Right now, it's time on WFMT for Schickely Mix with Peter Schickely. You ready, Peter?
You seem to be a bit conflicted, Peter. What do you say?
Part of me says yes, and the other part says no. But it's time, so here's the theme.
Schickely Mix We are more than grateful for the fact that our bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by the National Endowment for the Arts,
with additional support from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and from this visionary radio station, if that's not a contradiction in terms,
where I am provided with a parking space, a studio, and enough rope to hang myself, and whence the results of my contrary activities are distributed to the four corners by PRI, Publicity, and the Publicity of the World. Public Radio International.
Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you. No, you can't. Yes, I can. No, you can't. Yes, I can. No, you can't. Yes, I can. Yes, I can.
Anything you can be, I can be greater. Sooner or later, I'm greater than you.
No, you're not.
Yes, I am. No, you're not. Yes, I am. No, you're not.
Yes, I am. Have you ever known a couple like that?
You know, who obviously love each other, but fight all the time? Two of my strongest memories of being a young teenager involve my parents,
who certainly didn't fight all the time, and it wasn't a matter of anything you can do, I can do better, but they would get into these big shouting arguments about politics or whatever when other people were around.
I mean, like when company was over, and I really found it embarrassing. On the other hand, I also remember family hugs, when all four of us would get in a football huddle with our dog Ricky hopping around,
and wagging his tail in the middle. You know, come to think of it, for a bunch of basically northern types, it was a rather southern blend of arguments and hugs. William Blake would have approved.
Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night. Blake thought you should let the tiger out of your tank. You shouldn't allow negative thoughts to fester until they become sludge in your system. Don't try to fit in.
Vive la difference. In fact, he went so far, as to say that opposition is true friendship, and that's the name of today's show. We're going to be listening to some antiphonal music,
using the word antiphonal with various degrees of literalness. Antiphonal, of course, comes from the Greek anti and phon.
Antiphon was a cantankerous old Spartan lady who enjoyed pitting one person against the other, preferably until they were yelling at each other, because she felt that things were more lively, when there was a bit of friction in the air.
Because of her, anti has come to mean against, and phon to mean sound. Although in music,
the against part of the term usually means opposing in a spatial and or temporal sense, rather than in the sense of having contrary objectives. On the contrary,
antiphonal music is often echo music, in which two or more groups are placed at a significant remove from one another, but are about to be destroyed.
as friendly as you can get in terms of what they play or sing, since one group usually repeats what another has just presented, either literally or more or less. Let's start out with some of that
music. These aren't echo pieces in the sense of works that reproduce the sound of natural echo. We deal with those on another edition of the show. These are pieces that feature noticeably
separated groups, more noticeable if you're listening in stereo than in mono to be sure,
and the music is made up mostly of statements and imitative responses. The size of the groups
within each piece is pretty much the same, so I call this the separate but equal antiphonal suite. It has three movements and lasts about seven minutes. I'll see you then.
And it's easy, but look at me, how it's been built.
How it's been built on the family yard.
To the father, mother and son, to your Russian mother.
Two mines, two mines, two mines, young people
They will play, they will play, Russian is mine, mine
Russian is mine, mine, Russian will not let me down
The separate but equal
The separate but equal The separate but equal The separate but equal The separate but equal
The separate but equal The separate but equal The separate but equal The separate but equal The separate but equal The separate but equal The separate but equal The separate but equal
The separate but equal The separate but equal The separate but equal The separate but equal
head-to-tail there. Then we had Giovanni Gabrielli, the Canzone Septimitone No. 2 from the Sacred Symphonies, and that was the Empire Brass and Friends. This is
music that was originally written for the San Marco Cathedral in Venice, a huge cathedral with four different organs in it, a lot of antiphonal music, and of
course a tremendous reverberation sound. And as a matter of fact, the last piece
in the suite, that beautiful, beautiful Gloria, is from Monteverdi's Vespro della
Beata Vergine. That was the Gloria Patria et Filio, and that was Nigel Robeson, Mark
Tucker, the London Oratory Junior Choir was conducted by John Elliot Gardner. And
that is one of the most beautiful uses of echo and spatial separation that I've ever heard. You know, as a matter of fact, I was thinking about this during the Gabrielli. Even with
stereo, if you record in a very live situation, the sound bounces around so much that I don't get that much feeling of left and right anyway. Maybe with
earphones you would. I think that if you really want to get that sense of spatial separation, probably the way to do it is the way they did it in the Monteverdi. In
other words, near and far from the mics rather than left.
By the way, I want to get your opinion on something. I have an old LP of Gabrielli's
music, and in the liner notes, it says, 14. the three pieces on the second side are played by two separate choirs of brass instruments
to create the desired three-dimensional echo effect. The groups making the recording were placed at opposite ends of the studio more than one time. They are now separated from
100 feet apart, with the conductor standing midway between them. This duplicated, in effect, the two music lofts on opposite sides of the nave in the Cathedral San Marco, where Gabrielli
composed the pieces, and where they received their first performance. This novel recording technique makes it possible for the listener to imagine orally the authentic circumstances of
antiphony. These canzonas are most valid when the music is heard coming from two different directions. Now, just a minute, am I missing something here? Or is it not true that on a
mono recording, it won't make any difference if the groups are right next to each other or 100 feet apart, right? I mean, as long as the mic is equidistant from both groups, I don't see that
it's going to make any difference. But you know, I'm not a sound engineer or anything, I'm just a composer. Everybody knows that... Excuse me.
Hello? Yeah? Okay. Well, I suppose you're right, yeah. Since it takes the sound longer to travel
the 100 feet between the two groups, the coordination might be affected. Although I must say, I should think it would be for the worse, you know, less coordinated. Okay, well, thanks for your input. Bye.
I'm not sure you could really hear the difference between... Oh, man.
Maybe I shouldn't have asked for it. Hello? How do you do? Okay. Okay, now, wait a minute. Back
up there. Let me get this straight. If you've got a single ensemble with a microphone in front of
it, yeah, the sound from the ensemble will shift very slightly counterclockwise because of the
rotation of the earth. Yeah, well, in the northern hemisphere, yeah. But if you've got two ensembles,
100 feet apart, okay, what you're saying is that you've now got two counterclockwise currents of
sound going, and that creates a more complicated... What did you say your degree was in? Visual
acoustics. That's what I thought you said. I've never heard of that. Well, it's a very interesting
theory. Thank... Sure. Peter Schickely. Schickely. No, no, there's no middle name.
There, the whole thing is my last name, Schickely. No, no relation to Robert E. Lee, at least as far as I know.
Okay, you must have just tuned in. The name's Peter Schickely, the show's Schickely Mix, and it's from
PRI, Public Radio International. No, no, I understand that. I can see that if one of the musical groups
was 50 feet north of the equator, and the other group was 50 feet south of the equator, because of the earth's rotation, the sound from the ensemble will shift very slightly counterclockwise. So, if I had to make a notation, the Gabrielli would sound louder if heard from the west than from
the east. But I really don't have time to pursue this, okay? So, bye. Take care. Yes. Well, opposition
is true friendship. We're discussing antiphonal music, but we are no longer discussing the recording
of antiphonal music. Now, not all antiphonal music is echo music, but here's an antiphonal piece that is based on the expectation that it's going to sound like an echo. So, I'm going to start with the
antiphonal piece. It is assumed that the brasses in the balcony are going to echo what the woodwinds
on the stage play. Now, sometimes when you get musicians spread very far apart, it's hard for them to keep together rhythmically because of the time it takes sound to travel. In this case,
however, the problem is not one of acoustics. It's one of attitude, and I do mean attitude.
The echo sonata for two unfriendly groups of instruments by PDQ Bach, played by six musicians
who usually behave like the grown-ups they putatively are, or were when this recording was made. John Solom on flute, Leonard Arnott on piano, and John Solom on piano. The echo sonata for two
of these groups is a complete rendition of the work from the Portrait of PDQ Bach album,
not the abortive rendition, unfortunately preserved on report from Hoople, PDQ Bach on the air. I'll tell you a story about that piece. When I used to be touring with PDQ Bach,
the echo sonata was on one of our touring programs. And, you know, humor, humor doesn't exist in a vacuum. It can be affected by what goes on in the world.
At the end of that piece, the way it's done in concert, it's set up so you're obviously expecting the brasses to play the last chord, but they don't. They won't. The woodwinds look
up in the balcony, silence. They keep looking up. Finally, Bill Walters, if you've ever seen a PDQ Bach program, he was the assistant, the sort of stage manager, straight man. He would
come out and look up in the balcony. He'd confer with me. Then, finally, would go off stage and come back with a toy gun, a toy rifle, actually pop rifle, you know, with a
cork in the end, and he would put it up to his shoulder and point it up at the group in the balcony, and then they would play the last chord. But you know, after the late 60s and early 70s,
after the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and then the two attempts on the life of Gerald Ford, it just didn't seem so funny pointing a gun at somebody anymore to
get them to do something. So we changed it to where Bill would jump off the stage and start walking purposefully up the aisle, rolling up his sleeves, and then the brasses would play the last
chord. As I say, humor does not exist in a vacuum. I used to find a brassiere in the piano, too. Some women talked me out of that. Very big women. Anyway, let's get on to our second
suite. As I said before, not all antiphonal music is echo music, as we are about to hear. In these pieces, the answering groups don't imitate the material of the statement groups.
In fact, the whole statement-answer thing gives way, in the later pieces, to a feeling of general
irregular alternation, rather than the feeling of paired phrases you tend to get in echo music. Spatial separation isn't as important here. Instead, there's a very noticeable difference between the two. The first piece, which is the second suite, is a
noticeable difference in the size of the two groups. A large group is contrasted with a very small group. Four people in the second and third pieces, only one in the first. So this is the
David and Goliath antiphonal suite. It, too, has three movements. I'll be back in about nine and a half minutes.
David and Goliath
Antiphonal movement David and Goliath Antiphonal movement
David and Goliath
Thank you.
God bless you.
God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.
Rudder doing the second section from Bach's motet, Singet dem Herren. And that second section
is that Lutheran chorale I mentioned. The choir too is singing, like as a father bendeth in pity
or his infant race, so God the Lord befriendeth the meek and lowly heirs of grace. And in between
the phrases that goes on, the choir sings, as I said, it's more like a prayer. Almighty God,
preserve us still, teach us to heed thy sovereign will, in all we do direct us, etc. A very beautiful
cantata and very beautifully sung. And then we had a group from Tuva, Voices from the Center of Asia,
Smithsonian album. And this was an antiphonal song, sung obviously by a group of men and a group of women. I want to read the lyrics here because it's pretty far from my experience here. The men sing,
Strength decides the fate of one-year-old and two-year-old foals. Thought decides the decorations
on the bride's ribbons. And then the women respond, Whether or not the dawn comes, the cloudy morning
stands. Whether to take me or not take me to wed, my friend can't make up his mind. The men sing,
Strength decides the fate of one-year-old and two-year-old foals. Let intentions decide the fortunes on the bride's attire. And the women sing, Whether the sun rises or not, somewhere it is
getting hot. Whether or not my friend appears, the bride price will be bid up, won't it? It's a
different world, all right. And then finally, Jerry Mulligan quartet, playing Get Happy. That's Jerry
Mulligan on baritone sax, Chet Baker on trumpet, Bob Whitlock on bass, and Chico Hamilton on drums.
And that technique of switching every four bars in jazz is called trading fours. It almost always happens after the main solos are over and before you play the tune again for the last time. And
okay, so I lied a little bit, folks, when I said that there was no simultaneous stuff going on here. Obviously, the drums play not only during the drum solo, but also the drums accompany the
other people playing. But there's a big difference between the solo playing and the just keeping time. And even Jerry Mulligan sometimes plays some accompanimental stuff, but it's very much
of an antiphonal thing. Trumpet, drums, buried drums, trumpet, drums, buried drums. And that's
actually one of the longest examples of trading fours that I've heard. And I do believe we've got time for a tidbit here. I pointed out earlier that conversation is a form of antiphony. Well,
today's tidbit time is a highly stylized conversation. Martin and John Raitt bickering in Annie Get Your Gun. Here's another example of opposites attracting.
I met a dine in Napoli and didn't she look great. And so I brought her back to Blighty just to show
me mates. And though we're married happily, I'll tell you furthermore, I haven't had a decent meal since 1944. Hit your men as Tony Joe. That's all you ever say.
Hit your macaroni Joe. Every blink in time. No wonder you're so bony Joe and skinny as a rake. Well then give us a bash at the bangers and mash me mother used to make.
Bangers and mash. Minestrone. Bangers and mash. Macaroni. Give us a bash at the bangers and mash me mother used to make.
Hit your tagliatelle Joe. That's all I've heard for years. Hit your vermicelli Joe. It's coming out me ears. You've got to fill your belly Joe. Joe for heaven's sake.
Well then give us a bash at the bangers and mash me mother used to make. Well alright. Bangers and mash. Tagliatelle. Bangers and mash. Vermicelli. Give us a bash at the bangers and mash me mother used to make.
1943 Allied forces land in Italy. There's a smashing looking bird over there Bert. I think she's showing up there. Well why don't you chat her up then? Right. Buongiorno Signorino. Yeah. Here are you married?
Broppa dead. There you are. Can't have a fair answer than that can you?
I met him back in Italy. So dashing and good looking.
He wined me and he dined me every night.
He said I smiled so prettily and how he loved my cooking.
But since...
He's married me. It seems he's lost his appetite. Eat your tagliatelle so. That's all you ever say. Eat your vermicelli so. Every bloomin' day.
You've got to fill your belly so. So for heaven's sake. Well then give us a bash at the bangers and mash me mother used to make. Bangers and mash. Minestrone. Bangers and mash. Macaroni.
Give me a bash with the banger and the mash.
Like the same one that your mother was... What are you laughing at now? No. Listen. Listen. Please.
Joe? Yes? Why don't you belt up or I'll give you a punch up the throat. Now she's a tells me. Ha. Mama mia.
Opposition is true friendship. Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren singing bangers and mash. Bangers are sausages by the way. And of course mash is an old TV program.
Okay let's go out with a beautiful antiphonal surprise. Here's Paul Winter. Playing his soprano sax on a rainy night in a forest in Glacier National Park.
Not knowing he would be answered by a chorus.
And Paul Winter and a large pack of wolves bring sickly mix to an end this week.
Our program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by the National Endowment for the Arts. With additional support from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Music.
And from this radio station and its members. 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 album numbers and everything. Just refer to the program number. This is program number 129.
And this is Peter Sickley 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.
If you'd like a copy of the playlist that Peter Sickley mentioned, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Sickley Mix. That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E. Sickley Mix.
Care of Public Radio International. 100 North 6th Street. Suite 900A. Minneapolis, Minnesota 55403.
Again, this is program number 129.