I hope that Peter Schickele can pull us into the ending of fund drive this next hour. We need to count on our listeners and we'll also count on Peter Schickele. You can count on me. 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. And on this special membership drive edition of the show, I'd like to give special thanks for the fact that our bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and also by this terrific radio station and its members, which means you, and if it doesn't mean you, you ought to do something about that.
You know, after a hard day of doing whatever it is I do, I like to settle down in front of the fireplace, turn on the VCR with the two-hour cassette showing logs burning, put my feet up on the dog, and crack open my favorite book, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, in the Edward FitzGerald translation, of course. I prefer the fourth edition of 1879.
It's more graceful and, let's face it, a lot closer to the original. And I guess my favorite place is the part that goes, A book of verses underneath the bough, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou beside me singing in the wilderness, oh, wilderness were paradise enow! Enow is a poetical word meaning enough. It's used when you mean enough, but you want it to rhyme with bow and thou.
And I've taken the second line of that verse as the title of today's show, A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread, and Thou. These are a few of my favorite things. Although I must say, when it comes to the first one, that although I enjoy a glass of good wine as much as the next North Dakotan, I don't find myself fantasizing about wine the way I do about the malted milks at the drugstore on the square in Jackson, Wyoming.
Be that as it may, our first suite is called A Jug of Wine. It contains three grape-related songs, the first of which is in German. I won't read all of the words, but they start, Go and order the best wine, away with the cold, with serious and melancholy thoughts. You are surrounded here by friends, and our glasses shall be filled with gladness. Here comes the first glass. Long live all beautiful eyes. I'll be back in about eight minutes.
[music: Campbell/Newman, "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" (The Weavers Greatest Hits); The Weavers]
[music: Martin, "Let Maids Be False, So Wine Be True" (Victorian Collection); The King's Singers]
A Jug of Wine. We began with something by Telemann.
It was a drinking song from 24 Serious and Light-hearted Odes, and then The Weavers, from The Weavers' Greatest Hits, singing Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, and then finally The King's Singers singing Let Maids Be False, So Wine By True. It says by true; seems to me it should be be true, but that's what it says. And that was by Sir George Martin, who died in 1916, so I guess he isn't the one who worked with the Beatles.
Now I've done something special for today's show. I've composed a piece of music especially for this program. Hey, how often does that happen on your typical radio show, huh? What it is is a round, and it's a four-part round. You see, I made it four parts because the four parts represent the four sources of funding in public radio: corporation, foundation, government, and membership, the listeners. So you can't hear the complete piece as it's meant to be heard without all four parts. Do you see the, the symbolism there?
It takes all... well, you get it anyway. Here's how it goes. I'll get my pitch from the authentic instrument here. So,
here's the melody.
[sung: the melody of the round "Every Dollar Counts"]
Now I hope you'll listen carefully to that and try to learn it because it won't be complete without you, the listener.
[sung: the melody of the round "Every Dollar Counts"]
Now what I want to do is see if I can find some other people around the station to sing it with me. It may not be that easy because everyone's very busy manning and womaning the telephones right now. In the meantime, here's someone who can tell you how to get rid of that pesky extra cash you have lying around the house. Peter Schickele here with the middle segment of today's Schickele Mix. This show is called A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread, and Thou.
Now, I'm afraid that I haven't had much success in finding singing partners here. Everybody's extremely... Oh my goodness, it's the phone.
Hello? Hello. Can I talk to the host? This is Peter Schickele. Hey, I just want to tell you how much I love your program. It's really great. Well, thank you very much. Seriously. I think it's probably the best thing on radio today. Or not even just today, the best thing on radio ever. Well, I appreciate that. And I also want to say that I've got a very good musical memory, and I'll be glad to sing that round with you. What? Over the phone? Sure. Why not? Well, I... Here. Here, let me sing it, and you tell me if it's right.
[sung: the caller sings the melody of the round back to Schickele]
That's very impressive. Do you want me to start, or do you want to start? Well, okay, you start. How many times through? Well, let's do three. You got it.
[sung: Schickele and the caller sing "Every Dollar Counts" as a two-part round, three times through]
Hey look, when you get two other folks for the other parts, just say the word and I'll get back on the phone with you and we can nail this sucker. Okay, I'll remember that. Bye now. Goodbye.
Well, I think that's the first time I've ever sung a round with somebody over the phone. Nice guy. But that's still only two out of the four parts. I hope I can find some other people so we can hear the whole thing. In the meantime, we've covered a jug of wine, let's move on to a loaf of bread. Bread, of course, can stand for food in general, which is what it does in the title of our next suite, A Loaf of Bread.
This suite comes from another Schickele Mix program called You Are and You Sing About What You Eat. It has three numbers and lasts about nine and a half minutes.