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. This week we'll be taking a little trip down memory lane, sort of reliving some of the more memorable moments from Schickele Mix programs of the past, moments you can't forget no matter how hard you try.
I'm always delighted at the way an idea for a program seems to take off. Listeners calling or writing in, guests coming in to help out, packages in the mail. Like what happens in this first little excerpt. As my mother always said, anything worth doing is worth doing twice. Or was it my grandfather? He was married twice. Anyway, here's a little example of what makes this show so much fun to do.
[sound: pixie dust]
Oh, by the way, I read something this morning that blew my mind. Brahms died in 1897. You know what he was working on when he died? A ragtime piano piece. Now I kid you not, folks, that was just the beginning of the ragtime craze. Where is that booklet? Here it is. The booklet for the Alan Feinberg album. A terrific album called Fascinating Rhythm. Here on the 7th page, this is what it says.
Europe was influenced by the American explosion. Stravinsky, Hindemith, Wolpe, Milhaud, etc. responded to the seismic shocks of America's musical scene. Even Brahms was in the midst of writing a ragtime piece when he died. It's right there in print, folks. So it must be true. How about them apples?
Although, you know, it occurs to me that there's something that Brahms and Joplin have in common. They were different in so many ways. Different age, different race, grew up on different continents. But there's one thing they shared. As young men, to make money, both of them played piano in houses of ill repute. That's true, you know. Joplin in Sedalia, Missouri, and Brahms in Hamburg. Of course, I suppose even there there's a big difference. One assumes that Joplin played the pieces that made him famous at work, whereas it's a pretty safe bet that Brahms kept his serious pieces and his barroom pieces pretty separate.
I mean, it's easy to imagine Joplin working on one of his early pieces at home and then playing it that night in the bordello.
[music excerpt: Joplin, "Maple Leaf Rag"; Dick Hyman]
But it's a little bit harder to imagine Brahms bringing the hard-won fruits of his compositional labor to the dockside brothel.
You could just hear the proprietors of the establishment coming up to young Johannes and saying, Get lost, kid. If I wanted highbrow, I'd get the Berlin freaking Philharmonic. Besides, there's an Italian just off the boat. His name's Enrico Mancini, and he plays what people want to hear. But wouldn't it be great to hear a ragtime piano piece by Brahms? I wonder what it would sound like.
Sorry, folks. Happens all the time. Hello? Who's it from? Never heard of him. But why don't you bring it to the studio right now anyway? Okay, thanks. Sorry about that. But I've found that the longer you leave mail at the front desk around here, the more likely it is that you'll never see it. So anyway, the fact that it sounded sort of jazzy when Brahms tied eighth notes over the strong beats to quarter notes, longer notes, is no accident.
Incidentally, one of the most revolutionary things that ragtime brought to western music was the practice of tying the first part of a syncopated note to a much longer note. In this famous example, now
[music excerpt: Joplin, "The Entertainer"; Dick Hyman]
All the syncopations in that excerpt from Joplin's The Entertainer, Dick Hyman playing, follow the classical rule except, la-da-da-dee-doo-dee, ba-da, that one right there, the da-dee-doo-dee, that's a syncopation, but the really new one is da-da-da-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee, and here's the difference, in good old classical music, a syncopated note usually feels as if it stays longer than you expect, it hangs there over the strong beat and then finally moves on.
But in jazz syncopation, you often feel as if you're getting to a note early. If you want to jazz up Haydn's Surprise Symphony, instead of singing
[sung: the theme of Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony as written]
you can sing
[sung: the same theme with jazz syncopation]
Aren't we naughty? As a matter of fact, that rhythm is the same as
[sung: the opening of "The Syncopated Clock"]
Leroy Anderson's Syncopated Clock. If he had written
[sung: the same tune without the syncopation]
he would have had to change the title of the piece. You're getting to the last note of the phrase ahead of time.
[music excerpt: Garland/Razaf arr. Miller, "In the Mood" (Big Band Jazz, Volume III); Glenn Miller & His Orchestra]
In the Mood with Glenn Miller. You know, that package was delivered during that last excerpt, and if you don't mind, I hope you don't, let me know if you do, but if you don't mind, I think I'll just open it here and see what it is, I'm sort of curious, okay.
It's a tape cassette and a letter.
Dear Mr. Schickele, I really love your radio program, and being something of a computer nerd myself, I love the fact that the name of the show is a play on the term e-mail. Personally, I think that Schickele E-Mix is the best show on the radio here in Fresno. Anyway, I thought you'd be interested in the enclosed recording. Since you're so knowledgeable, I'm sure you're aware of the cylinder of Brahms playing the piano, but you may not know yet that a second cylinder from that session has just been found by a professor here at Slim Pickens University. The good news is that the quality is much better than the one at Yale, and the better news is that Brahms plays a ragtime piece that he composed just before he died.
He hadn't even written it down yet. It's called Hamburg Nights. I hope you enjoy it. Yours, Donald Download Dribble. Well, I must say, the timing couldn't be better. I'm trying to control my excitement here after listening to that other cylinder, but what the hey, let's give it a try. He says it's better. Okay, here we go.
[music: Schickele after Brahms, "Hamburg Nights"; Peter Schickele]
Swingin', Mr. Brahms. According to our pal Download there, that's Hamburg Nights, a ragtime piano piece by Brahms. And remember, folks, you heard it first on Schickele Mix. Speaking of which, I am Peter Schickel-e, and the show is Schickele Mix. Schickl-e-mix. Schickl-e-mix. Schickl-e-mix. Well, well. Syncopation everywhere. It's in the air.
What a fascinating notion it is that Brahms and Joplin, brothers in arms, as it were, although in very different divisions of very different armies, were sharing so many different ideas so far apart from each other. Across oceans and societies and chat rooms. Well, it's a wide and wonderful world out there and nobody distills it down and bottles it up like those nice folks at your public radio station. But they can't do it alone. It takes teamwork as well as a certain amount of moolah.
And we're going to turn the mic over to them right now for a few minutes to give everyone a chance to do a little light housekeeping. I'll be back in a little while. If you've hung around Schickele Mix for any length of time, you know that as a scholar, I regard words as precious and powerful tools. I love words. I love to use them and to know as much as possible about them.
You know that jumble thing in the paper where you sort out the anagrams and use the cartoon to get the last one, you know? Well, when I run across that feature in a paper, I like to read yesterday's answers, even if I didn't do the puzzle yesterday. I mean, just the words. The words are delicious. Banjo, how's that for a word? That is a great word! Anyway, what good is all this if you can't spread it around? And this show gives me a lot of chances to do just that.
Like this little item here. I remember it as if it were yesterday... Well, today we're having a polka party at Pete's place. Nice little party, just you and me. Although I hope you dance better than I do. So if we're going to be spending an hour connecting the polka dots here, it might be nice to know where the name comes from. It does not, I can tell you this, come from Chico Marx trying to say a pig in a poke. But where does it come from?
This sounds like a job for...
[music excerpt: Walton, "Facade," Overture; Ensemble under the direction of David Epstein; with the "Etymology Can Be Fun" jingle sung over it]
According to Grove's dictionary, the origin of the term polka is uncertain. The dance originated in Bohemia.
The name may have come from the Czech word pulka, meaning half, because of the short heel and toe half steps, which are characteristic of the dance, or it may have come from pole, the word for field, but it's more likely that it comes from the Czech word for a Polish girl, polska, which might have been shouted out during the dancing, or perhaps, according to Grove, it might have been in reference to the Krakowiak dance song.
That's a great word, isn't it? Krakowiak. Meaning, I presume, from Krakow. Or should it be Krakowiak? You know, like it's Moscow, but Muscovite? You could make it clearer that it's an adjective by adding I-A-N on the end. Krakowiakian. Now we're talking about a groove. Krakowiakian, Krakowiakian, Krakowiakian.
There goes the irrelevancy alarm. I could probably argue that one. We are, after all, talking about the etymological origins of the subject of today's program, but these appeals are so costly, you know, in terms of time and money, so I'm going to let it go. I do, however, want to tell you about the results of my own research, and you're getting in on the ground floor on this. I haven't published it yet.
Not many people know that the early European settlers on the eastern seaboard of America included some Bohemians. And a tragic incident occurred in 1594 when the Bohemians were showing off their dancing to a friendly tribe of Indians. A fight broke out and there were some people killed on both sides, and the Indians came to feel that they were haunted by the sound of the polka.
Which is why their chief, Powhatan, named his daughter Pocahontas. The rest, as they say, is history. And that's today's edition of
[music excerpt: Shostakovich, Jazz Suite No. 2, Little Polka; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Chailly; with the "Etymology Can Be Fun" jingle sung over it]
I'm telling you, if this show were any more educational, we'd have to charge tuition.
So true, so true. You know, this show is a real natural for me. I've always loved to prowl around the alleyways of this great big town we call music. There are so many nooks and crannies to explore, and it seems like no matter how much you know, there's always something new waiting to be discovered. And today we're on a journey of rediscovery, visiting once again a few of the best moments of Schickele Mix.
So inhale deeply, sit back, and listen to this.
[sound: pixie dust]
Okay, it's Tidbit Time, and we're going to be hearing an instrument that, I must say, is a new one to me. Now, I know of a bunch of instruments that are named after people. The sousaphone, the saxophone, the heckelphone, the theremin, the sarrusophone, the Wagner tuba, but they are all named either after their inventors, or in the case of Sousa and Wagner, after the composers who specified what they wanted. By the way, speaking of the 19th century, which is when these instruments were invented, most of them, can we make a case for the age of individualism here? Are there any pre-19th century cases of people naming new instruments after themselves? Interesting question. Anyway, the instrument we're about to hear is the only one I know of that is named after a singer, and it's an interesting story.
Hello?
No, the English horn was not named for Lena Horne. She's American. Man, these people must have me on speed dial. So anyway, here's the story behind this instrument. The French writer Émile Zola had a brother who married a singer named Celeste. In spite of her name, she had an unnaturally low voice which was so terrifyingly awful that everyone called her the Gorgon.
After the snake-haired sisters of Greek mythology, who, if you looked at them, you turned to stone. So, when a Parisian instrument maker invented a sort of a cross between a bass trombone and a didgeridoo, with a tone that sounded like a consumptive walrus, he named it after her. And the recording I'm about to present is the first time I've ever heard anyone play the gorgonzola. But before we hear it, let me back up a bit.
A few days ago, Kenneth Mattel, one of the co-directors of Ken and Barbie's early music consort, brought me a recording of an anonymous 17th century English air he recently discovered, and asked my opinion of the performance. Here he is, singing My Joy, It Knows No Bounds.
[music: Schickele, "My Joy, It Knows No Bounds"; Peter Schickele]
Well, I told Ken that it sounded fine to me, except for one thing. I reminded him that in the 17th century it was customary to double the bass line being played by the harpsichordist's left hand. You know, they would have a cello or a bass or a bassoon or whatever was available double the bass line. So I'll be darned if Ken doesn't have a gorgonzola in his instrument collection. And he overdubbed it and this is the new version. He just brought it to me before the show.
Now I want to emphasize that there's nothing new in this version in terms of notes. It's just that now the left hand harpsichord part is being doubled by the gorgonzola. Here we go.
[music: Schickele, "My Joy, It Knows No Bounds," new version with the bass doubled by the "gorgonzola"; Peter Schickele]
Isn't that interesting? Ken and Barbie's early music consort. Now you can hear that the bass line is the Dies Irae melody, the associations of which completely contradict the joyful text of the song. I think we need a new musicological term here to describe the cognitive dissonance produced by this juxtaposition.
How about oxymoronic affect? We can abbreviate it OA. That makes it seem as if the term's been around for years. Although, actually, come to think of it, I'm no Franciscan monk. I don't have to pretend that I hold humility in higher regard than chocolate. If anyone asks you who invented the term oxymoronic affect, just tell them it was the noted scholar Peter Schickele,
[sound: pixie dust, with a recorded voice: "host of Schickele Mix, from PRI"]
Yes, that's me. And unless I'm very much mistaken, you are the person that can make a very big difference in how all this public radio stuff works on a