Many composers are known almost entirely for one memorable piece. Sometimes these are part of the soundtrack to our lives, or at least to a lot of movies we've seen, yet we often have no idea where they came from. So I thought it would be fun to find out more of the story behind some of them.
Canon in D
Of course, I only post music I like, but to keep it interesting, I try to include things that not everyone has listened to before. Here is one exception: There is no doubt you’ve heard this.
People use it for weddings, funerals, graduations, and just about every other kind of occasion. Yet it was forgotten for over 300 years, and in fact the rest of Pachelbel’s work remains obscure. So the Canon in D qualifies as, by far, the biggest “one-hit wonder” of all time, in any genre. I went with the Paillard version, which was the one that brought it back to the world’s attention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlprozGcs80
Jeremiah Clarke: Prince of Denmark’s March
Still played at all manner of special occasions, especially involving royalty. It’s about the only thing Clarke wrote that anyone remembers, but that’s all he needed for immortality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1088E6E2fY
Pachelbel’s Canon in D is the world’s best-known classical one-hit wonder, but it’s not my favorite. That would be a piece of sacral music, the Stabat Mater by Giovanni Pergolesi. It is possible Pergolesi would have gone on to create a huge body of work, but he died at the age of 26, on the day he finished composing this.
Based on a 13th-century hymn, the Stabat Mater honors Mary as she mourns her dead son. It is arranged for soprano and contralto; the contralto part is performed here by a counter-tenor (see the notes below the clip for full credits). Conductor Nathalie Stutzmann is one of the first women to break the glass ceiling for leading major ensembles. It’s 40 min long, without a weak passage (ie., no “filler”), so it’s perfect for those who have a little quiet time on their hands…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzOmPUu-F_M
Jumping a couple of centuries… This is not really a one-hit wonder - Samuel Barber is a giant in the world of classical music. Still, he is known to most of us because of a few snippets that have been used in movie soundtracks. This is the best-known one—you will recognize it immediately. For music nerds, there are similar motifs to his other well-known piece, Adagio for Strings. Listen for the two crescendos when the female voices sound like the heavens opening up. In today’s terminology, it’s insane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRL447oDId4
Everyone of a certain generation knows this as “the theme from Masterpiece Theatre”. It is actually the Rondeau from Suite de Symphonies by Jean-Joseph Mouret – so it isn’t even English! It’s the only thing by Mouret that anyone plays now, but it gets played a LOT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZQG-DZy7uY
Classical one-hit wonders, continued: The Flower Song, from the opera Lakme, by Leo Delibes. Two of my favorite divas, Anna Netrebko (soprano) and Elina Garança (mezzo). A little more than a minute in, you will smack your head and say “Oh! I’ve heard this!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9NK-EbUAao
This is by far Tomaso Albinoni's best-known work, and the irony is that we don’t know whether he actually wrote it. He composed a large body of work, but much of it was lost. Almost 300 years later, a man named Remo Giazotto organized what remained and even wrote a biography of the composer. Giazotto is also suspected of having composed this piece as a hoax(!) The conductor is Elisabeth Fuchs, in a guest appearance. Her day job is principal conductor of the Philharmonie Salzburg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn1gcjuhlhg
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