Most Unusual Pieces

[Mr. Shaky Fingers]

They say that Erik Satie's Sonneries de la Rose Croix has an otherwordly symmetry because he incorporated the golden ratio in it. I don't know how.

György Ligeti's L'Escalier du diable on the other hand, uses the Shepard scale. And even Bach's Fantasy and Fugue in G minor for organ, BWV 542.

[reiner torheit]

There are some trios for three tubas by John White (who is himself a tubist). They are pretty unusual

[jossuk]

pjones235: Regarding the Sabre Dance, please check out this link: http://www.verticoolvideos.com/youtubev ... 90yGON9ocM

Seeing the dance as part of the ballet might be of interest to you.

[pjones235]

That's an interesting dance... I never realized that the song was written for a ballet. That definitely changes the way I feel about the piece.

[ccdrz]

Moro lasso by Carlo Gesualdo is of course rather odd just inherently (what with it's dissonances, borrowed chords, enigmatic cadences coupled with little proto-baroque motives) , but even more so for when it was written ... the 16th century
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_F1OuMeVSw

[haydenmuhl]

Pendulum Music by Steve Reich

"I am sitting in a room" by Alvin Lucier

I actually like "I am sitting in a room". Pendulum Music... Let's say I find it less compelling. But both are very odd pieces.

Another odd piece, which some may not even count as music, is "Fur Music". It is not performable. In stead of listening to the music, you sit with the book and stroke the various pieces of fur, and you are meant to hear the physical sensation of stroking the fur. That is, you are not meant to hear the sound caused by stroking the fur, but "hear" the physical sensation of your fingers running over the fur. Perhaps this is a piece for someone with synesthesia.

[sbeckmesser]

Pendulum Music by Steve Reich

The Reich reminds me of a mashup of Stockhausen's Mikrophonie pieces
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikrophonie_(Stockhausen)

and Ligeti's Poeme Symphonique for 100 metronomes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po%C3%A8me ... metronomes

An interesting variation would be a day-long version of the Reich using multiple Focault pendulums.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum

--Sixtus

PS: There are some YouTube videos of the Ligeti. The most "accurate" one (in which the metronomes are started nearly simultaneously) is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCp7bL-AWvw
This piece can perhaps be only perfectly realized electronically (by recording 100 tracks of metronomes winding down and exactly synchronizing their initial clicks). This is doable on a laptop. Then again, part of this work's appeal is its theatricality, especially with swinging-arm metronomes. Using digital metronomes just won't cut it (and not only because they don't run down for hours at a time). The authentic-metronome movement would be scandalized!

[haydenmuhl]

Bahaha, I'm picturing a whole auditorium of people sitting there for hours waiting for a pair of AA batteries to run out.

[charkvibl]

Very weird but it can get catchy if you listen to it more.

[Hamstray]

Maybe not all that unusual, but different than anything from that era:
Forqueray:
La Latour
Jupiter (center part)

[sbeckmesser]

Maybe not all that unusual, but different than anything from that era:
Forqueray:
La Latour
Jupiter (center part)

In a similar demented-harpsichord, quasi-Cowell-pounding-on-keyboard vein to Jupiter is Le Vertigo, by Royer. Pretty wild stuff for its time.

--Sixtus

http://conquest.imslp.info/files/imglnk ... ertigo.pdf

[XKYing2012]

I wonder if the poem/song " What a queer bird the frog are" is considered crazy enough. I like it's sense of counterpoint though

[pjones235]

I think that all of those "death" pieces are rather unusual. Look at Franz Liszt's Totentanz, or Camille Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre...