A fun question to you all here,concerning "Bellas Lullaby"!??Please don't moan it's a fun question.?

Ah Stefan, how good it is to see some more "fantasy" questions here! Schumiszt and I have vowed to keep them coming, so I hope your creative cogs keep whirring busily, too!

Now - if I had the chance, I would present a copy of "Bella's Lullaby" to the infamous Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo (1566 - 1613.) He was a murderer (he slaughtered his wife and her lover when he caught them 'in flagrante delicto') and after that, his music - mainly madrigals - became increasingly bizarre and extremely chromatic.

Imagine what Gesualdo could do with such a boring little tune - he could transform it into a quite surreal, though strangely beautiful 5 part madrigal, with the title: "O Bella, Io assassinio tu nel famoso di arte" ("O Bella, I murder you in the name of art.")

And I'd bring the completed madrigal back, and implore the angel-voiced Emma Kirkby and the rest of The Consort of Musicke to perform it in a spooky Scottish mediaeval church, somewhere in the Highlands...

Isn't it grand to dream?

Thanks, that was fun!

Hafwen x

I love Heidelberg! Everyone prefers Rothenburg, but it's too touristy cheesy for me- Heidelberg was beautiful and also a place I'd love to live. The medicine museum in the castle was one of my favorite, and I also love the illuminated books at teh University... anyways...

I'm tempted to take it to Beethoven, just to see the look on his face. I would not give it to him around 1802, however, as he then *would* kill himself after seeing the future of humanity. Bach would be a good pick- he could compose a contrapuntal piece from Bella's Lullaby, Love Story, and other such trash.

However, I would ultimately select a composer I've actually listened to very little- Haydn. He is a master of humor and wit, and I believe he would best "optimize" the lullaby. How about a theme and variations?

I would seek out a vampire conductor, of course- how about de Sabata?

I'd give it to Penderecki. He'd optimize it by adding an orchestral background, with scritchy spidery strings, muddy and dark brass and brittle and spiky woodwind. The choir would sing the melody, but would also feature a morass of quarter tones and glissandi, with no words. In short I'd want it to sound as much like Canticum Canticorum Salomonis as possible. It'd be called "Bella's Lullaby", for irony's sake.

Take THAT teenage girldom.

Instantly reminded of Beethoven's epic Diabelli Variations.

The publisher handed out a theme on invite to a number of composers.

In this composer's hands, a relatively inconsequential handful of notes became a monument of piano literature. A noted character of this set is progression from variation to variation, all quite logical developed so the theme is more and more obscured. The music never looks back.

So, Beethoven, and not necessarily piano music.

Best, Petr B.

I would first take it to Bach. Bach would recompose it using baroque style on the harpsichord. I would then take the Bach composition to Vivaldi. Vivaldi would compose the solo violin to go along with the harpsichord.

It would be called Bella's Lullaby Redux

I would not give it to a famous group yet... See, I just came back with an original piece (variation i guess) of a collaboration of Vivaldi and Bach! I and my small group of chamber musicians would play it and we would become famous overnight. I would wait for yahoo answer questions for the sheet music before I give it out to the world.

I then would slap Carter Burwell in the face.

edit: I live near a town called heidelberg :p

Can this be a collaborative effort? If so, I would first take it to Bach and have him make it more intricate and complex. After he had spruced it up, I would take it to Tchaikovsky and have him add his Romantic feel to it so it would be more like a lullaby.

If Tchaikovsky was too busy though, I would take it to Schumann.

After that, I would take it to Johann Strauss Sr. and Jr. to get them on friendly terms again, and then have them turn it into a waltz.

It would be called: "The Sleeping Bella Waltz"

1.)Since everyone is taking it to Bach, I'll go to the opposite end of the spectrum and take it to Ravel. Partly because if I fear if I, a female, took it to Baroque times and told all the gentlemen I was from the future and had a piece I needed them to rewrite, they would reply something along the lines of, "Darn women and their weak constitutions--this is what happens when they aren't treated delicately. Good thing we've given them no rights. Get the madwoman out of here--poor thing probably has no idea what she's talking about!"

Granted, things weren't that much better by the turn of the 20th century, but I like to think Ravel would believe me :P

Ravel would turn Bella's Lullaby into a wild, all-over-the-piano, dissonant, intimidating, heart-stopping and soul-feeding work for solo piano. There would be lots and lots of runs.

2.) Ummm...Lullaby for the Seagull? (I haven't heard it, because it doesn't exist, so I'm having trouble naming it).

3.) ...But all my favorite pianists are dead! I'm going to be dumb (it's early in the morning) and say PianoPlaya123 on YouTube, aka Cambry...I really like his playing.

I would take it to Bach.

According to my scholarly analysis of this great work:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=At5d7...

the piece is in the binary form.

Bach collected short pieces in the binary form by Christian Potzold, his son Karl Philip Emmanuel, and others, and compiled them in Anna Magdalena's Notebook. He might be interested in including this one also.

Because of the open fifths in the bass, I would suggest calling the piece "Musette." It doesn't have a gavotte rhythm like a prototypical Baroque musette, but neither does BWV Anhang 126.

The piece would then become part of the standard repertoire of every piano studio, along with the other short pieces in Anna Magdalena's Notebook.

I think I might take it to Renaissance composer William Byrd.

... I suspect he might use it to line the bottom of his bird cage, however.

Doing any one of them will get you more space in an elevator