Ready? Willing? What more do you want? Here's the theme.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
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. Just like the slow movement of Mozart's 24th Symphony there, which is heard on radios at least once a week, thanks to the fact that our bills are being paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and also by this radio station, within whose walls I am happily ensconced. Now, this is Schickele Mix No. 56, if I may be permitted a bit of poetry, and it's the 56th time we're starting out with that charming bit of Mozart. So far, at least, that has been an immutable aspect of the program, whereas when it comes to the rest of the music played on the show, I think you'll agree that we're talking mutability to the max, category-wise speaking. What changes and what stays the same? That's the subject of this outing, which is called Varieties of Variation. The word variations, of course, doesn't just imply, it entails variety. And yet, at least as it's used in music, the term involves a paradox. You know, I always say, if you can't live with paradox, you can't live. So think about this. When you hear the word variations, it means not only that you're you're going to get variety, it also means that something is going to stay the same.
Some aspect of the music is going to remain constant while other aspects change. As a matter of fact, it may not be too far off the mark to say that the theme and variations form involves more something-staying-the-sameness than any other of the commonly used classical forms. Let me illustrate what I mean about the difference between variety and variation by improvising a piece of music here. Now, this is completely off the top of my head, folks. You may find it hard to believe, but I have not worked this out beforehand. Okay, here we go.
[sound: an improvised "soundscape," mostly silly vocal sounds]
That's it. Yeah, I call it Soundscape No. 23. Don't ask me to perform it again, please. No, really, now, that had plenty of variety. I made every gesture in the composition as different from the others as I could. But it didn't have the feeling of variations because nothing was constant. So you didn't have the feeling of variations on anything. In the traditional variation forms, something has to stay the same. Okay, what stays the same?
Let's start with an excerpt in which it's very easy to hear what stays the same. Namely, the first four notes.
The opening of Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole, played by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under López-Cobos. Now, that isn't called a theme and variations. Something as short as that idea is usually called a motif. And if it repeats obstinately like that, it's called an ostinato. But what we have there is common to most variation forms: something staying the same combined with something changing. With a real theme and variations, you've got a melody that is longer, but still easily retainable. It's usually song-like, if not an actual song, and in binary form, two halves, each repeated, A-A-B-B. Here is such a theme, and the first two of a set of variations based on it.
Mozart. Variations on a tune he knew as a French song, Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman, performed by Paul Badura-Skoda on a 1790 Viennese pianoforte. In what we heard there, the melody remains recognizable, although embellished, and the harmony, the basic chord structure, remains pretty much the same, while the figuration, the noodling around, is what changes.
Now, we deal with classical theme and variations more extensively on other editions of Schickele Mix, but what often happens is that the melody itself gets dropped after the first few variations, this happens in the Mozart later, and the only thing remaining constant throughout the set is the basic harmonic scheme.
This eventually led to one of the most common forms, perhaps the most overwhelmingly common form of the 20th century, theme and variations, in which the chord structure of the theme is understood to be more important than the melody itself. This next work, which we will hear in its entirety, is not called theme and variations, but that's what it is.
A theme and eleven variations, very few of which refer to the melody of the theme, but all of which use its harmonic scheme.
[music: Youmans/Robin/Grey, "Hallelujah" (The Tatum Group Masterpieces); Art Tatum/Lionel Hampton/Buddy Rich]
Performed by Art Tatum on piano, Lionel Hampton on vibes, and Buddy Rich on drums. Is that hot or what? You know, I sort of miss a bass in there. But the thing is that Art Tatum came out of the old Stride Piano School, which has a lot of bass line in it, a lot of left hand stuff low down. And if you have a bass in there playing too, and it isn't coordinated, it gets to sound sort of muddy. So that's a good reason for not having a bass with Art Tatum.
But what does happen is that you get a lot of Buddy Rich's bass drum going, which to me sometimes gets a little bit boring, but it's not a matter of what Art Tatum does. He does great stuff down there. Anyway, that is one of the hottest cuts I know. And it's very common for jazz musicians to completely ignore the melody in their improvised solos. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that they use the same tune as the basis for many, many performances.
I mean, Mozart wrote only one set of variations on Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. How many times do you think Dizzy Gillespie played Night in Tunisia during his, what, 60-year career? Who needs to hear the tune again? I mean, more than at the beginning and the end.
The improviser creates a new melody and develops that. But one guy who did frequently work off of the melody was Thelonious Monk. I'll show you the difference. Here's a very distinctive Monk tune followed by the beginning of Milt Jackson's vibraphone solo. The solo has absolutely nothing to do with the melody. Misterioso.
[music excerpt: T. Monk, "Misterioso" (The Best of Thelonious Monk); Thelonious Monk]
Monk, Milt Jackson, John Simmons, Shadow Wilson. Now, when I say that Milt Jackson's solo has absolutely nothing to do with the melody, I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way. There's no reason why it should. All I mean is that there are a million other tunes that use those basic blues chord changes, and Milt Jackson could play that same solo, that part of it that we heard, for any one of those tunes, and it would fit the harmony. Now, here's another cut on which Monk has the first solo.
Another distinctive tune by Melodious Thunk, as I believe his wife called him. And notice how he starts off his solo.
[music excerpt: T. Monk, "In Walked Bud" (The Best of Thelonious Monk); Thelonious Monk]
With George Taitt on trumpet, Sahib Shihab on alto, Bob Paige bass, Art Blakey drums, and Thelonious Monk taking the melody as well as the harmony out for a walk. I'm Peter Schickele. The program is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International. Varieties of Variation: what changes, what stays the same. Okay, now if you can have the tune at the beginning and the end separated by variations based entirely on the harmonic scheme, why couldn't you get rid of the tune completely? Just have the chord pattern. That's what we've got in this next piece. There's nothing that can be called a melody at the beginning, just a set of chords that is used as a basis for the whole rest of the piece.
Even at the end, when all the instruments are playing in unison, the melody they're playing would fit with the chords laid out in the first six bars of the piece. It's like a jazz player, Sonny Rollins for instance, playing tenor sax all by himself, no rhythm section or anything, but he hears the chord changes in his head, and that helps shape the melodic thread he's spinning. Here's a set of variations on a chord pattern.
[music excerpt: Schickele, String Quartet No. 1 (“American Dreams”), Four Studies; The Audubon Quartet]
That was an excerpt from the String Quartet No. 1, American Dreams, by the decreasingly young American composer Peter Schickele, played to a fare-thee-well by the Audubon Quartet. The second movement of that piece is called Four Studies, and there are four sections all having a sort of a jazz influence. That is the last of the four.
And what I said about the melody at the end fitting with the chords, that isn't true all the way to the very end, there's sort of a coda section on the end, but basically, it's true for most of it.
Okay, now we're coming to the end of the line. The next set of variations has no recognizable recurring melody or harmonic pattern, except that it's full of mirror images, so you do hear things repeated, but backwards. Also, there is a kind of sectional feeling that is common to most variation forms, where the texture changes with each variation.
This is a very intimate, pure, crystalline world. Small gestures, enormous consequences.
[music: Webern, Variations for Piano, Opus 27, 1st Mvt.; Maurizio Pollini]
Anton Webern's Variations for Piano, the first of the three movements, played by Maurizio Pollini.
So what is constant in that piece? Well, there's a predetermined order of the 12 tones, called a row, that is used throughout, but never presented melodically, and in fact, the best musician in the world couldn't figure out the row from simply hearing the piece. It's only a tool for the composer. And in fact, Webern, during several weeks of coaching a pianist on this piece, never once talked about the 12-tone construction, even when asked.
But the 12-tone construction is not why he called this piece Variations. He used the same technique in almost all of his music, which he didn't call Variations. I think it's a beautiful little piece, but I called it the end of the line because I don't think you can get much more oblique than that and still have it sound like Variations on something. 20th century composers have been concerned with the idea of continuous variation in which which one aspect is constant in A and B, another aspect in B and C, and so on, until by the time you get to E or F, there's nothing in common with the original material.
This is a perfectly valid procedure, but it does tend to become a composer's tool rather than a process the listener can follow.
Now, before we move on to Beethoven stretching the variation conventions of his day, let's hear a nice little piece that varies different aspects without losing sight of the variationee, if I may invent a term. In this thing, sometimes the melody is retained, sometimes the harmony, or at least the bassline, and sometimes only the rhythm. We haven't encountered that yet.
And then there's one variation that, I don't know, you feel that it's a variation, but you're not sure what's constant. And it's sort of based on the whoosh of the theme.
Lost Souls Waltz and Variations, which was composed, arranged, and realized on computer-assisted synthesizer by Richard Applegate.
Those of you who might be listening who are P.D.Q. Bach freaks, you know, who know all the recordings, might be interested to know that on the album where I make a bunch of mistakes and you hear the producer's voice from the studio saying, go ahead, go ahead, just go ahead, we'll cut that out later, and then they never do. That's Rick Applegate's voice, the producer.
I, on the other hand, am Peter Schickele, and one thing that hasn't varied a bit is the name of this program, Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International.
We're talking variation here, and nobody did more varying in his life than Ludwig van Beethoven. His first published piece was a set of Variations, and he went on to write a bunch of the best ever written. He was also, of course, Mr. Iconoclast, so you expect the unexpected from him. Now, instead of talking about the last movement of his third symphony, the Eroica, before we hear it, I'm going to try to put myself in the place of an attentive listener at the the Viennese palace of Prince Lobkowitz in December of 1803, when the piece was heard for the very first time.
Now, let's see, this looks like a good seat here, far enough from the orchestra to get the overall sound, but not too close to the gossiping or snoring contingents. That other seat was the pits.
Well, the orchestra looks ready.
That first movement was as long as a symphony all by itself.
But the Funeral March and the Scherzo were very fine.
Strange how Herr Beethoven didn't seem to hear me when I tried to talk to him earlier. I wonder... Oh, wait a minute. Ah, here we go.
[music: Beethoven, Symphony No. 3, Opus 55 ("Eroica"), 4th Mvt.; The London Classical Players/Norrington]
What key are we in, anyway?
Interesting theme, no accompaniment.
This feels like theme and variations to me, binary form.
Yep. There's the theme in the middle now.
[No speech for 30 s.]
Okay. Okay, theme's on the top. We've got a theme and variations here.
[No speech for 27 s.]
Ah, nice counter melody in the oboe.
[No speech for 26 s.]
Hey, hey, what's happening here? We're going to another key.
This sounds like a development section. Like sort of fugato things, sort of a contrapuntal treatment of the first four notes of the theme.
[No speech for 39 s.]
Hey, that's the oboe theme.
But it doesn't seem like a counter theme. The bass isn't there at all. The original theme.
[No speech for 26 s.]
This is a completely new theme here. The bass is based on the first notes of the first theme, but this sounds like a rondo or something.
[No speech for 30 s.]
Now here's that oboe theme again, but it seems to be becoming as important as what I thought was the main theme here, and the bass isn't the same. And now we're back to developing that first theme again, that
first theme upside down.
[No speech for 37 s.]
I must say I've never heard a development section of this kind in a variation movement. This is very unusual.
[No speech for 26 s.]
This is so beautiful. That was such a heart-rending climax. And now we're hearing that oboe theme with a different harmonization. It has nothing to do with that original bassline first theme.
[No speech for 26 s.]
But having a slow section in the middle of a fast part really feels like a theme and variations movement. This is an extraordinary combination.
[No speech for 28 s.]
This is really something now. That oboe theme is in the bass. No hint, of course, of the bass. That oboe theme turns out to be as independent as the first theme.
I must say this orchestra is really sounding good.
This seems to be one of the few places that isn't based on one of those two themes.
Now, that's the chord pattern of the main first theme there. The bass line reminds me of it. But, wait a minute, it's going off in different directions. It's, it's, it's the development section again.
[No speech for 26 s.]
We're obviously rounding out a section here. I wonder what's going to come next.
That scared me.
This sounds like ending stuff here. It doesn't seem to be actually based on the theme or anything.
This is so exciting I can hardly stay in my seat.
[No speech for 35 s.]
What I wouldn't give to have been there. I think one thing's for sure. I would be willing to bet that the orchestra that played that first performance of the Eroica Symphony by Beethoven was nowhere near as good as the London Classical Players conducted by Roger Norrington.
I may be stretched a couple of points there, in bringing in the rondo, but this is certainly an amazing combination of the sonata form, one of whose characteristics is at least one development section that takes the theme and breaks it up into little pieces that get thrown around to different members of the orchestra and put in different keys. We have very much that feeling in several development sections there.
The use of the fugal writing, which means the contrapuntal thing where voices come in like a round.
And combined, of course, with the variation form. And then that place in the middle where it goes
[sung: the folk-like theme]
You know, that's a completely different kind of folky kind of theme. This theme is the kind of thing that composers of that day would often bring in as an episode in a rondo. A rondo being a piece in which you return constantly to the first theme. And the ending, by the way, is one of the few places in the music that is not using one of those two themes. One of the amazing things about that movement, or one of the fascinating things about it, is that that opening theme
[sung: the opening theme]
and the oboe theme
[sung: the oboe theme]
Now I've seen liner notes that say, is that opening theme really a theme or merely a bass for the oboe theme? Point is, of course, that it's both. It is a theme, and it also acts as a bass for the oboe theme. But then the oboe theme turns out to be just as important on its own without that bass line. And as I said, the fascinating thing about the movement is if you listen to it carefully, go ahead, if you've got a recording, go and listen to that last movement, there's practically no time, not more than a few seconds here and there, when one of those two themes is not being worked out one way or another until that ending.
And that's one thing that Beethoven did a lot of, was big endings that are completely non-thematic, don't have anything to do with anything really, they're just a lot of bluster to make you realize what an important piece you've just heard, which indeed you have. Now there's another question about variation, how much variation do you want? Sometimes maybe you don't want a lot of variation, you want things to stay the same. Let's look into that.
[music: Ram, "The Great Pretender" (Stan Freberg: The Collectors Series); Stan Freberg]
Recording: But just a moment, please. You're on the piano. What are you doing? Well, man, I just play a little [imitates the piano chords]. See, I think it's a mistake on my part. I got the same chord over and over, like a clink-clink-clink-clink-clink-clink. That's right! That's right! You want me to play the same thing all through the song? You catch on fast!
Recording: Man, you scared me. Don't do that.
[No speech for 63 s.]
Recording: Wow, what a drag.
Recording: Just a moment. Just a moment, please.
Recording: I thought you were through, man. No, no. I don't want to play that lick no more, man. I come from a different school, like Shearing, [unclear], man.
Recording: That's not going to sell the records! Man, don't bug me. I don't want to play that cling, cling, cling jazz. You play that cling, cling, cling jazz, or you won't get paid tonight.
Recording: Well, all right.
Recording: You see how lovely that turned out now? That's the darling part. I appreciate it.
Recording: Hold it! Slow down! Retard! Don't stop me now, man, I got to where I like it. Stop it, stop it, I say. I'm getting out of here.
Recording: He ruined the ending. One of the loveliest parts in the whole piece.
The Great Pretender, as interpreted by Stan Freberg and his cohorts.
Actually, I'm the kind of person who does like things that stay the same a lot, as well as things like the Beethoven that are constantly changing and surprising you. I love the end of Hey Jude. How many times do they sing that?
I love it. The nice thing about this world is you don't have to choose. You can listen to it all. Now here's one thing that never changes.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
And that's Schickele Mix for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and also by this radio station and its members. That means you. Thanks. 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 56.
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 are looking good. See you next week.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
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, Schickele Mix, Care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.