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. And it's good to know that our bills are being paid by the fine radio station in which I am ensconced, and to which you are listening.
As composers go, and they do, just like everybody else, I got interested in music quite late. The summer I turned eight years old, my parents said I had to take piano lessons, and if I didn't like it, I could quit. And I didn't like it, and I quit. Although I must say, I can still do quite a rousing rendition of In a Wigwam by John Thompson. I think I must have gotten a gold star pasted to that page. But I don't think I ever made it to book two.
Anyway, the family moved to Fargo, North Dakota, when I turned twelve. And I started hanging around the record department of DeVoe's Music Store. By the way, that department was eventually run by a nice guy named Bill Buck, who told me that someone had come into the store once and said to him, I don't know anything about classical music, but I heard a piece on the radio I liked a lot. It was by somebody named Mozart, and I think it was called, I'm Inclined to Knock Music. I don't know. Do you think that really happened?
Now, my friend Walter Prausnitz, who knows Bill Buck very well, he says that... Okay! Okay! Okay! Okay! Man, now it's true, I was straying from the point, but did you notice how long that irrelevancy alarm sounded? I think it has a prejudice against puns. The point I was groping towards is that I can remember coming home one afternoon and saying to my mother, Boy, you know what I saw at DeVoe's today? A record with a piece on it called "Fu-gu." Can you believe that?
Okay, so maybe I wasn't the most cultured kid in the world. But hey, come on, it's spelled F-U-G-U-E. How would you have pronounced that when you were 13? Well, within a few years I was writing fugues. And we're going to be hearing some delectable examples of the genre, which is why today's show is called The Fugal Gourmet. One of the characteristics of a fugue is that the various vocal or instrumental parts come in one after another, doing the same melody. What does that remind you of? That's right, a round. So let's start at the...
Hello?
Oh, well, sure, I'd be delighted to. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Bye. Sorry about that. So, let's start back at the beginning. Here's the earliest preserved round in Western music. In this case, the two bottom voices do a short, repeated figure that's sort of a musical rug, an accompaniment that has nothing to do with the imitation.
But after that is set up, you'll hear the first main voice sing through the whole melody. Then he goes back to the beginning, and this time a second voice comes in with the same melody, but four beats later. The third time, they add the third voice four beats after the second, and the last time there are four singers singing the same melody, each one starting four beats after the previous singer.
Sumer is icumen in, which I happen to know is Old English for Summer is a-comin' in, was written around the year 1240.
[music: Anon., "Sumer is icumen in"; The Hilliard Ensemble]
Sumer is icumen in, sung by the Hilliard Ensemble. Now, although the fugue developed more than 400 years later, I'd like to mention here that the entry of the different parts in Sumer is icumen in, [sings the opening of the round] I can't get up that high.
[sung: the staggered entries of "Sumer is icumen in," demonstrated]
creates the feeling of voices chasing each other, which is what the Latin word fuga means. Now let's skip ahead to the second half of the 16th century and hear an excerpt from a mass by Palestrina. Here, too, the voices enter in imitation, but they don't always start on the same pitch as the previous voice. And also, after they imitate the first few notes of the previous voice, they proceed freely. There are several different melodic ideas that get imitated.
At the beginning, there's [sung: "Agnus Dei"], then later, [sung: "Qui tollis"], or [sung: "Qui tollis"], or sometimes [sung: "Qui tollis"], we're not talking strict imitation here, then later still, [sung: "Miserere"],
gets traded around. These are called points of imitation. I suppose if Palestrina had written a mass when George Bush was president, he would have used a thousand points of imitation. But here, he makes do with just a few.
[music excerpt: Palestrina, "Missa Sicut lilium inter spinas, Agnus Dei"; The Tallis Scholars]
[music: Purcell, Fantasia for Viols, No. 14 in G minor; London Baroque]
[music: Frescobaldi, "Recercar post il Credo"; Eduard Muller]
[missing audio: J. S. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol. 1, No. 10 in E minor, Fugue (BWV 855); Glenn Gould, piano]
The Fugue-Bound Suite. We began with the 14th of Purcell's fantasias for viols, and the viol, of course, was the predecessor of the modern violin and cello. And although those were written towards the end of the 17th century, they were very old-fashioned in their time.
Beautiful, but old-fashioned. They were very much in a sort of a Renaissance style, even though Purcell would be considered a Baroque composer. And the second number was a ricercar by Frescobaldi, early in the 17th century. And the ricercar was one of the ancestors of the fugue. This is an organ work, of course. Eduard Muller was playing the Silver Chapel organ at Innsbruck, and I've had the pleasure of hearing an organ concert in that chapel.
Beautiful organ. And then finally, we heard one of the fugues, the E minor fugue, from the first book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, played by Glenn Gould. And when you get there, you've got a subject that is completely instrumental. There's no way you could sing that subject. Well, maybe the Swingle Singers could, but most of us couldn't.
I'm Peter Schickele, and-- [sound: phone rings] I can't believe this. Hello? ... Oh, well, ... will do. Right, a little bit later. That's right. Okay, thanks a lot. Very sorry about that. My name is Peter Schickele, and the show is Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International.
There's a tremendous variety among fugues, even among those by the same composer, but for almost three centuries now, the fugue has been regarded as a test of compositional skill, and it has been codified, turned into a rigidly defined form by academic types, which is perhaps at least partly why it has developed a reputation for dryness and stuffiness.
Somebody once defined a fugue as a piece in which the voices come in one at a time and the audience goes out one at a time. But there is one practice that is pretty constant among fugues, and that is that you've got sections of exposition in which the main melodic idea, which in fugues is called the subject, is presented anywhere from one to as many times as there are voices in the fugue, and these exposition sections alternate with sections called episodes, In which either new material is introduced, or material from the subject is developed, and these episodes usually take the music to another key for the next exposition.
Here's the subject of the second fugue in Bach's monumental Well-Tempered Clavier. Let me get the authentic instrument geared up here. Here we go.
[music: keyboard demonstration, the subject of the C minor fugue]
Okay, now that is the subject. Now I'll let a real pianist, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, play the whole fugue on a real piano. And I'll try not to disturb him as I talk you through it. Take it away, sir.
[music: J. S. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol. 1, No. 2 in C minor, Fugue (BWV 847); Mieczyslaw Horszowski, piano]
Here comes the subject in the second voice, higher.
Here it comes in the bottom voice. Okay,
now we've got an episode here, traveling to another key.
Top voice, another episode, going to another key.
Middle voice, another episode here, moving to another key. Top voice,
[No speech for 29 s.]
It seems only fair to Johann Sebastian to listen to the piece again without any blabbering on my part, and also to hear it on an instrument that the old guy might have played it on himself, the harpsichord. This is Glen Wilson.
[music: J. S. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol. 1, No. 2 in C minor, Fugue (BWV 847); Glen Wilson, harpsichord]
Glen Wilson playing the second fugue, the fugue in C minor, from the first book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. When I said an instrument that Bach might have played it on, I didn't mean that the piano wasn't invented in his day. It had been invented, but he didn't seem to be partial to it.
Bach is to the fugue what Shakespeare is to modern drama. He didn't exactly invent it, but he might as well have, whatever that means. I guess partly what I mean by the Bach-Shakespeare comparison is that the same person who wrote the earliest examples of the genre that we still enjoy is also regarded as the greatest purveyor of that genre. That's not true, say, with the symphony or the novel. Okay, we've heard a pithy utterance.
Now let's hear a major speech from the master of the fugue.
[music: J. S. Bach, "Fugue in G minor (BWV 542)"; Lionel Rogg]
Boy, there is something just satisfying about a good fugue. It just builds up a tremendous sort of visceral drive. That was the Fugue in G minor by Bach, played by Lionel Rogg. And this album, he seems to have been playing on a bunch of different organs. I'm not sure which organ that was. I know you organists out there want to know, but you'll just have to get the album. I really like the way he plays that, too.
Those of you who heard our program on words to instrumental music may remember the words that somebody put to it because this guy named Ebenezer Prout wrote words for all the subjects of the Bach fugues in the Well-Tempered Clavier. And somebody else wrote words to this subject, saying, "Oh, Ebenezer Prout, you are a silly man, what on earth inspired your stupid little plan? You who make Bach fugues as nasty as you can."
But those words can't ruin that fugue. I'm Peter Schickele. The program is Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International.
Our second and last suite today consists of three fugues, all of which are based on unusual themes or themes that have something special about them. Now, if you're not musically trained, you probably won't know what's special about the subject of the third and last fugue, but I'll tell you when it's over. The subject of the middle fugue is an extremely well-known theme, and the subject of the first fugue is a bit peculiar, a tonally rather ambiguous melody.
The story that has become attached to this fugue is that the composer's cat walked across the keys of his harpsichord and played those eight notes. Naturally, musicologists poo-poo that story, as they always do with the really good ones. Although, I do have to admit that it's hard to imagine a cat playing those notes. At least, none of my cats has ever played anything remotely that organized.
Be that as it may, it has come to be known as the Cat's Fugue, not to be confused with his pajamas. The That's an Interesting Subject Fugue Suite lasts about nine and a half minutes. See you later.
[music: Scarlatti, Fugue in G minor (K 30); Scott Ross]
[music: P. D. Q. Bach, Fugue in C minor (from the “Toot Suite for calliope four hands”) (P.D.Q. Bach On the Air); Emmanuel Pedal]
[music: Rimsky-Korsakov, Variations on B.A.C.H., Opus 10, Fugue; Bernard Ringeissen]
The "That's an Interesting Subject" Fugue Suite. We began with the so-called Cat's Fugue, actually called an exercise by Domenico Scarlatti. That is Kirkpatrick No. 30 in G minor, and that was performed by Scott Ross on the harpsichord.
Then, P. D. Q. Bach's Fugue Vulgaris, the fugue in C minor from the Toot Suite for Calliope Four Hands, and that was played by Emmanuel Pedal from the P. D. Q. Bach album, P. D. Q. Bach on the Air.
And then, finally, we heard Bernard Ringeissen, I'm not sure how he says that name, it looks sort of German, but he seems to be French, anyway, playing a fugue from the Rimsky-Korsakov Variations, Op. 10, on the name Bach.
And let me explain that. Unlike in our country, where we only use the letters A through G to define the notes, in Germany they use one more letter. The letter B in Germany means B-Flat, and for B natural they use the letter H. I don't know why that is. I'll have to look that up. But anyway, that is the way it is. And that makes it possible in Germany to spell the name Bach with notes.
B-Flat, A, C, H. And many composers have written pieces using that theme as an homage to Bach. And the slightly creepy thing is that the last thing Bach was working on when he died had in the alto part, right a few notes before the end, the alto part spelled out B-A-C-H.
Okay, now it's Tidbit Time. And for our tidbit today, we're going back to P. D. Q. Bach because he made what is quite a revolutionary discovery, and I'm really surprised that other composers didn't pick this up and follow through on it. What P. D. Q. Bach discovered with his cantata Knock Knock is that he just did this so that he could remember jokes better, setting them to music.
But he discovered a wonderful system. You set up the joke with the recitative, and then you set the punchline as a choral number. It's very effective. It's a good way to remember jokes, and it also makes for a very effective recitative and fugue, or whatever it is. The last movement of the choral cantata, Knock Knock, is an extremely involved joke with a long setup.
So we've got a recitative here and a chorus, and the chorus is an elaborate fugue on the punchline. Here we go. This movement is called So This Guy.
[music: P. D. Q. Bach, “Knock, Knock,” Recitative & chorus: “So this guy” (Oedipus Tex); The Greater Hoople Area Off-Season Philharmonic & The Okay Chorale/Schickele]
The last movement of P. D. Q. Bach's choral cantata, Knock Knock. The soloists were Shelly Cohen, soprano, Richard Kozofsky, tenor, Scott Hogshead, baritone, and Michael O'Hearn, bass. That was your humble host conducting the Greater Hoople Area Off-Season Philharmonic and the Okay Chorale.
And that's about it for our show today. I can't believe it. Three times? Hello?
Okay, you're the third one, you know. Okay, you got it. We'll do right now. Okay, thanks an awful lot for calling. Bye. Alright, I think that three times constitutes popular demand. Three people calling in asking me to play In a Wigwam from John Thompson, Book 1. And I don't see how I can disappoint those people. So here goes. I've got the authentic instrument set on piano here. It's the closest it comes to piano.
And I'm going to play In a Wigwam. Now, I do have to tell you that it's been about 42 years now, so I may not remember it exactly, but this is pretty close, I think.
[music: keyboard demonstration, "In a Wigwam" from John Thompson's piano method]
I always loved that part.
[music: keyboard demonstration, "In a Wigwam" from John Thompson's piano method]
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
And that's Schickele Mix for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided 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 52. 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. You're looking good. See you next week.