Beyond the Blue Danube

Schickele Mix Episode #77

Part of The Schickele Mix Online Fan Archive

Premiere
1994-10-29
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Transcript

[This is a machine-generated transcript, cleaned up and formatted as HTML. You can download the original as an .srt file.]

This is WIAA Interlochen, 88.7 FM, WIAB Mackinac 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.
[No speech for 15s.]
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 when I hear them. 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, I'm going to talk about the minuet, 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, 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.
[No speech for 579s.]
The three not quite nice waltzes began with Scott Joplin, Athena concert waltz played by Joseph Smith.
And then we had a very touching waltz called deja waltz by Tom Constantine. Constantine? 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 barroom piano album of Joe Finger's car. And that was waltz and ragtime. And you may have noticed that was not a purely solo piano, but a piano suite there. Joe Finger's car has bass and drums behind him. My name is 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 mentioned that there are many sad waltzes sometimes even called that that's not true of most other dances. You don't find Joey D getting us out on the floor to dance to a twist tree. East. Our next suite, can. 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 umpapa 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 umpapa pattern. Uh, by the way, when I say umpapa, 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 poker band type of sound.
In fact, this third song is about as far away from poker bands as you can get. This is three, four time at its most laid back. Here are three sort of waltzes.
I'll be back in less than 10 minutes.
I've been to the doctor. He says I'm all right.
I know he's lying. I'm losing my side. He should have examined the eyes of my mind.
When he 20 vision and walking around with my eyes wide open, I lay in my bed. If it wasn't for dying, I wish I was dead.
But this is my punishment. Death is too kind. 20, 20 vision and walking around.
You just couldn't know her the way that I do.
You said, say that she's wicked and maybe it's true. But there's one thing I do know.
She's no longer my 20, 20 vision and walking round.
I've lost her. I've lost her. Oh,
what will I do? I'll bet you're not happy. Yeah, she's there with you. Oh, The eyes of your heart will have trouble like mine. The eyes of your heart will have trouble like mine. 20, 20 vision and walking round blind.
20, 20 vision and walking.
When she saw me,
he set me free. I loved her, I loved her. I kept her company.
It's exciting.
It's great.
[No speech for 64s.]
It's really true
How nothing matters No mad mad world And no mad hatters No one's pitching cause there ain't no batters In Coconut Grove Don't bar the door There's no one coming The oceans roar
We'll dull the drumming
Of any silly thoughts or city way The ocean breeze has cooled my mind The salty days are hers
And I'm not going to be
In mine just to do
What we want her
Tonight we'll find a doom
That's ours
And softly she will speak
The stars until
Sun up
It's all from having Someone knowing Just which way your head is blowing Who's always warm
Like in the morning In Coconut Grove
The ocean breeze
Is cooling my mind
The salty days are hers In mine just to do
What we want her
Tonight we'll find a doom That's ours
And softly she will speak
The stars until sun up
It's really true
How nothing matters No mad mad world No one's pitching cause there ain't no batters In Coconut Grove Don't bar the door
[No speech for 23s.]
Three sort of waltzes Began with Jimmy Martin And the Sunny Mountain Boys Doing 2020 Vision I guess I said Sunny Mountain Boys
Cause we've heard so much Earl Taylor and his Stony Mountain Boys On this show Great song 2020 Vision And then we had another installment Of my grand plan To expose regular listeners Of Schickele Mix To the entire Revell audience 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 Lauren Mizell, 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 three-four time is that they often have 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-American musician. I 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, I assure you. Four-measure phrases are so common that pre-barred score paper has four or eight measures to the page. Now, one of the many things I like about country music is that they often add a little bit of a rhythm to it. And I think that's a good thing.
He had 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 2020 vision.
[No speech for 22s.]
Three beats in a measure, three measures in 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 umpire to umpire. 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 way. It's a piece that's not just a piece of paper, but it's a piece of mathematical manner. But the system is manipulated so that the left hand in the seventh measure has a real umpapa 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.
[No speech for 87s.]
Daisy and Lily, lazy and silly, walk by the shore of the waltz. One grassy sea, talking once more neath a swan-bosom tree. Those castles to rels, those bustles where swells. Each phone bell of ermine, they roam and determine what fashions have been and what fashions will be. What tartan leaves born, what crinolines worn.
By queen fetus, palesis of tality blue, like the thin, plaited leaves that the castle crags boo. Of a lour d'affronte on the water-god's land. Her hair seemed gold trees on the honey-celled sand. When the thickest gold spangles on deep water's scene were like twanging guitar and like cold mandolin. And the nymphs of great caves with hair like gold waves of Venus or Tarlatine. Louise and Charlotte, deep-boreas, daughters of the moon.
The nymphs of deep waters. And the nymphs of deep waters. The nymph, Talione, Grisey, the andine, were plaided Victoria and thin Clementine. Like the crinolined waterfalls.
Wood nymphs wear bonnet shawls, elegant parasols floating Marcine.
The Amazons wear boughs of reen of John Quill. Beside the blond lace of the deep falling rill. Through glades like a number.
The school's leer, she's a neat, nice little girl.
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 Kashmir al-Banda, Barrej is a bell Like bells of bright water from Klerus' wood well Our elegance favouring bonnets of blonde The stars in their apiaries, silks in their aviaries
Seeing them strangle these and the silks fond From their aviaries fanned with each long fluid hand The montose Hispaniols mimic the waterfalls Over the long and the light summer land
So Daisy and Lily, lazy and silly
Walk by the shore of the warm grassy sea
Talking once more neath a swan bosom tree Rose castles and trees, and trees and trees
To roll those bustles, morels of the shade in their train Hollow, ladies, how vain, hollow
Gone is the sweet swallow, gone Philomel
[No speech for 14s.]
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 Fassade, music by William Walton, poem by Edith Sitwell. That was Peggy Ashcroft narrating the poem and Ricardo Shailly conducting the London Sinfonietta.
Fonietta. Delightful waltz. And then finally from the Waltz Project album again, the Minute Waltz, or 3-4 plus or minus 1-8th 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 Mixes 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. Now to continue with the love song, here we have the Viennese waltz type of the Franz Lehar Johann Strauss School conjuring up images of gaily waltzing couples and and , probably, stale champagne drunk from sweaty slippers.
This example is called the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz.
Do you remember the night I held you So tight as we danced To the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz ? The music was gay and the setting was Viennese Your hair was some roses, or, perhaps they were peonies I was blind to your obvious faults
See the bastard who'semment wearing artificial var chords I don't really wanna has evilCoins. But the men inbeanch with some viruiate riding schools of all kinds — why?
We danced across the scene to the strains of the Wiener Schnitzel walls. I drank some champagne from your shoe, la la la.
I was drunk by the time I got through, la la la.
For I didn't know as I raised that cup, it had taken two bottles to fill the thing up.
It was I who stepped on your dress, la la la.
The skirts all came off, I confess, la la la. Revealing for all of the others to see, just what it was that endeared you to me.
I remember the Wiener Schnitzel walls. Your lips were like wine, if you'll pardon the simile.
The music was lovely and quite Rudolf Frimmeli.
I drank wine, you drank chocolate malts.
And we both turned quite green to the strains of the Wiener Schnitzel walls.
Tom Lehrer, performing with great Elan, the Wiener Schnitzel walls. Okay, for our last suite, we're going to go back out to the suburbs of Waltzville.
If I may be allowed. If I may be allowed to change metaphors in mid-Bettiker. 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.
[No speech for 192s.]
Also the width of this structure is speechlesslythin. Regarding the waltzing of this house, I think that your goodakiness that's within this adding content would just land out.
Buh bye.
[No speech for 49s.]
Three degrees of waltz-ishness.
Began with They Might Be Giants playing their tune Space Suit. Then we had one of Lou Harrison's Seven Pastorelles, Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, and finally, Jerry Mulligan, the concert jazz band, doing I'm Gonna Go Fishing. 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.
Troubles and trials often betray those On in the weary Body to stray But we shall walk
Beside the still waters
With a good shepherd Leading the way
Those who have stray words
Sought by the master Be heard by the master Who once gave his life for the sheep
Out on the mountain still he's searching
Bringing them in for never to keep
Going up home to live in green pastures Where we shall live and fight evermore
Even the Lord will be in that number When we shall reach that heaven
He's sure
Voice of the stranger
For he would lead us
On to this path Following on with Jesus our Savior
We shall reach that Country so fair
Living in green pastures Where we shall live and fight evermore
Even the Lord will be in that number When we shall reach that heavenly shore
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. Oh, no, well, of course I didn't mean you.
I just... You know, I just meant the higher-ups in general. I, uh... I'm sure that... 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... I think I'd rather keep the one-hour format and stay here. Because... Uh, sir, could you excuse me just a moment, please?
I just had to get the theme on. It's getting late.
No, I appreciate the offer, but... Yes, that's true. No, I agree. Well, thanks anyway, sir, and, uh... And I'm actually very happy here. Okay, goodbye.
Whew.
And, uh, 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.
[No speech for 130s.]
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, MN 55403.