Lady Mondegreen Bangs the Can!
Bruce J. Taub
About this work:
Lady Mondegreen Bangs the Can! was written during the spring and summer of 1996. It was commissioned by the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, Raymond DesRoches, Director. This piece shares a lot of similar musical material with its two prequels: Lady Mondegreen's Dances which is a sextet for "pierrot" ensemble plus percussion, and Lady Mondegreen Sings the Blues which is for Winds, Percussion and Piano and was commissioned by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Edwin London, Conductor.
Lady Mondegreen does not exist. A mondegreen is a word or phrase that is construed as it is actually heard, not as the speaker intends it to be heard. Coined by Sylvia Wright in 1954 (Harper's), the word refers to the Scottish Ballad "The Bonny Earl of Murray" and how she recited it as a child: "They hae slain the Earl Amurray,/And Lady Mondegreen." The damsel bleeding loyally beside the slain Earl was in her romantic imagination and the last line was actually written "and laid him on the Green." After reading an article about this by William Safire in the New York Times, it occurred to me that mondegreens happen quite naturally in music all of the time; that everyone hears a piece of music quite differently. Lady Mondegreen Bangs the Can is published by C.F. Peters Corporation.
Year composed: 1996
Duration: 00:13:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Percussion Ensembles
Instrumentation: 4 Percussion (General)
Instrumentation notes: 4 or more players