Salvatore Hammerwell

Hi All,

Has DW or any of the co-authors ever indicated if Salvatore Hammerwell is modelled on any real composer?

Judging from the descriptions in the novels I would have to go with someone like Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Any word on whom DW el al might have had in mind?

In addition I heard that DW was not in the best health so I wish him well, if for no other reason that a selfish desire to see the HH Universe continue. Hopefully we will get a new HH universe book soon!

Kind Regards

Simon

Who do the forumites think would do, or would have done, a good job of writing the Salvatore Hammerwell compositions?

eg

John Williams
John Barry
Karl Jenkins
Giacomo Puccini
Francesco Sartori
Edvard Elgar
Gustav Holst

There is almost no information on Hammerwell -- certainly not enough to draw comparisons to other composers. We have two titles (Salute to Spring and Lament For Beauty Lost), some brief, vague descriptions of the music, and the fact that Raoul listened to Hammerwell in the prenatal tube. Insufficient data to form a conclusion. That said, if they ever get a movie/TV series off the ground, they'll need to commission a couple of works from a modern composer.

dscott8 wrote:There is almost no information on Hammerwell -- certainly not enough to draw comparisons to other composers. We have two titles (Salute to Spring and Lament For Beauty Lost), some brief, vague descriptions of the music, and the fact that Raoul listened to Hammerwell in the prenatal tube. Insufficient data to form a conclusion. That said, if they ever get a movie/TV series off the ground, they'll need to commission a couple of works from a modern composer.

Worst of all, we really don't know what instruments Hammerwell composes for or are available in the Honorverse. What we think of a Symphony orchestra is less then 300 years old, and the iterations of instruments used to create modern "popular" music, are all less then 75 years. Who is to say what comprises an orchestra in 1900 pd or what is the standard "popular" band make-up, and what variance those instruments have had from today?

I know items like a cello and an upright bass, don't particuliarly travel well, and are space intensive - would they not make the transfer to a new world? Would a new instrument take their place? We really don't know.

Let me rephrase my question,


For composers who are already dead, whose works do the forumites THINK would be similar to what they imagine the Hammerwell compositions to sound like.

For composers still alive, whose works do the forumites think are what they imagine the compositions are like and should therefore be invited to write the scores and orchestrate the soundtrack for the film/TV series.

Edward Elgar, I'd think, writes what Hammerwell must sound like. 'Elegaic' was my thought about RFC's description of his music.

Cheers

John

Elegaic derives from 'elegy', not Elgar.

Not that Elgar wasn't that, when he chose.

I'm more inclined to tie the stylistic description, such as it is, to the great romantics - Brahms or Dvorak, or even the Mighty Handful out of Russia.

John Prigent wrote:Edward Elgar, I'd think, writes what Hammerwell must sound like. 'Elegaic' was my thought about RFC's description of his music.

Cheers

John

Theemile wrote:Worst of all, we really don't know what instruments Hammerwell composes for or are available in the Honorverse. What we think of a Symphony orchestra is less then 300 years old, and the iterations of instruments used to create modern "popular" music, are all less then 75 years. Who is to say what comprises an orchestra in 1900 pd or what is the standard "popular" band make-up, and what variance those instruments have had from today?

I know items like a cello and an upright bass, don't particuliarly travel well, and are space intensive - would they not make the transfer to a new world? Would a new instrument take their place? We really don't know.

From the context and descriptions, Hammerwell's works are recognizably classical symphony compositions. Recordings do mean that, barring an information apocalypse (not present, apparently, in the Honorverse history on Core Worlds), it's a genre that can continue.

What instruments will compose one of those symphony orchestras may vary. The entire thing may be generated by a computer reading off the composition and generating the sounds, for instance. Virtual or live instruments, they may vary, but if the tradition of a symphony composition remains, the total effect is going to be within that standard for future symphony performances.

Retaining information and recreating things based on it will mean that instruments travelling may not be so critical: you can take the plans for the cello with you and build it at the destination. It does invite starting an entire new traditional standard for how the cello is supposed to be played at the destination if people are picking it up and playing it with no one on the planet with any memory of how they go. The result may in practice may as well be a new instrument, of course, particularly if information does get garbled. (Picture a cello played by four people, with it laid across their laps and eight hands working it.)

Remember that Grayson has two kinds of music: Country AND Western,

Fox2! wrote:Remember that Grayson has two kinds of music: Country AND Western,

Grayson has two kinds of classical music (Country and Western). It has other music as well:

The Honor of the Queen, Chapter 8 wrote:Soft music played while they ate. It wasn’t the sort of music Courvosier was used to—Grayson’s classical music was based on something called “Country and Western”—but it was curiously lively, despite an undertone of sadness. The dining room was large, even by Manticoran planetary standards, with a high, arched ceiling and rich, tapestry-like wall hangings and old-style oil paintings. Religious themes predominated, but not exclusively, and the landscapes among them had a haunting, bittersweet beauty. There was a sense of the lost about them, like windows into Elfland, as if the loveliness they showed could never be wholly home to the humans who lived upon this world and yet could never be anything but home, either.

Flag in Exile, Chapter 8 wrote:The choir's glorious harmony swept through her, and she closed her eyes to savor it. The choir sang without accompaniment, for its superbly trained voices needed none, and the artificiality of instruments, however magnificent, could only have detracted from their beauty. Honor had always loved music, though she'd never learned to play and her subjects would have greeted her singing voice with pained politeness. Classical Grayson music was based on an Old Earth tradition called "Country and Western" and took some getting used to, but she was developing a taste even for it, and she was delighted by Grayson's popular music, while its sacred music was breathtaking.

Italics are the author's, boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.