I can't disagree with ol' Curt - I didn't even post the "Sleigh Ride of the Valkyries" on my blog when I first created it. But, it's grown on me over the years - more smash-up than mash-up, perhaps. The opening actually works pretty well, and the final cadence has a nice whiplash effect. The less said about the middle, the better. I think what I like best about the whole thing is the unlikely combination of Sleigh Ride's completely good-natured merriment and Wagner's slashing menace.
Anyway, to quote Taylor Swift, "haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate." Nicholas Slonimsky has famously documented a wide-ranging number of great works that were initally panned by critics. In fact, when the #fakeAMS meme was going around a few years ago (mimicking the absurdist style of so many musicology paper titles), I proposed the following:
A New Lexicon of Musical Invective: The YouTube Commentariat as Aesthetic Arbiters for the Petit bourgeoisie #fakeams peer-review: kate97485
— Michael Monroe (@MMmusing) September 30, 2011
It's true that this "work" was also initially panned by me, but what do I know?If this holiday offering disappoints you, I can also recommend Matthew Guerrieri's 2006 Dreidel Attraction, in which the Valkyries take a ride Wagner would never have imagined:
The 12 Musings of Christmas (so far...)
- Christmas Time is Here
- In Season
- Vertical Christmas Medley
- Trippin' with Chestnuts
- Sleigh Ride in a Fast Machine
- Sleigh Ride of the Valkyries
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