Friday, May 20, 2016

How well do you know the words to "A Whole New World" from Alladin


As Disney’s Aladdin hits the stage in London’s West End, we've put together the ultimate test of Aladdin-fandom… 
image: http://assets8.classicfm.com/2016/20/aladdin-a-whole-new-world-quiz-1463430388-article-0.jpg
Aladdin A Whole New World Quiz
It's one of Disney’s best-loved films and the music, written by Alan Menken, is an iconic film score.
In fact Menken won the Oscar in 1993 for Best Music – and it was this song, written with Tim Rice, that got the song-writing duo a double-header at the Academy Awards – with the Oscar for Best Original Song as well.
But how well do *you* remember the words, street rat (as Jafar might say…)?


Friday, May 13, 2016

This is an Epic Fugue on a Theme by Lady Gaga

By Kyle Macdonald, ClassicFM London


A truly monstrous piece of counterpoint.

Lady Gaga Fugue

A bit of a Prelude

It's worth starting this off with a bit of a doff of our music geek cap to the pop superstar. The music video to Lady Gaga's 2009 hit Bad Romance begins with Johann Sebastian Bach's Fugue in B minor from the Well-tempered Clavier Book I:

And, err... Fugue

So Gaga is clearly someone who likes a bit of Baroque point-on-point action. It's therefore quite appropriate that a YouTube notesmith has taken the theme to her 'Bad Romance' and turned it into a brilliant Bach-inspired fugue. 
And the pop superstar was lovely enough to get in touch with us and tell us how much she liked this contrapuntal rendering of her melody.
So that's nice. 
Let's close with a brilliant 'orchestration' of this fugue, cunningly assembled by another YouTuber.