Announcer: Peter, are you in the studio? What are you doing, Peter?
Well, actually, uh, okay, here's the theme.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
Dr. Cronkite? Oh, I was calling for Dr. Cronkite. No, no, no, I'm a regular patient of his, but, uh, listen, I have to get off the phone, because I'm doing a radio program right now. Uh, I didn't realize it would take so long to get through.
Okay, the name's Peter Schickele. Oh, well, it's Schickele Mix, and it's 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. Well, it's on right now. Yeah, okay, look, I hope you enjoy it, but would you please have Dr. Cronkite call me as soon as possible? It's a rather serious medical matter. He has the number. Okay, thanks. Sorry about that, folks.
Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that our bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by this hale and hearty radio station from which what I bring forth here wends its way to the rest of the world thanks to PRI, Public Radio International. And the bad news is that I'm suffering from a rather severe medical problem. I won't bore you with the details, but my doctor may be calling back before the hour is out.
In fact, I hope he does. And so I'll just apologize now in advance in case he happens to call while the microphone's on. As a rule, I don't like to mix my private life with the radio program. Or as my friend, the geologist David Love would put it, I don't like to have my private life and the radio program become intertwingled. But in this case, I really need to talk to my doctor as soon as possible.
And you know what's ironic about this is that today's show is called Under The Weather. We're gonna be talking about illness the whole time so it's gonna be hard for me to keep my mind off... well anyway there's nothing more boring than someone who keeps talking about his health problems is there? Although, actually, when you're in pain, it's hard to concentrate on anything else, you know.
And after you get past the age of 60, health problems become a bigger and bigger part of your life, and the only...
[sound: phone rings]
Oh, good, there he is. Excuse me. Hello, Dr. Cronkite? Oh, hello, sir. Okay, I'll... No, no, you're right. You're right. It is boring. I'll get on to the music. Right, thank you, sir. Well, the station manager seems to think that I've already gotten a little tedious on the subject of my own health. And it's true. I, I know a guy who, every time you see him and say how are you, you know, he starts telling you about his latest health problems.
It is pretty tiresome, but the thing is, you know, he's in his, what, mid-thirties. We're clearly talking about a hypochondriac here, or at least a guy who doesn't have anything else in his life to talk about. When you get to be older than 60, which I am, health problems are very real. They affect all the most basic pleasures. Eating, sleeping, making love...
[sound: phone rings; irrelevancy alarm]
Oh, brother. Oh, man. Hello? Yes, sir, I will. Well, no, I wouldn't worry about that. The whole show is about sickness, but some of it is quite light-hearted, and I don't think the ratings will take the nosedive they did during the death show. No, no, and you were right about that, sir. I have completely discarded the idea of doing a program about music associated with medical insurance. Okay, I will.
Well, that may be the first time the phone and the irrelevancy alarm have ever sounded at the same time. I guess I get the message. Of course, sickness can range from the very organic to the highly metaphoric. When a lover says... Here, let me find the CD booklet. When a lover says, if the pain that precedes death is equal to mine, every mortal would regret having been born and suffer.
But I do not believe that death, when it strikes and cuts through life's thread, causes pain that equals that in my breast. His agony may be very real, but going to the doctor won't help, especially back then when this was written, which was long before Prozac. That happens to be the text of the piece you are about to hear. Our first suite has three numbers and lasts about eight minutes. I call this the lovesick, homesick, seasick song cycle.
[music: Marenzio, “Se quel dolor,” Prima parte; Ensemble Clement Janequin/Dominque Visse]
[music excerpt: Gilbert/Sullivan, “H. M. S. Pinafore,” “My gallant crew, good morning”; D'Oyly Carte Opera Company]
The Lovesick, Homesick, Seasick Song Cycle. We began with the first half of Se quel dolor by Marenzio. The Ensemble Clément Janequin sang that almost sinfully sensuous late 16th century piece in which the composer expresses the lover's agony through the use of unsettlingly chromatic harmony. Chromatic means, well, the more technical term would be creepy-crawly harmony.
Then the Everly Brothers sang Kentucky with an air of quiet melancholy. It couldn't be more different from the Marenzio, simple melody, plain harmonies, but it's just as appropriate to the sentiment of the words as the earlier music is. The feeling of sitting alone after supper, wishing you were back where you came from, that sort of bittersweet half-trance is captured just as precisely as is the tortured lovesickness of Marenzio's protagonist.
It's interesting that both songs allude to death. The third number was from Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore, Jeffrey Skitch as Captain Corcoran with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company Chorus and the New Symphony Orchestra of London under Isidore Godfrey OBE. The OBE means that he's also a member of the Oxford Baton Ensemble, the world's only all-conductor orchestra, and it's certainly the quietest orchestra in the world.
If you don't sit in one of the first few rows at their concerts, you can't even hear the swishing-through-the-air sound, you know. Anyway, that's a sprightly little number. Of course, it's not about seasickness, it just mentions seasickness. Although, you know, it might have sounded just as cheery even if it were about seasickness because of another affliction, that peculiarly British facial dysfunction known in medical circles as the stiff upper lip.
And, you know, in the long run, the stiff upper lip may be more debilitating than the stiff lower back. I must say, I've been pretty lucky with my back. My problems are more with my insides than my extremities. I've started to have some arthritis. No, no, no, no, I am not going to do this. Go ahead, beat me, flog me, nod your head sympathetically. You won't get anything out of me but my name, which is Peter Schickele, and that of the program, which is Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International.
Station announcer: It's been said that poetry is good for the soul. Turns out, it can also help New York Public Radio.
Join us for Billy Collins Live, a benefit for WNYC. The former U.S. Poet Laureate writes poems that are smart, surprising, funny, and questioning. All the things you love about WNYC. Don't miss this special event, Wednesday, April 20th at Symphony Space. Tickets at 212-864-5400 or symphonyspace.org.
Station announcer: You're listening to Schickele Mix on 93.9 WNYC.
Today's show is called Under the Weather, and as a matter of fact, I'm waiting for my doctor to call, but I'm not going to talk about my problems. I know how boring that is. I'll just sit here and suffer in silence. Or at least sit here and suffer. Now, before we visit the terminal illness ward, I'd like to explore sickness as a metaphor a little further. There's often a sexual connotation to metaphorical sickness, as illustrated by the first and last numbers of this next suite.
The first piece is called The Sick Moon, you nocturnally mortally ill moon, there upon the sky's black couch, your look so feverishly distended, spellbinds me like a strange melody. Of unquenchable love-sickness you are dying, of yearning deeply smothered. You, nocturnal, mortally ill moon there upon the sky's black couch.
The lover who in sensual rapture heedlessly steals to his beloved, is made merry by the play of your beams, your pale blood borne in agony. You nocturnal, mortally ill moon.
Strong stuff. The second song is from a culture in which singing is as natural as breathing. The commentator in the liner notes on this one says, This song shows you how we sing in our religion, in our way of life. Whatever you are doing, going to the market, making food, washing clothes, or selling peas, you sing. It's not like singing is only for the times you do a big ceremony and the other days you're off. It's every day, every moment.
The text of the song is, St. James' horse is tied to the post. I'm not asking for anybody to set him loose for me. He may have worms. You might see he has sores on his back. St. James, oh, set him loose for me. Now back to the commentator. This song speaks in metaphors. It's saying that St. James' horse, the person who is a spirit medium for St. James, has a problem. The image of being tied to a post represents the problem.
St. James is saying, I'm not asking anybody to help my medium. Even if you see her in a terrible state, I'm not asking anybody to help because I will help her. The third and last song in the suite is in English, and we're going to hear three very different musical approaches in the three numbers in this suite. The music of the first is feverish, almost drunken, reflecting the hyper-intense imagery of the poem.
The second is straightforward and matter-of-fact, perhaps reflecting the everyday belief in healing magic of its singer. And the third is almost jaunty, yet removed. What is the attitude of the singer towards the man to whom she's singing? She's so cool, it's hard to tell. In any case, the moon, the horse, and the candle song cycle lasts about seven minutes. I'll see you then.
[music excerpt: Schoenberg, “Pierrot lunaire,” Opus 21, “Der kranke Mond”; Jan DeGaetani/Contemporary Chamber Ensemble/Weisberg]
[music: Trad. arr. Forestal, "Chwal Sen Jak Mare Nan Poto" (Ryhthms of Rapture); Micheline Forestal]
[music: Vega, "99.9 F Degrees" (99.9 F Degrees); Suzanne Vega]
The Moon, the Horse, and the Candle. The Sick Moon from Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire was performed by Jan DeGaetani and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble under Arthur Weisberg. Next came a Haitian song called Song for St. James sung by Micheline Forestal. That's off a Smithsonian Folkways album called Rhythms of Rapture, Sacred Musics of Haitian Voodoo.
And then finally, and I do mean finally, as in a very fine song, 99.9 Fahrenheit Degrees by Suzanne Vega. Man, I wish my doctor would call. But he hasn't, so let's move on. Okay, now we get down to the nitty gritty. Our next suite deals with actual mortal illness. No metaphors, no beating about the bush, little hope of recovery.
Once again, three very different musical approaches. The first piece is an excerpt from an opera. We're in the sumptuous home of a courtesan. She's been conversing with various guests at her party. And we will join them at the moment an orchestra starts playing in the adjoining ballroom. The courtesan says, would you like to dance now? Everybody, oh, what a pleasant thought. We all accept. She says, let's go then.
The guests move towards the center door, but she turns suddenly pale. Oh! Everybody says, what's the matter? She says, nothing, nothing. She takes a few steps. Why do you linger? She says, let's go. But then she's obliged to sit down. Oh, heavens. And everybody says, again. And the man says, are you ill? Everybody says, heavens, what's the matter? She says, I'm trembling. She says, you go along. I'll join you in a moment, they say, if you say so. They all go into the other room except the man.
And she looks in the mirror and she says, how pale I am. You here? He says, do you still feel upset? I'm better now. He says, the way you're going on, you'll kill yourself. You should take more care of your health. She says, how can I? He says, oh, if only I had the right, I'd be the most watchful guardian of your dear life. She says, what a thing to say. Who cares what happens to me?
He says, for no one in the world loves you, no one? Except for me. She laughs. That's true, I'd forgotten that grand passion. He says, you laugh, but all the same you have a heart. A heart? Yes, perhaps. Why do you ask? He says, yet if you had, you wouldn't make fun of me. She says, are you really serious? He says, I wouldn't deceive you. Then how long have you loved me? He says, for more than a year.
They do get together, of course, at least for a while, but by the end of the opera she has died at the age of 23 of tuberculosis. In this excerpt, far from endeavoring to express the heroine's sickness, the dance music coming from the other room serves as an ironic and wholly inappropriate backdrop for her distress. Well, not wholly inappropriate. It corresponds to her desire to continue her glittering lifestyle no matter what.
But certainly the gaiety of the music is intended to highlight, by contrast, the frailty of her health and also the tragedy of her impending demise. The second piece in this suite is a suicide note, and the music is as forlorn as are the words. In the third and last number, the music is repetitive, almost trance-like, creating a background that is, it seems to me, sad yet somewhat reassuring.
That is, reassuring without being falsely optimistic. The critical condition suite is about 11 minutes long.
[music: Manus/Belton/Thomas, "Dear Sweet Filthy World" (The Juliet Letters); Elvis Costello/The Brodsky Quartet]
[music: Vandervelde, "Positive Women: Susan"; Minnesota Center for Arts Education Women's Choir/Carolyn Geltzer, narrator]
Carolyn Geltzer (recorded): The summer I first developed symptoms, I began what I called my June Cleaver psychosis.
On good days, inviting a multitude of kids in for sandwiches and cookies.
Tempted to believe that a shirtwaist dress and apron and the preparation of food might ward off the virus, like a cross does a vampire.
At Hanukkah, the following winter, as blood counts dwindled and surgery loomed closer, I invited a family of six, at the last minute, for potato latkes, relishing the anxiety of not being able to grate enough potatoes in time. I magically produced the golden latkes, a good stand-in for the blood platelets I was unable to maintain.
This week, when a friend was sick and dying, and my own fear filled me with helplessness, at seven in the morning I prepared a pot of chicken soup to deliver, believing that it contained the healing rituals passed on by my mother and grandmother, the joy of feeding so genetically a part of me, more potent than any stress management activity.
[No speech for 30 s.]
I have an ongoing fantasy that someday the New England Journal of Medicine will publish an article about Phase III testing, showing promising results, both antiviral and immune-boosting, from warm chocolate chip cookies, fresh out of the oven, chocolate melting on the tongue like holy wafers, outperforming AZT and pentamidine, brimming with non-toxicity and sweetness and joy, and irrefutable clinical evidence that these cookies can immobilize the virus and restore the T-cell counts to normal levels.
[No speech for 30 s.]
The Critical Condition Suite. We began with part of the first scene of Verdi's La Traviata. Ileana Cotrubas was Violetta, and Plácido Domingo was Alfredo. Carlos Kleiber conducted the Bavarian State Orchestra and Opera Choir. We continued with Dear Sweet Filthy World from Elvis Costello's album The Juliet Letters. He was accompanied by the Brodsky Quartet.
And we ended with Positive Women, Susan, from a CD called Heartbeats, New Songs from Minnesota for the AIDS Quilt Songbook. The text was by Susan Gladstone and the music by Janika Vandervelde. Carolyn Geltzer narrated and Janice Hunton conducted violinist Georgia Flizanes and the Minnesota Center for Arts Education Women's Choir.
My name is Peter Schickele and the program is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
You're listening to Schickele Mix on WNYC. We're talking about music associated with sickness, and I'm glad to report that we will now leave the bleakness of that last suite, no matter how touching and how true to life it might have been, and turn to a pair of medical stories with happy endings. We're going to hear two pieces about surgical operations. That's right, you heard me. Surgical operations.
Hey, there is almost nothing that is beyond the scope of Schickele Mix, and I'm certainly not going to let the fact that I don't have a degree in medicine, or the fact that my own doctor won't even return my calls, prevent me from setting myself up as an expert on the music of surgery. The next suite has two pieces. You wouldn't know that the first had anything to do with an operation from the music alone, but I'm including it because I thought you might be interested in the story behind it.
People who know I've written film scores sometimes ask me how it gets decided which scenes will have music and how much discussion there is about the nature of the music, since music is so hard to describe.
The Director and the composer talk about which scenes should have music, but they don't always agree. In 1971, I wrote the music for Silent Running. No, it's not a submarine movie. That's Run Silent Run Deep. This is a rather unusual conservationist sci-fi film, with Bruce Dern and three very charming little robots, named Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
There's a quite touching scene in which Bruce Dern, the only remaining astronaut on the ship, has to operate on Huey, and I thought it should have music, and the director, Douglas Trumbull, didn't. By the way, I should say right here that I am not a composer who thinks that there should always be more music. In fact, I think most American movies have too much music. But I did think that the operation scene was ripe for scoring. Very subdued, not dramatic.
And Trumbull said, OK, I still don't think the scene needs music, but go ahead and write it, and we'll see. After we recorded it and saw it with the picture, he liked how it worked and kept it. I don't mean to be bragging here. I wrote other things that didn't work and were thrown out. But the point is, with movie music, the only thing that matters is how it works with the movie. It can be the greatest piece of music since Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or the Pachelbel Canon, but if it doesn't feel right with the picture, out it goes.
Conversely, some thin, sparse thing that would bore you out of your mind in the concert hall might make a scene in a film have just the right temperature. So anyway, that's the first piece in the suitelet. The second piece is self-explanatory. In fact, it's one of the most self-explanatory pieces of adult program music that I've ever heard. It might be worth mentioning, however, that the work was written in the first half of the 18th century, long before the development of anesthesia.
We'll switch to a military mode for this title and call the suitelet Operation Operation. The second one's in quotation marks, right? I'll see you in eight and a half minutes.
[music excerpt: Schickele, the score for “Silent Running,” “Tending to Huey” (Original Soundtrack “Silent Running”); Orchestra Conducted by Peter Schickele]
[music: Marais, "Le Tableau de l’Operation de la Taille"; Music Primavera/Russell Borud, narrator]
Russell Borud (recorded): The apparatus.
Russell Borud (recorded): Trembling at the sight.
Russell Borud (recorded): The resolution to climb up.
Russell Borud (recorded): On the table.
Russell Borud (recorded): The apparatus descends.
Russell Borud (recorded): Reflections of a serious nature.
Russell Borud (recorded): Tying down the arms and legs.
Russell Borud (recorded): The incision is made.
Russell Borud (recorded): The forceps are inserted.
Russell Borud (recorded): The stone is removed, even his voice falters, the blood flows out.
Russell Borud (recorded): The binding cords are loosened.
Russell Borud (recorded): The patient is put to bed.
Russell Borud (recorded): Convalescence.
[No speech for 162 s.]
Not often we have an all-LP suite these days. Operation Operation began with Tending to Huey from the movie Silent Running. Music by yet another serious composer who sold his soul for a fistful of dollars to the Hollywood moguls, Peter Schickele, who was also conducting the studio orchestra that included, as a matter of fact, Leonard Slatkin's mother on cello.
It's interesting looking at these credits. Steve Bochco was one of the writers on that flick, and a young Ron Rifkin was one of the other astronauts. Okay, and then we heard one of the most unusual pieces I know, Le Tableau de l'Opération de la Taille, by Marin Marais, the French viol player and composer, the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
This is a piece about a gallbladder operation, which presumably the composer went through, and as I mentioned before, he had to be tied down, partly because there was no anesthesia in those days.
And those phrases read by the narrator are in the score. The narrator, by the way, was Russell Borud, and we heard Nancy Froseth on viola da gamba, and it's a little confusing, but I guess on harpsichord was B.W.M. Ben. That's on a Sound Environment LP. By the way, when I was talking about Steve Bochco and Ron Rifkin, I didn't meet them. You know, the composer is often the last person to be brought in on a film, and the...
[sound: phone rings]
Okay, excuse me. Hello, Dr. Cronkite? I'm glad you finally called. Well, I've got a very serious condition here, and I'd like to know if it's possible to operate on my lower lip without its affecting my speech or singing, because, you know, that's how I make much of my living. Well, it's a canker sore, actually. Yeah, but Dr. Cronkite, I've had I've had this thing for days. I'm not sure how much longer I can bear up.
Well, not all the time, but it hurts a lot when I eat candy bars. Especially if they have a lot of nuts, you know, like a Pay Day or a Goo Goo Cluster. Okay, okay, I'll be there tomorrow. First thing. In the meantime, is there any, like, anesthetic? Yeah. Okay, wait a minute. Take one every 15 minutes, right? Very dry. Gin or vodka. Doesn't matter. Okay. Thanks, Dr. Cronkite.
All right, sorry folks, but I don't want to let it get to the point where I have to give up the entrees I love ordering, you know, baklava, and cotton candy, and meringue glace, and, well, it is time to go. We'll go out with Richard Strauss. This is members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra playing the first movement of the composer's Sonatine No. 1 for 16 wind instruments, subtitled from An Invalid's Workshop.
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. Our program is distributed by PRI, Public Radio International. Hey, I'm feeling better already. 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 155.
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.
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.
Station announcer: PRI, Public Radio International.