Michelle Cann has championed Hazel Scott’s stride improvisation on this piece as an encore. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this “damned little piece” whose composer despised performing it since he didn’t profit from its popularity. Though this piece depicts a funeral in a dream, its three-note descending octave ostinato is often mistaken for the Kremlin bells.
ANSWER: Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 3, No. 2 [accept Rachmaninoff’s Opus 3, Number 2; prompt on answers that indicate a Prelude by Rachmaninoff but do not specify a key or opus number]
[10h] This musician further popularized Rachmaninoff’s C-sharp-minor Prelude in an arrangement by Chappie Willet. Maurice Peress orchestrated a piece by this composer about a Sunday parade in its namesake New York neighborhood.
ANSWER: Duke Ellington [or Edward Kennedy Ellington] (The unnamed piece is Harlem.)
[10e] Rachmaninoff was ironically “enchanted” by Ferde Grofé’s version of his prelude for Paul Whiteman, both of whom were also involved with this other piece. Ross Gorman popularized bending the opening clarinet solo in this piece by George Gershwin.
ANSWER: Rhapsody in Blue
<Jacob Egol, Classical Music and Opera>