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 how good, in the sense of suitable, it is to acknowledge the munificence of our benefactors, our creditors being satisfied by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by this perspicacious radio station, where my septiquotidian labors result in auricular constructs whose distributional requirements are fulfilled by PRI, Public Radio International.
And I'd like to think that habitual experiencers of these auricular constructs, which the rude multitudes call radio programs, I'd like to think that regular listeners to Schickele Mix learn as much about entomology, the study of words, as they do about music. Entomology is an area of particular interest to me. I just love words, don't you?
And there's one... Oh, man. Sorry, folks. I can't turn it off. Hello? No. Etymology is the study of insects. Entomology is the study of words. Well, you're wrong, Mr... What is it? Okay. Listen, Mr. Chomsky, I have a dictionary right here, and I will look it up as we speak, okay?
Entomology. Entomology, E-N-T-O, is the study of, like I said, insects, which means that etymology is the study of words, right? Well, I'm glad you're man enough to admit that you've made a mis- Wha-what? I do too know what proctological means, and the same to you, buddy.
Man! Well, what I was trying to get at before I was so discourteously interrupted is that sometimes when I find out about the derivation of a word, I have two feelings. One is a slap-your-forehead feeling, of course, why didn't I think of that? And the other is simple delight at the niftiness of the information.
Did you know, for instance, that the words bisect, trisect, and intersect those words having to do with cutting up or across they have the same Latin root as the word insect. The Latin insectus is the past participle of insecare, which means to cut into, which is what a lot of insects do. Munch, munch, munch. You'd think they have nothing to do with their lives but eat.
And a lot of them eat things that we want to eat before we can get to them, or they eat us, which isn't fair. We're supposed to be the top of the food chain. Well, there's probably no area of human concern that hasn't been dealt with musically, and there certainly is plenty of insect music.
Now, I'm using the term insect loosely, by the way. Please don't call me about well-defined thoraxes and number of legs and unsegmented abdomens. I'm talking here about tiny little creepy crawly things that make you say yuck, which, as it happens, is the title of today's show.
These things may be small, but they're voracious. I once saw a super-magnified photograph of a flea on human skin, and the human hairs looked like strange prehistoric trees, and the flea looked like a cow contentedly grazing away. Munch, munch, munch, that's all they think about. And you and I might be the munchies.
Well, we deal with fleas on another edition of the show, but here's a menagerie of more menacing micro-monsters, diligently dining denizens of our dens and dales, yuck-provoking parasites and pariahs, but let's call this the Small Scourges Suite. It has four numbers, and I'll read you the text of the first.
It's in English, but it's a little hard to understand. He spake the Word, and there came all manner of flies and lice in all their quarters. He spake, and the locusts came without number, and devoured the fruits of the land. I'll see you in about eleven minutes.
[music excerpt: Handel, Israel in Egypt, "He spake the word"; Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford/Preston]
[music: Banks, "Dust Mites"; Heywood Banks]
[music: Trad. arr. Gomez, "La Cucarachacha" (Another Crazy Cocktail Party); The Peter Loland Orchestra]
[music: Trad. arr. Tim & Mollie O'Brien, "Boll Weevil Holler" (Tell It True); Mollie O'Brien]
Small Scourges Suite began with an excerpt from that compendium of terrific program music Handel's Israel in Egypt, Simon Preston conducting the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral and the English Chamber Orchestra on a gorgeous London recording. Then we heard Heywood Banks singing Dust Mites, which is, I must admit, the only song about Dust Mites I know.
That was followed by La Cucarachacha with the Peter Loland Orchestra.
I guess in English that would be the Cockroachacha or something like that. Anyway, that's from a CD called Another Crazy Cocktail Party. It says Be Easy and Retro Hip on the front. On the back, right under the catalog number, it says File Under Grounge. That's a new one on me. I guess that's Grounge as in Grunge and Lounge, right? I can just hear my kids saying, Oh Dad, you didn't know that! Anyway, we wound up with Mollie O'Brien singing Boll Weevil Holler from her album Tell it True, which is what I always try to do.
By the way, speaking of etymology,
did you know that the word pariah, which of course means outcast, comes from an Indian word. In Tamil, paraiyan means drummer, it figures, right? Very low caste. I mean, like, what do you call a drummer without a girlfriend, homeless, and what do you call me, if you're a drummer you call me a jerk, or worse a composer, others call me Peter Schickele, and the show Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International.
Today's show is called Yuck! And I was thinking, yuck is an interjection that is usually provoked by one of two things. Something gross and messy, like the product of emesis, which the rude multitudes call losing your cookies, or small creepy crawly things. And in the latter case, small seems like a necessary attribute of the provocative agent.
I mean, if you saw a bunch of cockroaches swarming all over your cat's food, you might say, yuck! Now, a grizzly bear is a lot more dangerous than a cockroach. But if you saw a grizzly bear up close, you wouldn't say, yuck! You'd say, ah!
Small things, particularly in large numbers, can be unsettling. But what if they're so small you can't even see them? Germs can be just as dangerous as grizzly bears. And the only reason they're not yuck inducing is that in everyday life we can't see them, thank God. Now I'm going to depart from usual Schickele Mix policy here. This is, of course, primarily a program about music.
But the spread of disease is such an important issue that Tidbit Time today is going to feature a rather lengthy selection involving the spoken word. This dramatization concerns the germ as a transmitter of disease, and although it was recorded in the 1940s, I think after hearing it, you'll agree that it's just as timely now as it was then.
[music: "Germs and Groucho" (Gratuitously Groucho); Groucho Marx]
Recording: Pardon me, is this the Birds Eye Open House that advertises frozen? Food? Uh-huh. And I presume you're Miss Dinah?
Dinah Shore (recorded): Shore?
Recording: Uh-huh. Then this is the program on which Mr. Groucho Marx is supposed to? Supposed to what? Uh-huh.
Recording: Would you mind, uh, would you mind stepping aside so that I can spray the microphone? Oh, wait a minute. Don't spray the microphone. Stop this, my obese friend. Who are you? My name is Amoeba J. Bacteria. Uh-huh.
Recording: I am Mr. Marx's personal disinfector and I'm supposed to sterilize everything. You may not remember but when Mr. Marx was here last time he caught a very nasty. Cold? No, I'm just comfy.
Recording: Now if you'll excuse me, I have to spray the rest of this. No, now wait, now just a minute Mr. Bacteria, I've got something to say about this.
Recording: Hello?
Groucho Marx (recorded): Hello, Dinah, this is Groucho. Did my personal disinfector get there yet?
Dinah Shore (recorded): Yes, Groucho, and I wish you'd come over and stop him. He's disinfecting everything in the studio.
Recording: Studio.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Where is he now?
Dinah Shore (recorded): He's going around Harry von Zell with a spray gun.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Well, that's quite a trip.
Groucho Marx (recorded): You better get a road map.
Groucho Marx (recorded): And tell him not to take Route 7. The bridge is out.
Dinah Shore (recorded): You better tell him that yourself.
Groucho Marx (recorded): I can. My bridge is out, too.
Dinah Shore (recorded): Mr. Bacteria, Mr. Marx wants to talk to you.
Recording: Thank you. Did you use this telephone to talk to Mr. Marx? Uh-huh. Excuse me.
Recording: Hello? Hello. Hello. Is this Mr. Bacteria? You were expecting me? Did you take care of everything? Uh-huh. And I figured it'll cost you exactly.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Well, that's reasonable enough. I'll send you a check.
Recording: Just send it to.
Groucho Marx (recorded): It'll be a pleasure. I didn't know you moved.
Recording: I didn't move. They just changed the address.
Groucho Marx (recorded): I don't want to get into an argument. I'll just drop it in the mailbox.
Recording: Which mailbox?
Groucho Marx (recorded): I don't care. Have you any favorites?
Recording: Oh, yes. Margaret O'Brien.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Ask her if she's got a friend. I'll call you back in 12 years.
Recording: Tell me sure, I'll be right over.
[sung: a short jingle about the spray gun]
Recording: Oh, isn't that... Oh, now, please.
Harry von Zell (recorded): Dinah, listen, we've got to do something to get rid of that little bug killer.
Dinah Shore (recorded): I know it, Harry, but I'm not worrying about that so much. What we have to do is cure Groucho's complex. I wonder if I could use psychiatry on him.
Harry von Zell (recorded): Psychiat... Dinah, what do you know about psychiatry?
Dinah Shore (recorded): Well, I've seen all the latest movies, haven't I?
Harry von Zell (recorded): Well, now, just what will you do?
Dinah Shore (recorded): We'll just have to delve into his past and find out if anything ever happened in his childhood that might be troubling him now.
Harry von Zell (recorded): Oh, fat. How can you cure him now by finding out what happened to him when he was a kid?
Dinah Shore (recorded): Look, Harry, if Ingrid Bergman can cure Gregory Peck's brilliant mind, then I can certainly cure Groucho Marx's...
Recording: Mind? Oh, not at all. I'd love to. What was that? Oh, wait a minute, here comes Groucho now, he's right behind Mr. Bacteria. Company, halt!
Groucho Marx (recorded): So far, so good, Bacteria. Now, are we ready to go on with the show?
Recording: Uh-huh. Very well, hot water? Hot. Disinfecting soap? Disinfecting. Sanitary mask? Sanitary.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Okay, Dinah, you may kiss me now.
Dinah Shore (recorded): Groucho, what on earth are you brushing off your suit that way?
Groucho Marx (recorded): Germs, germs, millions of them, germs with green heads, with blue heads, with red heads. Red heads? By the way, whatever happened to that little waitress at the Brown Derby?
Dinah Shore (recorded): Oh, you're just imagining all this, Groucho, but if you'll cooperate with me, I'm sure I can cure you.
Recording: Oh, now see how lucky you are? You now have a lady doctor. Give that lady ten silver dollars!
Groucho Marx (recorded): And now, madam, what is my problem?
Dinah Shore (recorded): Your problem is that you're always brushing imaginary germs off your suit. Now look, Groucho, just relax your mind and think of nothing.
Groucho Marx (recorded): How can I do that?
Dinah Shore (recorded): Well, try it this way. Think of a round circle.
Recording: Circle. But there's nothing inside of it. That's it. Then your mind's a blank? A complete blank?
Harry von Zell (recorded): It's a big improvement, too.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Von Zell, if my mind weren't a blank, I'd tell you where to get off. If I was running a bus.
Dinah Shore (recorded): Oh, boys, please, come on now, don't interrupt the experiment. Groucho, are you thinking of a circle?
Recording: Yes. Now think of an X. I've got it. Now a circle. Go ahead. Now an X. Right. Now a circle. Hold it. What happened?
Groucho Marx (recorded): I just beat myself a tic-tac-toe.
Dinah Shore (recorded): That's not what I mean at all, Groucho. Now please stop, stop brushing those imaginary germs off your suit, stop it.
Groucho Marx (recorded): I can't help it, I can't help it.
Recording: Mr. Bacteria! Thank you very much.
Harry von Zell (recorded): Hush, almighty, he's really got it bad, hasn't he, Dinah?
Dinah Shore (recorded): Oh, I should say, maybe I ought to try to analyze his dreams, Harry.
Recording: Dreams, dreams, that's right, every dream has a hidden meaning, doesn't it? Yeah.
Dinah Shore (recorded): Groucho, have you had any beautiful dreams lately?
Groucho Marx (recorded): Yes, once I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls.
Recording: Oh, I wonder what that means.
Groucho Marx (recorded): I fell asleep in the bathtub.
Harry von Zell (recorded): Well, you take him, Dinah.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Well, wait till I get out of the tub.
Dinah Shore (recorded): Groucho, you know you should never fall asleep while you're taking a bath.
Groucho Marx (recorded): I wasn't taking a bath, I was just lying there thinking about it.
Groucho Marx (recorded): It's my wedding and they were giving me a shower.
Dinah Shore (recorded): Let's go into this just a little more deeply, can we?
Groucho Marx (recorded): Well, we'd like to turn off the water.
Dinah Shore (recorded): Do you have any dreams that occur frequently?
Groucho Marx (recorded): Yes, every night in my dreams I come to a door with a big sign on it. Then I push it and push it with all my might, but it won't open.
Recording: Well, what does the sign say?
Groucho Marx (recorded): It says pull.
Dinah Shore (recorded): Now I see the cause of your frustration, I see it all. You're trying to get back into your past, but you can't open the door to it. Now do as I say, Groucho, let's go back to your childhood.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Okay, I'll bank the eight ball in the side pocket.
Dinah Shore (recorded): I'm talking about another part of your childhood.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Okay, shoot the twenty dollars, I'll take ten of it.
Recording: Wait, no. You see, Dinah, it's no good. It's ten open here, ten open. Oh, stop it.
Harry von Zell (recorded): Don't you understand, Dinah, his mind is all cluttered up with the wrong things.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Just a second, my well-rounded, eager freezer. How did you spend your childhood?
Harry von Zell (recorded): Me? I lived in a little romantic town, Rachel.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Really?
Harry von Zell (recorded): Yes, on cold winter nights when the moon was shining, the girls and boys would go down to the pond and we'd ice skate.
Groucho Marx (recorded): So far, nobody's made a buck.
Harry von Zell (recorded): You could make fun if you wanted, but it was really wonderful. After a while, we'd go off in couples to the side of the lake and see who could freeze their spinach first. As a matter of fact, the winner was entitled to be called Birdseye for the rest of the week.
Dinah Shore (recorded): Now, you see? You see, Groucho, that's exactly what I mean. Can you think of any outstanding incident in your youth?
Groucho Marx (recorded): Yes, it happened one night while I was taking a walk with my sweetheart and her boyfriend. At that time, we lived in a tough neighborhood, top of the hill. Nobody ever dared go near it until that fateful night.
Recording: Hey, fellas, come on, let's take a walk over to the haunted house, hey? Oh, boy, that's a swell idea. Hey, maybe we can find a couple of ghosts, huh? Wow! Boy, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could get me mother a sheet for her bed, huh? What do you say, huh, Marx, huh, Marx, huh?
Groucho Marx (recorded): Personally, I'd rather get out of the drugstore and have a Coke.
Recording: What is that? You can't get killed that way.
Groucho Marx (recorded): I can choke on a straw, can't I?
Recording: Just listen to the wind whistle through that old haunted house.
Groucho Marx (recorded): There must be a sailor on the roof.
Recording: Don't be silly. What would a sailor be doing up there?
Groucho Marx (recorded): Why not? It's a tar roof. Some of those guys got shingles. I ain't going in that haunted house.
Recording: Now wait a minute, Marx. You know we don't like sissies. Either you come on up with us or you'll get what you're looking for.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Since this was no place to get what I was looking for, we continued on our way up the hill. Then in the eerie blackness of the night I saw a white owl. Naturally I picked it up and smoked it. It was the first time I'd ever smoked a cigar. And after two puffs I realized I was a man, a sick man. Suddenly there was a bolt of lightning.
Recording: Hey, hey Marx, where are you?
Groucho Marx (recorded): I'm over here, behind this tree.
Recording: Hey, what are you running away for? If lightning's gonna hit you, it's gonna hit you!
Groucho Marx (recorded): Well, if it's gonna hit me, at least let it look for me.
Recording: Wait a minute, you can't kid me, Marx. You're scared to death.
Groucho Marx (recorded): I am not. I always wear my hair straight up.
Recording: Hey, listen to that dog growling. Yeah. Look, Marx, you go up there and take care of him.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Take care of him? I've got three uncles now I'm taking care of.
Recording: Now, don't worry about the dog growling. It just means he's smiling.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Yeah, the last time somebody told me that, a dog smiled right through the seat of my pants.
Recording: Hey, now, just a minute, Groucho. I thought you said you'd face death for me.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Yeah, but that dog isn't dead.
Recording: Listen to me, Marx. You know what I think of cowards. If you don't come along, I'll knock your ears off.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Since I didn't want my hat to fall down over my eyes, I continued with them.
Groucho Marx (recorded): As we came to the door of the house, we sensed an odor of Limburger cheese. It had always been part of our neighborhood, but never as strong as this.
Recording: Stand back, everybody. I'm gonna open that door. Look at them big boxes in there, one on top of another. I'll go in and open one of them, I'll prove to you that I'm not a coward. My hero, what a man. My friend, what a guy. My goodness, what a smell.
Groucho Marx (recorded): I was almost overpowered as I entered the old house. There was cheese to the left of me, cheese to the right of me. And there I stood, smell-bound.
Recording: What happened after that? There must be one more thing.
Groucho Marx (recorded): Finally, when I got outside, I found out that my loyal friends were halfway back to town.
Dinah Shore (recorded): What did you do?
Groucho Marx (recorded): I ran after them so fast that I became overheated and caught a bad cold.
Dinah Shore (recorded): Now that's it. That's the answer. The memory of that cold is so unpleasant that it gave you a germ complex.
Groucho Marx (recorded): That's wonderful, Dinah. I'm so glad you cleared it up for me. I feel like a new man. It's great to be rid of those awful germs.
Dinah Shore (recorded): And Harry, Harry, what are you doing?
Harry von Zell (recorded): Brushing these germs off my suit.
Recording: Dinah, look, now Harry's got it. Well, tell him to brush them on me.
Germs and Groucho, from a CD called Gratuitously Groucho, Rare Audio Artifacts of That Man Marx, Groucho wasn't his real name, of course, his real name was Julius Henry Marx, J.H. Marx, hey, we have something in common, Groucho and I, our first initial, J.H. Marx, J.P. Schickele, now Peter is my real name, but it isn't my first name, it's my middle name, that's really true, I've always been called Peter, but uh... Hello?
That's for me to know and you to find out. Listen everybody, as far as you're concerned, my name is Peter Schickele, and that of the show is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
Yuck! That's the name of today's show. It's not what the show is about, it's what many people's reaction to what the show's about might be. So far, we've heard about flies, lice, locusts, mites, cockroaches, boll weevils, and germs. For the rest of the show, we'll be dealing with a very special animal, the spider. As they do with snakes, a lot of people have a love-hate relationship with spiders. Spiders are cool.
Hardly anybody would call cockroaches cool, but spiders are cool. It's not just the amazing web thing. It's also the color. I know, all spiders aren't black. But we tend to think of spiders as being black. And black is a cool color. Johnny Cash doesn't wear cockroach brown. For many years, in our place in the country, my wife and I slept on a mattress on the floor in the attic. And every once in a while, she'd get bitten, apparently by a spider.
They didn't seem to like me, but they got to her. But in the other sense, they didn't get to her. She's not a spider-squisher.
If I'm cleaning, which I do every five years, whether the place needs it or not, I never disturb a working spiderweb. If it's got dust on it, then it's fair game for the broom. But otherwise, well, it would be like taking flies out of their mouths. They spend a lot of time and energy setting up those websites. What, am I going to be some kind of hacker who goes in there and messes things up? They're frightening but fascinating. I think both of those characteristics are reflected in our first batch of spiderwebs.
There are three numbers and they last about five and a half minutes. I call this suite the Eight Arms to Hold You Suite.
[music: They Might Be Giants, "Spider" (Apollo 18); They Might Be Giants]
[music: Flanders/Swann, "The Spider" (The Bestiary of Flanders & Swann); Flanders & Swann]
[music: The Who, "Boris the Spider" (Happy Jack); The Who]
Eight Arms to Hold You Suite began with Spider by They Might Be Giants. What is that little thing? A song? A little play? A ceremony? Whatever it is, it's a gem. Then Flanders and Swann sang The Spider from their Bestiary album. And finally, to my mind, the definitive Spider song, in spite of John Entwistle's less-than-charitable attitude towards the subject of the song, Boris the Spider from Happy Jack, which was, It was, I believe, The Who's first album.
Okay, as I said before, spiders, to most people, are attractive and repulsive at the same time. And that's reflected in the music inspired by spiders. If you hear a song about a broken-hearted lover or somebody dying, the chances are the music is going to be sad. If you hear Leonard Cohen singing Famous Blue Raincoat, or anything else for that matter, it is sad.
But these Spider songs have a gleefully sinister quality that belies the fear that we feel. Now that's not right. The gleefully sinister quality is there because of the fear we feel. But it's like recognizing that the devil is attractive.
If you're making a James Bond movie or one of those movies like the ones in the Die Hard series, the key thing is to have a good villain. If you don't have a good villain, forget it. And I wonder if having the music be really cool in a spider song isn't a way of actually dealing with our fear of spiders. Sort of like a voodoo thing, as if giving them attractive qualities and identifying with them is maybe a way of controlling them.
I don't know, do you think that's far-fetched? Yes!
Well, you don't have to shout! Whatever. Anyway, you don't want to underestimate the fear of spiders that some people have. Our last suite, or rather suitelet, is about nightmares.
The first of the two pieces is highly self-explanatory, but I'd like to quote a comment by the composer of the second one. He says the music was inspired in part by my daughter, Selena. When she was very young, she had a series of nightmares she called her spider dreams. She would come upstairs into our bedroom in the middle of the night, tell me these terrifying visions she had, then curl up at the foot of our bed and go to sleep while I stayed awake worrying about her.
During that time, I was experimenting with modifying one of the double shuffles used in bluegrass classics like Beaumont Rag and Orange Blossom Special. The result had a menacing quality, which reminded me of the alien terror so vivid in a child's dreams. I call this suitelet, Arachnids in the Night, and it lasts about six and a half minutes. I'll be back.
[music: "The Spider & the Fly" (Only in America); The Wicked]
[music excerpt: Balakrishnan, "Spider Dreams"; Turtle Island String Quartet, Detroit Symphony Orchestra/Järvi]
Arachnids in the night. First we heard The Spider and the Fly by a group called The Wicked. It's on a truly weird compilation CD called Only in America, released on the ARF ARF label. By the way, I don't want to give you the wrong impression about the ARF ARF label. The back cover art makes it very clear that each of those ARFs is uttered by a different dog.
You know, it's not just like one dog repeating himself. The second piece in the suitelet was an excerpt from Spider Dreams by David Balakrishnan, performed by the Turtle Island String Quartet and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Neeme Järvi.
[sound: phone rings]
Oh, brother. Hello?
Look, I told you before, that's for me to know and you to find out. I'll only tell you J. Peter Schickele. You have to figure out the J for yourself. Listen, there are reference works. It's not like it's any state secret or anything. It's, well, I like to have a little mystery surrounding me. I don't tell anybody my shoe size either.
Okay, okay, I'll give you a hint about my first name. Luke Skywalker's buddy is walking through Harlem and somebody calls out to him. Yeah, that's it. Bye. Sorry about that, folks. I mean, who cares, right? I don't know your name. Why should you know mine? Okay, back to spiders. One of the most interesting bits of musical arachnidiana is the tarantella.
I've always thought the dance originated as a cure for spider bites, but apparently that's not necessarily true. Now, I'm just Peter Schickele, a humble composer. I'm not a musicologist. So I've invited Johann Schickele, who is a musicologist, on the show today to tell us about the background of the Tarantella. Thanks for coming by, Johann. It's my pleasure, Peter. The Tarantella is a folk dance of southern Italy also used in art music.
It derives its name from Taranto, the ancient Tarantum in Apulia. The Tarantula also derived its name from the town of Taranto, A coincidence that may have given rise to the popular but repeatedly discredited legend that the dance was a cure for the mildly toxic bite of the spider.
A disease known as tarantism, prevalent in southern Italy from the 15th century to the 17th, seems to have been more a form of hysteria than a consequence of the bite.
That's it? Yes, that's the pertinent information.
You just, all you did was read that out of Grove's Dictionary. That's right. But I thought you were a musicologist. I am a musicologist. Being a musicologist means knowing where to look things up. But I have a Grove. I could have looked, I could have read that myself. Well, why didn't you? Well, I thought you'd go into it more deeply than, look, let me remind you that I didn't have to traipse down here and sit here for almost an hour without being asked a thing.
You know, I could have given you a lot of background on the composer of Israel in Egypt. Grove must have 60, 70 pages on Handel. Look, okay, let's forget about it, okay? We're running out of time here. Thanks for dropping by. Okay, well, maybe next time you could give me a little bit more to sink my teeth into. Okay, I'll remember that. So anyway, folks, whatever the truth is of the legend about the Tarantella curing spider bites. As a concert piece, it's a wild and crazy dance in 6-8 time. We're going to go out with a real virtuoso tarantella by Franz Liszt from his Années de pèlerinage, Years of Pilgrimage. We'll hear as much as we can of this. The pianist is Lazar Berman.
[music excerpt: Liszt, Années de pèlerinage, Tarantella; Lazar Berman]
That's Schickele 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. Thank you members. And not only that, our program is distributed by PRI, Public Radio International. We'll tell you in a moment how you can get an official playlist of all the music on today's program with album numbers and everything.
Just refer to the program number. This is program number 153. 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.
[music excerpt: Liszt, Années de pèlerinage, Tarantella; Lazar Berman]