Approaching the 2 o'clock hour in Schickele Mix, but first, I must remind you, this is WLRE Huntsville, with offices and studios located on the campus, the University of Alabama Huntsville. Schickele, are you ready? Mais oui, mon ami. 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. Financial sustenance for this program is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by this Au Courant radio station, where I'm provided with this really charming studio space. You know, the walls are covered with art done by kids from all over the state.
Yes, it's an art of the state studio, all right, and what gets cooked up here gets distributed by PRI, Public Radio International.
Today's show is called Au contraire mon frere. We're going to take a look at contrast in music. How do you achieve it and how much of it do you want? Well, there are all sorts of things you can do to achieve it. You can change the, well, here, let me turn on the authentic instrument and demonstrate some of these here. You can achieve contrast by changing the dynamics or loudness.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
[sung: "Mary Had a Little Lamb"]
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Or you can change the rhythm. [sung: "Mary Had a Little Lamb", in a new rhythm] Or the meter, that is, how many small beats there are in a big beat. As in duple time, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, and triple time, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
You can contrast a smooth line having sustained connected notes with a detached line having short, detached notes. [sung: "Mary Had a Little Lamb"] Or you can vary the tempo or speed.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
By the way, what I did there is what often if not usually if not almost always happens in real pieces, which is you change more than one element for a contrasting section. Not only did I sing the second phrase faster than the first, I also changed the accompaniment from smooth to choppy. Then you can go into another key. Well, you know, it's Mary Had a Little Lamb.
[sung: "Mary Had a Little Lamb", going up a half step]
Now, that particular modulation or key change is going up a half step. It started here, and we went up to there. And that's a very common modulation in popular music. I've got to admit, it's sort of a pet peeve with me. So often, towards the end of the tune, you hear that old and it goes into the key a half step higher. You know why they picked that key a half step higher?
You know, why don't they go up a major third higher? Why don't they go down a fourth? The reason they go up a half step is that going up gives a little bit more tension, a little bit more brightness for the big end of the tune, but it's still within the range of the singer. If you went up any farther, the top notes might be out of his or her range. By now you're probably thinking, hey, the contrast I'd like to hear is another song.
So let me just mention a few of the myriad other possibilities. You can vary the orchestration. The whole idea of a concerto is based on the contrast between a large group and a solo instrument or small group. You can counterpose if you approve of doing things that take more than six letters to spell. In the practice of scale, you can counterpose homophonic sections, hymn-like sections with contrapuntal sections featuring rhythmically independent lines.
You can write antiphonal pieces in which the only difference between two successive phrases is where the performers are situated in the room. And of course in vocal music you can change the words. A lot of old folk songs have literally dozens of verses set to the same music. Now the question of how much contrast you want is a much trickier and more interesting one. This is where we get into different strokes for different folks.
Let's start out with a piece that has very little contrast in it. There is no variety whatsoever in terms of orchestration, meter, or texture. Very little variety in terms of dynamics and key, and virtually none in terms of rhythm.
These are 16th notes, 4 to a beat in this case. Now this piece we're about to hear has over 400 notes in it, and all but 3 of those notes are 16th notes. In other words, rhythmically speaking, you're about to hear 2 1⁄2 minutes of absolutely even notes.
Okay, I'm lying. They're written absolutely even, but the performer takes liberties. He speeds up and slows down a bit to shape the melody and keep it from sounding mechanical. Nevertheless, this is, for a mainstream Western classical work, unusually devoid of contrast. Nice piece, though.
[music: J. S. Bach, Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1, 1st Mvt.; Yo-Yo Ma]
The first movement of Bach's first suite for unaccompanied cello, performed by Yo-Yo Ma. By the way, the dynamics there, the softer parts, getting louder, getting softer, none of that was written in by Bach. But as far as I'm concerned, it's entirely appropriate to put in your own dynamics. The piece virtually demands them. Now, even when he's writing for large groups, Bach gets an awful lot of mileage out of just two rhythmic note values.
8th notes and 16th.
Look at the Brandenburg Concertos. There's six of them, right? Here's the first one.
[sung: Schickele sings a passage from Brandenburg Concerto No. 1]
Those are eighth notes.
Those are sixteenth notes. Go through the whole movement. Second Brandenburg, first movement.
I haven't checked this out, but I wouldn't be surprised if that whole 1st movement of the 2nd Brandenburg has nothing but 8th notes and 16th notes in it, with the exception of the last note of a phrase, which is often longer. Last movement of that piece, now you get a couple of little faster notes when you play the embellishments. But as far as what's written goes, it's all eighth notes and sixteenth notes. Fourth Brandenburg.
[sung: Schickele sings a passage from Brandenburg Concerto No. 4]
Fortunately, the flutists or recorder players play those notes much better than I sing them, but they're nevertheless all eighth notes and sixteenth notes. Here's the beginning of the 3rd Brandenburg Concerto.
[music excerpt: J. S. Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 (BWV 1048), 1st Mvt.; The English Concert/Pinnock]
This movement too uses 8th and 16th notes so preponderantly that when, towards the end of the movement, he introduces a counter melody that starts with 3 longer notes, it's
like a blaze of sunlight breaking through the clouds.
[music excerpt: J. S. Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 (BWV 1048), 1st Mvt.; The English Concert/Pinnock]
So here we've got a bunch of pieces that rhythmically, melodically, dynamically, and texturally have very little contrast, very little variety. And yet, there are those of us who feel that the Brandenburg concertos are up there in the category of this is as good as it gets. As a matter of fact, some of us like to ruffle feathers by saying that if we could, we'd be willing to trade a hundred Bach cantatas for another six Brandenburgs. I had a friend in high school who didn't know any classical music, and I played him a record of the second Brandenburg.
The one with the zingy trumpet parts in the fast movements. And he said, well, it's nice, but it all sounds the same. How many times have you heard classical music people say that about rock and roll? Or rock and rollers about jazz? And it's true. If you really don't dig the basic material and respond to the small changes going on, it does all sound the same. It's like people of a different race all looking the same.
For instance, if you listen to a lot of bebop solos, especially the up-tempo ones,
[music excerpt: Parker, "Kim" (Charlie Parker); Charlie Parker]
there's no more rhythmic variety in the melody and bass line of that Charlie Parker solo than there is in a Bach piece. And I've heard musicians play a game where you slide from one Mozart piece into another in such a way that most people wouldn't even notice. They're that much alike. Now, nobody's saying you don't need any contrasts. If you want to hear a piece that's utterly devoid of variety, pick up your telephone and listen to the dial tone. But you don't have to have much contrast.
You don't have to have variety lights to have good music. As the three numbers of our Keep It Coming Suite illustrate, I'll see you in a little over eight minutes.
[music: "Field Recording: Musical Sticks"; Mbuti Pygmies of the Rainforest]
[music: J. S. Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, 2nd Mvt. (Baroque Splendor); Mainz Chamber Ochestra/Kehr]
[music: M. Monk, "Ellis Island" (U. S. Choice); Double Edge]
The Keep It Coming Suite. It began with a cut from an album called Mbuti Pygmies of the Ituri Rainforest. And this is interesting, the cut is called Musical Sticks, but what it is, is once every three years, the Nkumbi initiation for boys takes place. This is a Bantu festival, but Mbuti take part.
The beginning of the Nkumbi is heralded by the sounding of the Makata sticks, which are made specially for each Nkumbi and destroyed along with the initiation camp when all is over. The number of sticks varies from six to nine. During this initiation, there were nine. Each player takes a stick and holds it under his left arm, hitting it with a wooden clapper held in the right hand. The sticks are carefully shaven to exactly the right pitch.
The bass stick is about 3 feet long and the treble only 18 inches. The leader of the group beats the bass stick and somewhat like the master drummer in West Africa, produces a variety of cross rhythms while trying to draw the other players off the beat. It reminds me of the old bebop players who used to try to make the chords as complicated as possible so only the really good musicians could join in there. Anyway, here there is also a masked dancer, the man who will perform the circumcision Then we have the middle movement of Bach's 2nd Brandenburg Concerto with the Mainz Chamber Orchestra conducted by Günther Kehr, and then finally a nice little piece by Meredith Monk called Ellis Island, played by a two-piano team called Double Edge, Edmund Niemann and Nurit Tilles.
There's only one right way to make a martini. Use no more vermouth than a mosquito could drink. But the possibilities of mixing predictability and surprise in a piece of music are endless. I'm Peter Schickele and the show is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
You may not need constant variety to make good music, but during the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe, the desire for contrast increased. I guess it comes with the territory of robust romanticism. In the beginning of the 18th century, there might be plenty of contrast between one movement of a piece and the next, but there wasn't much contrast within a movement. Let's hear the beginning of that slow movement from the second Brandenburg again.
[music excerpt: J. S. Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, 2nd mvt. (reprise); Mainz Chamber Orchestra, Kehr]
In fifteen seconds, we've heard all the musical material Bach is going to use in the whole three-and-a-half-minute movement. Now let's hear the opening movement of Mozart's 34th Symphony, written in 1780, about 60 years after the Bach. There is more variety in this one movement than in all three movements of the Bach piece put together. Lots of surprise here, including what sounds like a slow introduction that turns out not to be one.
[music: Mozart, Symphony No. 34 in C (K 338), 1st Mvt.; Academy of St. Martin-in the-Fields/Marriner]
Very martial music, mostly loud and percussive, but with a few surprising
[No speech for 44 s.]
part is everything the beginning wasn't, it's soft, it's smooth, it's gentle with chromatic notes, notes in between the regular scale notes.
[music: Mozart, Symphony No. 34 in C (K 338), 1st Mvt.; Academy of St. Martin-in the-Fields/Marriner]
Now we've got loud and soft contrasted right within the phrase and it's getting dark, it's getting dramatic, it sounds like an opera scene, what's going on?
[music: Mozart, Symphony No. 34 in C (K 338), 1st Mvt.; Academy of St. Martin-in the-Fields/Marriner]
This part sounds like neither the martial music of the opening or the sweet second theme. And
now we're coming back to the recapitulation.
[No speech for 182 s.]
Neville Marriner conducting the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in the first movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 34 in C. With all the variety there is in that movement, there's one thing that remains constant, and that's the meter. The piece is in 4-4 time throughout. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1. Now we'll move ahead a century to Brahms' Third Symphony, written in 1882-83.
Here the contrasts between the first and second theme groups include not only texture and dynamics, the first theme is loud and expansive, the second soft and intimate, and not only key, the second is in a fairly remote key in relation to the first, but also meter. The first is in a large duple time.
[music excerpt: Brahms, Symphony No. 3, Opus 90, 1st Mvt.; Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/Davis]
Now, let's take that very specific aspect of melodic shape, whether the predominant motion of the theme seems to be down or up or neutral, And see how Beethoven uses it to increase the contrast from one movement to the next in his Fifth Symphony. We begin with a melodic fragment, a motif, that is one of the most forceful downward gestures in all of music.
[music excerpt: Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Opus 67; The London Classical Players/Norrington]
Fate knocking on the door? Trying to break it down, I'd say. After a final downward gesture from the horns, the second theme is soft, smooth, and has a predominantly upward feeling.
[music excerpt: Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Opus 67; The London Classical Players/Norrington]
The upward feeling is created not only by the flute's melody, but also by the bass line,
which is the opening motif inverted, so it goes up instead of down. But the downward motion dominates the movement as a whole, as does
the dramatic, loud and What a delightful breeze, therefore, is the opening of the second movement, the contrast emphasized by gentle upward gestures.
[music excerpt: Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Opus 67; The London Classical Players/Norrington]
Even when this movement turns grand, the upward gesture predominates.
[No speech for 33 s.]
We've had down, we've had up. What will the third movement bring? It starts with a soft upward sweep, but the most memorable part of the opening section is static. It tends to stay on one note.
[music excerpt: Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Opus 67; The London Classical Players/Norrington]
The last movement is busy, long, loud, rich in melodic phrases and mixes up-and-down gestures all over the place.
[No speech for 56 s.]
Excerpts from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony performed by the London Classical Players. The conductor's name is Roger Norrington, mine is Peter Schickele, and the program's is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International. Au contraire, mon frere, contrast in music and how it grew.
We're bounding ahead to the second half of the 20th century now. This next piece is a study in contrasts. Nothing about it stays the same for long. Eight and a half minutes of solid quicksand, if you catch my drift.
[music: Mingus, "All the Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother" (The Complete Candid Recordings of Charles Mingus); Charles Mingus]
From one of those wonderful CD sets put out by Mosaic Records, the complete candid recordings of Charles Mingus, that was a little number called All the Things You Could Be by Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother. In addition to Mingus on bass, we heard Ted Curson on trumpet, Eric Dolphy on sax, and Dannie Richmond on drums.
And the time for Tidbit Time has rolled in like a wave of wiseguyism over the sands of decorum. This next selection has more variety than a Hollywood newsstand. Talk about quick change artists.
[music: They Might Be Giants, "Fingertips" (Apollo 18); They Might Be Giants]
They Might Be Giants, from their album Apollo 18, and that was called Fingertips. Now, the weird thing about this listing is, on the back of the album it says that track 17 is Fingertips, but then the next track, Spacesuit, is track 38. And when you open it up and look inside there, you realize that every one of those little segments is given a separate track number. Now, if they only list it once on the back, why do they do that?
Well, being an old fogey, I wouldn't have known, but my kids filled me in on it.
See, CD players these days often have a button for random programming, so instead of listening to the album in the same old order every time, you put a bunch of CDs in these things, and it'll just randomly access tunes from all over the place, and what'll happen here, of course, is that those little segments, individual little segments, will pop in, you know, between Bing Crosby singing White Christmas and who knows what else.
Neat little idea. You know, I just realized while I'm saying this that my CD player has a random programming thing. Let me push that and I'm going to start it and see what happens.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
Hey, that's not bad. I like that. And that's Schickele Mix for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by this radio station and its generous members. Not only that, our program is distributed by PRI, Public Radio International. 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 No. 70.
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.
[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 Schickele, Schickele Mix. Care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, MN 55403.