This is WIAA Interlochen 88.7 FM, WIAB Mackinaw City 88.5 FM, and WICV East Jordan Charlevoix 100.9 FM, the listener-supported classical music service of the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Have a wonderful Tuesday evening, and thanks for listening to Interlochen Public Radio. The time is 6 o'clock. That's easy for you to say. 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. And it is good to be able to report that our bills are being paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by this very radio station where I'm provided with a real one-of-a-kind studio space.
Our program is distributed all over the place by PRI Public Radio International. As I was saying on another edition of Schickele Mix, before I was rudely interrupted by the fact that the program is only an hour long rather than the five-hour format I originally proposed, which, of course, was shot down by the typically Philistine powers that be, who said something like, Now we all know that this is a very sophisticated town, but if we distribute the show to other places, I think you'll find that there might be a few listeners who wouldn't stay tuned for the entire five hours, and it would be a shame, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Well, I know coded messages. What they're really saying is, we want to make sure we have the time to run that 12-part series on Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and that new British quiz show called, What? You don't know that, you stupid twit? Well, you do what you can do. Anyway, as I was saying, there is probably no dance that has remained popular as long, and has influenced concert music as much as the waltz.
Certainly the minuet had a tremendous presence in non-dance music, but I don't think it was popular for as long a time as the waltz has been, and I also don't think that there was as much range of expression among minuets as there has been among waltzes. Today's show is called Beyond the Blue Danube, and we're going to see how the long and graceful arm of the waltz reaches into areas of music not written to be danced to.
Let's begin with a trio of concert waltzes for piano. They all have the word waltz in their title or subtitle, but they also all show the influence of kinds of music appreciated by people on the lower rungs of society, people whom my wife's English grandparents might have described as not quite nice.
Although they might be performed in a concert hall, these pieces move the waltz out of the ballroom and into places where you have to be careful when you're dancing not to bump into the pool table. For the third piece, by the way, I have to hoist the very old LP alert. This album is so old it says unbreakable on the label, although I know some hi-fi purists who would like to try. What can I tell you? It's a great piece.
The three not-quite-nice waltzes last about nine and a half minutes. I'll see you then.
[music: Joplin, "Bethena" (Rhythmic Moments); Joseph Smith]
[music: Constanten, "Dejavalse" (The Waltz Project); John Cobb]
[music: Busch, "Waltz in Ragtime" (Bar Room Piano); Joe "Fingers" Carr]
The three not-quite-nice waltzes began with Scott Joplin, Bethena concert waltz played by Joseph Smith, and then we had a very touching waltz called Dejavalse by Tom Constanten. Constanten, he, according to these notes, was an original member of the Grateful Dead, also a musical mathematical permutation sort of guy before that, obviously a very interesting guy and a wonderful little waltz.
And then finally, one of my favorite old albums, as regular listeners know, the Bar Room piano album of Joe "Fingers" Carr, and that was Waltz in Ragtime, and you may have noticed that was not a purely solo piano suite there. Joe "Fingers" Carr has bass and drums behind him. My name's Peter Schickele, and the show is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International. Beyond the Blue Danube Or maybe I should have called this program The Wide Blue Danube Yonder, but then again, maybe not.
As I said earlier, the range of feeling among waltzes is extraordinary, from hilarious, giddy ecstasy to utter hopeless desolation. I mentioned on that other show, the one that would have been part of this show if my five-hour format hadn't been turned down to make room for another live broadcast of the Ross Ice Shelf Philharmonic, I mention that there are many sad waltzes, sometimes even called that. That's not true of most other dances.
You don't find Joey Dee getting us out on the floor to dance to a Twist Triste. Our next suite consists of three pieces that are not called waltzes, but have a waltz-like feeling, and not just because they're in triple time. In the first number, it's mainly the oom-pah-pah accompaniment that is so characteristic of most waltzes.
In the second piece, it's the feeling of graceful turning, turning in the air in this case, since we're dealing with a dragonfly, a nightingale, and a bat. The third song has some nice variations on the oom-pah-pah pattern. By the way, when I say oom-pah-pah, I just mean the accompaniment pattern in which the bass part plays on the first beat and one or more higher parts play on the second and third beats.
I don't mean to imply a polka band type of sound. In fact, this third song is about as far away from polka bands as you can get. This is 3/4 time at its most laid back. Here are three sort of waltzes. I'll be back in less than ten minutes.
[music: Estes/Allison, "20/20 Vision" (Sunny Side of the Mountain); Jimmy Martin & The Sunny Mountain Boys]
[music excerpt: Ravel, "L'Enfant et les Sortilèges"; Orchestre National de la RTF/Maazel]
[music: Sebastian/Yanovsky, "Coconut Grove" (Hums of the Lovin’ Spoonful); Lovin' Spoonful]
The three sort-of waltzes began with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys doing 20/20 Vision. I guess I said Sunny Mountain Boys because we've heard so much Earl Taylor and his Stoney Mountain Boys on this show. Great song, 20/20 Vision. And then we had another installment of my grand plan to expose regular listeners of Schickele Mix to the entire Ravel opera, L'Enfant et les Sortilèges, The Child and the Sorcerers, that part was a wistful, bittersweet section there when the child is out in the garden and he stabbed one of the trees with his knife and the trees start to complain about their wounds and then a dragonfly comes around and sings: Where are you? I'm looking for you. The net, it's caught you.
Oh you, dearest, long and frail, your turquoise, your topaz, the air which loves you misses them less than I. The child had caught a dragonfly earlier and pinned it to the wall. And the nightingale sings, and a bat who's looking for another bat the child had killed comes by.
That was Lorin Maazel, by the way, conducting the Orchestre National de la RTF. And then the last number was the Lovin' Spoonful doing Coconut Grove. Wish I were there right now. By the way, an interesting thing about bluegrass and country tunes in 3/4 time is that they often have three-bar phrases.
Three-bar phrases. Three-bar phrases are extremely unusual in the popular music of Anglo culture. Unusual in jazz too. I once wrote a piece for a TV show that was played by an all-star jazz ensemble and the man on trumpet was Clark Terry. Now in terms of all-around musicianship you don't get much better than Clark Terry. But at the first rehearsal he sort of flubbed one section and it was because it was in three-bar phrases. Most people just aren't used to that. He only flubbed it once.
Four-measure phrases are so common that pre-barred score paper has four or eight measures to the page. One of the many things I like about country music is that they often add an extra bar at the end of a phrase before moving on, resulting in the occasional five-bar phrase. But consistent three-bar phrases hardly ever happen except in triple time, as in 20/20 Vision.
[music excerpt: Estes/Allison, "20/20 Vision" (Sunny Side of the Mountain); Jimmy Martin & The Sunny Mountain Boys]
Three beats and a measure, three measures and a phrase. Let's face it, I'm partial to things in three. So how far out can you take a waltz? The first selection in our next suite is marked waltz tempo, and I assume it's written in three, but I'm not sure how to count it just from listening to it. It's a long way from oom-pah-pah, but it does have a sort of a lilt to it.
Sort of as a point of reference, the second number is definitely a waltz, a parody waltz actually. The third and last piece is called Minute Waltz, or 3/4 plus or minus one-eighth. That is, every other measure is in 3/4 time, which has six eighth notes in it, while the intervening measures are in 5/8 or 7/8. This is a piece organized in a highly mathematical manner, but the system is manipulated so that the left hand in the seventh measure has a real oom-pah-pah in C major. In the context of this style, that's a joke. I call this the Take It to the Limit Waltz Suite. It lasts about five and a half minutes.
[music: Schoenberg, “Variations for Orchestra” Variation IV (“Walzertempo”); BBC Symphony Orchestra/Boulez]
Peggy Ashcroft (recorded): Daisy and Lily, lazy and silly, walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea, talking once more 'neath a swan-bosomed tree. Rose castles, tourelles, those bustles where swells each foam-bell of ermine, they roam and determine what fashions have been and what fashions will be, what tartan leaves born, what crinolines worn.
Peggy Ashcroft (recorded): By Queen Thetis, pelisses of tarlatine blue, like the thin plaided leaves that the castle crags grew, or allure d'affront on the waterguard's land, her hair seemed gold trees on the honey-cell'd sand, when the thickest gold spangles, on deep water seen, were like twanging guitar and like cold mandoline, and the nymphs of great caves, with hair like gold waves, of Venus, or tarlatine, Louise and Charlottine, Boreas' daughters, and the nymphs of deep waters, the nymph Taglioni, Grisi the ondine, were plaided Victoria and thin Clementine, like the crinolined waterfalls; wood-nymphs wear bonnets, shawls, elegant parasols floating are seen. The Amazons wear balzarine of jonquille beside the blond lace of a deep-falling rill; through glades like a nun they run from and shun the enormous and gold-rayed rustling sun; and the nymphs of the fountains descend from the mountains like elegant willows on their deep barouche pillows, in cashmere, alpaca, barège, Isabelle, like bells of bright water from clearest wood-well. Our élégantes favouring bonnets of blond, the stars in their apiaries, sylphs in their aviaries, seeing them, spangle these, and the sylphs fond from their aviaries fanned with each long fluid hand the manteaux espagnols, mimic the waterfalls over the long and the light summer land.
Peggy Ashcroft (recorded): So Daisy and Lily, lazy and silly, walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea, talking once more 'neath a swan-bosomed tree. Rose castles, tourelles, those bustles! Mourelles of the shade in their train follow. Ladies, how vain, hollow. Gone is the sweet swallow, gone, Philomel!
[music: Babbitt, "Minute Waltz" (The Waltz Project); Alan Feinberg]
The Take It to the Limit Waltz Suite. We began with Arnold Schoenberg, Variations for Orchestra. That was the fourth variation. Pierre Boulez was conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. And then we heard from Façade, music by William Walton, poem by Edith Sitwell. That was Peggy Ashcroft narrating the poem, and Riccardo Chailly conducting the London Sinfonietta.
And then finally from the Waltz Project album again, the Minute Waltz, or 3/4 plus or minus one eighth, by Milton Babbitt. And all three of those have a real lilt. I think, particularly if you listen to some other music by Babbitt or Schoenberg, you'd see what a waltzy feel those pieces have.
Peter Schickele is the name, Schickele Mix is the game, from PRI, Public Radio International. Now it's Tidbit Time, triple time Tidbit Time. We've been wandering around in the outer provinces of Waltzland. Let's go right back to the capital and hear a good old fashioned Viennese waltz.
Tom Lehrer (recorded): Now, to continue with the love song, here we have the Viennese waltz type of the Franz Lehár-Johann Strauss school, conjuring up images of gaily waltzing couples and probably stale champagne drunk from sweaty slippers. This example is called the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz.
[music: Lehrer, "The Wiener Schnitzel Waltz" (Revisited); Tom Lehrer]
Tom Lehrer, performing with great élan, the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz. Okay, for our last suite, we're going to go back out to the suburbs of Waltzville, if I may be allowed to change metaphors in mid-Baedeker. Three instrumental pieces exhibiting various degrees of waltzishness. The first the most, the second the least, and the last the hippest.
In fact, we'll call this suite Three Degrees of Waltzishness, and we'll meet again in something less than nine minutes.
[music: They Might Be Giants, "Space Suit" (Apollo 18); They Might Be Giants]
[music: Harrison, “Seven Pastorales,” “for Ellie & David Decker on their marriage”; Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra/Davies]
[music: "I’m Gonna Go Fishin’" (The Concert Jazz Band); Gerry Mulligan]
Three Degrees of Waltzishness began with They Might Be Giants playing their tune Space Suit. Then we had one of Lou Harrison's Seven Pastorales, Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, and finally, Gerry Mulligan, the Concert Jazz Band, doing I'm Gonna Go Fishin'.
Hey, here's another 3/4 country number with three- and four-bar phrases, and along with that sort of unusual bar count kind of thing, some beautifully weird harmonizing.
[music: Van Hoose, "Green Pastures" (Duets); Emmylou Harris/Ricky Skaggs]
Green Pastures, Emmylou Harris and Ricky Skaggs. Just had to get that in. Well, that's about all we have time for now. There's a lot more that could be said about the influence of waltzes on music in general, but, of course, with this measly one-hour format, we can only skim the surface. If I had been given the...
Hello? Oh, hello, sir. Sir? Oh, no, well, of course I didn't mean you. I just, you know, I just meant the higher-ups in general. I'm sure that you... What? I can? You mean I could have the five-hour format? Hey, that's great! When... What do you mean not...
No, no, it's just I didn't realize that the Ross Ice Shelf has a radio station. Yeah, no, I understand, but... I think, given the choice, I'd rather keep the one-hour format and stay here, because... Sir, could you excuse me just a moment, please?
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
I just had to get the theme on. It's getting late. No, I appreciate the offer, but... Yes, that's true. Oh, I agree. Well, thanks anyway, sir, and I'm actually very happy here. Okay, goodbye.
And that's Schickele Mix for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by this radio station and its lovable members. And not only that, our program, believe it or not, 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 album numbers and everything. Just refer to the program number. This is program 77. 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.
[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.