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Why I joined the Cavaliers in the 1990s


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DARK AND SERIOUS, THAT’S WHY!

People have always called me serious, maybe even dark sometimes too, and those 1990s Cavaliers shows really were intense.  I was drawn to them like gods and taught myself to play mellophone at 19 just so I could be a part of that.  Look at my case:

1990 – Anthems – I believe this is supposed to be choral church music, but those first two pieces sound like no church I’ve ever been to.  That Gloria percussion feature is bone crushing – which is very good!

1991 – Christmas music from hell

1992 – Revolution - enough said.

1993 – I’ve often called this the darkest music ever played.  I believe the opener is about Jesus’s procession with the cross and the second piece is about fighters in Vietnam.

1994 – rope and lumber to accentuate heavy masculine effect we’ve always had

1995 – all emotions covered, but Mars… I stand my ground!

1996 – Pan-American Sketches, the year I marched – they told us this more gentle show was actually about Europeans stealing the Americas from the Natives (Copland at the end is pretty “white” to finish off the meaning)

1997 – who thought the Firebird ballet could be made more dark and serious than Stravinsky made it – The Cavaliers proved it could be done.

1998 and 1999 – “Machine” was pretty heavy, but for the most part, I think we started to back off…

Any thoughts?

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98 is actually my favorite show of the decade from the corps.

 

97 not so much

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Rutter?  All Things Bright And Beautiful - “dark”?  The Planets? Silent Night?
I don’t know. I acknowledge your thesis here but it don’t know that I’d call it dark and serious. Excellent and exciting, yes. 

Edited by HockeyDad
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any show that conveys 1 thing the entire time is boring. all of those shows have places where the darkness you speak of is broken up, thank goodness.  morning allelujahs in 93 was a real breath of fresh air after all of the heaviness of the first 3/4 of the show. i love that whole era of the cavies.   

masculine is a generally useless word to describe any of those shows.  just because mars was god of war doesn't make the music holst wrote in that piece male or female.  it's just weird to think of music that way to me.   and my dad would've called all of the guard members in all of those shows...well, he wouldn't use the word "masculine" to describe them, let's put it that way.  a lot of people wouldn't.  it's disgusting to me the way people use gender as a pejorative, but there it is.  

also, i loved 98 cavies.  my favorite part of the show was actually the dance mvmt called for the woodwinds, and it was super light and whimsical.  

 

 

Edited by Lance
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I admit "Venus" and "Silent Night" were two of the most wonderfully beautiful productions in Cavies' history and I love  it.  Plus most of these shows showed the Triumph of "good over evil".  But it's the modern, rhythmic, atonal music that really does it for me.

Plus we were light years ahead of everybody else when it came to drill.  Rest in peace Steve Brubaker.

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30 minutes ago, Skeletor '96 said:

I admit "Venus" and "Silent Night" were two of the most wonderfully beautiful productions in Cavies' history and I love  it.  Plus most of these shows showed the Triumph of "good over evil".  But it's the modern, rhythmic, atonal music that really does it for me.

Plus we were light years ahead of everybody else when it came to drill.  Rest in peace Steve Brubaker.

Atonal music? At what point in the 90’s did the Cavaliers play even 1 entire piece that was atonal? There was dissonance in some shows, and some darker pieces, but all the shows being dark, about good and evil, atonal? I can’t think of a single show in the 1990’s that was based on any of that criteria as a whole. Sure, they had some of the musical elements you wrote of-with the the exception of true atonal music, but I don’t see what you’re talking about.

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Maybe I used the wrong word.  I meant dissonance and often a lack of melody like much of Peterloo.

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All good but (I think 1976 maybe).....Russian Christmas Music, Love in them Thar Hills and Once Upon a Time/Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I may have missed a tune or two. Oh and the cool drum solo

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