Jeff Dunn:

>1. Who wrote it, when?

No idea, me too; or worst: a few ideas.  It reminds (not the harmonization,
just the melody) some Schubert, some Smetana, some Dvorak, some young
Brahms.  But I dont want to risk: according to my luck at mysteries,
probably it's an unknown youth piece of Barber or something and I will
have to shut my mouth forever with a waffle machine.

>2. Which interpretation do you like the best?

Second one, definitively.

>3. Why or why not does the melody speak to you?

It's a beautiful melody. I like a bit less the harmony (especially at
the third phrase of the melody, that with the accompaniment in triplets)
but I should wait to see what the composer is going to do with it later.

>4. Is melody even that important or necessary nowadays?

I would say "yes", but I'm not sure of being able to explain properly
why.  Perhaps because many experiments on the subject were already done,
and all of them reached (and showed) the limits of the non-melodical.
I think here of absolutely non-melodical works like Ligeti's "Atmospheres"
or "Volumina" or Xenakis' "Phytoprakta" or "Metastasis", or much of
(pure) electronic music.  How ample was the horizon that those works
poroposed?  (I like them, however).  This kind of works aside, one could
find melody even in Pierre Schaeffer, if one get accustomed.  It's not
that melody is important or not, is that we will find it almost everywhere,
even where we don't expect to.

>5. What are your all time favorite melodies?

There are many but here goes some vocal ones that I like very very much:
Dido's Lament, Che gelida manina, Il core vi dono, Gute Nacht, Lascia
ch'io piangi, Selig sind die toten, Reis Glorios, Sic mea fata, Nun will
die sonn...

Pablo Massa
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