Thanks for tuning in this morning. We'll do this again tomorrow.
Public Radio for Acadiana. KRVS 88.7 FM. Lafayette, Lakeshawls. You're coming through loud and clear. Here's the theme.
Well, 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. What's that Mae West movie where somebody says, goodness, what beautiful diamonds, and she responds, goodness had nothing to do with it, honey.
Well, I have to admit that I'm a kept man. My bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by this very radio station where I hole up and put out.
And what I put out is put into the air to be distributed far and wide by PRI, Public Radio. International.
My father spent his teenage years in a little town in southwestern Germany called Baden-Weiler. His father was a writer, and one of the family friends was another writer named Annetta Kolb.
She was quite old when I met her, but apparently she had always been known for being a bit ditzy in a charming sort of way. The story was told of a picnic by a river many, many years ago
when someone said that, of course, they were at a lower altitude than such-and-such. And the other person said, well, such-and-such a town is upstream from here, and rivers always flow downhill.
Oh, do they really, said Annetta. I always thought they went up and down, just like everything else in life. Well, it's true. A lot of things in life go up and down, and one of them is the decibel level
in musical compositions. Most pieces we hear have loud places and soft places, and everything in between. But, when we hear a piece of music, we hear it in a different way.
Just as the Truth About Rivers poked a hole in Annetta Kolb's Weltanschauung. And it's not that she wasn't an intelligent woman, you know. It's just that she had a very romantic and personal sur-
Ah, rats. Excuse me, folks. Hello? Weltanschauung? Well, it's... that's right, it's a German word.
You know that kind of showerhead that can be adjusted so that the streams of water are so sharp and strong that it, it actually hurts to see it?
stand under it? Right, right. Well, so literally, Weltanschauung means a showerhead that gives you
welts on your skin, but metaphorical hits come to mean one's world outlook or view of the world.
That's okay. Don't mention it. Bye. So anyway, just as Annetta Kolb's view of the world was disturbed by the truth about rivers, so I guess I'm going to have to be the one to tell you that
not all kinds of music go up and down, dynamically wise speaking.
In certain kinds of music, like a lot of old piano rolls, the volume is usually on cruise control. There may be slight variations, but basically the sound level remains the same for the whole trip.
There aren't any dramatic contrasts between loud and soft sections, no great emotional swelling, and relaxations.
A fella gets up and says what he has to say and sits down, like our friend Scott Joplin there. Now, here are five examples of what I'm talking about from all over the cultural map.
I call this the ISO volume suite, and it lasts about 10 minutes. I'll see you then.
The ISO volume suite began with Kenneth Gilbert playing the fourth of Bach's two-part inventions,
one in D minor, after which we heard Meredith Monk performing her click-song number one from Light Songs. Then my old buddy Earl Taylor and his Stony Mountain Boys did Lee Highway Blues,
after which we heard Hundred Birds Courting the Phoenix, a 17th century northern Chinese folk song,
with Professor Liang Caiping playing the zither-like Cheng and Lin Pei on a kind of fiddle called Nan Hu. And the amazing Bud Powell,
who brought the suite to an exhilarating close with Sweet Georgia Brown, that was Max Roach on drums. By the way, when I said my old buddy Earl Taylor, I just meant that I love that album so much,
and as some of you know very well, I've used it many times on this show. I wish they would reissue it on CD. Actually, I never met Earl Taylor, or even heard him perform live.
But years ago, when I read in the paper that he was lying in a hospital somewhere, maybe it was Baltimore, with a terminal illness, I wrote him a fan letter. I hope he got it.
The signature on that letter read, quite simply, Peter Shickley. Little did I know that I was someday to become the host of Shickley Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
Our show today is called Pfff. Pretty catchy, huh? Pfff. You see, the show's about dynamics, which in music means loudness, or volume of sound.
In Western music, it's called the Pfff. In Western music, it's called the Pfff. In Western music, the signs for indicating loudness are based on the Italian words piano, meaning level, flat, relaxed, and therefore soft,
and forte, meaning strong and therefore loud. The most common signs are double P for pianissimo, very soft, then P for piano,
MP for mezzo piano, meaning fairly soft, MF for mezzo forte, F for forte, and double F for fortissimo.
You sometimes see triple or even quadruple forte or piano, but mostly it's just the six abbreviations I mentioned. Six degrees of dynamic separation, one might say,
ranging from double P to double F, or Pfff. I think it's a great name for this show.
Although, I suppose it could use a subtitle to please the bookers on the lecture circuit, like, uh, the dynamic art of music. Yeah, that's it.
Anyway, I was doing a PDQ Bach concert once, and I was introducing a piece for solo piccolo, and I pointed out that the term piccolo is short for flauto piccolo, meaning little flute.
Then I made the observation that the piccolo player is the only member of the orchestra who plays an adjective. So then, after the concert, I was, you know, talking to people and signing autographs, and this...
Oh, man. Sorry about that. Let me get this, folks. Hello? Oh, hello, sir. Yeah, well, that's just what I was about to say.
This guy comes up to me after the concert and says, How about the piano? It's not a regular member of the orchestra, but it is an adjective. So... Well, that's right, sir. You did beat me to it. That was very quick of you.
Although, I must say that I... I think I remember telling you that anecdote. No? Okay, well, whatever. Thanks for listening, sir. Okay, bye. Now, that's right, folks.
As the station manager and the guy I could swear that I told the station manager about, anyway, as has been pointed out, piano is an adjective.
In fact, the instrument was originally called the pianoforte, the soft loud, because you could play soft or loud simply by changing the strength with which you hit the key.
Now, that may not seem like a very big deal to you, but believe me, this was a very big deal. It was the first practical instrument in the history of Western music
that enabled keyboard players to approach the degree of continuous nuance available to string players. On an organ, for instance, it makes no difference whatsoever how hard you hit the keys.
You could have a Q-tip in your left hand and a sledgehammer in your right, and the notes would still sound equally loud. And on a harpsichord, it makes virtually no difference how hard you hit the keys.
Those little pluckers pluck about the same no matter what. There was an instrument called the clavichord that responded very directly to the player's touch. You could even do vibrato on it, which you can't even do on a piano.
But it was so soft that it was impractical for concert use, even in the comparatively small rooms, as we club musicians call concert venues, of the 18th century.
So it was a big deal, the invention and perfecting of the soft loud. Which we now call the soft. Which is pretty funny when you think about Tchaikovsky.
Concerto number two for soft and orchestra. So anyway, the piano has the nuance, but what the harpsichord has is couplers.
On any but the very simplest models, like the harpsy kitty chord made by Play School Play, on most grown-up harpsichords, all you have to do is pull a knob or push a pedal,
and when you play any note, you'll hear not just that note, but the octave above it as well, or the octave below it, or all three. So you can play in three octaves at once by hitting just one key at a time.
Which means that, if you use the couplers, even a very simple texture, like that of the Bach two-part invention we heard earlier, can sound very full. Also, some harpsichords have two keyboards.
One above the other, so that you can accomplish quick changes of sound by switching from one manual to the other, which you've set up for a softer or louder sound, if there is enough time between the notes.
Let's listen to the beginning of a Scarlatti sonata, played on a harpsichord and then on a piano. At first, the piano sounds a bit bare, coming after the coupled-up full sound of the harpsichord.
But then listen to the piano's forte. Little joke there. Listen to the pianist making subtle gradations of loudness during phrases,
and sudden changes of loudness even in the midst of fast passages, when a harpsichordist wouldn't have time to switch manuals. It's two completely different ball games.
The harpsichordist was Trevor Pinnock, playing the first half of Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata in G, Kirkpatrick number 201. The big dom wrote over 500 of those puppets.
And on the repeat, we heard the great Vladimir Horowitz playing the soft-loud. In fact, he was certainly one of the top soft-loudists of the century.
You notice on that quick edit that I did there that the pitch is different, too. Trevor Pinnock was playing the old tuning from the 18th century.
Now, one of the things a sophisticated composer for the harpsichord does, especially if he's interested in coloristic effects, which Scarlatti certainly was, much more than Bach,
he creates dynamic changes by varying the number of notes that get played simultaneously. See, even when the touch is exactly the same,
if you follow a single note with a seven-note chord, the chord will sound louder, because it is louder. Each individual note may not be louder, but there are seven notes sounding instead of one.
It's like a solo string bass, as opposed to the bass section of a symphony orchestra. Here, let me illustrate that with the help of some very kind gentlemen. I'm very honored to have here in the studio
one of the most popular vocal groups on the scene today, the Anonymous Seven. Come on over here, fellas. How are you? Hey, not bad.
Okay, now, the Anonymous Seven are going to perform a 15th century isoglott motet from the Burgundian court.
It's called l'homme armé, which means the man armé. The R stands for Robert. His full name was Robert May.
And let's see, what language are you going to do it in, fellas? English! If we did it in old French, nobody would understand the word. That's right.
I can't argue with that. Okay, here we go with the motetes matrimonies, l'homme armé. I guess an idiomatic translation would be Mr. Robert May.
And I've told everybody to sing at exactly the same volume, but notice how much louder the chords sound than the single notes. Take it away, fellas. Here comes the bride
All dressed in white Where is the groom?
Not in the room
Where did he go? I'd like to know Ah, there he is Necking with Liz There goes the bride
It's homicide I'll have some cake Give me a break Here's Liz's bra
Tra-la-la-la
Tra-la-la-la The Anonymous 7, performing Mr. Robert May,
an isoglott motet written by a composer, also anonymous, but probably part of the English trash that Dunstable dragged with him when he went to the Burgundian court. Anyway, that was composed somewhere
between 1446 and 1448, approximately. Okay, thanks a lot, fellas. You're welcome. It was our pleasure, you know. I hope you're in your pleasure. Yeah, well, let me know if there's anything I can do for you.
Within reason. Okay, folks. Now, feast your ears on this example of creating dynamics through thickness of texture.
This is another harpsichord sonata by Scarlatti. Disregarding couplers now, just talking about what's printed on the page, some of these chords have ten, count them, ten notes.
He creates accents by suddenly having a chord with more notes than the previous chord. And what notes? You know, Scarlatti lived in Spain when he wrote these sonatas.
And this one sounds as if every guitarist in the country was sitting in. When it comes to crunch, this piece leaves peanut brittle in the dust.
Ugh, that metaphor makes my teeth hurt.
Scott Ross playing the sonata in A minor, Kirkpatrick No. 175 by Domenico Scarlatti. What a piece. I got turned on to Scarlatti in college, and that was one of the sonatas I used to play.
Really brings back memories. Speaking of memories, remember back there when we were talking about the piccolo? Well, most people don't realize how piccolos were originally made.
There was an area in southern Italy, way down in the boot, and there were no instrument makers there, but they could get flutes from up north. But the thing is that the people of this region
loved very high-pitched sounds, maybe because of the indigenous birds there. So what they would do is they'd go down to the beach and they'd dig pits in the sand and build big fires in them,
and then they'd suspend huge metal pans over the fires. And then they'd pour a bit of olive oil in the pans and gently place the flutes in there
and just let them cook until they shriveled up to half their size and became piccolos. The trick was to take them out at just the right time. This was an annual rite.
They did it at the summer solstice. It was called the Mediterranean Flute Fry. And please, if anyone asks you, don't tell them you heard that from Peter Schickely,
the host of Schickely Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International. Today's show is called The Dynamic Art of Music.
From pianissimo, that's the p, to fortissimo, that's the f, with gun and camera. I should mention that all that stuff about couplers on the harpsichord,
none of that is specified by Scarlatti. In those days, the registration, what doublings and different colors on the organ, for instance, all that stuff was left to the individual performer.
In fact, composers didn't indicate dynamics at all until about the 16th century, and then only rarely. It wasn't until the 19th century that they started really indicating dynamics in great detail.
I mean, within phrases and everything. In the 18th century, indicated dynamics were often of a sort sometimes called terraced dynamics. This whole section is all loud,
this whole section is all soft, and at least as far as what was indicated goes, there's no gradation between the loud and the soft. The changes are sudden, highly contrasted.
There's not always agreement among scholars on how much and when performers should make gradations, even when they're not indicated by the composers. But here are three clear cases of block dynamics
from three different centuries. Sudden shifts, obviously intentional, from one level of sound to another. I call this Sweet with a Terrace.
I'll meet you back inside in about seven minutes.
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Okay, our suite with a terrace looked out on the echo dance from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. That was Trevor Pinnock and the English concert. The echo setup obviously involves
discrete, not graduated, dynamic changes. Then came the Shufflebug Shuttle written and arranged by Benny Carter and performed by him and his orchestra. Then last was the finale of Mozart's
Symphony No. 24 in B-flat played by the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of James Levine.
All good examples of terraced dynamics. Now an interesting example of the exact opposite is the human voice. What I mean is, in general,
and there are some exceptions to this in certain parts of the range, but in general, there is a natural tendency for humans to sing louder the higher they go because of the effort
involved. In vocal music with a strong climax, the climax is usually on a high note and although the
middle section of the Star-Spangled Banner is generally played softly by bands and orchestras, the untrained singers in the stands are on the lawn,
usually have to belt it out like mad in order to reach the notes at all. Art music especially often specifically goes against this tendency. But here's a beautiful number in which the natural
inclination is completely unchecked. In fact, it shapes the dynamics of the whole song. Incidentally,
listen to the composer and his friend reminding everybody how the next verse starts at the end of each verse.
Mungaya, a nindo praise song, whatever that means. Mungaya, a nindo praise song, whatever that means. Sung by the Gogo tribe. in what was then Tanganyika, led by the 18-year-old composer Mandeya Matango
and various village women in the background adding little cadenzas. That song is one of my favorite pieces of music in the world and a strong influence on some of my own pieces.
That's a 10-inch LP from the early 1950s. Now, as I mentioned before, art music often works against the natural correlation between highness and loudness.
One of the things that gives this next song its ethereal beauty is the fact that the soloist is often singing very softly in her high register.
It's unnatural and therefore striking. The forest begins to stir. The night draws nearer to the trees as if they listened and rapped.
They touch one another gently. And under their branches, there am I, all alone. There I am, all to myself, and all for you only.
Waldseligkeit, Woodland Bliss, by Richard Strauss on a poem of Richard Demel, sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf with George Zell, conducting the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin.
What sublime beauty! It can be achieved by going against nature. In this case, the natural tendency to sing louder as you sing higher.
Well, that's about it for today, but we've got a little time. So I thought we heard the last movement of that delightful Symphony No. 24 by Mozart. Let's go back and hear the first and second movements.
We may not have time for the complete second movement, but we'll hear as much of it as we can. Here is the first and second movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 24.
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heard that before? Mozart's 24th Symphony, this time with Eric Leinsdorf and the Philharmonic
Symphony Orchestra of London. And that's Sickly Mix for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by this radio station and its
members. We thank you members both loudly and softly. 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 147. And this is Peter Sickly 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 Sickly Mix. That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Sickly Mix. Care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.
PRI, Public Radio International.