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[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
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 here's another thing that's good. 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 the radio station to which you are now listening, and in which I am now sitting, and without which I'd be up the creek without a paddle, and from which this program is eventually distributed to the whole wide environs by PRI, Public Radio International.
And here we go again with...
[music: Ives, "‘Gyp the Blood’ or Hearst – Which Is Worst?"; Ensemble Modern/Metzmacher]
Marches on the March.
Another installment in Schickele Mix's ongoing
[No speech for 20 s.]
in-depth survey of every march ever written.
And today's show is called Marcia Exotica. Marcia, M-A-R-C-I-A, is of course the way March is spelled in Italian. I'm just pointing that out so you won't think that I named the show after Marsha Exotica, That topless dancer down at the Ooh-La-La Club. Although I must say she is a very good dancer. You know, I wouldn't be at all surprised...
Okay, okay, I'm not even going to argue with the irrelevancy alarm this time. In fact, it's probably keeping me out of trouble. Today we're going to hear a bunch of marches that don't fit the standard airport security profile of your average march. Now, I am using March in the broad sense. In other words, not only military marches, but slower marches, too – processionals, for instance, and entrance music specifically designed for measured walking.
OK, so what are the parameters of your average march? Let me rephrase that. As regular listeners of this program know, it is the policy of Schickele Mix to eschew fancy words. So let me ask, what are the distinguishing characteristics of the average march as perceived by the average person?
Well, for one thing, it's in duple time. Metrically, the beats are arranged in groups of two, and I think it's quite possible to make a fairly strong argument that that has something to do with the fact that two is the number of feet that most of us use to march on when we march. But it turns out that there's a fair number of marches in triple time. Some of them may have been written for slow marchers, I mean the marchers may have been perfectly intelligent but they took a step every measure instead of every beat.
And some of them were written for forces on horses. The whole left-right thing doesn't mean much to a horse since every step it takes is both left and right. Very confusing to politicians.
Or, wait a minute, actually, when a horse walks, I think each of the four hooves comes down separately not two at a time let's see I used to know this I spent a couple of summers on a farm when I was a kid I think it's left rear right front right rear left front that doesn't sound right wait a minute I'm gonna get down on my hands and knees here folks I'll just let me just work this out here no it's left front Right Front, Right Rear, Right Front, Left Rear Okay, okay, let me get back up here. Okay, folks. The subject is marches. We're off and running. Which is actually a different order, you know, and a different rhythm. Running, I think, is left rear, right rear, left... Okay, okay, okay! The point is that a measured, even cadence is not always the goal in equestrian marching.
So anyway here's a triptych of marches in triple time. Actually the middle one isn't all in triple time but mostly. We'll call this suite Hut 2-3 and I'll see you in about seven minutes!
[music: Lully, "Marche du Régiment du Roy"; Ensemble of Wind Instruments & Drums/Paillard]
[music excerpt: Byrd, "The Battell" (Brass Splendour); Philip Jones Brass Ensemble]
[music: Hahn, "Le Bal de Béatrice d’Este, 1st Mvt."; Harmonie Ensemble, New York/ Richman]
Our first suite, Hut 2-3, began with a piece by Lully, 17th century French piece. This is from an old LP. I've got a terrific LP called Music from the Great Stable of Versailles, La Grande Écurie de Versailles, and that was a march of the king's regiment by Lully, played by Jean-François Paillard, conducting the Ensemble of Wind Instruments and Drums of the Rallye L'Ouvert de Paris, or something like that.
And this is from a collection made by another musician in that court, Andre Philidor the Elder. He made a whole collection of these things.
The collection has the catchy title, Score of several marches and drum batteries, French as well as foreign, with airs for fifes and oboes in three or four parts, as well as several marches for timpani and trumpets mounted on horseback, with air for tournaments, 1686, and fanfares and trumpets for the hunt.
Okay, Lully, apparently, we all know he was a very successful guy. I mean, he was an operator, and he got a lot of money for these things. This paragraph ends here in the notes. A good number of these marches are by Lully, and they should have brought him a small fortune, judging by the thousand louis he received for the Marche du Savoy. Despite this, what condescension in the remark, quote, Philidor the Elder has written the parts, Lully not wishing to do so, end quote.
Well, I should hope not. I haven't copied my own parts in a long time. Well, maybe if it's only a few instruments. And then the second piece was part of a William Byrd piece, The Battle. It was originally for harpsichord, but I couldn't find a harpsichord recording, and so this is from an album called Brass Splendour by the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and I must say that the sound may not be authentic but it sure is a great sound.
And then finally we ended the suite with a delightful entrance processional sort of music there from a ballet by Hahn called Le Bal de Béatrice d'Este and that was the Entrée pour Ludovic le More. This was Steven Richman conducting the Harmonie Ensemble, New York. This is a real processional, not a military marching thing, obviously.
But still, it may be the only march I've ever heard with big glissandos in the harp. And believe me, I've heard a lot of music in my day. Who am I? I'm Peter Schickele. The show is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
Today's show is called Marcia Exotica and we're not talking about Marsha Exotica, the topless dancer, but about examples of the March genre that don't fit into the usual what we would call parameters if we used words like that on this show. And one of the characteristics of...
[sound: phone rings]
Rats. I hate it when this happens.
Hello? Oh, hi, honey. What's wrong?
Well, you know, um, there are ads in the paper, you know, for the Ooh La La Club, and I've just seen... um... business meeting. The reason I know she's a good dancer is that somebody from the development office here took some potential underwriters and myself down to the club for a business meeting.
Well, uh, no, see, the subject of the meeting was a possible radio version of, uh, remember that Jonathan Miller public television series, The Body in Question? Well, hey, listen, honey, it was very tame stuff. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, she didn't even do her best ret... I'm on the air here, honey. We can talk about this when I get home, okay? Bye.
Sorry about that interruption, folks. Let's see, we were talking about marches, and I was about to say that one area in which marches have a great deal of latitude is instrumentation. Although most of us associate them primarily with bands and orchestras, marches have been written for just about everything imaginable. And we are about to hear three fairly far-out demonstrations of that statement.
This suite is called Not Your Standard Marching Band, and I'll be back in about eight and a half minutes.
[music: Trad., "Son ar Skorff" (Pandemonium #1); John Skelton]
[music: Philidor, "Marche à 4 Timbales"; Ensemble of Drums/Paillard]
[music: Druschetzky, "Parthia auf Bauerninstrumenten, Marcia" (Musica Curiosa); Capella Savaria/Nemeth]
Okay, that was the Not Your Standard Marching Band Suite. We began with that beautiful thing with the organ, John Skelton. It's called Son Ar Skorff. I have no idea what that means. Son Ar Skorff. It sounds like, you know, if you were making up a Celtic title, Son Ar Skorff. My oldest child is upchucking in the next room. Maybe that's what it means. Anyway, it says, a march from the Pourlet region of Brittany.
The combination of bombard, which is the bagpipe kind of instrument, and church organ is well known in Breton music. And we offer a little taste of that on this track. John plays a low bombard and a small bombard, both pitched in D from a terrific album called Pandemonium No. 1, a sampler album from Pan Records. Then we had another cut from the LP of music from the Great Stable of Versailles, and this was a march for four timpani by Philidor himself.
And there were two players doing four timpani. The players were Daniel Houillet and Rémy Constant.
And then finally, it's sort of a mysterious thing, that piece, you know. Now, I don't know, you know, there were no dynamic markings in the music then, so I suppose if people were really marching to it, at least a large group, it would be played much louder, but I love that feel that it has. Then finally we heard Georg Druschetzky, from a partita for peasant instruments, and let's see, we had among those instruments, we had a bagpipe, a hurdy-gurdy, A dulcimer, an alphorn, and also a, I think a wooden dulcimer, and certainly that rasping thing you heard was the trumpet marine, which is a single string instrument that has a bridge that rattles to give you that rasping sound.
And that was the, the group there playing that was the Capella Savaria on authentic instruments directed by Pal Nemeth. Pal? Paul? Pal? It's P-A-L. Pal Nemeth. He has the same first name as Joey does. Now another association we have with marches is that... I can't believe this. Hello?
Marsha, I told you not to call me here. Yes, I am. What? So where are you now? You shouldn't have done that, Marsha. Now you're a fugitive. I can't believe they raided the club. I thought you said that, you know, that Mr. Big has the police chief in his Hippocrates. He took an oath, you know. Hey, listen, I'm on the air here, Marsha. I can't talk now. I mean, I really can't talk now, okay?
Find a place where you can hide out and call me at the other number in about an hour, okay? Marsha, I cannot talk now. Talk to you later. Bye. Man, is this Schickele Mix or Melrose Place?
It's kind of hard to keep the old mind on marches here, but keep it on marches we must. You know, it seems to me that there used to be more marching songs than there are now. There were even march-like hymns like
[sung: Schickele sings the opening of "Onward, Christian Soldiers"]
At least those are the words I grew up with. When I got to college, I heard it sung
[sung: Schickele sings the college parody words to the same tune]
What is this? What is this? This show is about marches, and I'm singing a march, okay? Have we got a short circuit here?
I'm sorry folks, I'm a little bit... I mean, this show's turning into an orgy of bells and buzzers. It's got me a little on edge. The point is, except for when we're at a college football game perhaps, These days, we don't think of marches as songs with lyrics so much. We tend to think of them as instrumental pieces.
It's hard to think of a new march-type song that has become as generally popular as I've Been Workin' on the Railroad or Columbia the Gem of the Ocean. But here's a suite of marches, most of them post-World War II, that have words. The suite is called Vocal Chords on Parade and it has four numbers that should keep you picking those feet up and putting them down for about seven and a half minutes.
[music: Margo/Medress/Seigel, "March" (Greatest Recordings); The Chiffons]
[music: Panzeri/Mascheroni, "Una Marcia in Fa"; Francis Pica]
[music excerpt: Walton, "Façade"; Jeremy Irons/London Sinfonietta/Chailly]
Jeremy Irons (recorded): Rat-a-tat-tan, the marshal's harrier bites and fights the water carrier.
Jeremy Irons (recorded): Monsters of Druid under the wall, thin waters fall and turn into fluid petals of tulips and hard regalias of lilies and dahlias, then as they brawl, Jupiter leaned from his vast snow cage, cuffed the marshal's harrier, still in a rage. He bites and fights the war-grown moldier, where stiff as a soldier stands the breeze, like a handy-andy, and words they bandy, like a handy-andy, and words they bandy, under the dandy, under the dandy, under the dandy Dinmont trees.
[music: Don Everly/Phil Everly, "Cathy’s Clown" (The Very Best of The Everly Brothers); The Everly Brothers]
Vocal chords on parade was the name of that suite, and we started with the Chiffons singing March. That's the name of the song, March. And then next was an item from my collection of 45s. I was looking for something else, going through them, and I came I came across this Italian 45, Una Marcia in Fa. Now, my family lived in Italy for 11 years, and my dad got a bunch of records for me and stuff.
This is Francis Pica e sua orchestra, and you know, I looked at this, I saw Una Marcia in Fa, and I thought, it's a march in F, and it's going to be an instrumental. But that is the name of the song, and you can hear him sing, "Una marcia in fa, una marcia..." He's singing, "A march in F, a march in F, a march in F major," you know, it fits right in Italian. And so it actually is called a march in F.
And then we heard another one called March, from Walton's Façade, the second suite he made from Façade. And that was Jeremy Irons and Riccardo Chailly conducting the London Sinfonietta, or members thereof. And finally, one... One of the classic tunes, in my opinion, Cathy's Clown by the Everly Brothers. And actually Don and Phil wrote that one themselves.
It's not called a march, but it certainly feels like one. I was at a party with one of the Everly Brothers once. It must have been around 1970, maybe, in LA. It has to have been before 1974, come to think of it, because Mama Cass was there, too. I can't remember why I was there. I don't travel in those circles, and I'm embarrassed, actually, because I'm such an Everly Brothers fan, but I can't remember which one of them was there.
But I do remember which one of the Schickele Brothers was there. It was Peter Schickele, the host of Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International. The program today is called Marcia Exotica, and I would like to emphasize right here that the title of the show has absolutely nothing to do with the topless dancer, Marsha Exotica. We're simply talking about unusual marches, that's all.
And we've heard some marches that cover so much ground in terms of tempo, meter, and instrumentation that perhaps now is the time to ask, so what is a march anyway? Well, I think you're on pretty safe ground if you say that it has easily discernible and memorable melodies, clear cut phrases and sections, often involving repetition, and a relatively simple accompaniment style.
But most important of all, whether it's a funeral march or one of those really zippy marches for one of those really zippy Italian bands that actually run as they play, It's got to have a regular, that is, a steady and clearly defined beat. I don't think anybody, at least anybody who could pass an NFL drug test, would call this a march.
[music excerpt: Debussy, "Prélude à l’aprés-midi d’un faune"; Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra/Slatkin]
Okay, now the fact that the beginning of Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun is slow isn't the problem. Here's a piece that's fast and loud and even has warlike connotations, But the pulse is not defined clearly enough for a march. The left hand is running all over the place instead of laying down a good solid beat to walk to.
[music excerpt: Chopin, Two Etudes, Opus 10, Etude in C minor, No. 12; Jon Kimura Parker]
Chopin's revolutionary etude has perhaps inspired some people to do battle, but as a march it wouldn't be much more usable than Debussy's Prelude, especially since Jon Kimura Parker quite properly plays it with considerable rhythmic freedom. That was Slatkin and St. Louis on the Debussy, by the way. As a matter of fact, there are several other categories of music whose characteristics are so close to those of the March that they have sometimes been used interchangeably.
The Cakewalk, for instance, and the Two-Step, and the Polka. Here are three selections which, were I to hear them cold as you are about to, wouldn't It wouldn't have struck me as marches, but they've been called marches, which is why I call this suite, If You Say So. See you in about six.
[music: Carmichael, "March of the Hoodlums" (Hoagy Carmichael, Vol. One); Hoagy Carmichael & His Pals]
[music excerpt: Webern, Symphonie, Opus 21; London Symphony Orchestra/Boulez]
The last suite was called If You Say So, and the first of its numbers was a piece called March of the Hoodlums by Hoagy Carmichael, and that was Hoagy Carmichael & His Pals. And, you know, there's a lot of connection between marches and popular music in general because of the New Orleans scene and how they used to play on the way to funerals, play slowly on the way there and really pep it up on the way back.
Then the middle piece, or part of a piece, was a section from the second movement of Anton Webern's Symphony. And, of course, I was playing games with you there a little bit. It's a real toe-tapper, isn't it? That second movement is a set of variations, and that variation has been called a march, and it does have some sort of dotted rhythms that you might associate with marches.
I think the best thing to say about that is that relative to Webern's other music, that was a march. And then finally, from an album called Hawaiian Style Guitars, we heard the Hilo March, and that was played on steel guitar by Jerry Byrd.
Okay well I can't believe that we've gone for minutes and minutes here without interruption without any phone or buzzer what a knock at the studio door just a minute folks Marsha!
What are you... You shouldn't have come here. And the cops are right behind you, right? Look, this is no good. Come on over here to the Broom Closet. Come on! Now get in there. Get in there and do not move. Do not say a word. Don't even breathe till I open the door. Man, what's in a name?
You know, I could have come up with 15 different names for this show. But no, I had to choose Marcia Exotica. Well, this too shall pass, and not a moment too soon, as far as I'm concerned.
Okay, thanks for joining us, folks. That about does it for this installment of...
And that's Schickele Mix for this week. The march at the beginning of the show was Gyp the Blood, or Hearst, Which Is Worst, by Charles Ives, played by the Ensemble Modern under Ingo Metzmacher. Right now we're hearing Thunder and Blazes by Fučík, played by the Gürzenich Bassoon Quintet. 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 Sciences and from this radio station and its members. Thank you, members. And not only that, 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 137. 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. Oh, hello, officer. Come on in.
[music]
[music: Don Everly/Phil Everly, "Cathy's Clown" (The Very Best of The Everly Brothers); The Everly Brothers (again)]
If you would 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.