Cantata: Iphigenia in Brooklyn (P. D. Q. BACH) Performer: John Ferrante/Chamber Orchestra/Mester An Evening with P.D.Q. Bach (Everyman VBD 79195)
Hollerin’ Performer: Leonard Emanuel I’m on My Journey Home (New World NW 223)
Streitjodler (HARTL) Performer: Original Oststeirer Trio, Rossmann Dirndln & the little Manuela Die schoensten Jodler der Berge, Volume 2 (Koch HE 330 023)
Field Recordings Performer: Switzerland: Zauerli, Yodel of Appenzell Unesco Collection D 8026
Meine Jodelwelt (BRUGGEMANN et al) Performer: Wolfgang Lindner Band Die schoensten Jodler der Berge, Volume 2 (Koch HE 330 023)
The Bad, the Good and the Unbelievable
The Lonely Goatherd (RODGERS/HAMMERSTEIN) Performer: Frederica von Stade/Cincinnati Pops Orchestra/Kunzel The Sound of Music (Telarc CD 80162)
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 the bills for the good stuff we are about to receive are paid by this very radio station right here on your dial.
It's a well-known fact that the scenes in Shakespeare in which women disguise themselves by dressing up as men had an extra frisson in Shakespeare's day due to the fact that the women's parts were being played by boys. So what you had was a boy impersonating a girl impersonating a boy. Not only were women not allowed to act on the stage, they couldn't sing in church either.
But composers didn't want to limit themselves to writing nothing but basement music, vocally wise speaking. They wanted some treble voices in there, too. Well, they had several choices. One is to go the stage route and use boys whose voices hadn't changed yet. That tradition has continued in some church choirs to the present day, especially in England. Boy's voices, particularly in groups, have a quality that people tend to describe as pure.
This is partly due to the fact that boys sing with a straight tone, using little or no vibrato. Anyway, another option is to have grown men sing in their falsettos. There's still a tradition of that, too, especially in England. Not in larger choirs, but in small vocal ensembles and solo work. Men who sing in the alto and soprano ranges are these days usually called countertenors.
Although they don't generally sound as pure as boys, that is, as quote, pure, I keep running into this problem in radio that you can't see me doing the quotation marks with my fingers. Now, if we could just get Schickele Mix on television, that wouldn't be a big problem. Oh, all right, all right. Man, talk about a hair trigger. I was saying that countertenors do sound noticeably different from women.
Here are two performances of the beginning of a medieval English song. Can you tell which performance is which sex? I should say that they're not exactly comparable. One has some doubling, that is, two singers on a part and the other doesn't. But I think you'll hear the difference.
[music excerpt: Anon., "Edi be thu" (Sumer Is Icumen In); The Hilliard Ensemble]
The first group was the Anonymous 4, all women, and the second was the Hilliard Ensemble, all men. That was Edi be thu, or Edi beo thu. How do you like my old English pronunciation? Glad I can't hear your answer. Today's program is called True or Falsetto, and here's a man who deserves a lot of credit for the popularity of the male alto voice in the 20th century.
[music: Anon., "I will give my love an Apple" (Folksongs); Alfred Deller]
Alfred Deller singing I Will Give My Love an Apple. The sound is exquisite but it's not strong, it's not robust. The falsetto is naturally weaker than the chest voice, particularly in the low range of the falsetto. Yet 18th century accounts of male sopranos and altos, most of whom were Italian, talk about how strong their voices were, sometimes louder than women's voices, filling large theaters.
How can that be? Well, folks, it's because those 18th century guys were castrati. That's right, you heard me correctly. From the 16th to the 19th century, especially in Italy, one of the cradles of European Christianity, it was a clandestine but common practice to encourage boys with especially beautiful voices to submit to the surgeon's knife before their voices changed, thus ensuring that they wouldn't change.
Hey, listen. The best of the castrati became rich and famous opera stars. And besides, kids are a nuisance, right? That practice has died out, I'm glad to report. But there are some singers around now who have real power up high, even without artificial dissemination. John Ferrante, who was part of the P. D. Q. Bach concerts for over 20 years, was a real ham and a good musician with a strong, robust voice.
Like most falsetto singers, he was a baritone, although quite a high baritone. But unlike Alfred Deller, who tended to remain in his falsetto, even at the bottom of the range, John switched between his regular voice and his falsetto, and he had worked hard to minimize the break, to make it show as little as possible.
And there was a window of about a fifth, that is, from middle C up to G, those five scale steps there, in which he could sing with either voice, choosing the one that made the most sense in context. Here's the beginning of P. D. Q. Bach's cantata Iphigenia in Brooklyn. Notice that he... By the way, I'm going to sing it a bit lower than he does. I don't have his range, that's for sure. Notice that he sings the first phrase
[sung: Schickele sings the first phrase]
in his chest voice, as he does the second, even though it's quite high; he wants the power across. Then he switches into his powerful falsetto for the third phrase.
[sung: Schickele sings the third phrase]
Now, that third phrase actually goes lower than the second did. In the second, you remember, he was He was still in his chest voice, but this time he stays in his falsetto, because the phrase doesn't have to end as loud as it began. He sings the next two phrases in falsetto.
[sung: Schickele sings the next two phrases in falsetto]
And then if you listen carefully, you can hear that the beginning of the next phrase is in his chest tone.
[sung: Schickele sings the beginning of the next phrase]
But unlike with my singing there, with him you don't notice where he goes back to falsetto at all for the end. Here he is, John
[music excerpt: P. D. Q. Bach, "Cantata: Iphigenia in Brooklyn" (An Evening with P.D.Q. Bach); John Ferrante/Chamber Orchestra/Mester]
Ferrante, singing the beginning of the first aria of Iphigenia in Brooklyn by P. D. Q. Bach. Sorry for that rowdy audience there, most inappropriate. Now what if, instead of trying to disguise the break in your voice, you try to emphasize it? You try to make it as obvious as possible. You snap from one voice to the other. Here's what you get.
[music: "Hollerin'" (I'm on My Journey Home); Leonard Emanuel]
That was Leonard Emanuel of Sampson County, North Carolina, doing some hollering on a New World Records LP called I'm On My Journey Home. Now, you work that voice change up to where you can do it real fast, and you're ready to become a practitioner of one of our most sophisticated vocal techniques. You're ready to enter the Valhalla of vocal quick change artists.
[music: Hartl, "Streitjodler" (Die schoensten Jodler der Berge, Volume 2); Original Oststeirer Trio, Rossmann Dirndln & the little Manuela]
Alright, that was Streitjodler. Streit means quarrel. And that was the Original Oststeirer Trio, Rossmann Dirndln & die kleine Manuela, the little Manuela, who is obviously the Shirley Temple of yodeling. I'm Peter Schickele. The program is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
The two basic attributes of yodeling, as most of us think of it now, are the switching back and forth between chest voice and falsetto, and the use of nonsense syllables that enhance the effect. Now, I'm not a yodelologist. I don't know how yodeling actually developed. But let's listen to the farmers and herdsmen of Appenzell, Switzerland. It's a big deal there when they take the cows up to the high Alpen pastures each year.
The people wear festival dress and three of the cattle wear big ceremonial cowbells. The men's vocalizing seems to float in an area between formal music and keeping cows in line sounds.
[music: "Field Recordings"; Switzerland: Zauerli, Yodel of Appenzell]
You know, I love that cut. I can almost imagine them to be 19th century American cowboys, singing in that wide open spaces way, just for themselves and their cattle. Interesting that the two centers of yodeling should be Switzerland and the American West.
But back to Appenzell. When they reach the Alpine hut, the men ring the cowbells in a regular fashion and sing some songs called Zäuerli in harmony.
[music: "Field Recordings"; Switzerland: Zauerli, Yodel of Appenzell]
Zäuerli can be sung solo as well. A good time is while you're doing the milking.
[No speech for 47 s.]
In the town of Urnäsch on New Year's Eve and also on January 13th, the old New Year's Eve of the Julian calendar, Groups of masked men, wearing costumes and cowbells, go from farmyard to farmyard, starting out early in the morning, wishing the farmers Happy New Year.
[music: "Field Recordings"; Switzerland: Zauerli, Yodel of Appenzell]
Now we certainly hear the voice breaks in there, and they seem to be singing just syllables, not words. But it's so relaxed, so slow, so mournful and sweet at the same time. It seems a long way from that to this.
[music: Bruggemann et al, "Meine Jodelwelt" (Die schoensten Jodler der Berge, Volume 2); Wolfgang Lindner Band]
The Wolfgang Lindner Band doing Meine Jodelwelt. My yodel world. My yodel world is better than your yodel world. Here's a tripartite song cycle called the bad, the good, and the unbelievable. Those adjectives refer only to the yodeling, by the way, not necessarily to any other aspect of the number. See you in about seven and a half minutes.
[music: Rodgers/Hammerstein, "The Lonely Goatherd" (The Sound of Music); Frederica von Stade/Cincinnati Pops Orchestra/Kunzel]
[music: Rodgers/McWilliams, "My Little Lady (Hadie Brown)"; Roy Rogers]
[music: Langbein, "Der Formel 1, Wahnsinns, Käseloch Brutal Jodler" (Die schoensten Jodler der Berge); Thomas Scholl]
That was a little song cycle called The Bad, the Good, and the Unbelievable. We began with The Sound of Music, with Frederica von Stade as Maria. And I've got to say, now, I want to say I am a big fan of hers. I count myself as a fan, and seeing her do Cherubino, for instance, in The Marriage of Figaro is one of the best things I've ever seen. But she's not a yodeler. And I don't want to get into trouble here. I I also work with the producers of this album here, or at least, I don't know, I did work with them before this broadcast. But it's just too bad that a number that's obviously supposed to be about yodeling doesn't have any yodeling in it. Now, I gotta say that that's no accident here. If you get a fine singer such as Frederica von Stade, classical singers don't like to yodel. It's hard on their voices. Classical singers work to get a smoothness throughout their whole range, from the top to the bottom.
And they don't like to break that. They're afraid, with very good reason, I'm sure, that they're going to in some way damage their voice or make it raspier than would be if they don't do that. So I understand very much why she doesn't do it. Next we have Roy Rogers. And I think his yodeling is very nice because it's so relaxed and... Effortless. It just sounds like the easiest thing in the world, which of course was part of his whole personality. Now, for instance, one of the numbers we've got coming up in the next suite, the yodeling has a hard edge to it, and it's good, because it makes you really feel that the guy is suffering, but with Roy Rogers, it has this wonderful laid-back feel to it. And then finally, that was, the last one was Der Formel 1, Wahnsinns, Käseloch...
Brutal Jodler, which he announces at the beginning. Now, unfortunately, I don't really speak German, and some of that German doesn't seem to be in my dictionary. Formel 1 is Formula 1, Wahnsinns has something to do with madness, Käseloch, Käse is cheese, Loch is hole. Is that Swiss cheese? Brutal Jodler. I think it means that he is one heck of a yodeler, to put it in real colloquial English.
It is one of the most amazing things that I've ever heard, and it's on a CD that's from a series that we played a couple things from before, Die schönsten Jodler der Berge, The Most Beautiful Yodelers of the Mountains. I'm Peter Schickele. The program is Schickele Mix.
I gotta try that with echo next time. From PRI, Public Radio International.
Our second song cycle has five numbers and covers a lot of territory. Not all of the selections feature yodeling proper, but they all feature the voice breaking in an obvious and controlled way. This song cycle is entitled Who Ya Gonna Call? Voice Busters! It's about 11 minutes long.
[music: "Marilli" (Ghana: Ancient Ceremonies, Songs & Dances)]
[music: Trad., "Zillertal, Du Bist Mei Freud" (Die schoensten Jodler der Berge); Herlinde - Wolfgang Lindner & Seine Stadlmusikanten]
[music: Ritter/Harford, "Long Time Gone" (Songs Our Daddy Taught Us); The Everly Brothers]
[music: "Ali-Pasha" (Georgian Voices); The Rustavi Choir]
Who ya gonna call? Voice Busters! We had five numbers there. The first one was the great Hank Williams, Long Gone Lonesome Blues. And as I mentioned before, that sort of edge that he has in his yodeling, you just feel a tremendous amount of pain in the voice. He certainly knew how to suffer, and to sing, and to write too.
The next one was a fascinating track from Ghana.
A young girl sings this song in her hometown of Yeji, in central Ghana, where she is known for her compelling vocal technique and sunny disposition. By a controlled buzzing at the back of the roof of her mouth, she can produce two and sometimes three pitches simultaneously, and she often sort of cracks her voice into that, as it were.
Then, in a change of pace, I think you can say, we went into Zillertal, Du bist mein Freud, although, from listening to Herlinde sing that, I obviously don't have the right accent there. Zillertal would be the Ziller Valley, You are my Joy, and that's the first time I've heard Dixieland yodeling and rock and roll yodeling.
It certainly shows that they're trying to keep yodeling up to date. Next thing you know we'll have grunge yodeling. Then the Everly Brothers. Long Time Gone from their album Songs Our Daddy Taught Us. And there there's just one break. It's not really yodeling, but it's very evocative. Love that song.
And then finally, from one of the great albums of all time, the Georgian Voices, the Rustavi Choir. And I guess that's the name of the album, Georgian Voices. We heard a tune called Ali-Pasha, a historical song, or an historical song if you prefer. And that featured a particular kind of yodeling called Krimanchuli.
This is from the area of Guria and Ajaria. It says here, couldn't prove it by me, but it says that the Krimanchuli part requires special vocal mastery and the relatively few Krimanchuli singers command great respect. Here's a surprise. Stravinsky liked this music.
Okay, now you know one of the things that occurred to me, listening to that Swiss stuff from the Appenzell, the thing where we heard the herders and the farmers singing, is that already, although they sing with a rather funky intonation, all the tunes alternate between the tonic and dominant, and those are sort of in traditional mainstream classical music, those are the two most often used chords. The tonic is the home base chord.
Let's call this the tonic. And the chord built on the fifth scale step is called the dominant.
[sung: Schickele hums a tune that alternates tonic and dominant]
All those things are just tonic and dominant. And those things we heard the people of Appenzell singing went back and forth between the tonic and the dominant. Although it was, as I say, their intonation gave it a piquance that you don't necessarily have in Mozart or Haydn. What I noticed when I was listening through, preparing for this program, when I was listening through the album, The Most Beautiful Yodelers of the Mountains, was it, out of, what is it, 22 cuts on this album, only two of them don't start tonic, dominant and then go back to the tonic. Only two songs out of 22. So that means that this is a tradition that has continued, and it's sort of a hidebound tradition, if you ask me. Just for the fun of it, because we have the time to do this, I'd like I'd like to just go through all the tracks on this album, and I'll just take my word for it that we're talking tonic and dominant here, except for two instances.
I'm not going to bother to identify these, but we'll just start with track one. Here we go.
That's the tonic. Dominant.
[music]
Tonic. Okay, let's move on to track two here.
[music]
Tonic. Dominant.
[music]
Tonic. Okay, track number three.
[music]
Tonic and dominant and back to tonic. Here's the tune. Tonic, dominant, dominant, tonic. Okay, number four here. Let's see what it has. This is an intro.
[music]
Tonic, dominant,
[music]
tonic. I think you're beginning to get the idea here. Let's go on to five. Okay, oh, this one starts, this one starts with a dominant, goes to the tonic. Dominant, tonic. We're talking variety here. Okay, number six. That's the tonic. Dominant. Tonic. That was an intro. Here's the tune.
[music]
Dominant. This is the dominant. Guess what comes next? Tonic. Okay, on to number seven here. Tonic. Dominant.
[music]
Tonic. Number eight here. Tonic.
[music]
Dominant. Tonic. Number nine.
[music]
Production here.
[music]
We've heard the tonic and the dominant so far. Tonic.
[music]
That's the dominant. I wonder what's going to come next.
[music]
Hey, it's the tonic. Okay, number ten. This is an intro. Tonic. Dominant. I tell you what, let's not go through all 22 of these, okay? Just take my word for it. Yes, we're talking about a real time-honored form here. And that's about it. Now, I have been fooling with the echo here on this state-of-the-art board here.
And I want to close with a little production number of my own. What I want to do is I'm going to climb up on one of these mountains overlooking the Zillertal and call out to my alter ego, Professor Peter Schickele, who's standing on the opposite side of the valley.
[sung: Schickele yodels a call across the valley and is answered by his echo]
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
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, and this is program number 62. 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.
[No speech for 36 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, Schickele Mix. Care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.