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 boy, do we have a treat in store for you. As you may know, our bills are paid by this fine radio station, and our program is distributed by PRI, Public Radio International.
And they are inviting you to be a guest at the Gala Benefit Concert, which is about to begin here in Oatson Hall, a beautiful chamber music auditorium. Mr. Oatson not only provided the money for building the hall, he has also donated its use for this glittering gathering of avid aficionados and stalwart supporters of real radio, radio that makes a gosh darn difference.
Now, in about three quarters of an hour, we are going to be witnessing the world premiere of a brand new quartet for flute, violin, viola, and cello, composed especially for this occasion by, well, modesty forbids. And I don't mind telling you, I am not only excited, I am also just a wee bit nervous, because I am not usually called upon to write a piece in one day.
I heard once that Darius Milhaud, the French composer, was commissioned to write something for a famous conservatory's anniversary, and other composers were given commissions for big orchestral and choral and chamber music pieces, and he was only asked to write a modest piano piece, so he called his work Une Journée, One Day, which is how long he spent writing it.
But listen, Milhaud was notoriously fertile. I usually like to mull material over for weeks or even months. But when the station manager called up the night before last and said that the vocal instrumental group scheduled to perform at this concert, the Pavarotti Domingo Carreras Chamber Music Ensemble, when they cancelled at the last minute, I was informed that I had to write a new piece for the occasion. Well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do if you catch my drift.
So, he did sweeten the pot a bit by offering to let me use his cabin on Lake Purdy to compose the piece, and I must say, it's very nice. But man, talk about pressure. So, since I also had to do my show today, I decided to kill two birds with one stone by fulfilling a project I've always wanted to do for Schickele Mix. I'm sure all composers get asked, how do you actually go about writing a piece of music?
And I'm not kidding, people do ask that, a lot. So what I'd like to do on today's show is share with you the composing of the piece, the rehearsing of the piece, and the final result. And I want to make a little truth in advertising announcement here. I will admit that I fool around a bit on this show, and that I might even be doing some fooling around on this edition. But when it comes to how I wrote and rehearsed this piece, I'm being completely on the level.
This is no gag. I composed the quartet in nine hours from 12:45 to 9:45 p.m., including a couple of breaks, and I kept the tape recorder rolling during the time I was at the piano. I also had the tape running during the rehearsal, and it's a straight-ahead piece of chamber music, nothing outrageous. So, you are going to witness the birth of this composition almost from its initial conception.
And I say almost only because I did write a couple of fragmentary ideas in my sketchbook before I got to where I wrote the piece. Now, I compose almost every day, with or without a piano, in hotel rooms, on airplanes, driving around on back roads. I always take my current sketchbook with me on my travels. And even without it, I'm usually working on something in the back of my mind.
But what makes this a bit scary is that you can't sit down and decide to write a masterpiece, even if you use masterpiece in the modest sense of personal best. And also, even... I can't talk as fast as I think, and I certainly can't write as fast as I talk, and I'm not much of an improviser. So this isn't going to be like watching Picasso paint a picture. It won't surprise regular listeners that I'm a very low-tech guy.
I still work with pencil and paper. I chose the combination of flute, violin, viola, and cello, which combination is often referred to by musicians as a flute quartet, because I'd never written one before. And here's how it started. Okay Got the tape machine on, and what we got here, we got an electric piano. Okay.
Okay, those electric pianos go. Okay.
Now, what I started out with is, in my sketchbook here, I wrote down two things. Got these ideas while I was driving around. One of them, I've written down this.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
I should mention, by the way, a lot of composers, probably most composers, are better pianists than I am. So you're just going to have to bear with me on that. Now, when I wrote that, my idea was always that you'd actually hear the lower parts first, and then the second time you heard it, the flute would be added on the top. In other words, you'd hear this,
[music: keyboard demonstration]
and then later you'd hear the flute with it.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
But anyway, then before we get back to that, there's already something I don't like in that. But before we get back to that, it occurred to me that maybe we shouldn't start right out like that, that we should start more quietly, and without the flute. In other words, start with a slower introduction for just the string trio, and I wrote down this idea, and
[music: keyboard demonstration]
That's all I've got. I've got E-flat written in here. In other words, I had...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And I wrote, maybe this should be an E-flat.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
I don't know.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And then I wasn't sure where that was going to go. Anyway, we're also going to get back to that, because just coming here, I had yet another idea, which is that maybe it should start even more quietly than that. Maybe we should start with just the cello. And by the way, this, that thing that I play, I'm going to call that the sarabande rhythm.
In the old Baroque and pre-Baroque dance, the sarabande, it's in three.
And the motion stops on the second beat. So you get 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1. And a lot of people use it. I mean, Copland, the beginning of Billy the Kid, has that rhythm. But just to refer to it simply, I'm going to call that the sarabande rhythm. So I was saying in the beginning, I hadn't even written this down, I just got this idea of the cello going all cello, just on two different strings at once.
Maybe instead of Just starting right out with the sarabande rhythm, maybe what I should do is have a single note first, and then go into the sarabande rhythm, just for the sake of variety, since the other one starts with the sarabande rhythm, start with a long note here.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
I want to vary it a little bit there, vary the rhythm. So, now the interesting thing here that a composer has to think about is, I can't go, if I repeat the top note, I've got to repeat the bottom note too, because this is one instrument playing with only one bow. It's virtually impossible to re-attack that note without re-attacking the other two, so it's...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And then maybe the trio comes in.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Now...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
I don't know that I like that a lot, but maybe I'm going to put off a decision on that to get a little bit further into it. As a matter of fact, I'm sure I'm going to change that. By the way, you know what a composer tries to do? Stravinsky said, when I play an A on the piano and it's a trumpet note, I'm hearing a trumpet.
That's what a composer tries to do. You play this thing on the piano that you're writing for the cello. You try to hear it. You try to hear the cello playing it.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
So after that little cello opening, the whole string trio comes in with the chorale.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
I think I like that better.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
But actually, what often happens is it might be nice to go to this later sometime, as a little surprise after having done this.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And then there's a little technical thing here. The cello, I'm going to have the cello go up to here because of the way the strings are set up. I won't get into that. It'll be a nice little variety of texture that you can't hear on this piano, but you'll hear it a little bit in the strings. The cello will actually go up to
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Now, where does this go?
That's one possibility. That's sort of nice and hymn-like. I don't know, it's a little bit too consonant, too calm for what I want there. So...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Or maybe this. Use the C major chord, put the seventh in it.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
I like that, sort of bluesy. Keep it simple.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And there come in the strings, that the other sketch there. I think that's good, it's nice and simple.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Okay. I'm going to take a little break. I think it might help me. Often you see things when you write it down. You actually get ideas by seeing things on paper that you don't necessarily get just playing it or in your head. So I think I'm going to take a little break and write that down, maybe walk around a little.
And here we are, back in Oatson Hall, waiting for the world premiere of my quartet. Now, while me, the composer, is taking a break, and having heard the initial version of the first section, I did make some changes, let's jump ahead now to the rehearsal and hear how it actually sounds on the instruments. By the way, there is no piano in this work, but I should perhaps mention that the word piano also means soft.
Once again, I want to remind you that I'm not pulling any legs here about the process of bringing this piece into being. The copyist took my pencil score containing 82 measures of music and, with the aid of a computer, produced a much better looking score from which he extrapolated the individual parts for flute, violin, viola, and cello. When I walked into the rehearsal hall this afternoon, none of the musicians had seen a note of the music.
[sound: the players warming up]
Sorry I'm late. Just come from the copyist. So, you get to see the piece. All right.
As I get to see the piece.
Thank you. Pastorale. Pastorale.
My goodness, what note is that?
You really want a piano high C? Uh, where's that? Measure 40. Oh, well, let's see what happens. Okay. You don't stay on it long. That's, that's good. Right, right. You wouldn't want me to.
So let's just start. And wait a minute, hold on, let me get my metronome out here.
And the thing is, let me say, these are, of course, the first time these parts have ever been used, so if you see even obvious mistakes, please tell me about them so I can get them corrected. 63.
Okay, here, so why don't we just start, okay? 1, 2, 3.
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
Okay, okay, we got off there. Oh, thank you. You're tied over the bar. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. In the 12th bar, violin and viola has dotted quarters, and the cello moves on the second beat, so you don't move together there. Cello moves on the second beat, violin and viola on the and of two.
Should we start at 8?
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
That's supposed to sound crunchier. Okay, mistake in the cello part. In bar 14, where's my pencil? In bar 14, that D is a D flat. Put a flat in front of the D, please. And I'll just warn you right now, the viola has a D natural, so I want that crunch there.
Now, can we go back to the beginning, please?
Sarah, the G sharp in bar 6 sounded too sharp. Okay.
If it helps to think of it as an A flat, maybe it just sounded too high. And then, let's make a very slight comma before bar 8. Just very slight, not a great big pause, but just [hums]
And also, can I hear the beginning without mutes, please?
And let's also put a little comma, 8, 9, 10, 11, a comma for a little breath at the end of 10, 11, please. 11, a little comma there.
Okay, let's start at the top.
Let's just get the tempo.
Let me get it. Do you start? You start with your... No, I'm not. I can, though.
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
It's a thrill, let me tell you, it's a kick and a half to hear those tiny little specks of graphite you put on pieces of paper turn into flesh and blood music. And what a serendipitous piece of serendipity that the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra just happened to be in town on tour here, and I got four of their best musicians to play my piece. Julia Bogorod, Steven Copes, Sabina Thatcher, and Sarah Lewis.
I must say that it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, and I'm referring, of course, to Peter Schickele, the host of Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International.
Our program is coming to you today from Oatson Hall, where the Grand Gala Benefit concert will soon begin, a concert featuring the first performance of a piece which I decided at the last moment, as I prepared to send the music off to the copyist, to call Pastorale. I composed this piece at the request of the station manager, knowing, as I do, which side of my bread is buttered, and he let me hole up in his cabin on Lake Purdy while I wrote it.
There is a tradition of incarcerated composing. The child Mozart was once locked in a room so that he could prove that he really wrote his music, and they used to lock Rossini up just to get him to finish the damn opera. He was a party animal. Dimitri Shostakovich, on a dare from a conductor, sequestered himself in a room and produced an orchestral arrangement of Tea for Two in 45 minutes.
And in 1936, when King George V died, Hindemith wrote a piece for viola and string orchestra in one day and played it the next at the public ceremony. If they can do it, so can I, and so I did. Let's return to the composer of my quartet as he works on the middle section.
Okay, we're back here. I think, yes, that is rolling. And a lot has been going on here. I not only took a little walk, but I also, I got going, I'm afraid I got going. I've done actually quite a bit here without you. Sorry about that. But the thing is that, like I said, sometimes it just works better on paper.
So what I want to do is tell you what I've done. I got up to that, what I think of as the second section here, that original sketch, and now it's going to be a little bit faster. I've written faster, comma, flowing. Composers are very different about this.
I just noticed recently in John Adams' Violin Concerto, the first movement, it just says quarter note equals whatever it is, 76, and that means 76 beats to the minute. It's actually something that involves a certain amount of controversy. Beethoven wrote metronome markings that most people think are sort of off the wall, although more and more people are beginning to take them seriously. Brahms wouldn't use metronome markings.
And my feeling is you should learn it. The first time you read through the piece or something, use my metronome markings, and then when you know the piece and you feel it going differently, go ahead and do it differently. I probably do it differently myself at different times. And also, I don't expect it to keep exactly the same all the time. Anyway, I'm going to do the metronome markings later. I'm not going to worry about that right now. And I want to...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
I want to put something on the third beat, because of the way the motion's been. I'm going to put on the third beat the cello doing a pizzicato harmonic, and a harmonic is when with the left hand, the fingers of the left hand, instead of pushing one of the strings all the way down to the fingerboard, you just touch the string without pushing it down to the fingerboard, and you get this flute-like sound, and when you pluck it, it's It's hard to describe and completely impossible to imitate on a piano.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And here comes the flute.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Oops. Like this. I'm trying to do... I'll try to sing the cello part. Okay,
[music: keyboard demonstration, Schickele singing the cello part]
I'm going to give up trying to play it now, but I do hear several things coming up. Something I like to do, which is one part follows the other a beat later.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And then we get the cello doing this that he did before, but this time the flute comes in with it and leads to a different key. This has been G. Now we go 1.
It's awfully sweet. So I wanted to immediately introduce a little spice. I mean, it's a sweet piece, but...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And the cello has this sort of figure.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
It's sort of like a lullaby version of an old '50s rock and roll tune or something.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And then the viola and the cello.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And they repeat this.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And what I like to do over there, you get a repeated thing and then do something on the top.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And then this time, the flute comes in, sort of imitating the violin.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
It imitates it for a couple of bars, but then not exactly. And you get this sort of web that is way beyond my abilities as a pianist to recreate. But finally, it builds up to where I've got three voices here, basically, right? flute, violin, viola, and cello. And three of them are playing the tune.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And only the cello is doing something different.
And this is sort of a high point, and I'd also like to, I mean, it sort of gets louder, and this is some kind of a working up to a climax here, and I've got to say something that I don't know if other composers have this problem, and it occurs to me now that I've never talked to other composers about this, but I have a thing that sometimes you repeat things so much to work them out. I'll sometimes just play something, you know, 20 times in a row, trying different notes.
And I get sort of going faster and faster, because I'm really just trying different notes. And what I have to really watch is that I sometimes find the tempo in my mind getting faster and faster. And what I realized later then is that I've lost the original feel of the tempo and it's sort of gotten faster without my meaning it to. It's fine if you really want to get faster, but sometimes just through my, I assume, faulty working habits here, it gets faster without my realizing it, and that's one thing I've had to sort of watch here.
Anyway, we get this high point, and it's time for something else, and I'm not sure what it is, so fortunately, I have to go to the bathroom. I'll turn this thing off.
When nature calls, composers respond. Is the flowing lyricism of the middle section of my quartet the result of working in the station manager's cabin on the wave-kissed shores of Lake Purdy? Or is it just the way I write music? Probably the latter.
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
You know, this is something I've changed my mind about, Julia. In bar 48, can you make your last note an F instead of a C? Okay. And then you may want to tongue that next A. Just have the slur go to the F. Question. Yes. In this unison that we have here, do the E flats alternate? No, they're not missing.
Oh, oh, yeah, there's some missing, right, okay.
Yes, I see that, for instance, in bar 36, 37, 38, 40, there are no flats. Yeah, there are always E flats. Always, okay. Always E flats.
Our instincts told us to keep them E flats. Yeah, right, right. Even though what we saw was...
Your instincts were right.
Surprising.
Why don't we just, here, get the notes. Let's start right now at 37, please.
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
Julia, were you playing? I meant the high F in 48, not the low one, yeah. Go up a step from the E flat. Now, let's try. You're right, Julia, about the high C. Let's, in bar 42, let's put a little crescendo and go to more like a mezzo piano or mezzo mezzo forte in 43, sort of working our way up to the forte later. What should we call it?
Should we call it mezzo forte in 43?
So starting again in 37? One more question. Yeah. Are we unison in 37? I have, we have different notes. On the first beat. Just that first beat, yeah. I have an F. Oh, you do. I have an F. Oh, yes, right. No, you're supposed to have an F. Excuse me. I didn't notice that. The viola is supposed to have an F on the third note. Oh, you do. I don't have, I have an F on the first note. No, I mean that, what I mean, viola, your second note should be A flat, not G flat. Can we go back to 19, please, start there?
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
It's gotten fast. Don't let it run away. Let's do 19 again.
[No speech for 67 s.]
That's a flute. I've decided that in bar 46, the next to last note should be a C-flat, not a C natural. It matches what the violin has just done better before. Okay, I've decided that you guys are right and I'm wrong. I think the tempo should be faster. I'm sorry about this. Yes!
Yeah, right? How does that sound?
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
What did I say before? A hundred. A hundred, yeah. Oh, I hadn't changed it from that. How about, let's try 180? I thought you said 180. I did say 180. No, let's not do 180.
Want to try it?
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal (again); Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
Once again, we're back in Oatson Hall, and listening to that rehearsal tape, I hear something that always annoys me, and that is that I can focus so much on certain instruments that I can miss wrong notes in other instruments, except later, and sometimes, once in a while, it's been disastrously later, then all of a sudden I notice, and it sticks out like a sore thumb, I just have the ability to focus too much sometimes, and also not remember what I said before, well that's par for the course.
My short-term memory cuts out at about 10 seconds. Fortunately, I have this program booklet for the concert in front of me here, so I know that my name is Peter Schickele, host of Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
Our program today is called Pastorale and How It Grew. We're in the pre-concert part of the show, broadcasting live from Oatson Hall, And I think we've just got time to hear our exclusive documentary audio on the completion of the Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello by, as it happens, the host of this very show. Okay, let's go to the tape.
Okay, last round here.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Done some more work here, right up to the end.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And that's where I was saying it was building up to a climax here. So we got the climax here. Crunch.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
[music: keyboard demonstration]
It doesn't slow down there. That's just me trying to play it. There's all sorts of fancy rhythm things going on there. And then we go back to a slower tempo here.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And what I was going to do is, I had this great idea. This is the opening, of course. Of course. Well, it is.
It was so soft in the cello at the beginning. I had this great idea. I thought in thirds, 1, 2, 3, that's called a third, 1, 2, 3, but
[music: keyboard demonstration]
I decided it sounds too Handelian, so instead of doing the thirds, I'm just doing the octaves, but with all these slidey things, and then when I put the flute in here, and the flute is sort of following, but not quite.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
So it ends up on a different note,
[music: keyboard demonstration]
On a piano, you know, you can't crescendo on a piano on one note, it dies away no matter what you do, no matter how much you vibrato or whatever, it just dies away. But this will be...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And then, back to that chorale.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And at first I was thinking I'd do this. That spacing. I thought maybe this.
I decided that would be too lush, and also too much like the beginning. That's where the strings are in the beginning. So what I've done is this: wide spacing, flute on the top, violin in the middle, viola here, and more than an octave between each voice except the bottom. So, here we go.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And then before, it just did that. Now I go to another chord.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Here's the bluesy note in the cello again.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
This funny rhythm. It's the flute in the real low register, sounds very sexy.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Pizzicato, boom.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
And this is that pizzicato harmonic thing, so that'll ring. This part here...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
It's still not completely...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
We just had that note, doesn't sound good to have it right before.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
I sort of like that.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
When I said you can't do vibrato on the piano, what I meant is that some players, I've seen players, you know, wiggle their hands like they're doing a vibrato on the violin, as if it's going to make any difference. But on the piano, all you can do to approximate a crescendo is do a tremolo.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
That's pretty nice. I think I'm going to change that to that thing with the viola going up like that.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
So, anyway, I had a lot of trouble with the ending. I mean, sometimes the simplest things, I can get stuck for hours or sometimes even days by something that is just a matter of timing. A lot of people, when they think of composing, they think it's notes. But the rhythm, having a really convincing rhythm is at least as important as the notes. And I particularly love great endings.
I mean, wittily timed endings. This is not a witty ending. I mean, we're not talking about a witty piece at the end here, but what I mean is just the right timing.
I really do feel a lot of those Beethoven endings go on too long. You lose the sense of the wit, sort of in the abstract sense of the timing.
Stravinsky wrote great endings, Milhaud too. Anyway, so I hope that where I have the pizzicato, the flute goes.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Before that last chord is four bars, and four bars is sort of the regular, you know, music, most music is organized in four bars, western music, and sometimes it sounds too regular to me, I want to put a three bar thing in there to sort of upset it a little bit, and yet, or more, or five bars.
What I did here was I put a fermata over the rest, just before the last chord, and a fermata is sometimes called a bird's eye because it's an arc with a dot under it, and it means to hold it longer. You can put it over a note or over rest. So it's...
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Great. I guess I'm done with this piece. I sometimes get a certain little postpartum depression after I finish a piece, but usually it's a bigger thing, you know, like a big 20-minute piece. I think I can handle this one. Well, I guess I'm out of here.
Let's turn the old cassette machine off.
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
Okay, now do me a favor here again. This is tinkering. This is something I went back and forth on when I was writing, and sometimes when I do that, I go back and forth. I choose the wrong one. Can I hear what it sounds like? Don't mark it out yet in indelible ink. But can I hear what it sounds like if you omit bar 65?
In other words, put the crescendo on the previous bar. Just make that the one that goes to 9. I think I'm a little tired of it. But before it gets to that bar, just before the whole... So, can we do... 60, please.
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
I was playing it higher because that's what I heard from him.
[No speech for 35 s.]
It sounds funny to me too, but I'm not sure why. It sounds... It may be just the voice. Can the three of us play? Or just the two of us? Just the two last measures.
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
Can you indulge me again please at 67 Steve, can you play those first four bars an octave higher? Yeah. Let me just hear how that sounds. 67.
[No speech for 20 s.]
That helps the intonation of that chord too, I think. Let's put it up an octave. Just those four bars, then you go as written.
How about 76, right? Nobody plays on the downbeat. 1, 2, 3, 1.
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
Can we just try to play that together? Yeah, we gotta get the pizzicato together. It's hard to play pizzicato together. I know. I thought about that while I was writing it. It's hard to play pizzicato together.
[music excerpt: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello," in rehearsal; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
And not a moment too soon, because the Grand Gala Once in a Lifetime Benefit Concert is about to begin here in Oatson Hall. You know, on some of his early string quartet scores, Schubert wrote the time he started composing and the time he finished. I guess he was proud of his fecundity.
Well, it took me nine hours to write my little three-minute quartet, and there are still some things I might want to change, but no time for that now. And now, here come the performers on stage, and be still, my heart, we are ready to hear the world premiere of your humble host's Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello.
[music: Schickele, "Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello"; Julia Bogorod, flute/Steven Copes, violin/Sabina Thatcher, viola/Sarah Lewis, cello]
[applause]
Pastorale for Flute, Violin, Viola & Cello by, well, I'm just gonna say it right out, Peter Schickele. It was performed, and performed beautifully, by flutist Julia Bogorod, violinist Steven Copes, violist Sabina Thatcher, and cellist Sarah Lewis. Oh, oh, excuse me. Just a second. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Fortunately, there's no glass on the window of this booth, so I could, you know, stick my head out. Well, that's not the longest concert I've ever been to, but it was quite a high for me, I'll tell you that. I'll probably write some more movements to go with that thing. It's a beautiful combination, flute and string trio. I remember the first time I heard that combination of instruments. It was in a living room in Fargo, North Dakota.
My friend Ernie Lloyd was playing cello, his fiancée, Polly, or were they already married? Anyway, she was on flute, and his mother, Isabel Thompson, was on violin, and my brother, David, was on viola. It was one of the Mozart flute quartets, the one in D Major, I think.
[music: Mozart, "Flute Quartet in D (KV 285), 1st Mvt."; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields' Chamber Ensemble]
Members of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields' Chamber Ensemble bring Schickele Mix to a close for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by this radio station and its members, and 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 No. 168.
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: Mozart, "Flute Quartet in D (KV 285), 1st Mvt."; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields' Chamber Ensemble]
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Schickele Mix. That's Schickele, Schickele Mix. Care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.