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. But it wouldn't sound at all if you couldn't hear it, and for the fact that we can hear these sounds, thanks are due the American Public Radio Program Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and also this radio station.
A friend of mine was in Chicago recently, and he was staying at a nice, modest hotel with a European flavor, and he gets up in the morning, and he goes down to have breakfast in the Konditorei, which is a German word for café, and he walks in, and this is for real now, he walks in, and what do you think they're playing for Muzak? Now remember, this is breakfast time.
[music excerpt: Stravinsky, "Le Sacre du printemps"; London Symphony Orchestra/Bernstein]
Good morning, sir! Hi, how you doing? What may I bring you today? Some warm milk, perhaps?
The cantaloupe is very soft and delicious this morning. Well?
Some nice smooth yogurt.
Do you have any Alka-Seltzer?
Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring for breakfast. The lines are embellished, but that really happened. The Stravinsky was really playing. And my friend said it was just an excerpt followed by some other piece. So they hadn't just put a tape or a CD on. This was a programmed background music thing. I can see the music services brochure.
You can't go wrong with the Rite. Your guests will be ready to spring into action when they feel the pagan power of your Dionysian dining room. Why settle for... All right, all right. I guess I can't argue with the irrelevance alarm on that one. Anyway, how does the music you hear influence you? I remember reading years ago that a study showed that cows give more milk if you play classical music for them than if you play rock and roll or no music.
And just this morning, here's an article in the paper that says that researchers at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine have determined that 10 minutes of listening to a Mozart piano sonata raised the measurable IQ of college students by up to 9 points. But apparently the effect is only temporary, it says. It only lasts about 15 minutes.
The reason for that, let's see, is the researchers suggested that classical music may enhance abstract reasoning, such as that involved in mathematics or chess, by reinforcing certain complex patterns of neural activity. They suspect that the complexity of the music itself is the key. Simpler, repetitive rhythms of grunge rock or minimalist New Age jazz may actually interfere with abstract reasoning.
Very interesting. By the way, that is a great category they mention, minimalist New Age jazz.
That's a term guaranteed to offend three kinds of musicians. Now, of course, music and math are closely related. Or, to put it more accurately, music has a lot to do with numbers, whether you're aware of it or not. Mozart, I guess, loved arithmetic when he was a child, and almost everything about music has to do with proportion. Musical forms involve proportion. Harmony involves proportion. Rhythm inv... That's all rhythm is, is proportion.
Back in college, my musical friends and I would sometimes play a game where you tap out the rhythm of a melody and everybody else tries to guess the melody. It seems so obvious when you're tapping it out. You don't see how anyone could have any trouble figuring it out at all. But that's because you're hearing the notes in your head. Without the right mindset, it can be quite not so easy. Here, I'll do an easy one to start with. I think the best sounding board that's handy is my own chest here.
[taps out a rhythm]
Okay, you got that? Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
[sung]
Okay, here's one that's simple but tricky.
[taps out a rhythm]
So far that could be [sung: a well-known classical melody] But it could also be Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. Way up in the sky so high, or whatever it is.
Or this phrase. I'll count this one off. One, two, three, four. [taps out a rhythm] That could be either I've Been Working on the Railroad, or it could be Glory, Glory, Hallelujah. Very tricky there. Now, how about harmony? Can you recognize a song from its harmony? Not easily, unless it's very distinctive. What's this, for instance?
[music: keyboard demonstration]
The tune is distinctive, but the harmonic scheme isn't. I should say, by the way, by harmonic scheme, I mean the basic chords. I don't mean the way Brahms accompanied that theme from the last movement of his First Symphony. I mean, he has moving parts there to make it interesting, more interesting than it was when I played it, but those are the basic harmonies. Okay, now that one, as I say, is not distinctive, harmonically speaking. This one, however...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
[sung: "Laura"]
Oh, man, it's hard to stop, particularly with that great little echo thing they've added to the studio here. Anyway, any jazz or pop musician would recognize that chord pattern, or as they would say, those changes. Today's show is called Hold That Harmony, and we're going to hear some variations on some themes in which the harmonic progression of the theme is more important than the melody of the theme. Here's a variation on a tune that I can almost guarantee you know, but the tune is so embellished that you may not recognize it.
[music excerpt: Mozart, Variations "Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman" (K 265), a variation; Paul Badura-Skoda]
Now, here's the theme that that variation is based on.
Variations on Ah, vous dirai-je, maman, which is the title Mozart knew the song under when he wrote variations on it in Paris. Hey, I like that sentence. Which is the title Mozart knew the song under when he wrote variations on it in Paris. I think it's the under-on-it thing. Oh, all right, okay, all right. That was Paul Badura-Skoda playing the fortepiano. Here's another variation on an extremely well-known song.
[music excerpt: Anon., "Yankee Doodle," a variation; William Grant Nabore]
And here's the song it's based on.
[music excerpt: Anon., "Yankee Doodle," theme; William Grant Nabore]
William Grant Nabore, playing two excerpts from an anonymous 18th-century American set of variations on Yankee Doodle.
Okay, now here's a whole suite. Three examples of theme and variations; only one is complete, the others present just the theme and one or two variations, in which the variations employ the harmonic scheme of the theme but ignore the melody completely. I call this the What Melody? I Didn't Hear No Melody Variations. See you in about ten and a half minutes.
[music excerpt: J. S. Bach, "Goldberg Variations," Aria and Variations 1–2; Glenn Gould]
[music: George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin, "Clap Your Hands" (George Shearing in Dixieland); George Shearing]
[music excerpt: Brahms, "Variations on a Theme by Haydn," theme and Variation 1; The Columbia Symphony Orchestra/Walter]
That was the what-melody-I-didn't-hear-no-melody variations. We began with the theme and first The first two variations from Bach's monumental Goldberg Variations in the fantastic recording by Glenn Gould that sort of started his career in a large sense, 1955 recording. Now, some people could say that the theme in those variations is not really the melody at the top, but it's the bass line.
And it's true that the bass line is more constant throughout the variations, certainly than the melody, which is ignored completely. But it's not presented like a Passacaglia, which we deal with in another edition of Schickele Mix, where the bass line is presented very clearly, sometimes all by itself at first, so you really follow it. By the way, you can hear one of Glenn Gould's trademarks there, his grunting in the background.
Then we heard George Shearing, Clap Your Hands, Gershwin tune with George Shearing on piano, Kenny Duvern, clarinet, Jerry Fuller, drums, George Masso, trombone, Ken Peplowski, tenor saxophone, Neil Swainson, bass, and Warren Vache on cornet. Now, a tune like that is not called variations, but that's what all jazz tunes like that are. They're variations on the harmonic scheme of the song.
And finally, we ended with the theme and first variation from Brahms' Variations on a Theme by Haydn. Bruno Walter was conducting the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. Now, some of the later variations in that do refer to the melody, but that first one doesn't. I'm Peter Schickele, and the program is Schickele Mix on APR.
Hold that harmony. We're talking about variations that work off of the harmonic pattern rather than the melody. That tendency reached a point in jazz where you sometimes didn't even have a set melody. You just started improvising on a set chord pattern immediately. I have a Charlie Parker album called Now's the Time, and it has two alternate takes of a tune called Kim. But when you listen to the two versions, you realize there isn't any tune called Kim. It's just a set of chords upon which to improvise.
Here, I'll play the opening of the two versions, and you can hear that they're not the same melody at all. Here's take one.
[music excerpt: Parker, "Kim," opening (Now's the Time); The Quartet of Charlie Parker]
And here's the alternate take.
[music excerpt: Parker, "Kim" (Alternate Take), opening (Now's the Time); The Quartet of Charlie Parker]
Bird just jumps right in, improvising from the very beginning. Well, what about the chord pattern? Is that unique? Nope. It's the harmonic scheme of a very popular old pop song. Now any good jazz man or woman would listen to either one of those takes and say, oh yeah, those are the so-and-so changes. I'm not going to tell you yet what so-and-so is. We're going to hear the first take in in its entirety. And during the piano solo, I'll let you know what song the chords are based on.
[music: Parker, "Kim" (Now's the Time); The Quartet of Charlie Parker, with Schickele singing over the piano solo]
Kim, mind-boggling playing by Charlie Parker on alto sax, with Al Haig on piano, Percy Heath on bass, and Max Roach on drums. The vocal was by, well, modesty forbids. No, no, uh-uh, no, no, contact my agent. I don't negotiate gigs in person. My apologies to Al Haig for covering up part of his solo. Okay, now there is a tune there at the beginning and the end.
In the end, Bird does start to play the tune again at the end, but what it is is that it isn't a whole tune. The first eight bars is the same, and then it gets less the same, and then the bridge of the tune, the sort of contrasting part harmonically, is completely different, and the last part is completely different. And then obviously in that alternate take, he didn't even bother to lay out what little tune there is, he just started improvising immediately. Bird, how could anybody think that well?
The 19th century violinist Niccolo Paganini was the Charlie Parker of his day. Nobody could believe that it was humanly possible to play like that, at least without the help of the devil. He, Paganini that is, and without any subterranean help I'm convinced, wrote a bunch of caprices for an unaccompanied violin that are still, almost two centuries later, beyond the abilities of any but the very finest players.
Here's number 24 in A minor, which consists of a brief theme and a set of brief variations on it.
[music: Paganini, Caprices, Opus 1, No. 24; Ruggiero Ricci]
Ricci, performing Paganini's 24th Caprice. Now, of course, that theme is a simple one-line melody, so there's no harmony per se, but the harmonic implications of the melody are so strong that Paganini could assume that audiences would feel the connection, Even in variations such as the third, which ignores the original melody completely.
[music excerpt: Paganini, Caprices, Opus 1, No. 24; Ruggiero Ricci]
Okay, I'm going to ask Mr. Ricci to play the theme and the third variation again while I play the implied harmonies on my authentic instrument here, the early 1990s Casio Tonebank with which this state-of-the-art studio is equipped. Okay, here's the theme. Maestro?
[music excerpt: Paganini, Caprices, Opus 1, No. 24, theme; Ruggiero Ricci, with Schickele playing the implied harmonies on the keyboard]
Now I'll play the same chords with variation number three.
[music excerpt: Paganini, Caprices, Opus 1, No. 24, Variation 3; Ruggiero Ricci, with Schickele playing the implied harmonies on the keyboard]
Thank you, sir. A real pleasure. Now as it turns out that teeny-weeny little theme became tremendously popular among other composers as the subject for variations probably the most popular melody to do something with since L'homme armé in the Renaissance so how about a set of variations on the theme in which each variation is by a different composer well why not I don't hear any good reason why not, so let's do it. But first let me say one thing. We've been concentrating on, and therefore selecting, variations in which the harmonic ground plan is constant and the melody is more or less ignored, but as you heard in the complete Paganini set, composers usually mix things up in that regard, sometimes referring to the theme and sometimes not, and sometimes, especially when the theme is recognizable, the harmony is significantly altered.
Here's the Inter-Era Paganini Variations, Book 1. We're going to hear the theme, five variations, and a coda, all in the space of three minutes.
[music excerpt: Paganini, Caprices, Opus 1, No. 24; Ruggiero Ricci]
[music excerpt: Liszt, "Grandes Etudes de Paganini, Theme and Variations"; Barbara Nissman]
[music excerpt: Brahms, Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Opus 35, Book I; Francois-Rene Duchable]
[music excerpt: Rachmaninov, "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini"; Vladimir Ashkenazy/London Symphony Orchestra/Previn]
[music excerpt: Lutoslawski, "Variations on a Theme of Paganini"; Joshua Pierce & Dorothy Jonas]
[music excerpt: Blacher, Orchestral Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Opus 26; Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt/Inbal]
[music excerpt: Paganini, Caprices, Opus 1, No. 24; Ruggiero Ricci]
Okay, that was the Inter-Era Paganini Variations, Book 1. We began and ended with Ruggiero Ricci playing the first theme and then the coda of the Paganini.
And then we had five composers in between, Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Lutoslawski, and Blacher. The Liszt from the Grande Etude de Paganini, this was played by Barbara Nissman, and then we had the Brahms Paganini variations from book one, and this was Francois-Rene Duchable playing, and some of you may have noticed that Brahms decided instead of using A-A-B, which the original theme was, to repeat the second half to A-A-B-B, which was sort of the typical thing for variation form themes in those days.
Then we have Rachmaninov, the Rhapsody, on a theme of Paganini, that was performed by Andre Previn, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, with Vladimir Ashkenazy playing the piano. Next, Witold Lutosławski, variations on a theme of Paganini, a piece for two pianos, played here by Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas.
And then last, that is before the little coda from the original Paganini, we heard an excerpt from the Boris Blacher orchestra variations on a theme by Paganini, and that was the Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt, conducted by Eliahu Inbal. I hope I've said that name close to right. This is Peter Schickele, and the show's Schickele Mix on APR.
Hey, you know that was so much fun, let's do it again. Five different composers doing variations on the theme by Paganini. But this time, we'll let them stretch out a bit. Several variations each, or one long one. And we'll let the variations get a little less obvious in some cases, I mean in terms of what they're based on. Same order. Paganini, Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Lutosławski, Blacher, and back to the Pag.
In the middle one, by the way, by Rachmaninov, you'll hear what happens if you turn the theme upside down and tinker with it a bit. Book two of the inter-era Paganini variations lasts about nine and a half minutes.
[music excerpt: Paganini, Caprices, Opus 1, No. 24; Ruggiero Ricci]
[music excerpt: Liszt, "Grandes Etudes de Paganini, Theme and Variations"; Barbara Nissman]
[music excerpt: Brahms, Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Opus 35, Book II; Francois-Rene Duchable]
[music excerpt: Rachmaninov, "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini"; Vladimir Ashkenazy/London Symphony Orchestra/Previn]
[music excerpt: Lutoslawski, "Variations on a Theme of Paganini," Joshua Pierce & Dorothy Jonas; then Blacher, Orchestral Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Opus 26, Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt/Inbal]
[music excerpt: Paganini, Caprices, Opus 1, No. 24; Ruggiero Ricci]
The inter-era Paganini variations, book two, all the same pieces that I identified before. The order was Paganini, Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Lutoslawski, Blacher, and the last variation and coda from the Paganini. You do notice a few things like Ricci is not tuned to the same A that the piano for the Liszt is.
And you also see that if the general shape and you repeat the sort of same things that the original theme does, it doesn't really matter whether you have the harmony or the melody the same. You get the sort of general shape of the theme. And it's Tidbit Time here at Variations R Us. Let's listen to all of that Yankee Doodle set of variations. It's a curious piece with a minor key section that is actually quite unusual and even haunting.
[music: Anon., "Yankee Doodle"; William Grant Nabore]
Yankee Doodle, arranged with variations by an anonymous 18th century musician, an American musician, and played by William Grant Nabore. As I said, it's a curious piece. It states the theme again after each of the first two variations, which gives it the feeling of a rondo, and it doesn't follow the theme melodically or harmonically sometimes. Nice little piece, though.
Okay, we've got a little bit of time here. Let's play another round of one of the games we started out with. I'm going to make up a variation on the authentic instrument here, basing it on the chord pattern of something you've heard before, and you see if you can figure out what it's a variation on.
[music: keyboard demonstration, Schickele's variation on the chords of the theme]
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
Variation and theme, the latter being from Mozart's 24th Symphony with the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London under Eric Leinsdorf. And that's Schickele Mix for this week. 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. A big thank you to all of you.
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 58. 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. Hey, you're looking good. See you next week.