Wednesday, January 28, 2009

1992 Tory Campaign Music: Can You Help?

Andrew Lloyd Webber composed a piece of music for the Tory 1992 election campaign, which was played in their PPBs and before John Major's public appearances. It was a jazzed up version of a piece of classical music a Rondo, I think. Can anyone tell me what it was based on, or where I can download it?

10 comments:

  1. ALW > Taking credit for coming up with the theme for the Tories' 1992 general election campaign, which in reality involved "arranging" a piece of classical music from over 300 years ago, which in reality involved adding a bit of percussion and having the trumpet play a bit louder...

    ghastly man.

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  2. Sorry I haven't got a clue. However, if you are thinking of the next General Election, the Tories can do no worse than use the theme from Titanic.

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  3. The Rondo from Henry Purcell's Abdelazar.
    iTunes"

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  4. It's a rearrangement of Purcell's Rondo from Abdelazar. I believe I have the official version on cassette somewhere. In the meantime, you can see a version of it performed at a school concert in Japan here..

    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AuAZ8V9gOvw

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  5. I've got it on tape.
    I'll upload it and email you a link

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  6. ALW did not compose this thing. See above.

    I liked the use of Danse Macabre aka Tales of the unexpected with the Lib Dem conference of 2007 (or 06?).

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  7. If my memory serves me correctly, it was also the same Rondo used by Britten in his Young Persons' Guide to the Orchestra.

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  8. Crumbs, this is sad.

    What next, "can I have Mike Oldfields phone number?"

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  9. It was "The Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra" - and damn good it was to, about the only campaign tune that ever stuck in my mind.

    It was by Benjamin Britten and was sub-titled Variations and Fugue on a theme of Purcell.

    The themes itself comes from a piece called Abdulazar by Purcell.

    Too much information!

    Amazing what PPC's know.

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  10. Hi Mike. Did you upload your version? Would really like a link to it if poss?

    Thanks

    Russ

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