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Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 30, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Ravel's Mother Goose Suite has been listed in both French and English, so I'll add Le Tombeau de Couperin, the spelling of which I did not check. Both suites were originally written for piano and later adapted for chamber orchestra (smaller than a post Beethoven 3 symphonic orchestra, but larger than a baroque ensemble), though only four of the latter's six movements are included in the orchestral suite (one of the movements not orchestrated is a "tocatta," meaning a very technically challenging piece, traditionally for keyboard, but the opening of the orchestral suite is famous for featuring the oboe as the melodic instrument, despite the melody being much more technical than an oboe would usually play).

Tchaikovsky's violin concerto in D minor is great - the main theme of the first movement was plagiarized for the heroic theme in the score of "The Right Stuff." (Listen to the Julia Fischer recording)

Brahms's violin concerto in D major is also great - a recording of it was used in the score for "There Will Be Blood." (Unfortunately, the film came out before Julia Fischer's recording of it - the Julia Fischer recording is always the best recording of a given violin piece)

For a piece by an English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending single-movement violin concerto-like-composition (If there's a recording with Julia Fischer as the soloist, that's news to me, but there's a famous recording with Iona Brown, and the Iona Brown recording of a violin piece is the best recording of any violin piece not recorded by Julia Fischer)

Pretty much any Haydn string quartet. (Beethoven considered symphonies and string quartets to be the two great forms in classical music, and Haydn was his teacher)

For fun, here's one of Debussy's most popular piano preludes played by a 20th century great, a famed 21st century pianist, adapted by the giant of Spanish guitar, ... and re-adapted by if-you-know-you-know legend Ted Greene.