Dave Lampson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>We'll probably try another one tomorrow.  If anyone has any
>suggestions for the next mystery piece, please let me know.

I am reminded of my graduate examinations where we were given photocopied
pages of scores and had to identify them...and it we did not know the
exact piece, we had to make an educated guess.

Of course there were always the "trick" questions.  One of those trick
questions was the Strauss Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme suite.  Looking at
the score, the instrumentation did not suggest the romantic period for
sure, nor did the thematic material...ah, but then the harmony.

So, as a suggestion, perhaps something contradictory in nature, like the
Strauss...an arrangement of early music done at a later time.  One of
my favorite "stump the band" listening examples is the Tibor Serly
arrangement for strings of the Gesualdo madrigal, "Dulcissima mia vita."
After listening to it, a guess of Wagner would not seem too far off base.
As I recall, Serly did not change a note of the Gesualdo.  I would love
to hear a string orchestra arrangement of the Lassus Prophetiae
Sibyllarum...tone row and all...or one could just try the opening of
Rebel's Elements...tone clusters!

Karl