On the next edition of Travel with Rick Steves. Saturday morning at 10 here on WILL Urbana. Programming on W-I-L-L is made possible in part by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, welcoming two renowned Austrian ensembles, the Salzburg Chamber Soloists with pianist Andreas Klein, and the world famous Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of Riccardo Muti. For complete program information, visit KrannertCenter.com. Waltzing Matilda... oh, yes, 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. But no matter how good it is, the piper has to be paid. And for us, luckily enough, that is done by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the fine radio station to which you are listening this very moment, and to which I repair every week to try to do something that can be distributed all over by PRI, Public Radio International. I guess we've all got some regrets, and one of mine is that I can't dance. Or anyway, I don't. I'm a lousy dancer, and that's particularly sad, because I believe in dancing. It seems to me that when it comes to things that are good for your body and your mind and your soul, dancing is right up there with prayer and laughter.
I didn't go to many dances in high school or junior high except as a member of the band, but I do recall one at which my parents were two of the chaperones. Very embarrassing. At the end of the evening, however, someone put a waltz on the phonograph, and I remember quite clearly that my feelings of embarrassment were tempered with a rush of vicarious joy as I, and everyone else, watched my parents whirling around the room like Viennese dervishes.
My dad grew up in Germany and he loved to waltz.
[music: Johann Strauss, Jr., “Fruhlingsstimmen,” Opus 410 (New Year’s Concert 1989); Vienna Philharmonic/Kleiber]
The Sound of Vienna in the 1880s. Still going strong a century later when Carlos Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic presented a New Year's concert that included Johann Strauss, Jr.'s great waltz, Voices of Spring, of which we heard about the first half. It's hard to think of any other dance form that has been so popular so long and that that has had so much influence on music in general.
And in its heyday, Johann Strauss, Jr. was the boss man. Brahms and Wagner may have been in opposing artistic camps, but they both admired the waltz king. There is a touching story that when Strauss asked Brahms for an autograph, the great symphonist wrote out the first few measures of the Blue Danube Waltz and then added beneath it, not, unfortunately, by Johannes Brahms.
When we think of that era, we think of those waltzes in opulent, full orchestral arrangements. But only the biggest balls and most important occasions got that kind of treatment. Popular numbers were published in as many as eleven different arrangements. One of the most durable combinations, or combos as they were never called, was three violins and string bass. Another was two violins, guitar, and string bass.
Unless you were going to a really spiffy function, this is the kind of thing you'd be likely to hear in the middle of the 19th century.
[music: Mayer, "Schnofler Tanz’" (Lollipops aus Wien); The Boskovsky Ensemble]
Was life ever really like that? Johann Mayer, Schnofler Tanz. Tanz, I know, means dance, and Schnofler is the other word in the title of that delightful piece. A piece, by the way, that is an example of dance music written more to be listened to than actually danced to. It was performed by the Boskovsky Ensemble. So what is a waltz exactly?
In terms of the dance itself, it has two characteristics that greatly contributed to its popularity. You and your partner are not only embracing, but embracing closely. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. And you're turning, which makes you feel quite giddy, which is quite a pleasant feeling, as long as you don't actually faint dead away. The name comes from the German word walzen, which ultimately comes from the Latin volvere, meaning to turn.
We're going to try to pin it down musically today. The program is called, Do I Hear a Waltz? Well, do I? Musically-wise speaking, one thing you can definitely say about waltzes is that they're in triple time, usually 3-4. I've lost a lot of sleep in my life wondering about "Waltzing Matilda". Because you often hear it done:
[sung: the opening line of "Waltzing Matilda" in four, then counting the beats]
Now, I'm not an expert on this subject, no Aussie, I, but either that's just a metrical corruption of the, I assume, original version in 3-4 time,
[sung: the same line of "Waltzing Matilda" in three]
It's either that or a rare example of a musical oxymoron. Actually, come to think of it, the introductions to Viennese waltzes, which are sometimes quite long, are not always in three. But once they get into the body of the piece, and they do get into the body, they're always in three. The waltz grew out of dances that go back to the middle of the 18th century, such as the Ländler. And as it evolved, it got faster.
An indication of how popular the waltz was getting to be at the end of that century is the fact that although he himself never used the name waltz, some of Mozart's Ländler and Deutsche were published abroad as waltzes. Deutsche means German dance. I guess if your grandfather's wife were famous for her partiality to that dance, and you called her up so often that you had a special phone just for that purpose, it would be your Deutsche Grammophon.
Well, wouldn't it? Okay, maybe it wouldn't. What have we got here? A waltz is in triple time. But triple time is not enough a waltz to make. The slow movement of Beethoven's last string quartet is in triple time.
[music excerpt: Beethoven, String Quartet in F, Opus 135, 3rd Mvt.; Amadeus Quartet]
But that's way too slow. You can maybe imagine a couple of three-toed sloths waltzing to that if they were on a really big planet like Jupiter. But for the rest of us, it has to be faster. But hey, it can't be too fast. The scherzo of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is in 3-4.
[music excerpt: Beethoven, Symphony No. 7 in A, Opus 92, 3rd Mvt.; Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Karajan]
But that's way too fast. Even the Roadrunner would have trouble waltzing to that. But wait! Here's another piece in 3-4 time, and it's just right!
[music excerpt: Tchaikovsky, “The Nutcracker,” “Waltz of the Flowers”; Scottish National Orchestra/Jarvi]
The Waltz of the Flowers from Tchaikovsky's Music for the Nutcracker Ballet. Now that's a good waltz tempo, but tempo isn't the whole story. Here's something that's sort of in the same tempo, but it's not a waltz at all.
[music excerpt: Harper/Charles, "I Had a Dream" (The Birth of Soul); Ray Charles]
Ray Charles, I Had a Dream. You can count that one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, but the music feels as if the real beat is the larger one: One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four. Now, it's not just tempo. In fact, waltzes can have quite a range of tempos. What the Tchaikovsky has, besides a nice waltz tempo, is the oom-pa-pa factor: the bass instruments playing on the first beat of every measure, oom, oom, oom, and usually middle instruments playing on the second and third beats: Pa-pa, pa-pa, pa-pa, oom-pa-pa, oom-pa-pa, oom-pa-pa, oom-pa-pa.
This is pure accompaniment material. That is, it has virtually no melodic interest itself. Compare the bass line in the Waltz of the Flowers, oom, oom, oom, oom, oom, to the bass line in the Minuet from this Concerto Grosso, Opus 6, No. 5, by Handel.
[music excerpt: Handel, Concerto Grosso, Opus 6, No. 5, 6th Mvt.; Boston Baroque/Pearlman]
The bass line in that piece moves on almost every beat. It's a real melody on its own. It's also slower than the Tchaikovsky, but it's faster than the beginning of that two violins and guitar dance that we heard earlier on. What makes most minuets feel rather stately is the deliberate tempo and the bass line moving on every beat, creating a counter melody to the top part.
[music excerpt: Mozart, “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” (K 525), 3rd Mvt.; Columbia Symphony Orchestra/Walter]
The Minuet from Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Now listen to a bit of the Tchaikovsky again.
[music excerpt: Tchaikovsky, “The Nutcracker,” “Waltz of the Flowers”; Scottish National Orchestra/Jarvi]
Compared to the waltz, the minuet feels a bit stodgy. No whirling and twirling in minuet land. Now, I'm not saying the oom-pa-pa accompaniment is a sine qua non for waltzes, but I think it's fair to say that it's a sine qua there's a pretty good chance non. Let me lay a few examples on you. There's almost never anything in Bach's music that sounds waltz-like. But listen to the slow movement of his concerto for three harpsichords in D minor.
This is not a waltz. It's marked alla siciliana. But it almost feels like a slow, rather mournful waltz, because of the very unusual for Bach quasi-oom-pa-pa accompaniment.
[music excerpt: J. S. Bach, Concerto for 3 Harpsichords & Strings in D minor, 2nd Mvt.; The English Concert/Pinnock]
Now listen to this Deutsche, this German dance from Mozart's K600. The first section, which is repeated, sounds like a minuet, with the bass line moving on almost every beat. But in the second section, the basses go oom, oom, and the oboes and horns go pa-pa, pa-pa, and all of a sudden it sounds waltzy.
[music excerpt: Mozart, Six German Dances (KV 600), No. 2 in F; Vienna Mozart Ensemble/Boskovsky]
And finally, here's a waltz that is very fast, too fast for dancing I should think, but the melody has that twirling feel and the accompaniment is very oom-pah-pah.
[music: Chopin, Waltz No. 16 in A Flat, Opus posth.; Aldo Ciccolini]
Aldo Ciccolini playing a Chopin waltz in A-flat, Opus posthumous. I hope I can write something half that good when I'm dead. My name is Peter Schickele and the show is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
Do I hear a waltz? Well, do I? Well, there are waltzes and waltzes, if you know what I mean. Let's see what the old authentic instrument has in its beat bank for a waltz. Not a reconstruction, folks. This is an authentic early 1990s Casio instrument. Okay, we'll press beat bank. Oops, wait a minute. No, that is the demo here. Here's the beat bank. Okay, and then let's try waltz one.
That's 94. And then start.
[music: keyboard demonstration, a Casio waltz rhythm]
That's it? That's a waltz beat? Boy, you could have fooled me. Let's try waltz two. 95.
[music: keyboard demonstration, a Casio waltz rhythm]
Okay, well, I guess you could call that a waltz stripped right down to the chassis. Essence de valse. That's three absolutely even beats. One, two, three. One, two, three. Thank you. Now, the Viennese decided that that was too square, even without the Casio instrument. So they developed the habit of slightly anticipating the second beat, the first pa.
Instead of oom-pa-pa, oom-pa-pa, it's oom-pa-pa, oom-pa-pa, oom-pa-pa. Now, that isn't notated. It's left up to the performers, because it's not really precise. Exactly how much the second beat is anticipated can vary with the tempo and character of the waltz. Sometimes you hear people playing
[music: keyboard demonstration, an exaggerated early second beat]
but that's usually too much. It's a bit too gross for most waltzes. You'd probably notate it that way if you really wanted it that extreme. When done properly, it's quite subtle, sometimes almost imperceptible. It just adds an extra little dose of lilt to the piece. In Austria, the tradition continues to this day, by which I mean that it's employed not only when playing 19th-century waltzes, but in some of the, what you might call, traditional pop music of today.
Here's a suite that has three pieces with three beats in each measure, one oom and, like many children these days, two pas, one of them slightly early. I call it the A Moment Too Soon Suite. See you in about nine and a half minutes.
[music: Johann Strauss, Sr., "Kettenbrucke Waltz" (Bonbons aus Wien); The Boskovsky Ensemble]
[music excerpt: Gounod, “Romeo et Juliette,” “Je veux vivre dans ce reve” (“Great Singers of New York” (Prima Voce Series)); Geraldine Farrar]
A Moment Too Soon Suite. We began with Johann Strauss, Sr., Kettenbrücke Waltz, and it's from an old Vanguard recording, Bonbons aus Wien. I love the modesty of those old orchestrations. You might also have noticed, if you were listening carefully, that the anticipation of the second beat was not uniform in all parts of the piece.
Sometimes it would be more even and sometimes more uneven. That was the Boskovsky Ensemble again. Then we had an historic recording, Geraldine Farrar singing the Waltz song from Romeo and Juliet by Gounod. That was recorded in 1911. And then finally, from one of the yodeling albums that I'm blessed with here, this is the Innsbruck Lied, the Innsbruck song sung by Uschi Bauer.
We've still got that very slightly anticipated second beat. Okay, it's Tidbit Time at the old ballroom. I'm not going to say anything about this selection, except that when it starts playing, please don't call me up and say, Hey, what's this tidbit doing on a show about waltzes? It ain't in 3-4 time. Just cool your pits. Patience will be rewarded.
[music: McLaren, "Shall We Dance" (Waltz Darling); Pretty Fatt/Malcolm McLaren & the Bootzilla Orchestra]
That was Shall We Dance? from an album, Malcolm McLaren and the Bootzilla Orchestra. The album is called Waltz Darling and I assume that was Malcolm McLaren, the male vocalist. The female vocalist, it says, introducing Pretty Fatt. Can you tell from the way I said that, Fatt? It's two T's on the end, F-A-T-T.
One of the most interesting and strangest uses of a famous waltz that I've ever heard. And I'm still Peter Schickele. The show is Schickele Mix on PRI, Public Radio International.
We're talking about what makes a waltz a waltz. One common variation of the oom-pa-pa non-rule is to combine the two pa's into one. Oom-pa, oom-pa, oom-pa. It can still have the proper lilt quotient for a real waltz.
[music: Herbert, "La Coquette" (Rhythmic Moments); Joseph Smith]
Joseph Smith playing La Coquette by Victor Herbert. It's interesting what happens to the oom-pah, oom-pah, oom-pah pattern when you slow it down. Does this feel like a waltz?
Satie's first Gymnopédie, Ciccolini again. You can't really call it a waltz, but nevertheless it does have a sort of a slowly turning quality. Like a crystal ball, like a sad memory of a waltz. You can reduce the tempo even more, and there's still a sort of vestigial waltz feeling.
[music excerpt: Bernstein, “Thirteen Anniversaries,” “In Memoriam: Ellen Goetz”; Michael Boriskin]
That's from the last one of Leonard Bernstein's Anniversaries for Piano, played by Michael Boriskin. Just to show how much the evocative quality of that piece is due to the oom-pah, oom-pah, here's how it sounds without that accompaniment.
[music: keyboard demonstration, the Bernstein "In Memoriam: Ellen Goetz" without its accompaniment, played by Schickele]
More like a hymn that way. As a courtesy to the previous pianist, by the way, I'd like to point out that I was playing that. Did that at home and brought it in. Now, I certainly wouldn't call the Bernstein piece a waltz, but it is true that waltzes have more variation in tempo and expression than any other dance I can think of. And a lot of waltzes are sad.
More than one composer has written a waltz triste, but I don't know of a polka triste, or a jig triste, not to mention a mashed potato triste. Waltzes can range from the noble to the sentimental, from the grand to the delicate, from the elated to the desolate, from the dramatic to the cute, from the demonic to the pathetic. They can even be tawdry.
[music excerpt: Shostakovich, Jazz Suite No. 1, “Waltz”; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Chailly]
Waltz from the Jazz Suite No. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich. Riccardo Chailly conducting the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
I read somewhere once that when Brahms sent his Second Symphony to his publisher, he referred to it as a little collection of waltzes. He was kidding, of course, but why did he say that? Not just because two of its movements are in 3-4 time. Why did he say that? The first movement of his Third Symphony is also in triple time.
[music excerpt: Brahms, Symphony No. 3 in F, Opus 90, 1st Mvt.; Columbia Symphony Orchestra/Walter]
But he didn't even jokingly call it a bunch of waltzes. It really doesn't have any dance in it.
But the first movement of the second symphony, even though it's a bit on the slow side for a waltz, and has no oom-pa-pa, and is much too complicated rhythmically for a waltz, some of it does have a bit of the gracefully turning quality associated with the word walzen. Brahms once said that the publication of no piece of his gave him greater pleasure than that of the Liebeslieder waltzes.
The Second Symphony, played here by Bruno Walter and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, is a high-brow abstract symphony written by a composer who wished he had written the Blue Danube.
[music excerpt: Brahms, Symphony No. 2 in D, Opus 73, 1st Mvt.; Columbia Symphony Orchestra/Walter]
And that's Schickele Mix for this week. Our usual theme music isn't in 3-4, so we're letting Johannes take us out here. The program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and by this radio station and its members. Thank you muchly, members. And not only that, once our program is perpetrated, it's 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 album numbers and everything. Just refer to the program number. This is program number 76. 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.
[No speech for 263 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.