1 00:00:00,430 --> 00:00:03,230 Okay, just keep your pantaloons on. Here's the theme. 2 00:00:19,570 --> 00:00:31,630 Hello there, I'm Peter Shickley, and this is Shickley Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal. Or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good, it is good. 3 00:00:31,930 --> 00:00:40,950 A program sworn to a policy of playing music of the people, by the people, and for the people, even if some of those people happen to be kings and queens. 4 00:00:41,550 --> 00:00:52,670 Let's face it, the arts and financial backing go together like a horse and carriage. And if you don't know any kings and queens, you can do what I did, genuflect before the American Public Radio Program Fund, 5 00:00:52,930 --> 00:01:03,290 whose contributors include the Ford Foundation, and also before the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and this radio station. It worked for me, and my gratitude knows no bounds. 6 00:01:03,850 --> 00:01:06,870 Let's begin today's program with a popular song. 7 00:01:09,010 --> 00:01:40,900 That song, called, 8 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:51,260 Lomar May, was a big hit in the 15th century. We heard it sung by the Italis scholars on a Gimel CD. Its words mean, fear the armed man. 9 00:01:51,540 --> 00:02:03,900 Word has gone out that everyone should arm himself with a coat of iron mail. And in those days, it was common for composers to base masses, not only on liturgical melodies, but also on secular songs. 10 00:02:04,580 --> 00:02:16,280 There were at least 25 mass cycles based on Lomar May, written during the second half of the 15th century, and here's the beginning of the Agnus Dei from Dufay's Mise Lomar May, 11 00:02:16,460 --> 00:02:27,040 performed by the Hilliard Ensemble on an EMI CD. Now, don't expect to hear the tune in the top part. It's pretty much buried in the whole texture. 12 00:03:06,530 --> 00:03:19,430 If you can hear Lomar May in there, you've got a very good ear. At the risk of courting a charge of musicological impudence, let me play that again and sing along when the song comes in. 13 00:03:20,010 --> 00:03:31,690 Of course, Dufay changed the words to those of the Kyrie, but I'll sing the original words. Now, I think it's safe to say that if I auditioned for the Hilliard Ensemble, I wouldn't make it in. 14 00:03:31,890 --> 00:03:42,390 So, I'm going to see if I can help myself out here a little singing-wise. I just had a reverb thing put into this studio here, and this is a good time to try it out. I'm going to turn it up here. 15 00:03:42,870 --> 00:03:45,570 Okay, now maybe I can blend in with the rest of the group. 16 00:03:57,710 --> 00:04:26,200 It doesn't sound half bad. 17 00:04:26,420 --> 00:04:37,720 I'll have to remember that. But it would be tacky to use it for the whole show. Okay, now, hearing a Lomar May Mass is all well and good, but it doesn't give us, you and me, here and now, 18 00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:47,420 an idea of what it would be like to hear a Mass based on a song that has been a part of our lives for years. So, let's move ahead a couple of centuries to a Baroque piece. 19 00:04:47,980 --> 00:05:00,360 In this case, the chorale melody, also based on a secular song, is in the soprano. It's a song that's still around. Why don't you see? If you can recognize it. The melody is foreshadowed in the trumpet 20 00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:02,220 at the beginning of this excerpt. 21 00:06:17,080 --> 00:06:17,600 No? 22 00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:28,580 Well, maybe you don't know the song. But it's more likely that the problem is that the words, which in this case are the original song words, are quite difficult to understand. 23 00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:37,680 Let me play that excerpt again with me singing along when the tune comes in. Okay, let me just turn up the old reverb here. Here we go. 24 00:07:03,900 --> 00:07:06,200 I said these words to my 25 00:07:06,200 --> 00:08:08,220 In 1965, after I had recorded the first PDQ Bach album with Vanguard, 26 00:08:08,480 --> 00:08:19,240 but before it was released, I got a call from Elektra Records. Basically, what the guy said was, we've got this great idea for an album, we can't tell you what it is, but would you like to do it? 27 00:08:19,900 --> 00:08:30,420 He did mention something about it involving both classical and popular music, so I said that I'd probably be interested, but that I was already working on this, and he said that he wanted to do a PDQ Bach album with Vanguard, 28 00:08:30,700 --> 00:08:41,720 and it sounded like there might be a sort of a conflict of interest there, and maybe he should talk to the two brothers who ran Vanguard and see what they thought. Naturally, they thought it was a lousy idea. They're no dummies. 29 00:08:42,020 --> 00:08:53,460 And thus it was that I didn't get to do the Baroque Beatles book, an excerpt from which we just heard. The person they got to do it was Joshua Rifkin, who later made some very influential recordings 30 00:08:53,460 --> 00:09:04,120 of the music of Scott Joplin and Johann Sebastian Bach. We knew each other from Juilliard, and in fact, Josh was the first person to sing the PDQ Bach cantata, Iphigenia, in Brooklyn, 31 00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:16,860 decked out in a red wig to make him look like Russell Oberlin, the reigning countertenor of the day. That was at Juilliard in 1962, and for a while our careers seemed to be paralleling each other. 32 00:09:17,080 --> 00:09:28,800 He did Baroque treatments of Beatles songs, and I did PDQ Bach. He arranged for Judy Collins, and I arranged for Joan Baez. Anyway, he did a fine job. He did a fine job with the Baroque Beatles book, 33 00:09:28,940 --> 00:09:41,060 which certainly turned out to be more scholarly and probably a lot subtler than it would have been if I had done it. And what makes it good is not only the fun of spotting the tunes, but it really does give you a feeling of what it must have been like 34 00:09:41,060 --> 00:09:50,500 to be a 15th century northern Italian listening to a mass based on Lomar May. The excerpt we heard before was from Last Night I Said, 35 00:09:50,720 --> 00:10:03,320 cantata for the third Sunday after Shea Stadium, MBE 58,000. Here's the overture to the royal Beatleworks music, MBE 1963. I'll see you in about six minutes. 36 00:10:04,620 --> 00:10:14,480 This reverb thing is really great. I'm going to turn it up here. Yeah, you've got that something. All right. I think you'll understand 37 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:21,880 When I say that something I want to hold your hand 38 00:16:25,530 --> 00:16:37,030 the overture to the Royal Beatleworks music if you've got what musicians call x-ray ears you might have heard a little reference to another tune you're going to lose that girl in there 39 00:16:37,030 --> 00:16:42,590 but I'm talking very buried of course there's a very prominent quote from the fourth Brandenburg 40 00:16:42,590 --> 00:16:50,750 Concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach my name is Peter sickly and the program is sickly mix on 41 00:16:50,750 --> 00:17:00,890 APR I was just thinking about what the closest thing to a Lomar may mass might be in our culture 42 00:17:00,890 --> 00:17:12,310 now and the Aaron Copland ballets came to mind for instance Billy the Kid in which he uses cowboy songs like goodbye old paint and get along little doggies but that's a score for a ballet about 43 00:17:12,310 --> 00:17:23,390 cowboys the songs that the Renaissance composers used in their masses the words of those songs had nothing to do with the mass or any other part of the liturgy most of them were love songs any 44 00:17:23,390 --> 00:17:30,510 way here are the next two movements of the Royal Beatleworks music rejuice and lape preceded and 45 00:17:30,510 --> 00:23:33,620 followed by their models you say you will love me if I you be thinking wishing you weren't so far 46 00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:53,400 away things we said today you say you be mine girl till the end of time these days such a kind girl 47 00:23:53,400 --> 00:24:59,760 it seems so hard to say then we will reset today say that love is he said today you say that love 48 00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:12,610 is that's enough the only one 49 00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:55,340 it's interesting listening to the Baroque Beatles book Decades Later it reminds me of the story of a kid being asked if she likes classical music sure she says I like the Beatles and it's true 50 00:25:55,340 --> 00:26:04,560 these songs are sort of like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony now sometimes you feel as if you've heard them enough for a while I mean you maybe don't go out of your way to listen to them but man when 51 00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:16,900 you hear them again they really stand up here are the last two movements of the Royal Beatlework music Les Plaisirs, once again preceded and followed by their beatific models. 52 00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:25,820 Here I stand, head in hand, turn my face to the wall. 53 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:33,680 If she's gone, I can't go on, feeling two foot small. 54 00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:43,220 Everywhere people stare, each and every day. 55 00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:51,120 I can see them laugh at me, and I hear them say. 56 00:26:53,560 --> 00:27:15,510 You've got to hide, you've got to hide, even try. 57 00:27:15,850 --> 00:27:26,120 I can see them in the state I'm in. 58 00:27:26,140 --> 00:27:43,940 Could she say to me, look out, let me hear you say. 59 00:27:49,940 --> 00:27:53,500 You've got to hide your love away. 60 00:27:57,240 --> 00:27:57,620 Hey! 61 00:33:13,220 --> 00:33:25,080 She's got a ticket to ride, and she don't care. 62 00:33:47,910 --> 00:33:56,050 She's got a ticket to ride, and she don't care. 63 00:33:56,370 --> 00:34:01,500 Why's she riding so? 64 00:34:33,179 --> 00:34:44,940 She's got a ticket to ride. And she don't care. 65 00:34:56,699 --> 00:34:57,920 For she gets to say. 66 00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:24,190 And she's got a ticket to ride. 67 00:35:26,030 --> 00:35:33,970 She's got a ticket to ride, and she don't care. 68 00:35:58,330 --> 00:36:07,870 We've been listening to the Royal Beetleworks music, MBE 1963, from the Baroque Beatles book, rediscovered and edited by Joshua Rifkin, 69 00:36:07,990 --> 00:36:17,750 who was also conducting the Baroque ensemble of the Merseyside Common Music Gazelle Shaft. Earlier, when we heard that little bit of the cantata, the baroque ensemble, we heard the baroque ensemble of the Merseyside Common Music Gazelle Shaft. 70 00:36:17,770 --> 00:36:30,750 the third Saturday after Shea Stadium, we also heard the Canby Singers. Certainly one of the things that makes this record so delightful is the really spirited performances. It's really a joy. And now it's tidbit time. 71 00:36:31,010 --> 00:36:41,750 And I thought since we're dealing with arrangements, why don't we hear a terse yet quite ambitious arrangement of La Donna Immobile from Verdi's opera Rigoletto. 72 00:37:27,570 --> 00:37:35,790 I was just kidding there, folks. That arrangement isn't very ambitious at all, really. It's from an album of musical clocks. 73 00:37:36,310 --> 00:37:47,130 That was an 1833 Viennese clock. This is on a Candide record called Musical Clocks, Musical Clocks from Private Collections 74 00:37:47,130 --> 00:37:56,310 and Famous Clock Museums in Vienna, Nuremberg, and Bernhausen. I'm Peter Schickely. The program is Schickely Mixed. Schickely Mixed on APR. 75 00:37:58,860 --> 00:38:11,540 On other installments of Schickely Mixed, we deal with classical music as treated by non-classical musicians. Jazz versions of symphonic pieces, for instance. Now that's a pretty large field. There's quite a bit to choose from. 76 00:38:11,740 --> 00:38:24,580 But when it comes to classical treatments of non-classical, but non-folk material, the pickings are considerably slimmer. Today's program has so far been devoted to a playful example of this small genre. 77 00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:35,540 But we're going to go out with a, heavy-duty example. Now, you classical music purists, if there are any of you left listening to this show, you better fasten your seatbelts. 78 00:38:35,900 --> 00:38:47,300 We're going to hear a song called Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N' Roses. My son tells me that Guns N' Roses are not exactly considered heavy metal, but compared to most of the music on even this eclectic show, 79 00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:59,400 Welcome to the Jungle has a fairly weighty mineral content. It will be followed by an absolutely spectacular arrangement of the song for string quartet. That most classical aggregation of instruments. 80 00:38:59,860 --> 00:39:10,000 The arrangement is by Frank Bennett, and also the Green String Quartet, who perform it on a virgin album called The String Machine. Don't say I didn't warn you. 81 00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:56,020 If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Schickely Mix. That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Schickely Mix. 82 00:40:56,260 --> 00:41:05,460 Care of American Public Radio, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900. 100A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.