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Hello there, I'm Peter Shickley, and this is Shickley 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 Marches on the March.
Another installment in Shickley Mix's ongoing,
in-depth survey of every march ever written.
And today's show is called Marcha Exotica. Marcha, 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. Okay, 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 Shickley Mix to eschew fancy words. So let me ask, what are the distinguishing characteristics
of the average march as perceived by the audience? 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 going to get down on my hands and knees here, folks.
Let me just work this out here. No, it's left front, right rear, right front, left rear. 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 rear.
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.
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. This is played by Jean-François Payard, conducting the Marche. This is the ensemble of wind instruments and drums
of the Rallye Louvards de Paris, or something like that. And this is from a collection made by another musician in that court, André Philidor the Elder.
And 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 fives 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 Splendor 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 Balle de Béatrice d'Estée. And that was the Entrée pour Ludovic Lemore. This was Stephen Richmond 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 Schickely. The show is Schickely Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
Today's show is called Marcha 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... Rats. I hate it when this happens. Hello?
Oh, hi, honey. What's wrong? Well, you know, 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, no, see, the subject of the meeting was a possible radio version of... 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... 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. Oh, yeah, 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.
Okay, that was the Not Your Standard Marching Band suite. We began with that beautiful thing with the organ, John Skelton. It's called Sonar Skorf.
I have no idea what that means. Sonar Skorf. Sounds like, you know, if you were making up a Celtic title. Sonar Skorf.
My oldest child is up chunking in the next room. Maybe that's what it means. Anyway, it says, A march from the Poorleigh 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.
That's 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 Druzhetski 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 Cappella Savaria, on authentic instruments, directed by Paul, name it, Paul, Paul, Paul, it's Paul,
P-A-L, Paul, name it. 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 hip poc, uh, 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, 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 sickly 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
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war. At least those are the words I grew up with. When I got to college, I heard it sung,
Lloyd George knew my father. Father, father knew Lloyd George. Lloyd George knew my father.
Father knew Lloyd George. Lloyd George knew my father. 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, uh,
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 Working 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.
You'll find my friends That you were on me
That you'd be a noob yesterday I guess they used to say
Or a gentle way
And I never listened When my friends would say You'll be sorry You'll be sorry
And now that you've left me My friend, you'll find I'm
Se questo amor i nostri cuor fa sempre palpitar
I nostri cuor, i nostri amor vogliamo festeggiar
Ma per ridere il nostro cuore vogliamo festeggiar
E scherzar Noi dobbiamo improvvisar Una marcia in fa, una marcia in fa Una marcia in fa maggior Una marcia per favor
Per la figlia dell'amor Chi la canterà, chi la suonerà Sarà socio fondator
Il diploma avrà della società
Degli amici dell'amor
Su, su, su, cantiamo in cor Con potente ardor
Una marcia in fa, una marcia in fa Una marcia in fa maggior Una marcia per favor Per la figlia dell'amor
Chi la canterà, chi la suonerà
Sarà socio fondator I nostri cuor, i nostri amor vogliamo festeggiar
Su, su, su, cantiamo in cor
Con potente ardor
Una marcia in fa, una marcia in fa Una marcia in fa maggior Una marcia per favor
Per la figlia dell'amor
Tatatan, the marshal's harrier bites and fights the water carrier Masters of druid, under the walls 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 rodeo
Where stiff as a soldier stands in the breeze like a hamster 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
That's for sure
Each time I hear this sound
Here he comes
This clown
Gotta stand tall
You know the man can crawl But when he knows you tell the lies And he lives on passing by He's not a man at all
Kisses, that's for sure Each time I hear this sound
Here he comes This clown
When you see me shudder
You know I'm a little bit of a tin
And you know that it's sincere Don't you think it's kinda sad
That you're treating us so glad Or don't you even care Don't want
Kisses, that's for sure Each time I hear this sound
Here he comes
That's Cathy's clown That's Cathy's clown
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 and I was looking for something else going through them and 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 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 Fassade the second suite he made from Fassade and that was Jeremy Irons and Riccardo Chai conducting the London Sinfonietta or members thereof
and finally one of the classic tunes in my opinion Kathy'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 L.A.
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 Shickely Brothers was there it was Peter Shickely the host of Shickely Mix from PRI
Public Radio International the program today is called Marcha Exotica and I would like to emphasize right here that the title of the show has absolutely nothing to do with the topless dancer
Marcha 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 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
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
John Camara 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 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
and the first of its numbers was a piece called March of the Hoodlums by Hoagy Carmichael and that was Hoagy Carmichael and 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 excuse me
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
fifteen different names for this show but no I had to choose Marsha 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
Marsha's On The March
and that's sickly mix for this week
the March at the beginning of the show was Jip The Blood or Hurst Which Is Worst by Charles Ives played by the Ensemble Moderne under Ingo Metzmacher right now we're hearing
Thunder And Blazes by Fuchik played by the Gernsenisch 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 PJ 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 oh hello officer come on in
each time this sound
here he comes this clown
I've gotta stand tall
you know the land can't crawl boy he knows you tellin' lies and he lives on Bassoon Rock he's not a man at all
don't want your love
this is last for sure I die each time I hear this sound
here he comes that's Kathy's clown
when you see me shed a tear
and you know that it's sincere don't you think it's kinda sad that you're treating us so bad boy don't you even care
don't want your love anymore don't want your kisses
that's for sure I die each time I hear this sound
here he comes
that's Kathy's clown that's Kathy's clown
that's Kathy's clown if you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Schickely Mix
that's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E Schickely Mix care of Public Radio International 100 North 6th Street Suite 900A Minneapolis, Minnesota
55403
PRI Public Radio International