Oh man, I'd really rather not be disturbed, but 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. But you knew that. Our bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by this radio station, within whose walls I usually do the show and whence the show is distributed by PRI, Public Radio International.
The reason I say usually is that we're doing a Schickele Mix first this time. I'm doing the whole show on location, as you can probably tell. We've gone on location before for specific things, like the time I went to England to get just the right choral group to sing a brief musical excerpt. But this is the first time the whole program has been done on location. And what a location!
I'm here in the Wigglesworth Gardens, about ten miles out of town. I don't know if you know about this place, but if you don't, you should. It is so beautiful and so peaceful here.
The Wigglesworths were a wealthy English family that used to raise thoroughbred horses here, but at one point their youngest daughter got into some kind of trouble. Romantic-type trouble, I think it was. Maybe she was the inspiration for the old vaudeville joke, she was only a jockey's daughter but all the horse manure.
Well, anyway, the Wigglesworths decided to give this place up and move back to England, but they donated these beautiful gardens to the city to use as a park. I read about a study recently which proved what most of us would have guessed anyway, namely that it's a worldwide phenomenon. The bigger the city, the faster the pace. And if you find yourself running in the rat race with no finish line in sight, a place like this could be a real escape, a real time out, or if there's a botanical garden in your city it can be a real oasis. My parents lived in Rome for 11 years and the Protestant cemetery in Rome was such an oasis. It was quite extensive and had lots of trees so that even in the summer it was cool and quiet.
Those of us who live in the country or who are lucky enough to have country places can enjoy this special kind of solitude often. It's not total solitude. It's not like meditating in an unfurnished, well sound-insulated room. I suppose in those surroundings you can really get into yourself and beyond, unless you end up climbing the walls.
But it seems to me that being in the country on a beautiful summer day is the wild equivalent of sitting in a sidewalk café in the city. In the cafe, you're solitary but surrounded by traffic and endlessly interesting people. Whereas in the country, you're solitary but also surrounded by intense activity. Some of it due to birds and breezes, but most of it due to the activities of insects.
And that's why we're doing today's show here. It's one of our insect shows. On others, we've dealt with insects, and I use the term loosely, that people tend to have some negative feelings about living with. Fleas, cockroaches, lice. But today we're going to hear from good old garden variety insects. Or, as a studio musician might call them, your standard B-flat bugs. Such as butterflies.
Our Butterfly Suite has three numbers and they all have butterfly in the title but I'd like to say something about the last two. The second number in the suite is the only musical work that I happen to know of which endeavors to depict the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
And the last number, just in case there's anyone out there who has the program music equivalent of perfect pitch, the last number has not only butterflies but also hummingbirds in the title. Just wanted to make sure you don't get confused. Although, fortunately, I don't have a phone out here in the garden, so even if I hadn't announced that, you wouldn't be able to call me up and say, Hey, how about a little truth in labeling here? That place about 27 seconds into the piece, that's no butterfly, that's a hummingbird, or my name isn't J.J. Audubon.
Just take it easy. Relax. I'll be back in about six and a half minutes.
[music excerpt: Schumann, “Carnaval,” Opus 9, “Papillons”; Anton Kuerti]
[music excerpt: Schickele, “Bestiary,” “The Butterfly” (Bestiary/Quartet); Calliope/Peter Schickele, narrator]
Peter Schickele (recorded): The Caterpillar. The caterpillar knoweth not that he a fleet-winged butterfly will someday be, nor doth the bounding butterfly recall his lowly childhood when he could but crawl.
Peter Schickele (recorded): By what strange alchemy do nature's sighs turn caterpillars into butterflies?
[music excerpt: Bolcom, Twelve New Etudes, “Butterflies, hummingbirds”; Marc-André Hamelin]
Our butterfly suite began with the Papillons movement of Schumann's Carnaval, played by Anton Kuerti. Then we heard the butterfly movement from Bestiary, played by Calliope and composed, as I expect you guessed, by the narrator, whose name, by a remarkable coincidence, is Peter Schickele.
Now it's too bad you couldn't see that piece being performed. At the end of each section, each of the three wind players passes his instrument to his right and receives another from his left, So that the gradual change from the large earthbound sackbuts or trombones through the mid-range crumhorns to the small airborne recorders is perceived through the eyes as well as through the ears.
Then that delicious last piece was number 5 of the 12 New Etudes for piano by William Bolcom, performed by Marc-André Hamelin, or Hamlin, I'm not sure which it is, but he sure can play, that much I know.
By the way, I suppose, talking about truth in labeling, that I really ought to mention that the narration texts and the occasional sung lyrics in my work, Bestiary, come from various medieval and Renaissance sources, 12th to 17th century writers.
But I do have a bit of a confession to make. Now, this is just between you and me, okay? Please don't tell anybody. As a matter of fact, if you're not alone, turn the radio down so that the people around you won't hear. Now, I'm not saying that I spent years combing every library I could get to or anything like that, but I did look through a lot of poetry collections and I just could not find any old poems in English about caterpillars turning into butterflies.
I would have thought that that transformation would have been used as a metaphor all over the place. But no, at least not in the poems I looked at. Now, all the other pieces in Bestiary have verbal setups. I didn't want the members of the audience to have to follow their printed programs. So what I did was, well, I wrote the poem myself.
The author is listed as anonymous, but enough said. Our little secret, okay? If anyone asks you, as will almost certainly happen, who wrote the butterfly section of that beautiful piece, Bestiary, just say, ah yes, the music is by Peter Schickele, host of Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
In very dramatic landscapes like the Grand Canyon or the coast of Maine, high noon is often not the best time for sightseeing because there are no shadows to speak of. Early in the morning or late in the afternoon you can see the contours of the land much better. But at our little place in upstate New York, noon on a peerless summer day can be absolutely magical. Most of the birds are resting. There's usually little or no wind.
Sometimes it feels supernaturally still. I don't think I'm ever as serenely relaxed as I am at those times. It's as if everybody and everything is chilling out. Except the insects. No rest for the many-legged.
Today's show is called Your Standard B-flat Bugs, and I'm broadcasting from the lovely Wigglesworth Gardens outside of town, which are open a very generous number of hours each day, and which have graciously allowed me to set up my equipment here, so that we can be close to the subject of our program. Okay, now I just said no rest for the many-legged, but strictly speaking, that's not true.
Now that they've developed such sophisticated ways of tracking even the smallest animals, it turns out that if you actually follow one ant throughout the day, he has periods of rest, just like other animals. The reason that an ant hill looks like Grand Central Station at rush hour is that there are so many ants, and, since they're not members of the same race as ours, they all look alike.
Our ant suite has three numbers. The first is a reflection on an individual ant's position in ant society, and by extension that of each of us in ours. The second is an instrumental piece called Entrance of the Ants. It's part of a ballet score. And the third is a song that's in English, but it goes by so fast that I'd better give you the title. It's called Aunt Sue's Ant Soup. I'll see you in about ten and a half minutes.
[music: Telson/Breuer, "An Ant Alone" (An Ant Alone); Bob Telson & Little Village]
[music excerpt: Roussel, “The Spider’s Banquet,” Entrée des fourmis; Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire/Cluytens]
[music: Dunkirk/The Blenders, "Aunt Sue’s Ant Soup" (“From the Mouth” Primarily A Cappella); The Blenders]
The Blenders (recorded): Is that it? No.
[No speech for 37 s.]
The Blenders (recorded): Hey, Aunt Sue, where's your little dog, Ginger? Oh, the little fella had spice to every meal.
Is that it? I guess so. The Ant Suite began with an ant alone. One of the songs from a theatrical production called The Warrior Ant, words by Lee Breuer, music by Bob Telson, who leads the instrumental group Little Village. The lead vocalist was Sam Butler. Then came the entrance of the ants from The Spider's Banquet, Symphonic Fragments, by Albert Roussel.
That was André Cluytens conducting the, uh-oh, this is one of those mile-long orchestra names, Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire de la Crème de la Crème de la Plume de Menton du Pain de Pagetout de Facto de Moyne. Really makes you appreciate that rock group called The Band, doesn't it? Anyway, last was Aunt Sue's Ant Soup by The Blenders, which of course I really had to put last in the suite because it has that incredible ending to end all endings.
Well, I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again. It's hard to think of any area of human endeavor or interest that hasn't been treated musically. Who would have thought that I would be able, and quite easily at that, to put together our next suite? I'm not even going to tell you what it's about.
It's got three numbers, and... What? What is that? Oh, man! The caretaker here at Wigglesworth Gardens has moved the sprinkler. Oh, brother. I'd better put my jacket over the CD player in the remote mixer here, and I should go over and see if I can... Oh, no! Here it comes again!
Tell you what. I'm gonna start the suite, and while you're listening to it, I'll see about getting the sprinkler moved back. I'm sure that won't take more than eight and a half minutes. Here, let me reach under my jacket and find the mic volume. Uh, okay. Okay, folks, here's one of our more unusual suites.
[music: Burello, "There’s A New Sound" (Only In America); Tony Burello]
[music: Loesser, "The Inch Worm" (Frank Sings Loesser); Frank & Lynn Loesser]
[music: Robinson/Lincke arr. Jones, "The Glow Worm" (The Spike Jones Anthology); Spike Jones]
The sprinkler's been moved over by the topiary section and the equipment seems to be functioning perfectly well, so let me tell you about the worm suite.
First, and certainly strangest, was Tony Burello with There's a New Sound. That's off a certifiably weird compilation CD called Only in America on the ARF ARF label. Exclamation point after each of those ARFs. Then we heard Frank Loesser and his first wife Lynn Loesser singing The Inch Worm, which he wrote for the movie Hans Christian Andersen. I guess this was like some kind of a demo, but I love Loesser's songs, and I love the way he sings them. He's obviously not a trained singer, identify, identify, but he puts the songs across in such a simple but engaging manner. Some nice bassoon licks in that arrangement, too.
And finally, the suite ended with Spike Jones' version of The Glow Worm, with Aileen Carlisle, Red Ingle, and the City Slickers. Some good jug-tone notes on the trombone there. I guess that was a Mills Brothers song originally, but I couldn't lay my hands on a recording of them doing it. I think maybe the serious version would have been more appropriate to our bucolic setting here.
I'm telling you, you sit in a beautiful garden like this, you almost forget who you are. But not quite. I can remember something about Peter Schickele and Schickele Mix and PRI, Public Radio International.
We're coming to you today from the Wigglesworth Gardens outside the city. I've been thinking about the notorious piece by John Cage called Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds. Basically, it consists of the performer coming out on stage, sitting or standing there for four minutes and thirty-three seconds without making a sound, and then leaving the stage it was premiered by the pianist David Tudor but it can be played by any instrument now of course it's very easy to make fun of that piece there's no music in it and yet it's published it's licensed by ASCAP and you have to pay for it I was at a percussion concert once and one of the musicians said we're going to play John Cage's four minutes and 33 seconds simultaneously with the next work on the program Or somebody says, he did Cage's four minutes and thirty-three seconds, and I thought he really played it well, except for the last part.
But I've talked to a couple of people who are mainstream type musicians who say they've heard it performed and found it fascinating. Because what Cage believed was that all sounds are interesting. And what that piece does is to set up the kind of concentration we give to music at a live concert and then focus that concentration on the ambient sound in the hall.
When I went to Swarthmore College, they had a convocation every week at which attendance was compulsory, and it began with a minute of silence, a vestige of the college's Quaker background. I always found it moving to be one of a thousand silent people in one room. You were very aware of the ambient sounds around you, and it wasn't the same as if you were in there by yourself.
Even if everybody else were completely silent, their presence would cause an emotional hum in the room. I mention the Cage piece today because I recently found out that it was premiered at the Maverick in Woodstock, New York, which is sort of like a miniature homemade Tanglewood. It's a shed with a couple of hundred seats in it, and the whole back wall is open to the outside where there are more seats.
It's outside a town in a forest, so what the audience at that premiere was hearing was probably very much like what we're hearing right now in these gardens. How long has it been since you've sat someplace with a beautiful view and concentrated not on what you see, but what you hear? Today's lesson is, listen for the insects.
I'm sitting in the sort of central plaza of the formal gardens here, and in the last 45 minutes or so I've seen a ladybug, a cricket, a beetle, and several dragonflies. The dragonflies got so close I could hear them. And by an astonishingly delightful coincidence, our last suite deals with just those denizens of the garden. We've got three foreign languages coming up here, so I'll read the texts.
The first is: Ladybird, ladybird, sit on my hand. I won't do you any harm. Nothing shall harm you. I just want to see your pretty wings. Your pretty wings are my delight. Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home. Your house is on fire, your children are crying in alarm, in great alarm. The wicked spider's spinning his web. Ladybird, ladybird, fly inside, for your children in alarm to cry. Ladybird, ladybird, fly away to the neighbor's children. They won't do you any harm.
Nothing shall harm you. They want to see your pretty wings. Give them both my love. And the second one goes like this: The cricket is a good singer who holds a long note. Go ahead, drink and sing, cricket. But he is not like the other birds who sing a little and then go elsewhere. The cricket always stands firm. When it is hottest, he sings alone for love.
In that number you'll hear not only rhythms imitating the crickets, but also rapid alternation between different parts, imitating the virtuoso antiphonal technique of crickets. Then the third piece is called The Beetle. Nanny, dear Nanny, think how awful, let me tell you. On the grass I sat while playing by the arbor near the beaches, busy building such a pretty house of maple with the pieces Mummy dear herself has cut me.
Finished was my little cottage, with a roof on, like a proper cottage.
Then there came a beetle and sat on my roof, a big black one, thick and fat, oh so fat, his beard started wagging up and down, his wicked eyes fixed upon me, I was terrified, and then he buzzed loudly, spread his wings wide open, and flew towards me quickly, and with a bound he hit me on my temple, so I bent down, oh nanny dear, sat still and hardly dared to breathe, one little peep I gave out of my eyes, and fancy, what do you think, nanny, on his back there lay the beetle held both feet together folded no longer angry and his beard had ceased to waggle no buzz left in him just his wings could move a bit was he dead then or only foxing what was he up to oh tell me nanny what's your opinion a blow he gave me perhaps his last one what was he up to, that beetle? And finally, the fourth and last piece, Dragonflies, is instrumental.
Today's show is called Your Standard B-flat Bugs, and our last suite deals with four of them, ladybug, cricket, beetle, dragonfly, that I've seen right here in the central plaza of the gardens. So, we've had a butterfly suite, an ant suite, and a worm suite. Let's call this one Plaza Suite. I'll see you in eight and a half minutes.
[music excerpt: Schumann, Ausgewählte aus dem Liederalbum für die Jugend, Opus 79, “Marienwürmchen”; Margaret Price/Thomas Dewey]
[music: Josquin, "El Grillo"; The Hilliard Ensemble]
[music: Mussorgsky, "The Beetle"; Aage Haugland/Poul Rosenbaum]
[music: Chaminade, "Dragon Flies"; Enid Katahn]
The composers in the plaza suite were Schumann, Josquin, Mussorgsky, and Chaminade.
Schumann's Marienwürmchen, which means Lady Bird, is from the songbook for children, Op. 79, and it was sung by Margaret Price, accompanied by Thomas Dewey. Not the same Thomas Dewey, I assume, who famously didn't beat Harry Truman in the 1948 presidential election. Next, El Grillo, or The Cricket, was performed by the Hilliard Ensemble on a CD of motets and songs by Josquin des Prez.
Mussorgsky's The Beetle was sung by Aage Haugland with Poul Rosenbaum at the piano, and Cécile Chaminade's Dragonflies was performed by the pianist Enid Katahn. Listen for the insects. These gardens are a great place to do it. Just to emphasize the cyclical nature of life, let's go out with the same insect we came in with. In general, that's a good policy, whether it's a lady or a bug.
The Dance of the Butterfly is another section of Roussel's ballet score, The Spider's Banquet. In fact, it's the section immediately following The Entrance of the Ants, which we heard earlier. The conductor is André Cluytens, and the orchestra, I'll give you just the facts this time, is the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Enjoy, and get out there and listen to the insects while you can. Remember, to a mountain our lives are no longer than a mayfly's is to us.
[music excerpt: Roussel, “The Spider’s Banquet,” Danse du papillon & Eclosion de l’éphémère; Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire/Cluytens]
And 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 and this is program number 154. 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.
[No speech for 89 s.]
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Schickele Mix. That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Schickele Mix. Care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.