1 00:00:00,940 --> 00:00:03,400 Ready is my middle name. Here's the theme. 2 00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:18,400 [music: theme; Mozart, Symphony No. 24 (K 182), 2nd Mvt.; Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London/Leinsdorf] 3 00:00:18,490 --> 00:00:25,610 Hello there, I'm Peter Schickele, and this is Schickele Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal. 4 00:00:25,930 --> 00:00:32,070 Or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good, it is good. Good enough for jazz, anyway. 5 00:00:32,350 --> 00:00:33,710 Hey, just kidding, man. 6 00:00:33,930 --> 00:00:40,230 This compote of compatible music is made possible with funds provided by the American Public Radio Program Fund, 7 00:00:40,460 --> 00:00:45,080 whose contributors include the Ford Foundation and also by this radio station. 8 00:00:46,530 --> 00:01:03,850 Herbert von Karajan was one of the last, if not the last, of the old-style conductors. Lofty, autocratic, brilliant, difficult of approach, irascible, single-minded, the stereotype of what great conductors were like in the days when classical musicians were called longhairs. 9 00:01:05,030 --> 00:01:14,630 Karajan, unlike some of his predecessors, was also an astute businessman, a very wealthy person, and perhaps the most recorded conductor in history. 10 00:01:15,390 --> 00:01:22,310 A friend of a friend of mine, when told that Karajan had died, said, I suppose that means he'll only be doing recordings from now on. 11 00:01:22,980 --> 00:01:31,000 And there's been a musician's joke going around for years that our greatest violinist dies, and when he reaches the pearly gates, St. Peter says, 12 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:38,000 ah, I've been waiting for you. Please come with me. We want you to play the Beethoven Concerto with the Celestial Symphony. 13 00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:44,500 So they walk over the clouds for a while till finally they see a huge orchestra in the distance, 14 00:01:44,760 --> 00:01:53,560 and as they get closer, they can make out the conductor, a towering figure on the podium, making sweeping gestures and giving imperious cues, 15 00:01:53,960 --> 00:01:58,160 his handsome, sculptured face displaying intense concentration. 16 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:07,280 And the violinist asks St. Peter, Who's that? And St. Peter says, Oh, don't pay any attention to him. That's God. He thinks he's von Karajan. 17 00:02:08,550 --> 00:02:16,810 Herbie the K in heaven. Then there's Bloch's dream. I've heard this from two different people, which of course doesn't necessarily make it true, 18 00:02:16,910 --> 00:02:26,590 but the story goes that Ernest Bloch, the Swiss American composer who died in 1959, told his students about a dream he had in which he died and went to heaven. 19 00:02:26,850 --> 00:02:46,650 As he was walking around, he saw a large figure in the distance flanked by two shorter figures. He drew nearer, and he saw that the large figure was Beethoven, and the smaller figures were Schoenberg and Stravinsky, who were grasping at Beethoven's robe in a desperate and futile attempt to keep from sinking into the cloud. 20 00:02:47,290 --> 00:02:50,550 As Bloch got closer, Beethoven looked up and said, 21 00:02:51,250 --> 00:02:53,810 ah, Bloch, I've been waiting for you. 22 00:02:55,310 --> 00:02:57,630 Wouldn't it be great to have an ego like that? 23 00:02:57,950 --> 00:03:03,250 Man. In my dreams, I'm about to go out on the stage of Carnegie Hall, and I don't have any clothes on. 24 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:05,700 And then, of course, there's the one... 25 00:03:05,700 --> 00:03:09,940 Okay, okay. That's the old irrelevancy alarm going off there. 26 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:11,340 I guess we've had enough anecdotes. 27 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:14,160 So what is heaven like? 28 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:19,400 Sunlit? Timeless? Harp music in the elevators? 29 00:03:19,500 --> 00:03:22,460 The traditional western view of heaven is quite a classical one. 30 00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:27,840 If there's any architecture besides clouds, it's Greek architecture, and the cherubs are 31 00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:29,020 singing Palestrina. 32 00:03:29,460 --> 00:03:32,340 Well, here are three non-classical views of heaven. 33 00:03:32,620 --> 00:03:37,600 An early admirer of Schubert's monumental C-major symphony referred to its heavenly 34 00:03:37,600 --> 00:03:44,720 length. But our opening suite, the Visions of Heaven song cycle, lasts a modest 12 minutes 35 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:45,160 or so. 36 00:03:46,300 --> 00:08:34,600 [music excerpt: Duke Ellington, "Heaven" (Second Sacred Concert); Alice Babs, vocal; Duke Ellington Orchestra; Johnny Hodges, sax] 37 00:08:37,900 --> 00:08:59,400 [music: Tex Ritter, "I Dreamed of a Hill-Billy Heaven"] 38 00:08:59,460 --> 00:09:02,560 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] Last night I dreamed I went to hillbilly heaven. 39 00:09:02,560 --> 00:09:05,140 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] And you know who greeted me at the gate? 40 00:09:05,380 --> 00:09:10,560 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] The old cowboy philosopher himself, Will Rogers. 41 00:09:10,560 --> 00:09:17,640 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] He said to me, he said, Tex, that the big boss of the riders up here has asked me to kind of show you around. 42 00:09:17,640 --> 00:09:25,180 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] And right over yonder's a couple of your old compadres. My, was I glad to see them: 43 00:09:25,180 --> 00:09:31,420 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] Carson Robison, and the Mississippi Blue Yodeler, Jimmie Rodgers. 44 00:09:47,960 --> 00:09:56,280 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] He introduced me to Wiley Post, and he showed me the Hall of Fame with all the gold guitars and fiddles hangin' on the wall. 45 00:09:56,280 --> 00:10:02,420 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] Then he said, Tex, step over this way. There are two more of your friends I know you'll want to see. 46 00:10:02,420 --> 00:10:16,520 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] They're waitin' for you. And there they were, standin' side by side and smilin' at me, Hank Williams and Johnny Horton. 47 00:10:33,060 --> 00:10:54,580 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] Then I asked him who else he expected within the next, say, a hundred years. He handed me a large book covered with stardust. Will called it the Big Tally Book. In it were many names, and each name was branded in pure gold. I began to read some of them as I turned the pages: 48 00:10:54,580 --> 00:11:09,640 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] Red Foley, Ernest Tubb, Gene Autry, Roy Acuff, Eddy Arnold, Tennessee Ernie, Eddie Dean, Andy Griffith, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter. 49 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:18,760 [Tex Ritter, recorded:] Tex Ritter? Oh, well, that's when I woke up. And I'm sorry I did, 50 00:11:42,400 --> 00:15:35,000 [music: Talking Heads, "Heaven" (Fear of Music)] 51 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:52,140 The Visions of Heaven Song Cycle. We began with Duke Ellington from the second Sacred Concert. The tune is called Heaven, with the fabulous Alice Babs singing, and Johnny Hodges played the sax solo. 52 00:15:52,680 --> 00:15:59,340 Then, after that, Tex Ritter and his truly immortal I Dreamed of a Hillbilly Heaven. 53 00:15:59,560 --> 00:16:16,440 I think that wah that the chorus does after he mentions his own name has got to be one of the great moments in music. And finally, Talking Heads, from the Fear of Music album, Heaven. It's also called Heaven. Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens. 54 00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:21,440 I'm Peter Schickele, and the program is Schickele Mix on APR. 55 00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:29,680 Heaven and paradise are not exactly synonymous, but they're certainly closely related. 56 00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:41,320 And I think for most of us, they both conjure up a vision of a place characterized by slow time and simplicity. A lack of detail, both temporally and physically speaking. 57 00:16:41,980 --> 00:16:52,240 I read an interesting article a few years ago in which a music critic asked a bunch of his friends to name the most beautiful piece of music they could think of. And virtually everybody named a slow piece. 58 00:16:52,240 --> 00:17:15,480 As much as you may love dancing to wild rock music or snapping your fingers to an up-tempo bop tune or triumphing over hardship in a Beethoven Allegro, the word beautiful, like the word paradise, seems for most people to have a little speed governor on it. It seems to have a molecular structure that makes it combine with serenity more readily than with activity. 59 00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:21,180 Now, I know, and I'm sure you do too, people who are, by choice, always busy. 60 00:17:21,480 --> 00:17:25,540 They're never happier than when they've got plenty of projects to work on. 61 00:17:26,140 --> 00:17:32,100 But if you asked even these people to choose a piece of music that embodies the idea of 62 00:17:32,100 --> 00:17:34,280 paradise, do you think that they'd pick? 63 00:17:34,300 --> 00:17:41,500 [music excerpt: Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Kunzel] 64 00:17:41,590 --> 00:17:44,750 Okay, and I know a guy who loves arguments. 65 00:17:45,130 --> 00:17:48,330 He's ornery and confrontational and quick-witted. 66 00:17:48,330 --> 00:17:52,430 He likes challenging assumptions and hates ideas that feel comfortable. 67 00:17:52,990 --> 00:17:55,900 But would his choice for the music of paradise be... 68 00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:59,500 [music excerpt: Boulez, Piano Sonata No. 2, opening; Maurizio Pollini] 69 00:17:59,580 --> 00:18:05,270 Well, maybe with him it would. But I sort of doubt it. 70 00:18:05,810 --> 00:18:07,770 Maybe Boulez would pick it. He wrote it. 71 00:18:08,570 --> 00:18:10,930 Complications. Paradise doesn't have any complications. 72 00:18:11,690 --> 00:18:15,310 The Garden of Eden was paradise until complications set in. 73 00:18:16,110 --> 00:18:19,590 Here's a beautiful song about the Garden of Eden by Gabriel Fauré 74 00:18:19,590 --> 00:18:32,210 on a poem by the Belgian poet Charles Van Lerberghe. It feels timeless in its seven minutes, and I'll read a translation of the text. If you're not driving, I suggest you close your eyes. 75 00:18:33,840 --> 00:18:44,540 Paradise. It is the first morning of the earth. Like a bewildered flower exhaled into the night, with the new breath rising from the billows, a garden of blue unfolds. 76 00:18:44,540 --> 00:18:56,760 All is still mingled, everything flows together, quivering of leaves, singing of birds, beating of wings, gushing of springs, voices of airs, of waters, a murmuring immense and yet soundless. 77 00:18:57,540 --> 00:19:06,940 Opening her gentle, unknowing eyes to clarity, this young and heaven-born Eve is awakened by God, and the world stretches out at her feet like a lovely vision. 78 00:19:07,890 --> 00:19:16,090 God now says to her, Go, daughter of earth, and give to all beings which I have created a word from your lips, a sound by which they may be known. 79 00:19:16,940 --> 00:19:29,160 And Eve went away, obedient to her lord, to her bower of roses, giving to each thing a word, a sound from her flowering lips, that which flees, that which breathes, that which flies. 80 00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:52,110 And thus the day passes, as at dawn, indistinctly, languorously. With the dusk, Eden begins to disrobe and fall asleep in the stillness of a blue reverie. The voice dies away, yet everything listens. All is suspended in expectation. As with the rising of the evening star, Eve sings. 81 00:19:54,700 --> 00:26:56,000 [music: Fauré, "Paradis" (La Chanson d'Ève); Lucy Shelton, soprano; Lambert Orkis, piano] 82 00:26:56,570 --> 00:27:13,480 Lucy Shelton, soprano, and Lambert Orkis at the piano. A beautiful song, beautifully performed. Fauré's Paradise, the first of ten songs from a cycle called The Song of Eve. 83 00:27:13,820 --> 00:27:26,170 I think it's a very peculiar mood that song sets because in some ways it's very sensuous, and yet in other ways it's quite austere because of its almost complete lack of repetition 84 00:27:26,170 --> 00:27:33,510 and the spareness of the piano part. A peculiar but, to me, haunting piece of work. 85 00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:38,880 My name is Peter Schickele, and the program is Schickele Mix on APR. 86 00:27:40,650 --> 00:27:47,450 Now we move on to a different kind of paradise, a place with sugarplum fairies and waltzing flowers. 87 00:27:48,050 --> 00:27:54,310 That's right, folks. We're going to hear the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky in its entirety. 88 00:27:56,540 --> 00:27:59,040 Something's fishy, you say, you regular listeners. 89 00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:00,900 And you say the truth. 90 00:28:01,100 --> 00:28:03,240 The old sleeve does have something up it. 91 00:28:04,060 --> 00:28:07,620 We've talked on other programs about the different shades of arranging. 92 00:28:07,820 --> 00:28:14,340 At one extreme, there is transcription, transferring pieces as faithfully as possible from one 93 00:28:14,340 --> 00:28:15,880 instrument or instrumental group to another. 94 00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:22,560 And at the other extreme, real recomposition, as practiced, for instance, by Igor Stravinsky 95 00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:23,380 and Gil Evans. 96 00:28:23,380 --> 00:28:29,120 You're about to hear both extremes and everything in between. There are certain 97 00:28:29,120 --> 00:28:35,260 well-known pieces that seem to attract arrangers, like horse apples attract flies. And the Nutcracker 98 00:28:35,260 --> 00:28:41,260 is one of them. This suite has eight movements. Overture, March, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, 99 00:28:41,540 --> 00:28:48,520 Russian Dance, Arabian Dance, Chinese Dance, Dance of the Mirlitons, or reed pipes, or 100 00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,860 flutes, check one, and the Waltz of the Flowers. 101 00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:55,820 And each movement will be performed by a different artist or group. 102 00:28:56,520 --> 00:29:00,200 You know, Americans tend to think that the newer something is, the better it is. 103 00:29:00,500 --> 00:29:05,440 So here we go with the all-new, 100% improved Nutcracker Suite. 104 00:29:06,380 --> 00:29:11,100 Too bad, this is radio. I look pretty fetching in this tutu. See you in about 21 minutes. 105 00:29:12,200 --> 00:32:12,100 [music: Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite: Overture; Modern Mandolin Quartet] 106 00:32:14,000 --> 00:35:01,700 [music: Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite: March; Portsmouth Sinfonia] 107 00:35:02,400 --> 00:37:53,800 [music: Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy ("The Swingin' Plum Fairy"); Shorty Rogers] 108 00:37:55,100 --> 00:39:02,600 [music: Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite: Russian Dance (Trepak); E. Power Biggs, pedal harpsichord] 109 00:39:04,900 --> 00:41:08,800 [music: Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite: Arabian Dance; Spike Jones] 110 00:41:09,600 --> 00:43:51,900 [music: Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite: Chinese Dance ("Chinoiserie," arr. Ellington/Strayhorn); Duke Ellington] 111 00:43:54,300 --> 00:45:35,400 [music: Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite: Dance of the Reed Pipes; the Tubadours] 112 00:45:37,200 --> 00:49:25,500 [music: Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite: Waltz of the Flowers; Liberace] 113 00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:31,640 Yes, sir-ree, the all-new 100% improved Nutcracker Suite. 114 00:49:32,450 --> 00:49:40,750 Going way back to the beginning there, the overture was played by the Modern Mandolin Quartet on an album called Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker Suite, Windham Hill record. 115 00:49:42,140 --> 00:49:49,420 Then came one of the more amazing records ever produced, the Portsmouth Sinfonia at the Royal Albert Hall. 116 00:49:50,410 --> 00:49:53,490 That was the march, if you can remember back that far. 117 00:49:53,490 --> 00:50:20,750 And I don't know if the principle of that concert was that anybody could play any instrument they wanted, or just anybody off the street could come in and play, but that was basically the idea behind it. There were certainly no auditions for that orchestra. There was also a chorus involved in some of the rest of the concert. And for those of you who are familiar with Talking Heads and some of the other rock albums, you may be interested to know that one of the members of the clarinet section was Brian Eno. 118 00:50:20,750 --> 00:50:35,540 After that, we had Shorty Rogers. He was doing what he calls the Swingin' Plum Fairy from an album, The Swingin' Nutcracker. Shorty Rogers with his sax quintet and the big band. 119 00:50:37,310 --> 00:50:45,590 Jazz people always have a great sense of humor, of course, and this is some album. The cover is one of the great examples of '50s album artwork. 120 00:50:45,590 --> 00:51:14,390 There, it's got Shorty Rogers leaning on a nutcracker that is saying, like, nutty. And the whole album is The Swingin' Nutcracker, and the titles are Like Nutty Overture, A Nutty Marche, Blue Reeds, The Swingin' Plum Fairy, Snowball. The Trepak, Russian Dance, is called Six Pak here. Flowers of the Cats, Dance Expresso is the coffee dance, Pass the Duke, that's pas de deux, get it? Chinawhere? Get it? Chinawhere? That's the tea dance, 121 00:51:14,390 --> 00:51:44,860 and then Overture for Shorty. And I think that's actually a nice example. It's not just sort of jazzing up the classics, but he makes a piece out of that. And then we came to E. Power Biggs' Greatest Hits, Columbia album, and he's playing the Trepak, the Russian dance on the pedal harpsichord, on which I think it sounds just absolutely great. That's a harpsichord, but has pedals for extra notes like an organ. So E. Power Biggs, being primarily an organist, felt right at home. After that, the 122 00:51:44,860 --> 00:52:14,980 Arabian dance was interpreted by Spike Jones from an album called Spike Jones is Murdering the Classics. No lie there. And then Duke Ellington, an album called Three Suites, and this was, of course, the Nutcracker Suite, and he did the Chinese dance, which he called Chinoiserie. And I think this is a particularly fine example of a rendition that is not simply swinging the classics, but just a beautifully done piece. 123 00:52:14,980 --> 00:52:17,840 I think that Stravinsky would have been proud of that arrangement. 124 00:52:18,570 --> 00:52:21,410 By the way, the liner notes to this album say, 125 00:52:21,570 --> 00:52:24,870 Duke Ellington and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky met in Las Vegas 126 00:52:25,010 --> 00:52:28,570 while Duke's band was setting attendance records at the Riviera Hotel. 127 00:52:28,890 --> 00:52:33,670 And I have a friend who is so gullible that he actually believed that. 128 00:52:33,690 --> 00:52:34,670 He asked me about that. 129 00:52:34,830 --> 00:52:37,630 But I really can't afford to be too superior here 130 00:52:37,630 --> 00:52:42,710 because a friend of mine once told me that the little logo at the top of our program, 131 00:52:42,710 --> 00:52:49,550 Duke Ellington's statement, if it sounds good, it is good, was made by Duke Ellington when he met Mark Twain. 132 00:52:49,670 --> 00:52:56,150 In response to Mark Twain's statement, Wagner's music sounds better than it is. And I believed him too. 133 00:52:56,310 --> 00:52:59,190 Well, there you go. Listen, the best people are gullible. 134 00:52:59,670 --> 00:53:06,490 Next, we come to the dance of the reed pipes. This was done by the Tubadours, four tuba players, 135 00:53:06,490 --> 00:53:16,290 and then finally that stirring rendition of the Waltz of the Flowers, Liberace from his album Moonlight Sonata. 136 00:53:18,060 --> 00:53:23,660 Now, I know some of you out there are really picky and you want to know every little note that was played on the program. 137 00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:28,560 So before we go, I'm going to let you in on those two teeny-weeny excerpts earlier on. 138 00:53:28,720 --> 00:53:36,100 One, of course, was the Rhapsody in Blue of Gershwin. The other was the beginning of the second piano sonata of Pierre Boulez. 139 00:53:36,900 --> 00:53:40,080 This, on the other hand, is Mozart's 24th Symphony. 140 00:53:40,900 --> 00:53:53,500 [music: theme; Mozart, Symphony No. 24 (K 182), 2nd Mvt.; Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London/Leinsdorf] 141 00:53:53,670 --> 00:53:55,410 And that's Schickele Mix for this week. 142 00:53:55,610 --> 00:54:00,470 Our program is made possible with funds provided by the American Public Radio Program Fund, 143 00:54:00,650 --> 00:54:04,610 whose contributors include the Ford Foundation, and also by this radio station. 144 00:54:05,470 --> 00:54:11,770 We'll tell you in a moment how you can get an official playlist of all the music on today's program with record numbers and everything. 145 00:54:12,110 --> 00:54:15,770 Just refer to the program number. This is program number 29. 146 00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:23,020 And this is Peter Schickele saying goodbye and reminding you that it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. 147 00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:25,600 Hey, you're looking good. See you next week. 148 00:54:26,000 --> 00:57:02,000 [music: theme; Mozart, Symphony No. 24 (K 182), 2nd Mvt.; Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London/Leinsdorf] 149 00:57:03,200 --> 00:57:08,320 If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Schickele Mix. 150 00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:13,240 That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Schickele Mix. 151 00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:21,680 Care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403. 152 00:57:23,340 --> 00:57:27,780 [announcer:] PRI, Public Radio International.