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| 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 bottom line is that our bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by this top-of-the-line radio station, from the depths of whose labyrinthine facilities our program emerges, only to be distributed to | |
| the four winds by PRI, Public Radio International. Okay, here's a legendary situation. You've never | |
| been to a classical music concert before, and they're playing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and you're really digging it, but you've already made a fool out of yourself by being the only person in the entire auditorium to applaud at the end of the first movement, and by now you've figured out that clapping at the end of each movement simply isn't done. Although it's a completely arbitrary rule, which, as a matter of fact, wasn't in place when much of the symphonic repertoire was written. So now they're coming up on the end of the whole piece, and it's very exciting. It's getting faster and faster. | |
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| Well, by the time the piece is really finished, all the wind is out of your sails, | |
| your face is so covered with egg you can hardly find your way out of the hall into the sweetly anonymous night. But then on the bus home, two people holding symphony programs look at you and smile at each other, giggle actually, and you vow that the next time you go to a concert, it's going to be South Bend Sammy and his accordionologists. | |
| Like I say, the etiquette about applauding at classical concerts is arbitrary and sometimes discouraging of enthusiasm and spontaneity. But it's also true that especially 19th century symphonies often seem to be a little bit more of a waste of time. So, if you're going to be over and over and over again, here's Tchaikovsky's Fifth. | |
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| Tchaikovsky's Fifth, the ending thereof. As symphonies got more and more monumental, so did their endings, not only in terms of length, but also in terms of bluster. That's what Shostakovich was having fun with at the end of his first piano concerto. | |
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| One of the truly great endings. Today we're going to talk about endings. The name of the show is Let's Get This Thing Over With, which is sometimes easier said than done. | |
| The feeling among many 19th century composers was, you can't put a grandiose painting in a dinky frame, if I may be permitted to mix metaphors on my palette. If you take the audience up to a higher plane, you can't just drop them. You've got to bring them down gradually. And it's often true. I've seen a couple of mainstream type movies recently that had very exciting physical climaxes, but didn't have the customary wrap-up scene. You know, the choir, the orchestra, the orchestra, the orchestra, the orchestra, the orchestra. | |
| at last scene that says everything's going to be okay, and it's unsatisfying. Unless it's an unusual and intentionally disturbing movie, it's unfulfilling to have the lights come up while your adrenaline is still at full throttle. In traditional theatrics, a big piece requires a big ending, which doesn't necessarily mean loud, by the way, but substantial. Some of Beethoven's endings may be interminable, but at least you know that they're endings. It would be a mistake, however, to give the impression that 19th century symphonists are the only ones who like big endings. Here's the rock and roll version of a big Beethoven ending. | |
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| You're welcome. The Allman Brothers from the Eat a Peach album. As I said earlier, a big piece requires a big ending. Mountain Jam, of which that was the last couple of minutes, takes up two LP sides. You don't hear endings like that on a two and a half minute single any more than you would hear a lot of sound and fury at the end of a Beethoven bagatelle. | |
| Okay, here's the jazz version of a big symphonic ending. | |
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| Thelonious Monk, Epistrophe. I just love it how some jazz groups can't bear the thought of a piece being over. It's almost like a reverse race. Who's going to be the last cat to play? | |
| On this next one, you think it's all over, but it isn't. There's no fat lady to sing, but it ain't over till Art Blakey locks it up. | |
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| Fuller Love. I guess since Art Blakey's the leader, he gets to have the last word. Now it is true, as some 20th century classical composers also found out, when they rebelled against the romantic traditions, if you don't have the big obvious ending, audiences don't always know whether the piece is over or not. | |
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| Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers again in In Walked Bud. | |
| Performances of many 20th century classical pieces have been followed by a rather long silence and then tentatively beginning applause. Is it over or not? Of course, there is an in-between. You can have a modest ending that is still obviously the end. Here's a good example of both bombastic and throwaway endings. The last movement of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony goes out with a whole bunch of sledgehammer blows, measures and measures of non-thematic cadence formula chords. | |
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| But the first movement has one of the wittiest endings in all of Beethoven. Here's the opening of the first movement. | |
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| Okay, now keep that theme in mind. Here's how the movement closes. | |
| Here's how the movement closes. | |
| It's because I'm involved a lot with comedy. And as everyone knows, one of the most important elements of comedy is timing. | |
| But it's certainly true that I tend to prefer the apt, concise, deliciously timed ending to the hit-em-over-the-head-with-a-two-by-four kind. | |
| The jazz arrangers of the 1920s and 30s were masters of the throwaway ending. I call this little sweetlet no big deal. | |
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| The End | |
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| All right! No big deal. Endings from four big band charts from the 20s and 30s. Shuffleburg Shuffle by Benny Carter and his orchestra, Cazaloma Stomp by the Cazaloma Orchestra, Toby by Benny Moulton's Kansas City Orchestra, and Don't Be That Way by Chuck Webb and his orchestra. When I use the term throwaway ending, by the way, I simply mean a small gesture as opposed to a large one. I don't necessarily mean that it's flippant. One of the most exquisite and moving throwaway endings I've ever heard is that of Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges, The Child and the Sorcerers. For an opera, it's a short work, but it's still about 45 minutes of music, longer than most Beethoven symphonies, and yet the ending is the antithesis of grand. | |
| The child, who at the beginning of the opera was one mean little kid, is in the garden, and he's been wounded. The animals gather around him with newly found sympathy and try to figure out what to do. | |
| Then they remember having heard him call out Mama, so they all try to say it themselves. Finally, the child opens his eyes, and the very last two notes of the opera are his gentle cry, Mama. | |
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| Il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il est sain, il | |
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| I can't hear that piece without tears coming to my eyes. I'm Peter Schickele, and the program is Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International. | |
| Everyone knows how important the first sentence of a novel is. But the last sentence, too, should be memorable. It should be just right. I know, I know, all the sentences in a novel should be just right, but you know what I mean. As a composer, I can spend days or even weeks over the last section, or even the last section of a novel, or even the last few measures of a piece, trying to get the right level of energy and an interesting but natural feeling of closure. | |
| But some composers, reacting against endings that are too predictable or well-tailored for their tastes, have gone out of their way to end pieces abruptly, avoiding anything that smacks of closing clichés, rhythmically, harmonically, or melodically. Here's another sweetlet of endings, this time featuring pieces that, don't worry, about the etiquette of leaving. | |
| No socially graceful exits here, no witty curtain lines. I had a history professor once who, although he would suffer questions during class, would arrange at the last minute of the period to be saying something like, an event from which the Austro-Hungarian Empire was never to recover, whereupon he would turn on his heels and disappear out the door. He wasn't about to let any mere college student spoil his dramatic exit lines. These three endings are dramatic in the sense of being theatrically canny, but they're not, unlike my history prof, heroic. The first two, to my ears, are question marks. They have an intentionally unresolved feeling. The third piece simply stops. This is the, That's All There Is, Sweetlet. | |
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| The one who's lost his chance to see life, is the one who's truly lost his chance to see the world. The other piece is one of the seeming, And here's the second piece. but we find a bit of a gap between, Hey you! | |
| Hey Marie! That's me! My friends are already gone! You! Your mother is dead! | |
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| Where is she? Give me time! | |
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| I'll be right back! | |
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| The End | |
| That's all there is. The endings of Stravinsky's Patryczka, Berg's Wozzeck, and Eight Lines by Steve Reich. Simon Rattle and the Birmingham, Claudio Abato and the New York Times, the Vienna Philharmonic, and Ransom Wilson with Soloisti New York. In Wozzeck, that was Marie's little son finding out that his mother is dead. From his playmates. | |
| In terms of knowing when a piece is over, it should be pointed out that Patryczka and Wozzeck are theater works, so there is a curtain coming down, or the lighting equivalent thereof. | |
| Now Berg would end concert pieces like that, but Stravinsky tended not to. His concert pieces usually have less abrupt, more traditionally inspired endings. | |
| Another kind of abrupt, or at least non-fancy ending, often occurs when music is not being performed in a formal context, but just among friends or members of the community. | |
| When everybody's had enough, or run out of verses, they stop. The End | |
| The end of the world is a new beginning. The end of the world is a new beginning. The end of the world is a new beginning. | |
| The end of the world is a new beginning. | |
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| Masai women of Kenya Praising their warrior leaders Sorry about all the excerpts, the incomplete songs and pieces on this show | |
| But to do entire works, we'd have to have a five-hour format Which, as a matter of fact, I did put in for, but I got shot down on that one So far, we've been talking about the gestures of endings Now let's look into some of the ways they can relate to the rest of the piece The end of a Bach or Mozart work Rarely has any obvious thematic relevance In relationship to the beginning | |
| But in the 19th century, the idea of a piece coming full circle And I'm talking about a multi-movement piece here Ending with the same material with which it opened became popular | |
| Here's the beginning of Brahms' Third Symphony | |
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| And here's how the first movement ends Same material, but soft | |
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| That's the ending of the first movement of Brahms' Third Symphony With the typical end of a Bach piece Brahms, what musicians call a hairpin, because you get the crescendo sign is the little wedge opening up to the right, and then the decrescendo sign is the wedge tightening to the right, so it looks sort of like a hairpin. Certain kinds of hairpins are... I'm sorry I brought that up. Although that movement is in F major, the last movement begins in F minor, which is rather unusual. The thematic material is very different from that of the opening movement, but towards the end, shortly after we join up with it in mid-stream here, the music eases into the major, and then we start hearing the brief motif from the very top of the | |
| symphony, and then finally a reference to the first main theme, in an ending that is rather similar to that of the first movement. | |
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| Bruno Walter and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra with excerpts from Brahms' Symphony No. 3. Certainly a quiet, non-bombastic ending that you really know is an ending. | |
| One of the first to recognize Brahms' talent was Robert Schumann, who did a pretty nifty thing in his own piano quintet. How's that for a slick segue? Here's how it starts. | |
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| That's the first movement. Now here's how the last movement starts. | |
| That's the first movement. | |
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| Now what he does is finish the whole piece off with a double fugue, an elaborate but exhilarating contrapuntal concoction combining the opening thematic idea from the first movement and the opening theme from the second movement. and the opening idea from the last movement. | |
| Put them both together and what do you have? | |
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| Arthur Rubinstein and the Guarneri String Quartet playing Schumann's Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, or at least part of it. Me, I'm Peter Schickelek. | |
| The show is Schickelemix from PRI, Public Radio International. Let's Get This Thing Over With is the name of today's show. How Music Ends. | |
| We've been talking about cyclical pieces that end with at least a reference to their beginnings. Of course, the most literal reference you can have is what is technically called the exact same thing. At the end of Bach's Goldberg Variations, for instance, the opening aria, the framework upon which 30 variations are built, which take well over a half an hour at least to play, is repeated, and the effect is magical. Darius Millot did a nice little elaboration of that idea. Here's the first piece in his suite for piano called The Household Muse. | |
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| I want a D A A | |
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| A | |
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| Now, here's the last piece in the Household Muse. It's exactly the same as the first piece, but with a new extra melody added on top. | |
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| From Mio's The Household Muse. Also a great literal ending there. The very ending, I love that. Performed by your humble host. I studied with Mio briefly and I have too much respect for him to have played his piece on the genuine early 1990s authentic instrument with which this studio is equipped. | |
| So I recorded it at my piano teacher's house and brought it over here. Okay now, another effective way of ending a piece is to make a point of not referring to anything earlier in the work. To bring in something completely fresh at the very end. Paul Taylor is one of my favorite choreographers and he does that in several of his dances. For the only time in the dance, say, somebody runs on and slides across the floor just as the lights go down at the end. But radio is not the ideal medium for choreography. So let's listen to a piece by Stravinsky. Twenty-seven seconds before the end of this piece, we are treated to something completely different from what has gone on. Like anyone before. | |
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| Do you still remember what you did with that young guy in the奥 disc? Let me know in the comments below. And that said, enjoy the rest of the show. Bye. | |
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| Enormous changes at the last minute. The finale of Igor Stravinsky's Octet for Winds. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting members of the London Sinfonietta. Which brings us to tidbit time. That time when we lean back, kick off our shoes, and listen to music through our toes. One of the common endings used by Baroque church composers was this one. | |
| Here, I'll set the authentic instrument to pipe organ. That's number 46. And here's the ending. | |
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| But it should come as no surprise that P.D.Q. Bach couldn't get it right. | |
| By the licks of the millon | |
| E-I-E-I-O-N | |
| There we sat down, yea, we wept. | |
| E-I-E-I-O-N | |
| Wept off. Here and off. | |
| There and not here. There. Everywhere. | |
| E-I-E-I-O-N E-I-E-I-O-N E-I-E-I-O-N E-I-E-I-O-N E-I-E-I-O-N Boy. | |
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| The Chorale by the Leaks of Babylon from The Seasonings by P.D.Q. Bach, who was the 21st of Johann Sebastian Bach's 20 children. George Jorge Mester, conducting the Royal P.D.Q. Bach Festival Orchestra. Well, actually, they don't play in that one. In that one, he's conducting the O.K. Chorale. | |
| That album came out in 1966. I believe it was soon after Vladimir Horowitz had ended quite a long retirement and come to the United States. | |
| He came back and issued an album, which was recorded live, called An Historic Return, Vladimir Horowitz at Carnegie Hall. So, of course, we called our album An Hysteric Return, P.D.Q. Bach at Carnegie Hall. And now, I haven't checked the CD out on this, but on the LP, if you listened very carefully, you could sometimes hear a low rumble. And that's the subway. The N and the R trains go more or less under Carnegie Hall, and you could hear them. Of course, now they've renovated Carnegie, and that put an end to that. Speaking of ends, let's get this thing over with. | |
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| That's all, folks. | |
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| 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 many, and munificent members. Thank you, members. And not only that, our program is distributed with a perfectly straight face 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 78. | |
| 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. | |
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| 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. | |
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