Hello there, I'm Peter Schickele, and this is Schickele 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. Our bills are paid by the American Public Radio Program Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and also by this radio station.
And especially during this season, it behooves us to express our profound gratitude to those givers, as well as our hope that we ourselves are giving at least as much as we receive. Today's program is called Christmas Presence, but it's not what you think, you see, because presence is spelled P-R-E-S-E-N-C-E.
It's like the presence of Christmas on three continents, North America, South America, and Europe. Oh, all right. I guess a title that you have to spell out to understand isn't really ideal for a radio show, but as it turns out, the title is more apropos than I thought it would be, because I haven't... You see, the thing is, I'm not one of these people who says Christmas has gotten too commercialized and we shouldn't give presents, Although that idea in that movie, Running on Empty, of only giving things you've made or found, is pretty attractive.
But anyway, I love giving Christmas presents. I'm one of those annoying people who has an eye out all year round for just the right presents. But that doesn't mean that I don't get hung up just before Christmas like everybody else. So what I was going to say is that I'm a little backed up here in terms of wrapping. And the way my life is now, if I don't get it done by the end of this hour... But don't worry, it won't affect you at all. I mean, the mics are off during the music.
Well, so, let's get right into our first lots of music on the show today, folks. Our first little suite here, or song cycle. It's called An International Christmas, and it has three numbers, the middle of which is in Spanish, and tells the story of the three kings. I'll see you in a little over eight minutes.
Where is that scotch tape?
[music: Gregorian chant, Introit "Dominus dixit" (Midnight Mass for Christmas); Choir of Monks of the Abbey of St. Pierre de Solesmes]
[music: Juan de Araujo, "Los coflades de la estleya" (Christmas in the New World); The Western Wind]
[music: Luther arr. Schickele, "Away in a Manger" (Noel); Joan Baez]
An International Christmas began with the Choir of Monks of the Abbey of St. Pierre de Solesmes singing some Gregorian chant, an introit, Dominus dixit, for the Midnight Mass for Christmas. Then we had a delightful piece from an album called Christmas in the New World, performed by the vocal group Western Wind.
This was called Los coflades de la estleya by Juan de Araujo, and according to the notes, for Christmas celebrations in the Baroque era in the New World, Mexican composers largely abandoned Latin liturgical texts and instead drew upon the enormous literature of villancicos. Written in Spanish by local poets.
Now, one of the liveliest of all Baroque villancicos, if I'm saying that correctly, written in Latin America, is Juan de Araujo's Los coflades that we just heard. It was composed for a Negro Corredia [sic], a brotherhood in Peru. He became, sometime around 1680, he became the maestro at the Cathedral of La Plata, Sucre, Bolivia. That was once the largest city in the New World.
Apparently his fiery temperament often offended Peruvian officials and endangered his professional career. But this piece is in a black dialect, and it tells the story of the three kings, and includes a nonsense refrain, Galumba, Galumba, which certainly sounds more African than Spanish. And where is my third album?
The third piece was from Noel, Joan Baez's album, which I had the pleasure to be the arranger on, and that was, of course, Away in a Manger. I can remember when we recorded that in 1966, I think it was. Of course, to get a record out by Christmas, you really have to have it ready to go to the stores by September or October. And so we recorded this in July, I think it was, and I remember coming out of the sessions. We did them in a ballroom of a hotel on Broadway in New York.
And I'd come out this hot, sweltering July day, and I'd be walking down the street going, [whistles "Away in a Manger"] and people turning around giving me weird looks.
Okay, I'm Peter Schickele, the program is Schickele Mix on APR.
All of you are hearing a bunch of great music, and I am getting my Christmas present wrapping done. Everybody's happy. Next, we'll have an American Christmas. Although the text of the first of these three numbers is an anonymous medieval poem that likens the purity of the virgin birth to the blossoming of a fair rose, the music is less than fifteen years old and very American. Three numbers, I'll be back in about ten and a half minutes.
[music: Robert Dennis, "Of a Rose" (Christmas in the New World); The Western Wind]
[music: Robertson, "Christmas Must Be Tonight" (To Kingdom Come); The Band]
[music: Trad., "Christ Church Bells" (Kentucky Christmas); Jean Ritchie, Jonathan and Peter Pickow]
Although those are actually English bells. I'll talk about that in a minute. First we heard, I'll get these presents out of the way. I can't tell the presents from the albums for the show. Another cut from the Western Wind album. This one was a beautiful piece by Robert Dennis called Of a Rose. And in addition to the vocal ensemble, Western Wind, there was a violin, as you heard, and also hand bells.
Then the second piece was a number by the band that I must say I was unaware of until recently. The song is called Christmas Must Be Tonight, and it's from an album of theirs that didn't do so well called Islands, but it's been collected on To Kingdom Come, the definitive collection, as it's called, of band material on CD.
Then we ended that suite with something from a nice Christmas album by Jean Ritchie and her family and friends. That was a little round called Christ Church Bells, which Jean Ritchie says she learned as an instrumental round, playing it on recorders, and so she decided to put words to it, and since it was Christmas time, she put Christmas words to it.
That was Jean Ritchie and her sons, Jonathan and Peter Pickow, singing, and the bells during the song were synthesized. Jean Ritchie is certainly one of the most authentic, although that's sort of a noxious word, folk singers around, but she's not against change at all. And this album has instruments that predate her time, old viols and stuff like that from centuries ago, and also synthesized bells.
But the bells you hear at the very end there are from the church ringers of Eppingham [sic], Rutlandshire, England. The Ritchies visited them and recorded them and used them on this album.
You know, I was wondering, do people still have Santa visit? Except, you know, I don't mean after midnight when the kids are asleep. When I was young, we used to often get together on Christmas Eve or the night before that with friends. And very often, particularly when there were young kids in some of the families, somebody would arrive as Santa Claus. I certainly was Santa Claus a couple times myself. I remember one time my brother being a modern, up-to-date Santa Claus. He had a little pencil mustache and very dashing.
I don't know. I don't hear about people doing that anymore. Now we're going to hear some instrumental music associated with Christmas. And this brings up the question, is there such a thing as instrumental music that is inherently Christmassy? If you didn't know what the piece is called, would you know that it's Christmas music? Our next suite has three pieces arranged in descending order of inherent Christmasness. The first is a brief setting of one of the standard Christmas carols.
The second has a lot of bell music in it, and many people associate bells with Christmas, although to say that this piece reflects a very personal view of Christmas is an understatement. But the third piece, as far as I can tell, has no Christmas association whatsoever, aside from its subtitle. It is, however, beautiful music. So here's an instrumental Christmas. It lasts about ten and a half minutes, after which I'll be back.
[music: Trad. arr. Schickele, "Angels We Have Heard on High" (Noel); Joan Baez]
[music: Messiaen, Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, No. 13, "Noël"; Michel Béroff]
[music: Corelli, Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 8 ("Christmas Concerto"), 5th mvt.; Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Jeanne Lamon]
A little instrumental interlude off that same Noel album by Joan Baez that we heard from earlier, Angels We Have Heard on High, and that's the last of the standard Christmas carols you'll hear on this program.
I love those carols. We used to go caroling in Fargo, North Dakota when I was young. I even went caroling once or twice in Brooklyn as an adult. Now I usually go to a friend's house. He has a whole bunch of people over a week or two before Christmas and we sing all sorts of stuff including carols. I do love them. But it is true that during the Christmas season you tend to hear them so much, what with Muzak everywhere and everything, that it's nice to hear some other stuff too.
Then we heard a section from one of the most amazing works ever written for piano, the Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus by Messiaen, Twenty Looks or Regards or Aspects of the Infant Jesus. This is a huge piano piece, here played by Michel Beroff, and Messiaen is one of these composers who thinks in terms of color.
He also is an extremely, or was until he died, an extremely devout Roman Catholic. And I'd like to read you his note on the number we heard, which was number 13 of the Vingt Regards, called Noël. It's marked very fast, joyous. And just listen to what Messiaen wrote about it. The first part is a carillon. These are the bells of Christmas.
Noticeable as well is a xylophone theme, the theme of chords, concentrated, then fragmented, and the Hindu rhythm, miçravarna, which means in Sanskrit, mixture of colors. More murmuring sounds and rustling of silk. The middle part evokes the holy family and the adoration before the child in the crib. It is composed in the third mode of limited transpositions, having the colors orange, gold, and milky white.
Opposed to this another polymodal color, the third mode in the fourth transposition, orange, red with a little blue. Superimposed on the second mode, golden brown, and a third color, mode 3-2, gray and mauve, with an upper pedal of which the foreign notes add a trace of red. In the reprise of the first part, the bells are augmented by a long convergent movement like a fan closing.
The whole piece demands of the pianist a variety of attacks, imitating other instruments, timbres of bells and of tam-tam, of xylophone and marimba, of clarinets and flutes, without mentioning the rustling of silk referred to above, or the rhythm of kettledrums at the close. This man knew what he wanted. And we ended that suite with part of the famous Christmas concerto by Corelli.
And as I mentioned before, I can't see anything Christmassy about the music itself, nor have I found any writing that indicates what that might be, but the subtitle of the concerto is Fatto per la Notte di Natale, Made for Christmas Night. That was the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra under the direction of Jeanne Lamon. My name is Peter Schickele. The program is Schickele Mix on APR.
We talked about how bells are associated with Christmas. So for our tidbit today, let's hear some organ music that includes bells. Most people associate organ bells and drums and things like that with theater organs. But many church organs were built not only with bells, but bird calls and thunder and cymbals and all sorts of stuff included. Here's Virgil Fox on the organ of the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan, playing a setting by Bach of the joyful traditional Christmas carol, "In dulci jubilo." We'll hear a little bit of a preceding setting first.
The good news is that I've only got about one more present to go here, and even though it's a bit of a weird shape, I think our tidbit is long enough to allow me to wrap things up, if I may be permitted a bit of seasonal humor.
By the way, by the way, just in case any members of my family are listening, I just want to say that it's not as if I was too lazy or stingy to go out and buy gift wrapping paper or anything. It's just that, well, it's really an environmental thing, using newspaper, and I just wanted to make sure you all realize that. Here's In Dulci Jubilo, performed by Virgil Fox.
[music: Trad. arr. Fox, "In Dulci Jubilo" (The Christmas Album); Virgil Fox, organ]
An old world Christmas. Three beautiful pieces, and I couldn't be more serious about that. Three great pieces of Christmas music, ranging from an achingly tender lullaby to some irresistibly kinetic joy to the world. And I don't mean the carol, I mean three minutes and seventeen seconds of concentrated joy for the world to be nurtured by. The whole suite is about, let's see, that would be ten and a half minutes long. See you then.
[music: Schütz, Kleine geistliche Konzerte, No. 10, "Hodie Christus natus est" (SWV 315); soloists of the Tölzer Knabenchor, Schmidt-Gaden]
[music: Trad., "Can Ye Sew Cushions" / "The Christ Child's Lullaby"; Julianne Baird & Bill Crofut]
[music: J. S. Bach, Christmas Oratorio, chorale "Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen"; Münchener Bach-Chor and Bach-Orchester, Richter]
An Old World Christmas began with Heinrich Schütz, No. 10 of his Kleine geistliche Konzerte, Hodie Christus natus est, and that was performed by soloists of the Tölzer Knabenchor, a children's chorus, under the direction of Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden.
Then we heard a beautiful pair of pieces, traditional Scottish pieces, Can Ye Sew Cushions? and The Christ Child's Lullaby, performed by Julianne Baird and Bill Crofut, with the Crofut consort. And finally, Johann Sebastian Bach's gigantic Christmas Oratorio, made up of six cantatas. This is the last number of the last cantata, the chorale Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen, and that was the Munich Bach Choir and Orchestra under the direction of Karl Richter.
And that's it for our Christmas show, folks. I'm going to go and put these presents, well, I'm not going to say where the wrong ears might be listening, But I wish you all a happy holiday, wherever you may be, and whomever you may be with. And, uh, ho ho ho, everybody, and just in case I don't see you, have a happy new year, too. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I forgot about the theme music.
See if I can get this button with my foot here.
Oh, great.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
And that's Schickele Mix for this week. Have a very happy holiday. Our program is made possible with funds provided by the American Public Radio Program Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and also by this radio station and its members. 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. Just refer to the program number.
This is program number 30. And this is a slightly out-of-breath 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. You're looking good. Don't eat too much. Go ahead. See you next week.
[No speech for 20 s.]
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Schickele Mix. That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Schickely Mix. Care of American Public Radio, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.