and date from the calendar and you will see what songs were played that day. I hope this was the station you were listening to.
posted by wannalol at 7:02 PM on October 6, 2007

Could be from Southern Harmony by William Duckworth. More detailed description here. Amazon has samples and mp3s here.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:09 PM on October 6, 2007

Ah yeah, words, sorry.

I'm fairly certain it was wordless... Mostly "ah's" and "oh's". Sounded somewhat modern.

I figured it was a long-shot, but it seemed very unique from choral music I've heard in the past.
posted by Espoo2 at 7:20 PM on October 6, 2007

Try "To be Sung of a Summer Night on the Water," by Frederick Delius. Delius, who was English, wrote two part songs under this title; the first features long chords (perhaps the music you heard), the second one is rather jaunty.

—mr. nax
posted by nax at 7:32 PM on October 6, 2007

"mr." nax being my husband. Y'all set his nerdy little choral musician heart aflutter with that one.
posted by nax at 7:33 PM on October 6, 2007

I think nax got it. You can hear a short sample of To be Sung of a Summer Night on the Water which sounds similar to what you describe. Furthermore this song was played on the Austin classical radio station I mentioned previously within the time frame you mention, July 22nd 2007 at 8:59am and August 10th 2007 at 7:33am.
posted by wannalol at 8:04 PM on October 6, 2007

Here is a longer clip of this song on Amazon.
posted by wannalol at 8:11 PM on October 6, 2007

Perhaps I spoke too soon!
posted by ludwig_van at 11:03 PM on October 6, 2007

Nax, do you think Mr. Nax has an answer to this question?
posted by JanetLand at 5:16 AM on October 7, 2007

awesome, askme is just awesome!
posted by Wilder at 6:55 AM on October 7, 2007

awesome indeed.

Mr. Nax, you are amazing.

Thank you.
posted by Espoo2 at 10:23 AM on October 7, 2007

JanetLand Mr. nax says it doesn't sound familiar, but he's guessing it is in fact 19th century. You stumped the expert! First time I've ever seen that happen, and I will basically never let him live it down.
posted by nax at 3:41 PM on October 7, 2007

Damn. I had hopes.
posted by JanetLand at 5:50 AM on October 8, 2007