Do you want the right answer or the true answer? Here's the theme.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
Hello there, I'm Peter Schickele, and this is Schickele Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal. Or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good, it is good. And guess what? 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 last but not least from this fine radio station, which provides me with these four state-of-the-art walls within which these monumental morsels of quality edutainment are concocted and served up. Further-flung distribution is accomplished by PRI, Public Radio International.
Well, we've got a very interesting show lined up here today.
Today, we're going to be talking about Canadian Marches, and the first suite... Oh, man, boy, really getting off to a great start here. Excuse me. Hello? Oh, hi, Laurie, how's it going? Well, actually, I sort of am, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you told me about meeting him. Right, you said he's really cute and he liked the English patient and he misses Calvin and Hobbes. Yeah. Laurie, you do this every time. You meet a guy, and he's Mr. Right, and then a week later, he's Mr. Wrong. You gotta give it a chance, you know? You can't decide these things in a few days. What does this guy do? What do you mean you won't tell me? What, you're so ashamed of how this guy makes his living that you won't tell one of your oldest friends? Look, Laurie, if that's true, maybe he isn't Mr. Right. But listen, I can't talk about it now. I have a radio show to do, so I'll call you back later, okay? Okay, see you. Bye.
Man. Laurie is one of my oldest friends. She's a great gal, but she does love to talk. And she's always got a complicated love life. Anyway, as I was about to say earlier, we're going to do our survey of Canadian marches geographically, and we'll start with the Northwest Territories. One of the principal... Oh, brother. Sorry about this. Hello? So what's so bad about that? You're a musician, too. Oh, he's a violist. Well, my condolences.
Oh, come on, Laurie, I'm just kidding and you know it. My brother plays viola. I love the instrument. You may just have to put up with a few viola jokes, that's all.
What? I can't believe you're a musician and you've never heard a viola joke? I mean, I know you're an amateur, but... Oh, right, I'm going to start laying viola jokes on you in the state you're in.
Okay, just one. What's the difference between a viola and a trampoline? You take your shoes off when you jump on a trampoline. Oh, Laurie, stop crying. It could be worse. He could be a bassoonist. Look, you're a pianist, he's a violist. It should be great. You could play together. Oh, yeah? And how'd it go?
What do you mean, a smidgen?
His intonation was sometimes a fraction of a hair off from the piano. Laurie, you have perfect pitch. You've got radar ears, and you're a pianist. You've got no choice about your intonation. Other instruments do. I mean, if in tune means matching the piano, then there's good out of tune and bad out of tune. Bad out of tune is like, uh, well, remember that nice Mamas & Papas song, California Dreamin'?
I've always thought, well, here, I think I've got it right here, I was checking it out for next week's show. I've always thought that the flute solo in California Dreamin' is sharp, especially in the upper register. Here, I'll just put the phone up to the speaker, and you tell me what you think. What do you think? Is this sharp or not?
So what do you think? Just a little bit, right? Well, I'm glad you agree, because it doesn't seem to bother most people. Well, I mean, it didn't bother me enough to keep me from buying the album, but it definitely sounds uncomfortable to me. Oh, man, you're right about that. The associations that that song brings up are great. But the thing is, Laurie, that sometimes stuff that's out of tune by piano standards still sounds terrific. Hey, are you in a comfortable chair?
Let me play you a couple of things here, because I think, if you don't mind my saying so, Laurie, I think you're a little bit straight-laced when it comes to intonation. Let me play you two things. In the first one, the harmony singing is really out of tune to the piano. I mean, it's right in the cracks between the keys, but I love it. I wouldn't change it for all the teetotalers in China. Then in the second number, it's the piano itself that's out of tune.
But that makes it sound like a toy piano, and it's much more poignant than it would be if it were tuned according to Hoyle. Now just sit back and keep an open mind.
[music: Trad. arr. Taylor, "Cripple Creek" (Folk Songs from the Blue Grass); Earl Taylor & His Stoney Mountain Boys]
[music: Amos, "Bells for Her" (Under the Pink); Tori Amos]
Tori Amos is her name, and the song's called Bells for Her.
Well it's apparently an old upright piano that they fooled with and then fed through a computer.
Anyway, the first number was Earl Taylor and his Stoney Mountain Boys doing Cripple Creek. A little bit too much for you, huh? Well, I love it. It's one of my favorite cuts off one of my favorite albums, and I wish to Hello Dolly they'd reissue it on CD. I've played that LP so much the phonograph needle's about to come through the other side. You know, you take music too seriously, Laurie. You should become a professional, and you wouldn't take it so seriously.
That's a joke, sort of, but now you've got me going on this. Are you up for another cut? Okay, just hang on the phone there. I'm going to keep the phone over here by the speakers, and I was just thinking about certain organ stops that sort of imitate the human voice. I think it's pretty much established that singers and violinists did not use as much vibrato before the 19th century as they do now, but they did use vibrato, and to imitate that, some organ stops We're talking about centuries before the revolving Leslie speakers on a Hammond B3 organ.
Some organ stops were built so that each single note was produced by two organ pipes, and the two organ pipes were slightly out of tune with each other. Now, as you know, Laurie, because you know how to tune pianos, two notes that are almost but not quite in tune with each other produce beats that you can hear and even count, and these beats give the effect of a vibrato.
On an Italian organ like this one, the stop might be called voce umana, human voice. So here's another example of wrong being right. You might call it creative out-of-tuneness.
It's such serene music. You still there, Laurie? Oh, just spaced out, huh? I thought the phone had gone dead. OK, go ahead. Yeah, guess. Right, it's before Bach.
No, it's before Buxtehude, too. Okay, it's Frescobaldi, 1635. He was organist of St. Peter's in Rome. But, by the way, speaking of Bach, that Kyrie comes from a large collection, organ music for three masses, called Fiori Musicali, Musical Flowers, that Frescobaldi published in 1635, and 79 years later, in 1714, the 29-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach copied out the whole collection by hand. That's how you studied music in those days.
Anyway, that was Sergio Vartolo playing an organ in Ferrara that was built in 1657, which is exactly three centuries before I went to New York to attend Juilliard, Laurie, and you went to San Gabriel. And here we are, still talking on the phone. Oh, come on, I'm not, really. Listen, Laurie, about a month ago I was up in the old Juilliard neighborhood, and I walked by the place I used to live in on West 113th Street, and believe me, there was no plaque saying, In the basement of this building from 1958 to 1960 lived Peter Schickele, host of Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International.
Okay, let's get back to this guy you met, this violist. This is turning into a rather long phone call, but that's okay. Does he have a sense of humor? Well, that's a good sign.
Nice buns? Alright. So, you played chamber music with him and once in a while he was, uh, how did you put it? A fraction of a hair out of tune with the piano? Well, what else didn't you like? He occasionally used portamento. Laurie, all string players slide from one note to the next sometimes. It's an expressive device. Yeah, I remember your brother. Good violinist.
Yeah, okay, the reason they taught him not to use portamento in school is because it's a technique that is easily abused. Some lazy violinists slide into practically every note because it's safer than hitting the note on the head. You know, you can slide till you get to the right pitch and then stop, instead of having to put the finger in exactly the right spot in the first place.
You've got to have the control to play cleanly, and you've got to hear the next note in your mind's ear before you play it, or it won't be focused, or even, if you're a keyboardist, in tune. And also, portamento is like sugar. Too much of it and it's cloying. It rots your mental teeth. But that doesn't mean you should never slide. Come on, Laurie, don't be such a Puritan. You may practice a piece with a metronome, but that doesn't mean you should play it metronomically.
You have to have a certain amount of freedom, or the music doesn't breathe. It doesn't have any... any... Have you gone to bed with this guy yet? No hurry. There's plenty of time. But Laurie, you've got to remember that you're a pianist, so portamento is foreign to your sensibility, your expressive arsenal.
And also, come on, you studied at the General George S. Patton Conservatory of Music, for crying out loud. Talk about going by the book. They're not exactly famous for encouraging a romantic approach to the printed note. Now you've got me riled up. You're going to have to hear some more music. Sure you do. I want to play you three top-notch artists who slide from one note to the next at appropriate times. In some cases, a lot of the time. But all three of them have soul, so just relax and let them slide it onto you.
I'll come back on the phone in about ten minutes.
[music excerpt: Wagner, Die Walküre, "Ho-jo-to-ho!"; Kirsten Flagstad]
[music: Morganfield (Muddy Waters), "I Be's Troubled" (The Complete Plantation Recordings); Muddy Waters]
[music: Chopin, Nocturne in D-flat, Op. 27; Mischa Elman]
Laurie, are you still on the phone? Oh, okay. So, do you want to guess again? Okay, of course. The first one was Wagner from Die Walküre, The Valkyries Cry, Hojotoho, and Kirsten Flagstad was the singer. It doesn't say. It just says, with orchestra conducted by Hans Lange. That was in 1935. Okay, next?
Not your bag, right? That was Muddy Waters from a CD called The Complete Plantation The tune was I Be's Troubled, and it was recorded in Stovall, Mississippi, in August 1941. And then, you're right, it's Chopin. Well, you're right about that, too. He didn't. This is a transcription of a piano nocturne. And that was Mischa Elman on the violin.
And in case you thought that the accompaniment was a bit macabre, that's because the pianist was Marcel van Gool. Cool.
You're my friend, you gotta put up with that kind of stuff. Yeah, you're right, noisy as all get out. Well, that's because it was recorded in 1930 when, I admit, in terms of playing, folks wore their hearts on their sleeves through portamento more than they do now. But still, Laurie, this guy you've met, don't shut this romance down just because he's a little slippery on the fingerboard. A taste of honey won't kill you. What do you mean, who am I to say? You know who I am. I'm Peter Schickele and the show is Schickele Mix from P.R.I.
Public Radio International.
Yeah, well, the basic point, Laurie, is that sometimes Mr. Wrong turns out to be Mr. Right. You know, that would be a good name for what is turning out to be today's show, when Mr. Wrong is Mr. Right. Better make it part one. I have a lot to say on this subject. Just because they taught you how to do something one way in school doesn't mean that's the only way to do it. Hitting a note right on the money isn't always... Speaking of money, whose nickel is this, anyway?
Oh yeah, you called me, right? Har har har, that'll teach you to call me up during my show. So what else has you worried about this otherwise very attractive viola-playing hunk?
Ah, tone. You like a viola to sound like satin, right? Like a full-length ermine coat. And I'm not talking about one of those artificial ones, I'm talking about a red paint target. You like a viola sound that goes down like Maker's Mark, right? Like Kona coffee.
Like grape jello before it hardens. Well, I can enjoy that okay, but I must say I like a little rumble in there, too. Just a little bit of grit, like lava soap. Well, maybe not quite as much as lava soap. Maybe more like, um, cinnamon ice cream, or... Okay, okay, I will. The point is that a silken tone can get tedious. Some things just can't be expressed without getting a little bit of sow's ear in there.
Teachers talk so much about beautiful tone. Beautiful tone is like a warm, cloudless day. In our house, we call such a day peerless. But if that's the only kind of day you ever have, then it's got plenty of peers. It is, as the Pope says, non magnum dealus.
You gotta have the ups, and you gotta have the downs. You gotta have the smiles, and you gotta have the frowns. You gotta have the country, you gotta have the towns. You gotta have the ups, and you gotta have the downs. Laurie? Laurie, are you there? Laurie! Oh, hi. Oh, oh, sure. In fact, I wish you could get me one, too. I'm getting pretty dry.
Anyway, I want to play you some examples of tone quality that's bad by conservatory standards, but good. That is, effective and entirely appropriate to these pieces. There are going to be four of them. In the first one, you'll hear extreme and intentional distortion in a bass instrument. Now, the singer in the second one lets her voice crack time and time again.
I heard a well-known singer crack twice in one performance at the Met a few years ago, and it was really embarrassing. Here, it's the sound of one heartbreaking. Then the third piece features several instruments that would not be welcome at high tea in the Victoria Hotel, including one that has an intentional rasp.
In string instruments, sometimes a string instrument develops a raspy rattle on one or two notes. It's called a wolf. And you take it to the repair shop to get rid of it. But this instrument has a loose bridge that is specifically designed to rasp. Not quite nice. Not quite nice at all. I love it.
Then in the last selection, both the instruments and the singer let go with some in-your-face tone quality that perfectly expresses the attitude of the song, and I do mean attitude. Okay, Laurie, make that beer last for nine and a half minutes.
[music: Schickele, "Minister of War" (Baptism); Joan Baez]
[music: John Wills/Bob Wills, "Faded Love" (Classic Country Music, Vol. III); Patsy Cline]
[music excerpt: Druschetzky, Partita for Rustic Instruments in B-flat; Capella Savaria/Németh]
[music: Styne/Robin, "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" (The Best of Broadway: The Late '40s); Carol Channing]
Oh, Laurie, do you think your measly viola player is going to give you diamonds? Yeah, well, I wouldn't hold your breath. He probably wouldn't even be able to cover this phone call. If he had wanted to make serious money, he would have gone into computers or banking or poetry. So anyway, that suite began with Joan Baez reading a poem called Minister of War, translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley, with music by yours truly.
Yeah, it's an album I did with Joan back in the late 60s called Baptism, and that was a bass guitar, a Fender bass, fed through a fuzz box whose sole function was to distort the sound.
Then second was Patsy Cline singing Faded Love. You know, I love the line in there about how she's watching the mating of the dove. Now we all know why that line's in there. It's in there because the word love has very few rhymes. Usually it's above, but sometimes you have to force something in there about a glove or a shove or something like that. So she's watching the mating of the dove. I don't think anybody who hears that song, she's singing so romantically, you know, so sadly, thinks about the fact that she's sitting there watching two birds going at it, you know what I mean? Now, as far as her cracking on the notes, which of course is a real technique in country singing, I do have to say, of course, that even opera singers sometimes crack on purpose, in Pagliacci, for instance.
Okay, then came part of the partita for rustic instruments in B-flat major by Druschetzky, end of the 18th century. These instruments include the alphorn, the bagpipes, the hurdy-gurdy, the dulcimer, and the tromba marina, or trumpet marine, which, in spite of its name, is a string instrument, a single-stringed string instrument, which provides a rattling good time.
That was Pál Németh conducting the Capella Savaria on a delightful Hungaroton CD called Musica Curiosa. And then finally, Carol Channing allowing as how Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend from the show Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with a score by Jule Styne and Leo Robin. Are you taking notes, Laurie? There's going to be a quiz. Yeah, me too. My left ear is about to fall off.
But I want you to promise me that you won't dump this violist prematurely just because of your highfalutin, not to say authoritarian, musical standards. I'm kidding, but you know what I mean. Deal? Okay, and I want to play you one more thing. Aw, come on, it's less than five minutes long. Okay? Okay, okay. Since our phone conversation has become today's show, I'll call this Tidbit Time.
You know, Florence Foster Jenkins, have you ever heard her stuff, the great So Bad She's Good singer from the 1930s and 40s? Right, she was unintentionally hilarious. Okay, well, when they re-released her few 78s on LP, they needed something to go on the other side. According to the liner notes of the LP, One day, with no advance warning whatever, Jenny Williams and Thomas Burns walked into RCA Victor's Custom Record Department. The records they wanted to make were to be for their own use, but eventually they agreed to the public issuance of the material on this disc. The English translations are their own and speak for themselves, also for the cause of opera in English.
So, wait till you hear this. This is Thomas Burns singing Salut, demeure from Gounod's Faust, and, you know, in his own way, he's pretty great. You know the different kinds of voice, lyric tenor, heldentenor. Well, this guy's a teamster tenor, but his love for the music shines through.
[music: after Gounod, Faust in English, "Salut, demeure" (The Glory of the Human Voice); Thomas Burns]
Thomas Burns singing Salut, demeure from Gounod's Faust. There's no pianist credit on this LP. I don't know if that's because he was playing piano for himself or because the pianist didn't want his name on the LP. That's on the flip side of the infamous Florence Foster Jenkins LP. Don't you end up sort of admiring that guy, Laurie? Laurie?
She's fallen asleep. I can hear her snoring a bit.
Well, sleep tight, Laurie, and good luck.
I think it's time for a lullaby.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
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 from this radio station and its members. 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 144.
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.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Schickele Mix. That's Schickele, Schickele Mix. Care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.