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Hello there, I'm Peter Sickley. And this is Sickley 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 also, 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. We're going to be talking about... Canadian Marches. And the first... 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... You do this every time.
You meet a guy and he's Mr. Right and then a week later he's Mr. Wrong. You've got to 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? 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. 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 can 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 and 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 right hand. I've never registered.
Here, I'll just put the phone up to the speaker, and you tell me what 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 just 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 one, the harmony singing is really out of tune to the piano.
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.
it's out of time and through the portal they can make a man
hey would you say whatever will blanket front can't stop what's coming can't stop what is
i've got your mind i said she said i have your voice i said you don't need my voice girl you
love your room
they win years and here like sisters blanket blanket girls always here through through that
and this there's nothing we cannot ever fix i said
can't stop what's coming
he can't stop what's coming can't stop what is
bells and footfalls and soldiers and dogs
brothers and lovers she and i were
she seems to be sad under his shoes there's nothing i can
can't stop what's coming and still put it on its way
can't stop what's coming can't stop what it's on its way
and now i speak to you are you in there
you have a face and her eyes but you are not her
and we go out each over like blankets blankets who can find
blankets
them can't stop can't stop loving you can't stop loving can't stop
pretty nice huh uh tori amos is her name and the song's called um bells for her
right well it's apparently an old upright piano that they fooled with and then fed through a computer according to the liner notes anyway
the first number was earl taylor and his stony 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 uh that's a joke you 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 19th century and they did use vibrato 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 you can hear the vibrato on an
italian organ the stop might be called voce humana 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 just spaced out huh i thought the phone had gone dead okay go ahead yeah guess right it's
before bach no it's before buxtehude too okay it's fresco baldy 1635
he was organist of saint peter's in rome but by the way speaking of bach that curiae comes from a
large collection organ music for three masses called fiori musicale musical flowers that fresco
baldy 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 yeah 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 i was a
in the basement of this building from 1958 to 1960 lived peter shickley host of shickley 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 all right 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 a piano and play a piece of music and they're not going to play a piece of music and they're not going to play a piece of music and they're not going to play
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's a good sign for a violinist to be able to play a piece of music
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 from the heart of the music you studied at the general georges patent 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 uh 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 on to you i'll come back on the phone in about 10 minutes
well i feel in my
like i feel the day i'm gonna pack my suitcase and make my girl
and i'll never be satisfied and i just can't keep up
yeah i know my little old baby she gonna jump and shout that old train delay girl and i'll
be all right
yeah i know somebody
sure been talking to you i don't need no telling girl i can watch the way i'll be all right you
yeah and i'll never be satisfied but i just can't keep up
yeah now goodbye babe got no more to say just like i've been telling you girl you're gonna have to leave my
but i'm trouble i'm all worried
yeah and i'll never be satisfied i just can't keep up yeah my baby she quit me
sing like mama was dead i got real woodgirl and she drove it to my head
yeah and i'll never be satisfied i just can't keep up yeah
Okay, 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 Valkyrie's Cry, Hoya to Ho,
and Kirsten Flagstad was the singer. Uh, it doesn't say. It just says, uh, 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 Recordings. The tune was I.B.'s Troubled, and it was recorded in Stouffville, Mississippi, in August 1941.
And then, you're right, it's Chopin. Well, you're right. You're right about that, too. He didn't. This is a transcription of a piano nocturne, and that was Misha Ellman on the violin.
And, uh, in case you thought that the accompaniment was a bit macabre, that's because the pianist was Marcel van Gool. Well, you're my friend. You've got to 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 Sickley, and the show is Sickley Mix, from PRI, 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. Maybe not quite as much as lava soap. Maybe more like 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 sows-ier 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 delus. 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, boop, boop, 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.
Laurie, you know what a wolf is? No, not that kind. No. And 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.
Minister of War, we are the King's Claws
and Bracelet.
Why should you roll us on from misery to misery, giving us no place to stop in or take rest?
Minister of War, we are the King's Claws and Teeth.
Why should you roll us from misery to misery, giving us no place to come to and stay?
Minister of War, surely you are not wise. Why should you roll us from misery to misery? We have mothers who lack food.
As I look at the letters it gives me it gives you
then I am
thinking of as I read that to me
was so dear I remember I needed love
I gave myself
I still think of you and remember our fated love.
As I think of the past and all the pleasures we had.
As I watched the mating of the dove.
It was in the springtime that you said,
Good. Good bye. I remember our fated love.
I miss you as the stars above.
With every heartbeat, I still think of you and remember.
Good bye. Our fated love. Fated love.
Love.
The French are glad to die for love.
They delight in fighting duels. But I pray.
Gives expensive.
A kiss on the hand may be quite continental. But diamonds are a girl's best friend.
A kiss may be grand. But it won't pay the rental on your humble flat. Or help you at the automat.
Men grow. Girls grow old. And we all lose our charms in the end. But squint. Hair cut or pear shape.
These rocks don't lose their shape.
Diamonds are a girl's best friend.
I've heard of affairs that are strictly platonic.
But diamonds are a girl's best friend. And I think affairs that you must keep masonic are the better bets.
If little pets get big baguettes, time rolls on. And youth is gone. And you can't straighten up when you bend.
But stiff back or stiff knees, you stand straight at tip knees. Diamonds are a girl's best friend.
There may come a time when a lass needs a lawyer. But diamonds are a girl's best friend.
There may come a time when a hard-boiled employer thinks you're awful nice.
But get that ice or else no dice.
He's your guy when stocks go high. But beware when they start to descend.
It's then that those louses go back toовали.
their spouses. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. So, Laurie, do you think your measly viola player is going to give you diamonds?
You know, 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 Whaley, 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 that the dove is a dove, and it's a dove, and it's a dove, and it's a dove, and it's a dove. 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 Druszewski,
end of the 18th century. These instruments include the alporn, 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 Paul Namath conducting the Capelle Cervaria on a delightful
Hungarian CD called Musica Curiosa. And then finally, Carol Channing allowing us How Diamonds
Are a Girl's Best Friend from the show Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with a score by Julie Stein and Leo Robin. Are you taking notes, Lori? 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 give up, you won't give up, Don'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. Oh, come on, it's less than five minutes long. 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 de Mur from Gounod's Faust, and, you know, in his own way, he's pretty great.
You know the different kinds of voice, lyric tenor, held in tenor, well, this guy's a teamster tenor, but his love for the music shines through.
Emotions strange, deeply disturb me
Seizing my being is a feeling of love
Margarita, I gladly give my heart to you
I say
Hello to this dwelling pure and low Hello to this dwelling pure and low
Therein lives an angel fair and bright
An angel divine and innocent What reaches here
Where poverty prevails Of peace and love
And happiness supreme
What reaches here What reaches here Where poverty prevails
Of peace and love
And happiness supreme
Is here that you made a life so beautiful
Is here that this child slept under your wing And blossomed with your eye
Here where you bestow the breath of life
And made with love an angel
And made an angel of heaven
Who bloomed into a woman
Is here, yes, is here
I say hello to this dwelling pure and lowly Is here, yes, is here I say hello to this dwelling pure and low
this dwelling pure and lonely where he lives an angel fair and bright an angel divine and innocent
and my soul is dwelling pure and long
Thomas Burns singing Salut Demeur 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.
And that's Schickely 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 one hundred and forty-four. And this is Peter Schickely saying goodbye and reminding you that it don't mean a thing
if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. You're looking good. See you next week.
If you'd like a copy of 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
Sixth Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, MN 55403.