This was at the Last Night of the Proms in 1996 (I was there). The joke is that Felicity Lott is a Dame (female equivalent of "Sir") and received an enormous bunch of flowers, whereas Ann Murray is a mere "Miss" and received a tiny posey - hence the (completely staged!) "cattiness" between the two of them. The piece was not listed on the programme, but was clearly not impromptu.
Wonderful. The best one ever for me. The composer of this piece of fun, was Robert Lucas Pearsall. An English composer who wrote this as a tribute to Rossini, and in the style of Rossini. Hence the fact that most people think that Rossini wrote this. They didn't. But it was performed within his lifetime. That makes this a very special piece of music.
My golden retriever used to adore listening to sopranos sing once a month at a Columbus, Ohio market. The male voices didn't seem to move her too much, but she would sit up enthralled for the sopranos. I requested this piece once and one of them sang part of it to Copper. I wish that I'd had a camera with me to film it.
I was there (Proms at the Albert Hall, early 2000's I think). It brought the house down, of course. There was a running gag from earlier on in the evening.
You can look into the "Oyseaulx" (ancient french orthography for "oiseaux", "birds") from the french renaissance composer Clément Janequin. The best version I know is the one from the Ensemble Clément Janequin, you'll find it on Spotify. In other Janequin's descriptive songs like "La Chasse" ("The Hunt") or "Les Cris de Paris" ("The Calls of Paris"), you will find imitations of dog's "noises" (for example, 'gnof gnof' for the running dogs), etc.
Best version I've ever seen. Still trying to work out what the exact magic is here - so many smaller things all added up make it just so...extra brilliant - the scene is set, (not just a sketch out of nowhere), it's a little story, not just a conversation where the only word is 'miaow', the voices contrast, there is already a fantastic, playful atmosphere in the room and most of all, the amazing dramatic singers are clearly having a ball. Sure I've missed something, but off the top of my head, those things stood out. Bravissimo! xx
Yes! The outfits are clever, and perhaps the (majority) English audience are more likely to hear an extra pun in 'ME-eeow!' (Like that old joke of the soprano doing scales: "Mi, mi, me, me, ME, MEEE!") 😸
@@FalconsMaltings Good point! Not to mention the comic timing -- love how they're so tuned to the audience after the little catty feh! noise at 1:53 ish and someone whistles - they catch that wave of laughter and go on in perfect time - something you couldn't practice exactly in rehearsal but just happens so beautifully live xx
Thing is, you can quite clearly hear that they are super enjoying themselves many singers wouldn’t touch this piece for humiliation, these two obviously don’t care
To Mel King, I know there is an amazing work created by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), called Carnaval des Animaux. I have listened to several pieces out of this musical gem, but I don't seem to remember vocal parts except for the narrator. Peter and the Wolf by Prokofjev has instruments imitating animals as well,
Have seen this performance inth Sydney Opera House with the late Dame Joan Sutherland and Kiri te Kanawa. Talk about hilarious was an understatement. Even the woman in the audience joined in. Totally hilarious
Do you have a sense of humor? It's a famous piece, has been sung by many a great singer, and they are supposed to sound cat-like not beautiful. Also, this is clearly a classical music concert, and I seriously doubt the audience are "pseuds".
I'm so sorry you have no sense of humour. There seems to be a whole audience full of "pseuds" and many composers, including Bach, Beethoven and Mozart wrote the occasional musical joke.
@TheRenaissanceman65 think they were trying to reply (in defence of the audience) to a commenter who actually DID insult the audience, by the look of it -- not that anyone cares nine months later haha. Would have loved to have seen this, myself.
