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While I am a confirmed "head banger rock fan", I also enjoy many other kinds of music, except old Country, trancer, and electronic trash.
I was recently exposed to a live performance of Bach and found it really interesting. I have loved Handel's Messiah for years.
The other day I was listening to some "Queen" and that made me think of "The march of the Valkries", by Wagner. I bought the CD and began listening to it and lo and behold what should be played right in the middle of it but what most people simply call "The Wedding March".
I found that uproariously funny, since "The March of the Valkries" is about war and battles. How fitting.
Gwen
Comments
Used in Midsummer's Night Dream
One movie version of Shakespear's "Midsummer's Night dream" uses that piece. Another tune for the bride to walk down the aisle to is "Dodi Lee." The words are from Shir h'Shirim ("Song of Songs" aka "Song of Solomon") the first line of "Dodi Lee" is translated to: "My beloved is mine and I am my beloved's." How true those words should be for a married couple.
Married?
My step father always used to say "what's hers is mine and what's mine's my own."
Re: Humorous fact about "The Wedding March"
Hello Gwen,
On Wed, 2007/12/12 - 6:26am, Gwen Brown wrote:
Actually, the "Wedding March" was composed by Felix Mendelssohn, not Richard Wagner. It is one of the pieces that he wrote as incidental music for Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream"!
Also, "The March of the Valkyries" is better known as "The Ride of the Valkyries". To the best of my recollection, no part of "The Ride of the Valkyries" sounds like "The Wedding March", but I haven't listened to it for some time, so I could be mistaken about that. :)
Regards,
Dave.
The Bridal March
is from Wagner's Lohengrin. When I was a chorister (can you imagine me in a red cassock and white surplice with ruff?)- well actually a head chorister, we used to attend weddings for 5/- (shillings) now 25 pence. I must have heard both the bridal and wedding march hundreds of times. The other favourite was the Prince of Denmark's March or Trumpet Voluntary.
As for the Valkyrie, they collected the souls of heroes from the battlefield and took them to Valhalla. Who can forget the use of the music at the beginning of Apocalypse Now, with the three helicopter gunships and Wagner!
hugs,
Angharad.
Angharad
As A Veteran Wedding Musician...
I've had the great displeasure of playing the Wagner and Mendelssohn more times than I care to remember, both on classical guitar and keyboard...the truth is, the Mendelssohn is the one I truly dislike, mostly because I always found it harder to play :)
Never let it be said that I don't enjoy the occasional delusion of grandeur
Never let it be said that I don't enjoy the occasional delusion of grandeur
Kill the Wabbit!
My favorite version of Ride of the Valkyries is the Bugs Bunny - Elmer Fudd version done by Warner Bros. An early music video!
Mr. Ram
I am no music expert.
According to this web site, it was written by Wagner. Of course, I am just a very casual "music" person and not well educated in that art.
http://german.about.com/library/bltrivia_wed.htm
Gwen
Humorous fact about "The Wedding March"
Hello Gwen,
Ah, that makes a difference! It seems that the music to which you referred, is played as the bride enters the church before the wedding ceremony. I know it better as "The Bridal March" (Here comes the bride, all dressed in white... etc.!). It is from Wagner's "Lohengrin", but the Valkyries are from his "Die Walküre"!
The "Wedding March" by Mendelsohn, is played after the wedding ceremony and is the one to which I assumed you were referring, going by the title!
Regards,
Dave.
Beethoven's bear
Q: Why did Richard Wagner fall off the ladder?
A: It was the godda damna rung...
I knew about the Wedding March being in Wagner, and that some people prefer not to use this tune in their wedding ceremony because of who composed it; he was (I've heard, but don't know the specifics...)
something of an anti-Semite. And I knew about Elgar and the high school graduation march...
But I was completely taken by surprise when listening to a thing by Beethoven called---I believe---the Wellington Overture, which is as wonderful & richly detailed as any of his symphonies, but shorter..... and right in the middle of it was the tune to "The bear went over the mountain" (or "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow); which is pretty distracting, and for all its connotations a very silly thing to hear in a Beethoven piece!
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
It's also called the Waterloo overture.
Beethoven composed it to celebrate the overthrow of Napoleon, for which Wellington got the credit and the bit you mention is actually the God Save the King/Queen, or the British national anthem.
I suspect Beethoven was a bit of a creep, because he dedicated the Emperor piano concerto to Napoleon, although I believ he withdrew the dedication subsequently.
God Save the King/Queen is also used in symphony by Haydn, although no one actually knows who composed the original anthem.
And who says the internet isn't educational?
Hugs,
Angharad.
PS I don't think Led Zep used it in any of their stuff.
Angharad
I think God Save the Queen
is also in it, Angharad, but this was very distinctly "the bear went over the mountain",
with it's shambling monotonous melody, rather than the soaring one of the national anthem....
And didn't Tchaikowski too, begin writing his 1812 as a tribute to Napoleon, but by the time he finished it figured out that Napoleon wasn't such a swell guy?
(It's getting up on 30 years ago that I used to have a t-shirt with God Save the Queen on it,
but that's a whole different song...)
~~~NO FUTURE, Laika
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
I've always known that as
I've always known that as the 'Battle of Vitoria' overture... were there muskets in it?
Muskets
Muskets were used up until the American Civil War (1861-65) when Colt created the mechanism for the rifle.
Um, not quite
The first reliable repeating rifle was the Henry, invented by Benjamin Tyler Henry around 1850, which was the precursor to the Winchester rifle. The Henry saw limited use in the Civil War. The Henry was itself an improvement of the Volcanic lever-action rifle, which was invented by Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson (Smith & Wesson).
Samuel Colt popularized the revolving pistol, but he did not invent it. His design was an improvement of the flintlock revolver invented by Elisha Collier of Boston around 1814.
Scott
Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.
-- Moliere
Bree
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
http://bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @genomorph
Been there done that.
Having been married once for 39 years, it is old hat.
If by some heavenly magic, I ever get married again, I will use something from "Grease" and yes, I will be the happy Bride. (Imagine one of those rosy cheeked girls by Andy Warhol.)
Gwen