response 1 of 30:

Dec 6 12:19 UTC 1996

To start with something *really* different:
Peter Schickele's very first Schickele Mix program, a few years ago now,
included that late-60s top-40 version of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead".
He pointed out the break in the middle, which turns out to be a rock
rendition of some dance music by Michael Praetorius, which would
make it a few hundred years earlier than the movie of _The_Wizard_of_Oz_,
of course.

I know this felt really weird to me.  I remembered the song (that version)
quite clearly.  (Bleah.)  In the years since then, I'd become quite familiar
with (and fond of) the Praetorius piece through hearing it on classical-
music stations.  (Didn't have a firm grasp on what it was, I admit.)
But until he played the two back to back I didn't notice the connection.
(In fact, he played the song first & I still didn't notice!)
(Schickele has of course sprinkled his shows with other examples of
this kind.)

Sometimes, though, I make the connection right away, of course.  Both ways.
For example, my first exposure to Tschaikovsky's _Romeo_&_Juliet_ was
a rock version by Deep Purple, from an album in the late 60s.
This also included a version of part of a Beethoven symphony, also
previously unfamiliar to me.  (I was rather classical-deprived growing
up.)  In both cases I experienced great joy in encountering the pieces
in their original form - instant recognition, and a sense of "wow, so
*that's* what that is".

OTOH, I'd worked on learning a certain Bach lute bouree on classic guitar
before I heard Jethro Tull's syncopated variations - which probably is
the only thing I've mentioned which many of you may be familiar with.
Again, it was pretty recognizable, and the recognition added to the
pleasure.

response 3 of 30:

Dec 9 23:14 UTC 1996

Yep. Me too. Still Saturday afternoons, WUOM, 1:00 p.m.?

response 5 of 30:

Dec 22 02:15 UTC 1996

A crossover question--In Procol Harum's 'whiter shade of pale', is the
harpsichord (or whatever electronic imitation in is) part an exerpt from an
actual Baroque piece?  is sounds sooo familiar...

response 7 of 30:

Jan 2 11:31 UTC 1997

I don't know that this belongs here, but here it is anyway.  I have in front
of me a CD we got last month, _April_Fool's_Waltz_ by Passages (Jem Moore
mostly on hammer dulcimer & Ariane Lydon mostly on 12-string guitar).  It has
lots of good stuff, mostly not classical at all.  But it has an arrangement
of Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D Minor (yes, *that* one) for dulcimer with
occasional bits of guitar where there are thicker chords.  To my ear, this
is just a transcription with (maybe) some appropriate adaptations to the
particular instruments involved, not an arrangement in a different style. 
(It's awesomely impressive to hear, BTW.)  But it's not only plopped into a
(broadly) folk album, it segues at the end into Brigs O'Perth (and in the
notes the combination is given the subtitle "Bach to Old Ireland").

The CD also contains something called "Scarlatti's Adagio in D".  Here's what
the notes say on it:
        Hammer dulcimer has long suffered under the stereotype of being an
        instrument on which to play loud and fast traditional tunes.  In order
        to dispel some of that myth, we adapted this composition from a piano
        exercise, slowing the tempo and using the resonance of the dulcimer
        and guitar to build chords underneath the melody.
I'm not otherwise familiar with this piece - I like Scarlatti just fine but
haven't really gotten familiar with *anything* of his - and if I understand
it this wasn't originally adagio, so I have no idea what it really is.  But
again there's little or nothing in this particular performance that would have
offended (or, I think, surprised) any educated listener during the Baroque
era.

response 9 of 30:

Jan 3 05:07 UTC 1997

Global warming?

response 11 of 30:

Jan 3 19:35 UTC 1997

And there were authentic-sounding bird sounds between the movements, 
too -- since I'm not sure which music is which season, I wasn't sure
whether the geese were supposed to be going north or south, for example,
but it sounded like real geese.  

response 13 of 30:

Jan 14 04:02 UTC 1997

Those Respighi bird sounds are scored specifically to be played from 
a particular sound-effects record, on a phonograph, if I am not 
mistaken. 

response 15 of 30:

Jan 14 21:37 UTC 1997

Speaking of the toccatta & fugue in d minor, there was a version of that ohn
handbells on Prarie Home Companion a while back.

response 17 of 30:

Jan 21 17:57 UTC 1997

The _Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music_ gives the date 1924 for "Pines".
They had some kind of phonographs then.

response 19 of 30:

Jan 22 11:18 UTC 1997

Did they have electronic ones yet?  In literature from (or set in) the 20s
there are all kinds of references to winding up the Victrolas - I've met them
on into the late 30s, too.  But, yes, while the quality must have been awful
by today's standards it was good by theirs, & there were plenty of records
around.

response 21 of 30:

Jan 22 17:42 UTC 1997

My dad was an early adopter of electronic things, and he bought 
(and built) an electronic vacuum tube-based hifi in the late 40s.
There probably weren't any such devices in 1924, but as davel said, 
there were plenty of records around, and even a sound-track record that 
caught Respighi's ear. He specified the exact recording to be used.
The device he heard it on was probably a Victrola, but I'm guessing.

response 23 of 30:

Jan 27 12:16 UTC 1997

Yep, that's what I was told when I was looking.  (That is, that there was a
CD but that it was out of print & no longer listed.)

Thanks for the pointer, Ken.  I *looked* at Encore but didn't ask, or didn't
ask the right person maybe.