A Lark Ascending

I think this type of view is too simplistic. Yes, I think it's highly likely that the STH intro was inspired by Taurus, but you yourself said that Page's approach was to say "here's what I would have done with it". This implies the very point that I tried to make, which is that what Page did was to change it (even if only slightly). It is different! How many examples from the history of music (or even just popular music) can be cited where people borrowed a phrase like this and created a variation on it? It's basically a simple descending chord sequence, and no doubt a very old one (in relatively recent times, songs like "Michelle", "Time In A Bottle", and "Chim Chim Cheree" use the same basic phrase). How is that something that someone ought to be able to claim as their own? The Taurus line is really fairly simple. I'm sure if we really wanted to, we could find other pieces of music that used the same phrase from Taurus, and perhaps more closely resembling it than the STH intro did (the Taurus line is simpler and more likely to be common to other songs, imo). I'm just really uncomfortable with the idea that a fairly simple and basic musical phrase like that is something that someone should be able to claim a copyright on. Would the Spirit members have objected so much about this "ripoff" if STH hadn't become so popular and such a big $eller? Of course not, and does anyone think that Taurus would have become a huge seller if not for STH coming along to steal that magnificent musical phrase from Taurus? Come on, now. I still think this particular complaint stinks, even not being a LZ devotee, knowing that they have been guilty of ripping off songs, and even knowing how much money STH must have made them. This wasn't a case of an actual song ripoff. This makes sense to me. I listened to the track in question and it's little more than a sketch with a common chord progression. Strikes me the ripping off is by whoever is trying to make money out of the court case; ambulance chasing. The nature of popular music (and classical music too) is that things get borrowed and reshaped. Think what Brahms did with the 'Ode to Joy'. If the lawyers were to get open book on chord progressions then an awful lot of Swing and Bebop estates are going to be in for a hammering. Anyway if Led Zepp lose the case and have a huge bill they can compensate by going for all the heavy metal bands that adapted their approach.

Robert Johnson ripped off no end of contemporary songs without acknowledging the original authors (assuming they hadn't ripped of someone else, which is quite likely). It's what happens until lawyers come along.

I love Dave Alvin's solo albums - great, deep-in-his-boots voice, fantastic, ragged, earthy playing. Especially keen on:

Fabulous story on the recent Ian Hislop programme (about how how we create the past) concerning one Daisy Daking: Went over to France in WWI to help the wounded convalesce by teaching them morris dancing! http://www.ju90.co.uk/ctfolk/ctfolk6.htm ***************************** An English folk revival classic about the pre-war world and the impact the Great War had disrupting that world. As well as the folkies David Munrow's Early Music Consort of London are involved. Brief site about British composers who fought in the war: http://www.warcomposers.co.uk/composers.html

Mad Men. Season 6, I think. You know, the one where Don cheats on his wife. It's only just occurred to me why it's called Mad Men.

Compelling pictures. I use that first one in school filling the whole screen. Always gets a reaction. Made me think of 'Kanonen Lied' from the Threepenny Opera. Granados was another musical victim. Died when the ship he was on was torpedoed in 1916.

OK I won't trust you...... A wise move.

I'd never heard of that. Looks like it is just out on the new BBC MM cover disc too. Interesting article here: http://theunknownregion.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/gurney-war-elegy/

Don't trust me as I don't have audiophile ears but the mp3 of Six for Six I got from e-music sounds just fine.

I am extremely jealous. If it had been a week later I'd have probably done the three nights. I always manage to miss Barry Guy (though I don't think he deliberately avoids me like Louis Stewart does).

Unsurprisingly there are lots of 'arts' programmes on the BBC mentioned here (some may have already passed): http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/ww1/arts This one links with this thread:

As above, let me know if you plan to go. Nice to say hello. I saw them there a couple of years back (on the only hot day in 2012!) and they were fabulous.

Quite a few West Country gigs in the summer but mostly too early for me. However, this one looks possible: AUG Sun 03 7.30pm Mike Westbrook Big Band A Bigger Show The Drewe Arms Drewsteignton Devon EX6 6QN 01647 281409 I'm actually in Sidmouth for the folk festival but the main items that night are not must hears. Might take off for north Dartmoor for that. Been listening to Marching Song this evening. Fabulous.

From the Naxos notes: Ironic that the one lost was 'Peace'. More here: http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.573151&catNum=573151&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English# Ah, but not a WWI tank (he says in best 'N. Giles of Tonbridge wishes to protest at the presence of a 1956 D-Class locomotive in the episode set in 1933' mode).

In another field, this record references World War I: More universal in scope and clearly linked to the contemporary Vietnam conflict (which had a huge impact on the way the Great War was perceived in the popular imagination in the late 20thC) but part of its inspiration was WWI. Very interesting article here: http://noglory.org/index.php/articles/81-mike-westbrook-s-marching-song-how-jazz-can-look-into-the-landscape-of-war#.U3JjZYFdWa8

Yes, it's all to easy to read 'meaning' into music based on biography and contemporary historical events. Critics make a career of it. The Rite of Spring is often portrayed as one of those premonitions but I'd have said that's a reading onto to music too. If the current Ukraine situation were to spiral out of control who knows what current music would be regarded as gathering storm music. Another example is the many settings of A.E. Houseman poems that turn up on WWI programmes. The fact that many are about men dying young (and that at least one composer who set them died in the war) creates that association. In a different time, Walton's First is frequently associated with the rising unease of the international situation in the 30s. Yet he denied that association completely. I imagine in general compositions have all manner of seeds, musical and extra-musical. It's the ambiguity of music (unless given a specific title or text) that makes it so enthralling.

I'm not much one for premonitions; but that amazing moment in the first movement of Symph 10 where the trumpets blare out a terrifying single note accompanied by shrill strings always sounds to me like a vision of some of the general horrors of the 20thC, a glimpse into the abyss.

One of these was the first Monk record I heard, borrowed from Norwich library in 1977 (before it burnt down). I bought the CDs ten years back - very, very enjoyable.

Carla Bley looked scary even then!

Interesting. I didn't know about Roussel's war service. RVW was an ambulance driver too. Another casualty was Albéric Magnard, killed defending his home in France during the German invasion.

Be interesting to think if there was any impact of World War I on jazz. The only one I can think of is the start (or at least acceleration) of The Great Migration from South to North with the expansion of war industries in the North. The music going north and west alongside. I did not know that. This is an interesting disc of songs by composers who served in World War I: Most are not about the war. In some cases ,like some of Ivor Gurney's, they seem to evoke the world they've left behind. Gurney's is a very sad tale of a mind unhinged by his experiences there. Bliss and Moeran were also there. Bliss did his tribute with 'Morning Heroes' which I've only recently started to listen to. Moeran does not seem to have written directly about it though from what I've read a head wound had a serious effect on his mental stability. The whole post-World War French approach to music (picked up on in the '20s by Bliss, Lambert and Walton) - frivolous, mocking, playful (Les Six etc) - also seems like a deliberate attempt to escape the 'serious' musical world of pre-1914, as if that world had caused the cataclysm. A bit like the post-1945 reaction of the 'avant garde'.

Don't know that one. I do have this: The main piece was written for the war effort in 1917.

The wave of commemorative activity has been building pace in the UK since last year and will probably go mad on June 28th. Brings together for me two areas of interest - music and history. I'll be taking a party of kids to Ypres and the Somme in October and have things to organise at work so it will be a focus for me over the next year. Thought a thread on music associated with The Great War might be interesting. Although I've put it in the classical section, feel free to reference beyond. British classical music is rich in association but I'm especially interested in responses from other countries. The ones that immediately spring to mind for me are: Butterworth - handful of compositions, none about the war but evocative of it due to his early death on the Somme. Britten - War Requiem - more universal but the English texts are drawn from the WWI poets. Some people get snooty about it but I've always found it enormously powerful and moving. Bridge - Oration - a little known cello concerto/symphony that again powerfully evokes the war from a pacifist who lost colleagues in the maelstrom. Bridge - Cello Sonata - not about the war but always has me thinking of it - the first movement is in his Edwardian/Impressionistic pre-war style; the second written much later enters the more ambiguous style influenced by continental developments. Always sounds to me like a mind changed by the war. Vaughan Williams - Third Symphony - an elegy for the war victims disguised as a pastoral symphony. Debussy - the late sonatas for small groups of instruments. Again, nothing specific about the war and the overall melancholy is as likely to be personal as a reaction to world events. But I can't help relating it. And in a different field (folk): Scores of songs revived, written, recorded by Coope, Boyes and Simpson and June Tabor about the war. Some great collaborations with European musicians on all sides. That'll do from me for now. Be interested to hear what moves you. Music about the war, by composers in the war, influenced by the war.

I don't know how well known Delia Fischer is - I stumbled on her in one of those if you liked that you might like this connections. Don't recall reading about her elsewhere. I've been enjoying these of late: Largely acoustic Brazilian with a strong aroma of the rainforest. Egberto Gismonti and Hermeto Pascoal guest (and the first is dedicated to Gismonti). Recommended if you like Brazilian song and the sound world of those to wonderful musicians. http://musicabrasileira.org/delia-fischer-presente/