Schickely Mix is next. Are you ready, Peter? I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it might incriminate me. Here's the theme.
Hello there, I'm Peter Schickely, and this is Schickely 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.
Our bills, I'm glad to say, are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by this outstanding radio station right here on your dial,
where my presence is put up with long enough for me to chalk up another milestone in musical enlightenment,
which milestone is then, seemingly without effort, flung to the far corners by PRI, Public Radio International. Does one's name affect one's personality?
Was Modeste Moussouris the one? Was Mussorgsky any more self-effacing than other Russian composers? Was Frank Bridge any more candid than other English composers? And how about Claude Debussy?
Did he have any more scratch marks on his back than your average French composer? Well, be that as it may, Moussorgsky did write several of the most often played pieces in the classical repertoire.
And one of the most often played of those pieces is Pictures at an Exhibition. And one of the most often played sections of that piece, is The Great Gate of Kiev.
Moussorgsky, modest as he was, wrote it for piano. But it's probably best known in the orchestral version done by Ravel. In any case, it's big music.
And it sounds great on the king of instruments, the organ.
Well, I guess some of you have figured out that I was pulling your leg a bit there. But only a bit, really. I said that the Moussorgsky was going to be played on organ,
but it was actually being played on accordion. Two accordions, to be absolutely truthful about it. They were played by James Crabb and Gerd Drogsvold.
But see, the thing is that I wasn't lying completely. Because an accordion is an organ. I mean, it has metal reeds that are activated by a stream of air,
exactly like many of the pipes on an organ. The main difference between the two instruments is that the typical accordion is more portable than the typical cathedral organ,
which undoubtedly accounts for the accordion's greater popularity on the birthday party and bar mitzvah circuit. I remember one of my childhood birthday parties. There was a clown that my folks...
What? What? That's the irrelevancy alarm. But I had just started the story. Okay, it printed out something. Let's see. Let's see what it says. Did the clown play accordion?
Well, no, but... Oh, oh, all right. All right, okay. Now, the organ does have certain advantages of its own.
An organist usually has more different sounds to choose from than an accordionist does. And an organist doesn't have to worry about the air supply. In the old days, the organ bellows was worked by choir boys
in an egregious example of baroque child exploitation. And nowadays, electricity does the job. But if you're an accordionist, you have to do it all.
Play the notes with your fingers, provide the air supply with your arms, and if you want to make anything in tips, walk around with your feet and smile at the diners with your mouth. Unless you're already singing with your mouth.
If you have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time, do not take up the accordion. I'm reminded of Albert the Alligator in the old comic strip Pogo. He recites an original poem, and when somebody asks him what it means,
he's outraged. He says, I made it up. I made it rhyme. Now I gotta make it mean something? Hey, you can't expect one person to do everything. Unless, that is, he's an accordionist.
On another edition of this program, we hear the noble squeezebox as a solo instrument and as part of small ensembles. But today is different. That's right. No more community rooms.
No more rooms in church basements. No more dingy side street taverns. No more store openings at the mall. Today, ladies and gentlemen,
accordion hits the big time.
We're not talking rhythm section. We're talking orchestra.
That's right.
Great big groups with conductors.
Accordion hits the classical big time.
Yes, sirree. Today, the accordion, the instrument of the people, meets the symphony orchestra, the instrument of dead, white, overeducated European males.
And I might as well tell you right now, folks, that the encounter is disappointing. Not because of the accordion. Lord love it. Brother of Lyle.
But because of how little it was used by those guys. Our first suite is called Accordions in the Orchestra.
And let me say, as I did on the other show, that I'm using the word accordion as a general term here. That is, I mean it to include close kin like the concertina and the bandoneon.
So anyway, here are excerpts from three pieces by great European composers of the past. And in all three instances,
the accordion is used quite consciously to conjure up the folk, simple and or everyday people. The first piece uses not one but four accordions.
Their material is fast but elementary musically, almost to the point of parody. The second excerpt is from an opera.
In the garden of an inn during a lull in the merrymaking, an idiot approaches the title character and says, Joyful, joyful, but I can smell blood.
And last we'll hear part of a huge cantata celebrating the Russian Revolution.
The text is from a speech by Lenin, exhorting the people to insurrection and instructing them in how to wage urban war. Accordions in the Orchestra lasts about five minutes. See you then.
Man, that is some peace. That's part of the one movement. It's ten minutes long. It's got ten movements. It's Prokofiev. But let's go back.
First, we heard part of the third movement, the Scherzo Burlesque, of Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 2 for orchestra, and that was Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Then came the chilling moment in Act II of Wozzeck by Alban Berg when the idiot tells Wozzeck, who has not yet killed Marie, that he smells blood.
Martin Van Tern was the idiot, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was Wozzeck, and Karl Böhm conducted the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
The effectiveness of that accordion there is due not only to its non-classical associations, but also to the fact that it plays a simple and tonal kind of music within a piece that is largely very complex
and without a clear home base tonally. Then last came an adrenaline-laced section from the, a cantata for the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution,
a gargantuan piece that Prokofiev wrote but never heard. It wasn't performed until 13 years after the composer's death,
and almost 50 years after the revolution it celebrates so luridly. Why wasn't it done in October of 1937?
Well, according to the liner notes, Oleg Prokofiev, the composer's son, said,
It surmises that by 1938 the political climate had become so hostile to artists, the notorious Pravda attack on Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth had taken place in 1936,
that no one could know for sure what might or might not prove acceptable to the authorities, and putting a foot, even a toe, wrong might result in arrest, imprisonment, or even death.
Ironically enough, by the time the piece was finally played, Stalin was dead and disgraced, so two movements that are based on his speeches were omitted.
That decision was made, by the way, between the last rehearsal and the first performance, and one of the movements that was 86th was the finale, the 10th movement,
and the 9th movement doesn't make a good ending, so they played the second movement again. And if you like your martini of fortune served with an ironic twist, here's a good one. Here's a good one.
Prokofiev and Stalin died on the same day. Peter and the Wolf. That was the Philharmonia Orchestra again, this time with the Philharmonia Chorus,
all under the direction of Nemi Yervi. Okay, now I've tried to avoid all the accordion jokes on this show. You know, accordionists get very tired of,
Welcome to heaven, here's your harp. Welcome to hell, here's your accordion. All those easy laugh put-downs of, What is, let's face it, easily the most beautiful instrument there is
that you have to strap on your shoulders. I mean, I'll take the accordion over the bass drum any day. But I can't help noticing that in the second number in our accordions in the orchestra suite,
the excerpt from Wozzeck, it is true that the appearance of the accordion coincides with the appearance of, I can't help it, the appearance of the idiot.
Okay, okay, okay, I take it back. All right, all right, just kidding, folks. I'm not even going to answer that. Some accordion player can't take a joke.
Although I must say, whoever it was must have seen it coming, because that phone rang the second that I said, Oh, man. Well, I guess I might as well.
I was just fooling around. I did not mean any serious disrespect to accordions. Say what? Oh, you're not in accordions.
Okay, listen, no, I already have some. I have as much as I need, okay? No, not term. It's the other kind. You know, the kind that keeps its value or whatever it is.
Is that whole life? Okay, well, look, I'm really not interested in more life insurance, okay? And as a matter of fact, I am kind of busy right now.
Hey, tell you what, just send me the stuff, okay? And I'll take a look at it. Just, okay, just send it and carry the station.
The name's Peter Schickely, and the program is Schickely Mix from PRI, Public Radio International. Accordion hits the big time.
We've heard accordions in the orchestra. Now let's hear an orchestra of accordions. The name of our next suite is Too Much of a Good Thing. Now notice that there's a question mark at the end of that title.
I'm not saying yay or nay here. It's up to you to decide. What I'm saying is that we've got a very high accordion. We've got a very high accordion count in this suite.
Eight of them in the first number, six in the second, and a mere one in the last, just as a control group. Now these are all covers, as they say in the pop world.
All three of these compositions were originally for other kinds, non-accordion kinds of ensembles. So it's interesting to hear how they sound on arm organs. I'll be back in about 11 and a half minutes.
In the meantime, here's a nice big picture of freshly squeezed classics. Beginning with A Sizzler by Jimi Hendrix.
All right. I dig it, baby. You don't care for me, I don't care about that. You like it like that.
I have only one burning desire. Let me stand next to your fire. Let me stand next to your fire. Hey, let me stand next to your fire.
Yeah, baby. Listen here, baby. Stop acting so crazy. You think your mommy, you know, it ain't my concern. Just don't play with me and you won't get burned.
I have only one itching desire.
Let me stand next to your fire.
Let me stand next to your fire. Hey, let me stand next to your fire. Let me stand next to your fire. Oh, let me stand. Let me stand next to your fire. Let me stand. Let me stand next to your fire. Yeah, baby.
Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
You know what I'm talking about.
Think this. Listen, baby. You try to give me your money, you better save it, baby. Save it for your rainy day.
I have only one burning desire. Let me stand next to your fire.
Yeah, baby.
Agent H. Would it satisfy you? Would it slide in by you? Would you think the boy is strange? Ain't it strange If I could win? If I could sing a love song so divine?
Would it be enough for your jading heart? If I broke down and cried? If I cry- yoga Chef you said, Ah, no. It's only rock- and- roll. But I like it.
Chef you said, Ah, no. It's only rock- and- roll. But I like it, like it, yes I do I really, really, really, really do-do-do-do Hey! Go, go slave ship out for cotton fields
Sold in a market down in New Orleans Scarred old slaver knows you're doing all right Hear him whip the women just around midnight Brown sugar! How come you taste so good?
Brown sugar! Just like a young girl should
The day at the reception A glass of wine in her hand I knew she would need her connection
At her feet was a foolish man You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want But if you try sometimes
You might need Honky Tonk Women Gimme, gimme, gimme
The Honky Tonk Blues Yeah! Under my thumb The girl who Under my thumb
The girl who once pushed me around It's done to me If it is the way she talks When she's smoking too Now to me The change has come
She's under my thumb So goodbye Ruby Tuesday Who could hate you change
With every new day Still I'm gonna miss you
Allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste I've been around for a long long year So many a man's soul and faith
Pleased to meet you Hope you get my name Cause the Quizzle and You
Too much of a good thing?
I think not.
First, we heard Fire by Jimi Hendrix, performed with a complete lack of phony hipness, or any other kind for that matter, by Those Darn Accordions, eight squeeze boxes and a rhythm section.
Then came a selection by another party animal, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The overture to The Marriage of Figaro was performed by Ja der Merzhausener Accordionensemble.
Ensemble is German for the French word ensemble, which means ensemble. Six players there, and a very tasty sound they produce.
My friend Tom thinks that there's one place in that cut that sounds better than the original orchestra version by Mozart, but I think it's because that place in the original version has a bassoon solo.
You know, I mean, next to accordionists, we bassoon it. Well, of course, they're always violists. Anyway, then finally, we heard what is, in the mind of this here North Dakota boy,
one of the all-around finest pokémoners. It's the greatest poker track ever cut. Weird Al Yankovic's The Hot Rocks Poker, featuring, I guess it's about nine classic Rolling Stones songs,
performed at last, as the Stones surely would have performed them, were Mick and Keith, not so vettie-vettie British. That's from the UHF soundtrack album. I never saw that movie.
I think it's about a TV station, and I'm not really a big TV person. I'm more into radio. It's more relaxed. But like today, for instance, I was on the way to the station.
I was walking, and I took a shortcut through a sort of mini mall, and, well, there was a dog who was not only very unfriendly, but also very untied up.
And I ended up having to run through the car wash. So when I got here, I was soaking wet from head to toe. Now, on TV, that would have been a real problem.
But on radio, well, I'm sitting here in front of this microphone, naked as the day I was born, and you can't even tell if I'm blushing. My clothes are draped over the vents and the lamps here,
and it actually, it reminds me of a story from my college days. When I went to Swarthmore, way back there in the 1950s, not only were the dormitories completely segregated by sex,
but there wasn't any intergender visitation allowed in the dorms whatsoever. And I do mean ever. Except, of course, on Parents' Day.
Now, a guy I knew told me that his roommate forgot that it was Parents' Day, and he was walking down the hall to his room after taking a shower, stark naked, when he saw a bunch of parents at the other end of the hall coming towards him.
He didn't even have a towel. All he had was a wash rag. So he did a very smart thing. He put the wash rag over his face and kept walking. Definitely a case where minimum embarrassment is achieved
by letting the private parts be public and keeping the public parts private. I can't believe I got through that story without the irrelevancy alarm going off.
It's probably because the water from my socks has finally seeped down into its innards. What a shame. Meanwhile, I don't have to worry about questions of propriety and embarrassment.
I can just sit here in my birthday suit, look you straight in the eye, and say, my name is Peter Shickley, and the program is Shickley Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
All righty. We've heard accordions in the orchestra, and we've heard an orchestra of accordions. Now let's get the accordion in front of the orchestra. We're talking concerto here, the real classical big time.
Now, it must be admitted that there are, well, fewer concertos for the accordion than there are for, say, the piano or the violin. But we've got a nice little two-movement jobby coming up here.
We'll call it the New World Accordion Concertino, and it lasts about ten and a half minutes, give or take a second.
Okay. If they were singing words there at the end, I can't quite make out what they're singing, but it's a great effect. The beginning of the New World Accordion Concertino
was the first movement of Oster Piazzolla's Concerto for Bandoneon, with the composer playing the solo part and Lalo Schifrin conducting the orchestra of St. Luke's.
The bandoneon has a bellows like an accordion, but instead of a mixture of buttons and keys, each playing only one note, it has only buttons, and each of them plays one of two notes,
depending on whether the bellows is being expanded or contracted. In that way, it's like another metal reed organ, the harmonica. Piazzolla lived for years in Paris, but he was born in Argentina
and grew up in New York, so I think we can call him a New World composer. The second movement of our New World Accordion Concertino was by a Canadian composer named Walter Buczynski.
My apologies if I'm not pronouncing that correctly. It's spelled B-U-C-Z-Y-N-S-K-I. That was the last movement of a suite called Fantasy on Themes of the Past,
and it's marked Square Steady Beat. Very nice piece. It was written for school concerts, that is, to be played for, not by, young people.
By the way, the music for the accordion hits the big time fanfare early in the show came from the first movement of the Buczynski. Okay, Gary Kulesha was conducting the composer's orchestra,
and the soloist was Joseph Massarolo. I'm assuming a North American English pronunciation of that name. And here's a good example of what accordionists have to put up with.
According to the liner notes, when Massarolo went to England's Royal College of Music in 1970, armed with a Master of Arts degree in musicology from the University of Toronto,
he was given an hour-long guided tour of the college by a senior librarian. Especially proud of his early success in having the accordion recognized,
at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, he stated so, at which point the librarian terminated the dialogue with the curt remark, My dear boy, we haven't stooped so low.
Well, now it's tidbit time, when we can stoop as low as we want and come up smiling. We're going to leave the big time here and listen to some chamber music. You know, during the 19th and 20th centuries,
improvisation got rarer and rarer in classical music. But recently it's been coming back, in various ways, not only in cadenzas, but also in all the myriad kinds of crossover groups
that straddle the worlds of classical, jazz, folk, pop and world music. Here's a well-known piece of classical music, first as written by the composer,
then as performed by a group that doesn't worry about the sanctity of the printed page.
The Devil's Dance from The Soldier's Tale by Igor Stravinsky. Played first by members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Lionel Friend, and then by a group called Excelsior,
which consists of accordion, electric violin, electric guitar and drums. I don't know what Uncle Igor would have thought, but it sounds good to me.
This is from an album called Declassified, and you can get a pretty good clue to the group's aesthetic from their picture. Formal concert dress, except that the guitarist is barefoot,
the violinist has work boots on, the drummer isn't wearing pants, and the accordionist has a T-shirt on under his jacket,
and the jacket is open just enough for you to recognize Frank Zappa's face on the T-shirt. Nice album. Music of Shostakovich, Barber, Stravinsky, and Poulenc.
Okay, now... What's that smell? Oh my... It's the smoke alarm.
I had my wet shirt draped over that lamp by the door, and it's about to catch fire. Man, I gotta take care of this before the sprinkler system lets loose. Here, let me put on...
Let me put on that accordion duo that we started the show with. Let me put them on doing... Uh, Patryska by Igor Stravinsky. And get over there to that shirt.
Okay. I made it before the sprinkler system turned this studio into the Titanic. Uh, that's James Crabb and Geir Droegsvold playing Stravinsky's Patryska on two accordions.
That beginning sounds just great, doesn't it? Uh, you know, there was a while there when Stravinsky was toying with a lot of different instrumentations for certain pieces, like Les Noces. I wonder if he ever thought of two accordions.
Well, 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. Thank you, members.
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 159. 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, MN 55403.
PRI.