Today's Piano Puzzler
From the archives, this is one of my biggest “bugaboo” episodes from the first time I heard it, for reasons I’ll get to. The contestants on today's Piano Puzzler are Beau Smith and Sylvia Pacheco from Addleboro, Massachusetts. For the longest time, I had hard time picking out the hidden song, though I thought I heard a couple possibilities. But a long ways in, it finally became absolutely clear, and I knew I had it right. As for the composer style, it danced between several possibilities...all of which were wrong. But the composer is very popular -- and one of my favorites. I just didn't think he wrote anything like this. One quibble – and this is the bugaboo – though it’s not about the contest, but the discussion afterwards. The contestants didn't know the hidden song at all, though it's famous with several reasons why its pedigree should have helped -- yet neither host Fred Child or pianist Bruce Adolphe explained any of them. They only gave the name of the song. Not its larger context or perhaps who else very famously recorded it, or maybe where it's very famously from. (Sorry, I don't want to say more to give it away for those playing along.) At which point, if they had, the contestants might have said, Ooohhhhh! Okay!! NOW I know what it is."
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