Rick’s List

For all the disproportionately brilliant works by the giants of classical music, this time of year always reminds me that, despite their formidable gifts, these geniuses did have creative limitations.

Fall is typically when classical music organizations announce their new seasons and, at one point or another, in an effort to provide information for readers, I input all of these programs into our system so you folks can know what to circle on the calendar. Here I sit, typing away: Dozens and dozens of composers whose names presumably send shivers of anticipation through you.

From Brahms, Beethoven,

Berlioz and Bach through Handel, Haydn and Holst; Mendelssohn, Mozart and Mussorgsky through Schnittke, Stockhausen, Schubert, and three different Strausses ... (Want me to keep going? I thought not.)

But ... the titles of their compositions! They're dry as someone gluing tiny squares of felt to every individual and stale soda cracker in a family-size box.

1 String Quartet in D major, Opus 120, No. 41

2 Sonata for French Horn and Piccolo in C# minor, Opus 6, No. 12

3 Funeral Mass in F major for Tambourine, Circus Calliope, and Oompah Band, BMV 1002

Now, I will say that Claude Debussy guy had the right idea when he bucked convention and called his compositions "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun," "Snowflakes are Dancing" and "The Engulfed Cathedral." A curious and would-be listener might think, "Hmm. It's an overcast winter day and I have to go to the Christmas Market later today to buy a yule log and some peppermint sticks. Perhaps I could get in the mood with this new Debussy 'Snowflakes are Dancing' piece."

What might be funny is if "Snowflakes are Dancing" turned out to sound like a helicopter crashing into a trash truck while someone was firing a machine gun outside a dentist office where six gum surgeries were happening simultaneously without any anesthetic.

This is all inspired by a recent and true incident when my wife Eileen, working downstairs, was listening to an online station streaming Sigur Ros. A gentle ambient piece was playing, and it was by some artist called Deuter, and the song was titled "The Fawn Drinks the Sun."

I know what you're thinking: "Why did Debussy spell faun with a 'u' but Deuter used a 'w'"?" That puzzles me, too!

Even more, though, what does Deuter's song title even mean?! As I listened, though, the music DID sorta sound mellowly like a fawn drinking the sun — if the sun was only pleasantly hot, like morning coffee, rather than 10 million degrees, which is what it really is.

Anyway, I went back upstairs to my own "home office," where I was listening to old ZZ Top albums. And that's when it hit me that I wish Top tunesmith Billy Gibbons had used the classical music method of titling his work.

1 Instead of "Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers," we'd have "Boogie in G major"

2 Instead of "Tush," we'd have "Boogie in G major"

3 Instead of "Gimme All Your Lovin'," we'd have "Boogie in C major"

4 Instead of "I'm Bad, I"m Nationwide," we'd have "Boogie in G major"

5 Instead of "I Thank You," we'd have "Prelude to the Afternoon of Another Faun in G major"