Any Dinner Music

[vincentl]

Can someone help me find good dinner music? Or do I have to take up Jazz/Blues in order to play these?

[thalbergmad]

Rather depends if you want people to digest their food or throw up.

I once wrote some variations on "Yes we have no Bananas" which would have been appropriate, but I seem to have lost them.

Thal

[ahinton]

You could have an amuse Bush followed by a capriccio with a carpaccio, any entr'acte with the entrée and, of course, end with Varèse's Déserts...

That said, this entire idea reminds me of

First Rival Composer, while clapping: "What do you think of his piece?"
Second Rival Composer: "I think it's glorified dinner music"
Third Rival Composer: "Dinner music? It not only dines but it whines!"
(from Days with Lenin [1924] by Maxim Gorky [New York: International Publishers, 1932, p.52, as cited in an uncredited English translation in Pleasures of Music, ed. Jaques Barzun, London: Michael Joseph, 1952, in the final chapter Classic Tales, p. 501).

Incidentally, the French-born American Jacques Martin Barzun - "professor, polymath, educationalist, cultural historian, supreme exponent of the essay" as he is described in a recent article, Honour and Humanity, in London's Financial Times by Harry Eyres - is, as far as I know, still working as he approaches his 103rd birthday which occurs in a couple of months' time.

Best,

Alistair

[gep]

I've been at occasions where I'd have loved some other members to perform Cage's 4'33". Repeatedly...

How 'bout Delalande's "Symphonies pour la soupir du Roi"? If it was good enough for Ludwig XIV, who not for you!? It's quite nice music. Or else Telemann's "Tafel Musik"?

(NB: Delalande has the same last name as I have, be it his is French, mine is Dutch. Funny...)

gep

[ahinton]

I've been at occasions where I'd have loved some other members to perform Cage's 4'33". Repeatedly...

How 'bout Delalande's "Symphonies pour la soupir du Roi"? If it was good enough for Ludwig XIV, who not for you!? It's quite nice music. Or else Telemann's "Tafel Musik"?

(NB: Delalande has the same last name as I have, be it his is French, mine is Dutch. Funny...)

gep

Ah - a Dutch landowner, we see! It had not previously occurred to me that land ownership and food had any connection beyond the obvious one of agricultural production but, now that you mention this, I am reminded that one of Britain's most respected food critics is one Nicholas Lander (who is married to Jancis Robinson, one of the world's most celebrated wine writers).

Anyway, as Shakespeare didn't quite write:

If music be the love of food, play Arne...

(his Whittington’s Feast might be the most appropriate of his works in this context)...

Best,

Alistair

[gep]

Arne

Was a consumate organist, perhaps?

as Shakespeare didn't quite write

"Shall I compare tea to a summer's day?"

Can someone help me find good dinner music?

Hmm, I realise the asker didn't specify music to dine by or to dine on. In the latter case, I could suggest Satie's "Trois Morceaux en Forme de Poire".

After dinner, you might do the Coffee cantata, or Tea for Two...

gep

[ahinton]

After dinner, you might do the Coffee cantata

There are actually three musical coffee options, to my knowledge, none of which has the misfortune to be decaffeinated; the first is the Coffee Cantata that you mention (the identity of whose composer surely needs no mention here!), the second is the popular 1928 song by Ray Henderson/Buddy de Silva You're the Cream in my Coffee and the third is a piece by Dutilleux; OK, so what is the title of the Dutilleux piece, then?...

Best,

Alistair

[gep]

OK, so what is the title of the Dutilleux piece, then?...

I would guess you mean his music for the film "Le Café de Cadran"; although that film is more about the Café than the coffee (I think), I guess you might get the latté in the former....

gep

[ahinton]

I would guess you mean his music for the film "Le Café de Cadran"; although that film is more about the Café than the coffee (I think), I guess you might get the latté in the former....

Nice guess - but not the correct one, I fear!

Best,

Alistair

[birba]

We've strayed off the topic.  Let's help this guy!
When I went to play for dinner parties to make extra money, while I was in school, I took the Gershwin song book, a thick thick broadway musical tunes book, and a cole porter "songbook".  I created a sequence of fast, slow, slow, fast, fast, slow, etc. pieces amounting to about an hour.  After the break (if there was one)  I would repeat the sequence.  They were usually drunk by then and didn't notice.  

[gep]

We've strayed off the topic.  Let's help this guy!
When I went to play for dinner parties to make extra money, while I was in school, I took the Gershwin song book, a thick thick broadway musical tunes book, and a cole porter "songbook".  I created a sequence of fast, slow, slow, fast, fast, slow, etc. pieces amounting to about an hour.  After the break (if there was one)  I would repeat the sequence.  They were usually drunk by then and didn't notice.  

It almost sounds as if you were wasting your talents for the money, which you might need to do, in which case I'm sorry you had to do that! Pearls for the swines, as they say!

How about improvisations?

[thalbergmad]

The title of the thread needs to be changed to crap puns.

Thal

[birba]

It almost sounds as if you were wasting your talents for the money, which you might need to do, in which case I'm sorry you had to do that! Pearls for the swines, as they say!

That's something we learned to do in school!  Slinging hash, waiting tables, playing at cocktail parties, what was the difference?  You had to get out there and hustle if you wanted to get to the end of the month! 

[gep]

The title of the thread needs to be changed to crap puns.

Thal

Do forgive, kind Sir, this affront against thy delicate taste!

[gep]

Slinging hash

I'm running out of English... What's (a) hash, and why or where does one sling it?

[birba]

In the kitchen.  I was a short-order cook.     Hash is like a stew.  But dry with stringy beef and potatoes.  Yuck. 

[ahinton]

Well, come on, folks; what is that Dutilleux coffee piece? We'll never get onto the cognacs to end the meal if we haven't first gotten the coffee right, now will we?(!)...

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Two more days have elapsed, yet still no one has yet twigged the Dutilleux; come on, folks - wake up and smell the café!...

Best,

Alistair