Karl Miller:
>I would be most interested in seeing some titles of bad music. I am just
>sincerely curious.
Actually, I heard one last night: the premiere of Frank Proto's Citizen
Soldier (words by John Chennault; Paul Winfield, narrator), commissioned
for the opening of the D-Day Museum in New Orleans. It was one of those
"Let's throw a shovel-ful of stuff against the wall and see what sticks"
pieces - a loose accompaniment to a narration (a lot like the score to a
Dragnet episode, come to think of it). Unfortunately, it was preceded by
Copland's terse and incisive Fanfare for the Common Man.
I emphasize that it wasn't bad in terms of technique - the orchestration,
for example, was competent. Proto knows what the lowest note of the
bassoon is. The piece just added up to a big zero.
Steve Schwartz