1
00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:02,860
Well, Mr. Schickele, how's it going today?

2
00:00:03,500 --> 00:00:07,160
Let me put it this way. I'm ready. Here's the theme.

3
00:00:08,700 --> 00:00:22,600
[music: theme; Mozart, Symphony No. 24 (K 182), 2nd Mvt.; Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London/Leinsdorf]

4
00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:30,700
Hello there, I'm Peter Schickele, and this is Schickele Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal.

5
00:00:30,960 --> 00:00:35,260
Or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good, it is good.

6
00:00:35,680 --> 00:00:43,160
And here's a good deal. Our bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by the National Endowment for the Arts,

7
00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:46,260
with additional support from the National Academy of

8
00:00:46,260 --> 00:00:52,160
Recording Arts and Sciences, and from this radio station right here, where the fruits of my

9
00:00:52,160 --> 00:00:57,920
Sisyphusian labors go to seed, which seeds are then borne aloft on the winds of PRI,

10
00:00:57,920 --> 00:01:01,700
Public Radio International. Okay,

11
00:01:01,830 --> 00:01:07,250
say we've got this whiz kid who's a terrific pianist and a terrific sight reader,

12
00:01:07,410 --> 00:01:11,970
and he's done a lot of chamber music with strings, so in addition to the treble and

13
00:01:11,970 --> 00:01:38,450
bass clefs, he can read the alto clef that violas use. Now, he doesn't know anything about score reading or instrumentation, but still, he's a fantastic sight reader, so he ought to be able to read the score of Mozart's first symphony, which only has six lines of music. Two oboes on one line, two French horns on another, then first violins, second violins, violas, and then cellos and basses on the bottom line.

14
00:01:38,450 --> 00:01:48,670
Now, as those of you who are regular listeners to this program know, due to the fact that it's one of my favorite pieces, Mozart's first symphony begins like this.

15
00:01:48,870 --> 00:01:51,370
I'm just going to play it on the authentic instrument here.

16
00:01:56,600 --> 00:02:04,340
Now, our whiz kid here, he doesn't have any trouble reading six lines of music at once, but here's what he plays when I put it in front of him.

17
00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:05,760
Now,

18
00:02:10,230 --> 00:02:15,130
he may not know anything about score reading, but he knows that that doesn't sound like Mozart.

19
00:02:15,130 --> 00:02:22,870
The problem is, our whiz kid doesn't know that the French horns are not notated the way they sound.

20
00:02:23,130 --> 00:02:24,570
Mozart wrote this,

21
00:02:28,350 --> 00:02:34,730
knowing that when the horn players played that part, it would come out sounding like this.

22
00:02:39,340 --> 00:02:49,220
That's because the French horn is usually a transposing instrument, which means that the note you write for it has to be different from the note you want to hear.

23
00:02:50,490 --> 00:02:58,530
Transposition is one aspect of musical practice that many lay people find to be not only confusing, but downright perverse.

24
00:02:59,310 --> 00:03:03,090
Why don't composers and arrangers simply write the notes they want to hear?

25
00:03:03,350 --> 00:03:05,450
Why all this obfuscation?

26
00:03:05,570 --> 00:03:08,210
Which is a pretty self-descriptive word, isn't it?

27
00:03:08,410 --> 00:03:12,790
Anyway, the basic answer is to make it easier for the players.

28
00:03:13,090 --> 00:03:14,210
In two ways.

29
00:03:14,210 --> 00:03:21,250
To make it easier to play in different keys, and to make it easier to play all the members of a family of instruments.

30
00:03:21,710 --> 00:03:27,030
For instance there are six different sizes of saxophone that have been in fairly common use:

31
00:03:27,030 --> 00:03:33,490
the so-called C melody saxophone, and then the soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass.

32
00:03:34,030 --> 00:03:36,950
The Four middle ones are the most common these days.

33
00:03:37,430 --> 00:03:42,690
Now if you wanted to play all of them, and composers wrote the exact notes they wanted.

34
00:03:42,690 --> 00:03:58,590
You'd have to learn six different sets of fingerings. A different fingering chart for each instrument. To get middle C on the soprano, for instance, you use everything except your pinkies and your left thumb. It's practically at the bottom of the instrument's range.

35
00:03:59,090 --> 00:04:07,770
But on the baritone, middle C is fairly high in the range of the instrument. You just use two fingers and the thumb of the left hand. Completely different fingerings.

36
00:04:07,770 --> 00:04:12,310
For those of you who like the family of fingering, you'll have to be constantly reminding yourself which size sax you're playing.

37
00:04:12,850 --> 00:04:23,410
But with transposition, any given note on the page always has the same fingering no matter if it's C melody, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone or bass.

38
00:04:23,750 --> 00:04:28,530
And all of them, because of that, are notated in the treble clef, even the bass.

39
00:04:29,350 --> 00:04:32,010
One set of fingerings for the whole family.

40
00:04:37,010 --> 00:04:47,860
Now, if the printed music says Middle C, you slap down everything except your left pinky and thumb, and the transposition takes care of the different ranges.

41
00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:58,000
Very user-friendly for the player, but it does make for tricky score reading, because, as we've observed, what you see is not what you get.

42
00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:08,400
To illustrate this, I've asked some musicians to come up to the studio here. We've got a string quartet and a saxophone quartet. Thanks for dropping by, folks.

43
00:05:08,940 --> 00:05:18,960
Now, I've written a little four-bar melody, and all I did was photocopy it, so exactly the same music is on all eight music stands here in the studio.

44
00:05:19,520 --> 00:05:25,960
It starts on the C above middle C. That's the C of face, you know, F-A-C-E in the treble clef.

45
00:05:26,420 --> 00:05:29,720
It's just a little tune I made up off the top of my head. It goes like this.

46
00:05:30,340 --> 00:05:37,380
[music: keyboard demonstration]

47
00:05:37,380 --> 00:05:40,480
Okay, now let's hear it played by the string quartet.

48
00:05:41,260 --> 00:05:46,540
The viola and cello don't usually play in the treble clef, but they do sometimes, so they're familiar with it.

49
00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:48,160
Okay, folks, if you please.

50
00:05:49,140 --> 00:05:56,650
[music: keyboard demonstration]

51
00:05:56,650 --> 00:05:57,830
Thank you, thank you.

52
00:05:57,910 --> 00:06:03,210
And we could all hear that they were playing exactly the same notes that I played on the authentic instrument.

53
00:06:03,770 --> 00:06:09,130
And I must say that the four of you have a beautiful tone, just a gorgeous string sound.

54
00:06:09,610 --> 00:06:12,390
They call themselves the Midi Quartet, folks.

55
00:06:12,530 --> 00:06:16,910
They're named after an area of southern France, and I think it's a name to remember.

56
00:06:17,110 --> 00:06:19,210
I think we'll be hearing from them for years to come.

57
00:06:19,490 --> 00:06:24,790
Now let's hear the tune, exactly the same music, played by our four saxophonists,

58
00:06:25,330 --> 00:06:27,470
soprano, alto, tenor, bari.

59
00:06:27,550 --> 00:06:28,850
It's the same tune here.

60
00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:34,800
[music: keyboard demonstration]

61
00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:36,060
Okay, folks, let's hear it.

62
00:06:36,980 --> 00:06:45,280
[music: keyboard demonstration]

63
00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:47,100
Completely different notes.

64
00:06:47,420 --> 00:06:49,500
Sort of sounds like Gregorian chant.

65
00:06:49,500 --> 00:07:01,800
And the bizarre thing, score reading-wise speaking, is that we had four different pitch levels going on simultaneously there, but none of them were the pitches as printed on the music paper.

66
00:07:02,260 --> 00:07:16,920
Certain sizes in these instrument families become more popular than others, just because of their tone quality, and the C melody saxophone, which would have given us the original pitches, has, I think, pretty much become extinct, at least for the time being.

67
00:07:17,660 --> 00:07:31,680
[music: keyboard demonstration]

68
00:07:33,620 --> 00:07:36,020
In the 18th

69
00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:44,120
century, which was the spawning ground of the symphony orchestra, wind instruments

70
00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:47,420
The instruments were not as sophisticated in their construction as they are now.

71
00:07:48,180 --> 00:07:52,960
Trumpets and horns had no valves, which meant that they were more or less restricted to

72
00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:55,620
the notes a bugle can play, which

73
00:07:57,980 --> 00:08:01,780
meant if you had a symphony in E flat, say, you used

74
00:08:01,780 --> 00:08:04,980
trumpets that were built to play the notes of an E flat chord.

75
00:08:05,540 --> 00:08:09,080
Well, these trumpets would be useless in a symphony in A major.

76
00:08:09,220 --> 00:08:11,380
None of the notes you'd want would be available.

77
00:08:11,380 --> 00:08:27,580
It's available. So you'd have to have another trumpet for pieces in A. Actually with brasses they usually, instead of having a whole bunch of completely different instruments, they'd simply replace one part of the tubing to reduce or increase the total length of the instrument.

78
00:08:28,100 --> 00:08:37,100
Now lipping, changing the position of the lips in the brass mouthpiece, is to a valveless trumpet player what fingering is to a woodwind player.

79
00:08:37,100 --> 00:08:49,660
So, instead of asking the trumpeters to learn seven different lipping systems, one for each of the seven key signatures from which 18th century composers almost always chose for their symphonies,

80
00:08:49,780 --> 00:09:01,520
it was decided to have the written note C always represent the fundamental tone of the instrument, or one of its octaves, no matter what that tone actually is.

81
00:09:02,200 --> 00:09:14,220
So the relationship among the available notes always looks the same to the player, and the transposition takes care of whatever difference there might be between C and the actual key of the piece.

82
00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:21,200
Similarly, 18th century clarinets had many fewer holes and levers than modern clarinets,

83
00:09:21,660 --> 00:09:26,880
which meant that it was easy to play in the basic key the clarinet was made in and closely related keys,

84
00:09:27,140 --> 00:09:31,240
but quickly got a lot harder when you were in more distant keys.

85
00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:41,500
So, for a symphony in C, you used a clarinet built in C. For a symphony in B flat, a clarinet built in B flat. For a symphony in A, a clarinet built in A.

86
00:09:41,740 --> 00:09:56,420
But again, to avoid making the player learn different fingerings for each instrument, you let him pretend to always be playing in C or some other really easy key, and use transposition to square things away with what the rest of the orchestra is playing.

87
00:09:56,900 --> 00:10:07,540
Basically, you're saying to the string players, who always have to play in whatever key the piece is really in, you're saying, hey, let's face it, he's a clarinetist, right?

88
00:10:08,140 --> 00:10:11,680
I mean, you can't expect him to handle more than one sharp or flat.

89
00:10:12,780 --> 00:10:17,800
It's as if sometime during the 18th century, the devil appeared to Mr. Clarinet and said,

90
00:10:18,700 --> 00:10:21,840
Listen, I've got an offer I think you'll find irresistible.

91
00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:25,440
You've got to trust me on this. It's a no-lose deal for you.

92
00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:35,180
Here's the setup. I'll fix it so you always play in really easy keys. You won't have to sweat like those slumps in the string section.

93
00:10:35,560 --> 00:10:40,440
And all I ask in return, now I know what you're thinking and you're wrong. You can keep your soul.

94
00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:49,580
All I want is the souls of all the thousands of conductors who are going to have to read these transposition-ridden scores over the next few centuries,

95
00:10:49,780 --> 00:10:53,020
and the composers and arrangers who are going to have to write them.

96
00:10:53,620 --> 00:11:12,720
Well, it's a no-brainer, right? What has Mr. Clarinet got to lose? He'd be a fool to turn it down. Now, the interesting thing is that the devil didn't make that offer to Mr. Flute and Mr. Oboe. Or maybe he did, but they, being instruments with a longer history than that of the clarinet, had too much pride to accept it.

97
00:11:12,720 --> 00:11:20,820
Whatever the reason, flutes and oboes are almost always notated at concert pitch, which means what you see is what you get.

98
00:11:21,100 --> 00:11:23,160
Well, except when they're in a family way.

99
00:11:23,260 --> 00:11:28,140
The alto flute and the English horn, which is an alto oboe, are transposing instruments.

100
00:11:28,760 --> 00:11:31,000
And then there's the D-flat piccolo.

101
00:11:31,700 --> 00:11:34,720
Here's the most famous piccolo solo in the world.

102
00:11:34,720 --> 00:12:06,260
[music excerpt: Sousa, "The Stars & Stripes Forever!"; Eastman Wind Ensemble/Hunsberger]

103
00:12:06,260 --> 00:12:13,020
Now, Stars & Stripes Forever!, or that section of it, is in A-flat major, which has four flats in the key signature.

104
00:12:13,020 --> 00:12:14,660
I assume

105
00:12:20,350 --> 00:12:30,490
that a really good piccolo player could play that solo at concert pitch, but it's a whole lot easier a half a step lower in the key of G, which only has one sharp.

106
00:12:31,110 --> 00:12:35,530
So Sousa took pity on the piccoloist. Piccolo-er?

107
00:12:36,250 --> 00:12:42,390
Anyway, he wrote it for piccolo in D flat, which sounds an octave and a half step higher than it's written.

108
00:12:42,390 --> 00:12:47,510
Which means that the piccolist can pretend he or she is playing in the key of G.

109
00:12:48,300 --> 00:12:51,540
But D-flat piccolos aren't usually used in orchestras.

110
00:12:51,620 --> 00:12:55,460
So if you hear Stars & Stripes Forever! played by an orchestra,

111
00:12:55,720 --> 00:13:00,840
the chances are good that the whole piece has been transposed down a half step.

112
00:13:01,340 --> 00:13:03,520
So this section really is in G,

113
00:13:03,640 --> 00:13:08,420
and the piccolo player is playing it the way he practiced it for the band version.

114
00:13:08,540 --> 00:13:09,040
No, he doesn't...

115
00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:10,260
What? What? What?

116
00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:12,080
That's the irrelevancy alarm.

117
00:13:12,640 --> 00:13:34,310
And I am being completely relevant. Okay, wait a minute. It's doing its printout thing here. Okay, let's see what it says here. What's the point? What do you mean, what's the point? Today's show is about transposition and everything I've said has been... Oh man, I can't believe this thing. Talk about attitude.

118
00:13:37,280 --> 00:13:44,720
Okay. What difference does any of this make to someone listening to a piece of music?

119
00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:47,520
Yeah, well, there's the rub.

120
00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:53,820
Aside from the fact that some of the playing might be better because the instruments are in easy keys,

121
00:13:54,460 --> 00:13:58,540
it doesn't make any difference to the audience how instruments are notated.

122
00:13:58,900 --> 00:14:05,160
But I like to think that my listeners are curious enough about the mechanics of music,

123
00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:08,340
the things... Oh, man, what is this?

124
00:14:08,540 --> 00:14:12,480
Is this something personal here? I mean, are you trying to pick a fight or something?

125
00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:14,580
Okay, let's see.

126
00:14:16,010 --> 00:14:26,100
It's time for a program ID. Oh, brother. My name is Peter Schickele, and the program is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.

127
00:14:29,370 --> 00:14:36,850
Unless you're a devoted fan of the movie actor Michael Caine, you probably don't know that he has a brother named Robert.

128
00:14:37,350 --> 00:14:43,490
But unlike Michael, Robert only uses his first initial, you know, like the cartoonist R. Crumb.

129
00:14:43,490 --> 00:14:49,590
So he's known as Arcane, which is a good description of the subject of today's program.

130
00:14:50,270 --> 00:14:55,630
We're talking about transposition, and specifically, so far, about transposing instruments.

131
00:14:56,210 --> 00:15:00,790
And what makes it such an arcane subject is that it's hard to understand

132
00:15:00,790 --> 00:15:03,370
if you don't know anything about music theory and notation,

133
00:15:03,630 --> 00:15:08,910
and also, it has so little to do in any direct way with how the music sounds.

134
00:15:09,230 --> 00:15:11,230
It's real backstage stuff.

135
00:15:12,090 --> 00:15:17,710
But that doesn't mean it's uninteresting. At least I, unlike the irrelevancy alarm, don't think so.

136
00:15:18,470 --> 00:15:23,370
My wife and I were once given a tour of a beautiful 18th century opera house in Sweden,

137
00:15:23,450 --> 00:15:28,630
and we got to go beneath the stage and see the machinery for changing the scenery.

138
00:15:29,230 --> 00:15:34,470
And I've been under the stage at Radio City Music Hall, too. I love that behind-the-scenes stuff.

139
00:15:35,250 --> 00:15:41,050
Now, it's true that transposition is beside the point to listeners, even very analytical listeners.

140
00:15:41,050 --> 00:15:46,470
But mastering the Concept is ofgreat importance to conductors and composers.

141
00:15:47,050 --> 00:15:53,990
Here are two brief excerpts that represent extremes in the use of transposing instruments.

142
00:15:54,840 --> 00:16:46,400
[music excerpt: Beethoven, Symphony No. 1, part of the Scherzo; London Classical Players, Norrington]

143
00:16:52,200 --> 00:17:49,000
[music excerpt: Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, ending; Boston Philharmonic, Zander]

144
00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:55,200
Part of the Scherzo of Beethoven's First Symphony played by Roger Norrington and the London

145
00:17:55,200 --> 00:18:02,020
Classical Players and the end of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring with the Boston Philharmonic

146
00:18:02,100 --> 00:18:08,100
under the direction of Benjamin Zander, whose father, it sounds like, was in the front row of the audience.

147
00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:13,480
The Beethoven is in the key of C and has no transposing instruments whatsoever.

148
00:18:13,940 --> 00:18:20,000
The clarinets, trumpets, and horns are all in C, which means when it's written C, you're

149
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:26,180
going to hear C. By the way, when I say that there are no transposing instruments, I'm

150
00:18:26,180 --> 00:18:28,220
ignoring octave transpositions.

151
00:18:28,220 --> 00:18:38,660
I should perhaps mention, for instance, that string basses sound the same note that's written but an octave lower, and the regular piccolo sounds an octave higher than written.

152
00:18:38,820 --> 00:18:41,780
That's essentially because their ranges are so extreme.

153
00:18:41,940 --> 00:18:53,720
The piccolo goes so far above the treble clef and the bass so far below the bass clef that it would be tedious and confusing to write all those ledger lines, those little added staff lines.

154
00:18:54,300 --> 00:19:07,900
Also, with basses, it means that they can double the cellos, that is, they can read the same part the cellos read, but be sounding an octave lower, producing that rich bass line that is characteristic of classical orchestral writing.

155
00:19:08,500 --> 00:19:10,600
Anyway, the Stravinsky,

156
00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:18,580
in contrast to the Beethoven, has 17 transposing instruments, using six different transpositions.

157
00:19:18,580 --> 00:19:42,280
I've got the score here, and in addition to instruments that sound as they're written, we've got an Alto flute and an English horn and a little clarinet in E flat, three B flat clarinets, a bass clarinet in the transposing there, we've got eight horns in F, we've got a little trumpet in D, and we've got a bass trumpet in E flat.

158
00:19:42,280 --> 00:19:50,620
What that means when I say that it's a bass trumpet in E-flat is that if the printed music has a C, you're actually going to hear E-flat.

159
00:19:51,100 --> 00:19:55,380
Okay, now, this makes for really complicated score reading.

160
00:19:55,900 --> 00:20:00,020
Remember I said that Mozart's first symphony was written on six lines of music?

161
00:20:00,320 --> 00:20:07,180
Well, the end of the Stravinsky score here has 29 lines of music, 11 of them for transposing instruments,

162
00:20:07,780 --> 00:20:11,100
which means that the notes you see on the page are not what you're going to hear.

163
00:20:11,300 --> 00:20:19,700
They're using six different transpositions. We've got a musical style that has much less redundancy, harmonically speaking, than Mozart's.

164
00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:22,900
I'm telling you, it's not your average bedtime reading.

165
00:20:23,420 --> 00:20:25,000
You know, it's not your P.D. James.

166
00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:34,180
It got so daunting that some composers, Prokofiev among them, started writing their scores at concert pitch to make them easier to read

167
00:20:34,180 --> 00:20:35,700
In other

168
00:20:40,300 --> 00:20:49,920
words, the individual players had the same transposed parts that they've always had, but the score has the notes that you actually are going to hear.

169
00:20:50,670 --> 00:21:02,850
But you know, being a profoundly lazy soul, it's occurred to me that one could have some fun with this idea of writing out one melody and giving it to differently transposing instruments.

170
00:21:03,830 --> 00:21:33,340
I let the MIDI string quartet and three of the saxophone players go but now I've got six more players here in the studio. We've got seven completely different transpositions represented here now. We've got a D flat piccolo which means a written C is going to sound D flat. We've got a D trumpet which means C is going to actually sound D. An A clarinet written C is going to sound A. An alto flute

171
00:21:33,340 --> 00:21:35,300
A written C is going to sound G.

172
00:21:37,220 --> 00:21:38,780
We've got an English horn.

173
00:21:38,940 --> 00:21:41,060
A written C is going to sound F.

174
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:46,980
Then we've got our Alto saxophone, written C, sounds E flat.

175
00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:52,740
And then finally a bass clarinet, written C, sounds this B flat.

176
00:21:53,540 --> 00:21:59,320
Okay now, once again, I've written out a little melody, starting on the C above middle C,

177
00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:03,700
and everybody has a photocopy of that melody in front of them.

178
00:22:04,020 --> 00:22:09,100
And also, like before with the saxes, the note you will not hear in the first chord

179
00:22:09,100 --> 00:22:10,340
is the note I wrote, C.

180
00:22:10,340 --> 00:22:15,220
But I'll bet these seven transpositions are going to sound good on this theme.

181
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:19,780
Okay, folks, let's see. There's so many of us, I think I'd better conduct.

182
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:20,740
Here we go.

183
00:22:21,360 --> 00:22:51,600
[music: keyboard demonstration, one melody in seven transpositions]

184
00:22:52,020 --> 00:22:53,120
Pretty cool, huh?

185
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:57,300
Sounds like one of those Stan Kenton charts from the late 40s.

186
00:22:57,940 --> 00:22:59,440
House of Formica.

187
00:23:00,180 --> 00:23:02,940
Hey, I thought of another possible use of this technique.

188
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:10,100
What if Bela Bartok had written his Concerto for Orchestra a decade earlier than he actually did?

189
00:23:10,100 --> 00:23:11,540
I can

190
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:21,420
imagine somebody at the Disney studio thinking that the second movement, the games of the couples, might be good film fodder.

191
00:23:22,220 --> 00:23:27,220
That's the piece in which pairs of wind instruments play at a set interval from each other.

192
00:23:27,360 --> 00:23:39,760
The bassoons are always a minor sixth apart, the oboes a minor third, the clarinets a minor seventh, the flutes a perfect fifth, and finally, the trumpets at a major second from each other.

193
00:23:40,100 --> 00:23:48,800
So here, in a Schickele Mix exclusive, is the world premiere of a radio pseudo-docu-dramatic reenactment

194
00:23:48,800 --> 00:24:02,300
[music excerpt: Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra; Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/Previn]

195
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:04,960
Our scene takes place in a large recording studio.

196
00:24:05,670 --> 00:24:11,180
In the studio proper, we see the Philadelphia Orchestra and, on the podium, its conductor, Leopold Stokowski.

197
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:19,960
In the control room are Walt Disney, Bela Bartok, a recording engineer, and the music producer, Cliff Cleff.

198
00:24:20,010 --> 00:24:21,970
Known in the trade as Trouble

199
00:24:21,970 --> 00:24:24,770
As we join them, Clef is speaking

200
00:24:25,210 --> 00:24:27,210
Okay, now the only thing we've got left to record today

201
00:24:27,210 --> 00:24:28,550
Is the section with the two trumpets

202
00:24:28,550 --> 00:24:30,250
Where they're playing at parallel seconds

203
00:24:30,250 --> 00:24:32,230
You know, one step apart from each other

204
00:24:32,230 --> 00:24:34,070
So it sounds wrong but cute, you know what I mean?

205
00:24:34,290 --> 00:24:37,450
Mr. Disney, this is the scene with the two wombats

206
00:24:37,450 --> 00:24:39,930
You know, where the boy wombat is putting the make on the girl

207
00:24:39,930 --> 00:24:41,130
And she's playing hard to get

208
00:24:41,130 --> 00:24:42,610
You know, he tries to tickle her

209
00:24:42,610 --> 00:24:43,810
And she pushes him off a cliff

210
00:24:43,810 --> 00:24:44,890
He goes to kiss her

211
00:24:44,890 --> 00:24:46,250
She ducks behind a hornet's nest

212
00:24:46,250 --> 00:24:47,770
You know, but in the end of the scene

213
00:24:47,770 --> 00:24:48,790
They're in a clinch

214
00:24:48,790 --> 00:24:52,730
and the butterflies are flying around them, you know, in the shape of a heart. Okay, let's do this.

215
00:24:53,260 --> 00:24:55,280
We're almost out of time, so, who are you?

216
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,300
Uh, I'm the music librarian, yup yup yup yup

217
00:24:59,300 --> 00:25:00,160
Yeah, so?

218
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:03,820
Well, I'm afraid we've got a bit of a problem

219
00:25:03,820 --> 00:25:05,920
A bit of a problem? I don't like problems

220
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:08,260
Let me tell you, pal, if I've got a problem, you've got a problem

221
00:25:08,260 --> 00:25:11,320
They don't call me Trouble Clef for nothing, so what is the problem?

222
00:25:12,140 --> 00:25:15,740
Well, uh, we can't find the first trumpet part, nope nope nope

223
00:25:15,740 --> 00:25:17,860
Ah, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on here

224
00:25:17,860 --> 00:25:21,720
You're telling me that we're doing a section featuring the two trumpets

225
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:23,160
And you, what's your name?

226
00:25:23,420 --> 00:25:24,860
Uh, Mortimer.

227
00:25:25,380 --> 00:25:26,940
You're the music librarian, right, Mortimer?

228
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:28,460
And you can't find the trumpet parts?

229
00:25:28,620 --> 00:25:30,860
Uh, just the first trumpet part, sir.

230
00:25:30,980 --> 00:25:32,580
We got the second trumpet part.

231
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:34,820
Okay, I'll deal with you later.

232
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:36,160
We're almost out of time here.

233
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:38,520
Bela, baby, how long is it going to take

234
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:40,460
to copy out the first trumpet part from the score?

235
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:43,660
That won't be necessary.

236
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:46,320
Uh, what do you mean it won't be necessary?

237
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:47,900
We got to have both trumpets playing.

238
00:25:47,900 --> 00:25:52,500
The second trumpet part will suffice.

239
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,060
Hey, little baby, I got to figure you know what you're talking about.

240
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:57,380
But how's that going to work?

241
00:25:57,920 --> 00:25:58,980
Okay, actually, wait a minute.

242
00:25:59,000 --> 00:25:59,580
Don't tell me.

243
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:00,500
Tell the trumpet players.

244
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:03,620
Just push that talkback button, and they'll hear you out in the studio.

245
00:26:05,170 --> 00:26:08,170
Both players play off the same part.

246
00:26:09,030 --> 00:26:13,250
The second player plays on the B-flat trumpet.

247
00:26:14,110 --> 00:26:18,110
And the first player uses the C-trombet.

248
00:26:18,730 --> 00:26:19,850
Okay, you heard him, fellas.

249
00:26:19,950 --> 00:26:20,370
Let's do it.

250
00:26:20,450 --> 00:26:22,490
Now, you start at the place that's indicated.

251
00:26:22,490 --> 00:26:25,390
We'll fade you up in here, and then we'll let you know when we fade it out.

252
00:26:25,750 --> 00:26:26,910
Stokey Baby, take it away.

253
00:26:27,640 --> 00:27:27,600
[music excerpt: Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra; Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/Previn]

254
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:28,960
That sounds like a rap to me.

255
00:27:29,300 --> 00:27:31,120
Bela Bubala, you saved the day.

256
00:27:31,220 --> 00:27:33,460
I mean, you saved Mr. Disney here a lot of money.

257
00:27:33,540 --> 00:27:35,380
Money he can ill afford to squander.

258
00:27:35,580 --> 00:27:39,800
Hey, everybody, I think we ought to thank our musical friend here in a musical way.

259
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:43,840
Oh, Lordy, pick a Bela Bartok.

260
00:27:44,220 --> 00:27:47,040
Oh, Lordy, pick a Bela.

261
00:27:47,060 --> 00:27:47,820
Hey, come on, guys.

262
00:27:47,820 --> 00:28:22,620
[music excerpt: Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra; Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/Previn]

263
00:28:25,540 --> 00:28:26,320
Perfectly plausible.

264
00:28:27,390 --> 00:28:34,890
That was actually in this radio pseudo-docudramatic reenactment, Andre Previn and the L.A. Philharmonic.

265
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:42,420
One of the most amazing transposition stories I've heard concerns a recording of the Stravinsky Septet.

266
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:46,180
Now, I wasn't there myself, folks, so I can't swear to this.

267
00:28:46,180 --> 00:28:49,320
But as I heard it, Stravinsky was at the session.

268
00:28:49,500 --> 00:29:03,040
He was getting pretty old by then, and the Septet is a work that was written when he was becoming more and more influenced by the atonal and highly serialized, highly mathematically oriented music of Anton Webern.

269
00:29:03,460 --> 00:29:06,340
For some reason, they recorded the last movement first.

270
00:29:06,340 --> 00:29:16,980
Except for the cadences at the ends of the sections, this is a spiky, highly chromatic piece that doesn't have a sense of being in any particular key.

271
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:17,700
This

272
00:29:17,700 --> 00:32:29,200
[music excerpt: Stravinsky, "Septet"; European Soloists Ensemble/Ashkenazy]

273
00:32:29,770 --> 00:32:35,510
is the gig from Stravinsky's Septet, played by the European Soloists Ensemble.

274
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:39,700
This is not, by the way, the recording that this anecdote is about.

275
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:46,420
Going back to the session in the anecdote, having done that last movement, they turned to the first movement.

276
00:32:46,420 --> 00:32:55,620
Now, the first movement of the septet is very neoclassical, not only rhythmically, like the last movement, but melodically and harmonically as well.

277
00:32:56,260 --> 00:33:04,660
Unlike the tonal thicket of the Sieg, the first movement begins in a clear key, with everybody playing the note A.

278
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:19,290
[music excerpt: Stravinsky, "Septet"; European Soloists Ensemble/Ashkenazy]

279
00:33:19,290 --> 00:33:27,870
Well, going back to the session of our story, as soon as he played the first note, and it wasn't a unison with everybody else,

280
00:33:27,870 --> 00:33:33,670
The clarinetist realized with horror that he was using the wrong clarinet.

281
00:33:34,250 --> 00:33:39,870
He was playing his B-flat clarinet, and he should have been playing his A clarinet all along,

282
00:33:40,110 --> 00:33:46,670
which meant that every single note he had played in the G in the last movement was wrong.

283
00:33:47,250 --> 00:33:51,430
But nobody, including the composer, had noticed or had said anything.

284
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,020
So he switched clarinets, and they did the first movement,

285
00:33:55,020 --> 00:33:59,200
and at the break, he took the producer aside and told him what had happened.

286
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:03,260
The producer thought a bit and then went back into the control room.

287
00:34:03,620 --> 00:34:07,660
He told Stravinsky that they'd had a technical problem with the equipment

288
00:34:07,660 --> 00:34:12,240
and the tape of the gig wouldn't be usable, so they'd have to record it again.

289
00:34:13,390 --> 00:34:15,730
Remember, you didn't hear it here first.

290
00:34:16,730 --> 00:34:22,170
Now, to give you an idea of how very wrong that should have sounded to the composer,

291
00:34:22,170 --> 00:34:25,250
If the story is true, let's listen to the.

292
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:29,120
The first entrance of the soloist in Mozart's clarinet concerto.

293
00:34:29,120 --> 00:35:32,920
[music excerpt: Mozart, Clarinet Concerto in A (K 622); Keith Dwyer/Stuttgart Festival Orchestra/Kahn]

294
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:58,500
That was Keith Dwyer and the Stuttgart Festival Orchestra conducted by Emil Kahn. Now, the Mozart Concerto is also for A clarinet. As a matter of fact, Mozart originally called the piece Take the A clarinet. Just kidding there, folks. It's also for A clarinet. Now, what if Keith Dwyer had mistakenly taken out his B-flat clarinet for the session instead of the A?

295
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:01,820
This is what it would have sounded like.

296
00:36:01,820 --> 00:37:05,380
[music: Mozart, Clarinet Concerto in A (K. 622), opening, doctored by Schickele: the solo replayed on the keyboard a half step off]

297
00:37:05,380 --> 00:37:32,270
If Mozart had been in the control room, do you think he would have noticed? That, of course, was not Keith Dwyer playing this time. That I did with the help of the authentic instrument. His tone is certainly a lot better than that of the authentic instrument in this case. Anyway, the implication of the Stravinsky story, of course, is not only that he was getting to be a bit over the hill, but that he didn't hear his newer atonal music in his head

298
00:37:32,270 --> 00:37:36,130
as accurately or as well as he heard his older stuff.

299
00:37:36,390 --> 00:37:38,310
Nor did the producer, for that matter.

300
00:37:38,810 --> 00:37:40,970
Nor did I, but of course I wasn't there.

301
00:37:41,290 --> 00:37:43,790
But I'm here, and I'm still Peter Schickele.

302
00:37:44,090 --> 00:37:48,890
And the program is still Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.

303
00:37:50,590 --> 00:37:54,730
Our show today is called What You See Is Not What You Get.

304
00:37:54,930 --> 00:37:56,970
We're talking about transposition.

305
00:37:57,770 --> 00:38:00,070
Another story involving transposition,

306
00:38:00,070 --> 00:38:02,630
It seems too good to be true to me, but who knows,

307
00:38:03,240 --> 00:38:11,480
is about the orchestra that was playing Mozart's G minor Symphony under a guest conductor who, they suspected, really had a tin ear.

308
00:38:11,900 --> 00:38:14,260
Here's the way Symphony No. 40 starts.

309
00:38:15,000 --> 00:39:14,060
[music excerpt: Mozart, Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K. 550), opening; Prague Chamber Orchestra, Mackerras]

310
00:39:14,230 --> 00:39:20,370
Okay, so the orchestra gets together and decides to pull a trick on this conductor and see if he notices.

311
00:39:21,250 --> 00:39:23,410
You know, there's that place where it builds up,

312
00:39:24,930 --> 00:39:30,430
and then a pause before the second theme.

313
00:39:30,430 --> 00:39:41,370
So, the orchestra agreed that everybody would play their part one half-step lower than it was written until they got to the second theme, then they'd play it as written.

314
00:39:41,830 --> 00:39:51,110
The effect is that the music shifts up a half-step, but because that shift happens, as it were, during the pause, they thought he might not notice.

315
00:39:51,550 --> 00:39:53,030
Well, would you?

316
00:39:53,740 --> 00:40:37,400
[music excerpt: Mozart, Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K. 550), opening; Academy of Ancient Music, Schröder, Hogwood]

317
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:51,000
[music excerpt: Mozart, Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K. 550), opening; Prague Chamber Orchestra, Mackerras]

318
00:40:51,300 --> 00:40:54,560
Now, the trouble with that story is that I don't know how it turned out.

319
00:40:54,560 --> 00:41:06,160
I don't know whether he noticed it or not, and as a matter of fact, I'm not sure I believe the story, because to get a whole orchestra to play really perfectly, transposing its sight, well, maybe they could do it.

320
00:41:06,260 --> 00:41:07,460
Anyway, it's a good story.

321
00:41:08,300 --> 00:41:11,580
Actually, that shift wasn't a full-blooded half-step.

322
00:41:11,940 --> 00:41:22,200
What I did for that prank was use an original instruments recording for the beginning, because tuning A was almost a half-step lower in Mozart's day than it is now.

323
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:26,800
And then I shifted to a modern instrument's performance for the second theme.

324
00:41:27,220 --> 00:41:33,320
Here's a very clear comparison between Mozart's tuning level and today's.

325
00:41:33,860 --> 00:41:49,600
[music excerpt: Mozart, Symphony No. 41 in C (K. 551); Academy of Ancient Music, Schröder, Hogwood]

326
00:41:52,800 --> 00:42:09,500
[music excerpt: Mozart, Symphony No. 41 in C (K. 551); Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Levine]

327
00:42:09,740 --> 00:42:14,700
So, not only do composers use transposition, so does history.

328
00:42:15,700 --> 00:42:22,180
Basically, what transposition means is that you keep the relationships among the notes constant,

329
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:25,460
but you start on a different pitch level.

330
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:45,710
[music excerpt: Mozart, Symphony No. 41 in C (K. 551); Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Levine]

331
00:42:45,710 --> 00:42:49,050
You know, it's sort of like Napoleon on an escalator.

332
00:42:49,330 --> 00:42:53,270
Seen from the ground, he gets higher or lower, but he's always Napoleon.

333
00:42:55,650 --> 00:43:04,170
That may be the worst analogy since Aristophanes compared playing a slot machine to eating a roll of Necco wafers.

334
00:43:04,910 --> 00:43:12,670
Anyway, one job description that often includes the ability to transpose on demand is song accompanist.

335
00:43:13,350 --> 00:43:15,850
Singers find a song too high or too low.

336
00:43:15,850 --> 00:43:21,490
They want it in a key that's comfortable for them. And some pianists are very adept at

337
00:43:21,490 --> 00:43:27,950
playing a song in any key you ask for, sometimes even a song they've never read before. Now some

338
00:43:27,950 --> 00:43:33,910
people object to that practice in classical music. I think I read somewhere that Ezra Pound was one

339
00:43:33,910 --> 00:43:39,230
of them. They feel that the character of the song, the piano part, as well as the voice part,

340
00:43:39,230 --> 00:43:45,810
changes too much when moved up or down are you one of them here's the same song

341
00:43:45,810 --> 00:43:50,450
sung twice the second time a major third lower than the first

342
00:43:51,520 --> 00:46:47,400
[music: Strauss, "Allerseelen," Op. 10, in E-flat major; Barbara Hendricks, Wolfgang Sawallisch]

343
00:46:54,600 --> 00:49:45,200
[music: Strauss, "Allerseelen," Op. 10, in B major; Brigitte Fassbaender, Irwin Gage]

344
00:49:50,680 --> 00:50:07,320
Richard Strauss. The song is called Allerseelen, All Souls' Day, and it was sung first in E-flat major by Barbara Hendricks with Wolfgang Sawallisch at the piano, and then by Brigitte Fassbaender in B major, accompanied by Irwin Gage.

345
00:50:08,020 --> 00:50:17,100
Well, don't look at me. I'm not sure how I feel about this business of transposing art songs. I think the people who care most probably have perfect pitch, which I don't.

346
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:30,580
By the way, these days, of course, they have computers to transpose. There are music stores where you can tell the machine what song you want the sheet music for and what key you want it in, and the machine does the transposition and prints it out.

347
00:50:31,080 --> 00:50:34,740
Of course, there are older, simpler transposing machines, too.

348
00:50:35,240 --> 00:50:38,580
If you've ever seen a folk guitarist put a capo on her guitar,

349
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:42,780
you know, a bar that fits across the strings with a clamp to hold it in place,

350
00:50:42,940 --> 00:50:44,940
you've seen a transposing device.

351
00:50:45,540 --> 00:50:50,560
It enables her to play a song in some ridiculously difficult key like F sharp major,

352
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:54,500
but do the fingerings as if it were in a nice, friendly D major.

353
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:58,000
And Irving Berlin, who only played in one key,

354
00:50:58,100 --> 00:51:10,800
had a piano with a sort of gear shift mechanism that allowed him to make the piano sound in whatever key he wanted for that song, even though he himself never budged from his usual key on the keyboard.

355
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:13,820
I think it's in the Smithsonian now, that piano.

356
00:51:14,300 --> 00:51:18,080
So in other words, I think he always played on the black keys in F sharp major.

357
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:21,340
So in other words, if he played this...

358
00:51:23,460 --> 00:51:32,600
[music: keyboard demonstration]

359
00:51:32,660 --> 00:51:36,700
He could shift his little gear thing there and make it sound like this.

360
00:51:37,540 --> 00:51:52,900
[music: theme; Mozart, Symphony No. 24 (K 182), 2nd Mvt.; Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London/Leinsdorf]

361
00:51:52,900 --> 00:52:18,940
That's Schickele Mix. No, wait a minute. Let me transpose that up a bit. And that's Schickele Mix for 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 Sciences, and by this radio station.

362
00:52:20,020 --> 00:52:26,300
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.

363
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:31,200
Just refer to the program number. This is program number 142.

364
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:38,200
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.

365
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:40,800
You're looking good. See you next week.

366
00:52:41,580 --> 00:57:50,020
[music: theme; Mozart, Symphony No. 24 (K 182), 2nd Mvt.; Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London/Leinsdorf]

367
00:57:53,490 --> 00:57:58,490
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Schickele Mix.

368
00:57:58,490 --> 00:58:05,510
That's Schickele, Schickele Mix. Care of Public Radio International,

369
00:58:05,910 --> 00:58:11,850
100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.

370
00:58:14,660 --> 00:58:17,880
[announcer:] PRI, Public Radio International.