Greetings From Afar

Listeners and Friends:

I thought I would be able to manage my little once-a-week show while I was traveling, but unfortunately Internet access is difficult, and on top of that, my computer died.  I think it can still be resuscitated, but until it is, the program will be at the mercy of my friends over at WXPI.  I still don't know what aired on Saturday last, but it was planned to be a repeat of an earlier show.

Among the things I found left behind by my Dad is a recording of Handel's Messiah by the Scholar Consort, which had several more authentic versions of numbers from Messiah which are very different from the versions that have come to be familiar to us.  This mania to look for the earliest version of well-known works is distressing, because composers often wrote a piece, which they were dissatisfied with, and then proceeded to improve it.  Beginning in the 1970s, it became fashionable among younger musicologists to give reasons why the earlier version was "better" than the final version, and to tinker with the earlier version until it was performable, and then to record it.  This must have earned them many research credits, and much money from the recordings, but in retrospect it seems rather presumptuous to declare that their opinions concerning a composer's work must supersede those of the composer's.  If a composer liked an earlier version, wouldn't they have said so, and destroyed the later versions?  In some cases, they have.  But in all other cases, it makes better sense to present earlier versions as mere interesting curiosities, and that is the trend nowadays.  So we're no longer subjected to recordings of early versions of Bach's Brandenburg No. 5, for instance, as if it were the only worthwhile version.  (Apologies to Christopher Hogwood and his co-conspirators.  Since those misguided days, Mr Hogwood has produced wonderful recordings, many of which we have used on the program.)

The version of Messiah I listened to last night include a skippy version of Rejoice, O Daughter of Zion in compound time which borders on the comic.  I'm bringing the recordings back with me, since my family here either doesn't care to listen to Baroque music, or if they do, would prefer more familiar versions of better-known pieces.

Anyway, keep the faith, and I'll try my best to put together a nice program for the New Year.

Archie

P. S.  Did you listen to our Radio Play about Archie Andrews and his Christmas Shopping adventure?  I had a great time being The Floorwalker, and I hope some of you caught the play on Sunday at 8 a week ago!

Arch

Show 116: Magic

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 16.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show116.  For instance, the July 4^th show for this year will be numbered numbered Show201, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]
 
The theme for this show is magic, but I have also included a number of cuts by the group Swingle Singers, who are famous in certain knowledgeable quarters, and a few seasonal pieces (most shamelessly a piece commonly played at Holiday time, arranged by myself, in my teens, to be sung by my siblings and myself at our parents' wedding anniversary.  You can watch an animated version of it here).  

America: You Can Do Magic
This happens to be the fighting song of the Williamsport Millionnaires at one time, and I put it in at the last second, because I had forgotten all about it!

Mozart: Magic Flute and Magic Bells from Der Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)
This Singspiel (music folk-drama) by Mozart has lots of magical artifacts in it, and this scene has the Magic Flute itself, and Papageno's magic bells making an appearance.

Please Release Me (Let Me Go), sung by Engelbert Humperdinck
The singer who became popular in the sixties under the name Engelbert Humperdinck was born with an entirely different name (Dorsey, if I remember correctly).  The name Engelbert Humperdinck actually belonged to a writer of opera of the Wager school, whose best-known opus is the children's opera Hansel and Gretel, excerpts from which are described in the next item.

Engelbert Humperdinck: Overture, "Little Brother, dance with me!" from Hänsel und Gretel
This story is, of course, all about magic.  Two of the most memorable tunes from the opera are the Children's Prayer, and the little duet Brother, dance with me sung by the two children.

Wagner: Themes from The Ring Cycle
One of my most treasured compact disc albums is this one by musicologist Deryck Cooke, who made a study of the themes from the Wagner operas Das Rhinegold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Gotterdammerung.  Wagner developed the idea of associating a musical fragment with a particular idea (or psychological element) to a very high level, which was necessary, Deryck Cooke says, to give coherence to the enormous work consisting of these four operas, which would last for close to 15 hours, if played continuously one after the other.  Many of the objects of importance in the drama have their own themes, and we play excerpts from Cooke's recording which illustrate the themes or motifs, and their development.

Cooke: The Joy of the Rhinegold
Almost the very first piece of sung music in the entire drama is the three Rhinemaidens (sort of river nymphs) singing the praise of their nugget of magic gold.  Cooke is able to trace, from this simple melodic fragment, the themes that represent the ring forged from the gold, and its various aspects.

Wagner: Magic Fire Music
The chief of the Valkyries is Brunhilda.  (In a sense, the four operas are the story of Wotan, and his machinations.)  Wotan has arranged for a child to be born from Siegmund, and Sieglinde, who happens to be married to another man.  Siegmund and Sieglinde have eloped, and spent the night, and the child has been conceived.  But Wotan's wife sees what is happening, and insists that the child and its mother should be allowed to die.  So a showdown is on the way, and Wotan is forced to warn the valkyrie Brunhilda not to interfere.  Brunhilda's sympathies are with Siegmund and Sieglinde, and despite Wotan's warning, when Siegmund is killed, she puts the pregnant woman on her horse and rides furiously away.  But she can't elude Wotan; when the chief of the gods catches up with her, she has already stashed the pregnant woman in a deep cave.  Wotan reads her the riot act, and puts her into a magical sleep, and calls upon Loki (or Loge), the god of Fire and Mischief, to raise a ring of magical fire around the sleeping Brunhilda.  In this entirely instrumental cut, we hear Wotan's parting words to the Valkyrie, the entrance of Loki, the magic fire music, and the magical sleep music.

Could It Be Magic, sung by Barry Manilow
This song, popular in the eighties, is based on Chopin's Prelude no. 20 in C minor.  This particular extended version of the song starts off with the prelude, and after the song ends, a few bars of the prelude close it.

Chopin: 24 Preludes, Op28 - 20 in C minor
This is the original prelude, played by Maurizio Pollini

Magic, sung by Olivia Newton-John
This song from the movie Xanadu was a multi-million-seller for Ms Newton-John.  It was written by a team including John Farrar.

Archie: Twelve Days Of Christmas 
This arrangement of the popular Christmas song, is from my misspent youth.  It has all twelve days, and is arranged for two groups, with a flute,  clarinet, bassoon and trombone on one side, an oboe, English horn, and two bassoons on the other side.  Enjoy!

Wagner Parsifal Overture
A large part of the King Arthur legend has to do with the search for the Holy Grail, which was for centuries considered to be simply the vessel from which Jesus and the disciples drank at the Last Supper.  Since Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, however, we have been made aware that a significant number of people take the view that it was code for the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.  The mere suggestion that these two could have had children infuriates most believing Christians.  At any rate, Sir Galahad was a most determined seeker of the Holy Grail, and Percival is his son.  In the particular legend that Wagner has chosen to set to music in his opera, Percival ---or Parsifal has lots of miracles in it.  So here is an abbreviated version of the Overture to the opera.

Mozart: Die Zauberflote - Overture, sung by the Swingle Singers
I was completely dumbfounded by many of the pieces automatically selected by the computer system that ran the program for me last week, especially the lovely pieces by the Swingle Singers, formed by Ward Swingle in the early Sixties in Paris.  So this week, I'm playing a lot of Swingle Singers.  This is the overture to the Magic Flute.

Mozart: Minuetto from Symphony No 40
We've listened to this piece in the show whose theme was dances.

Mozart: Finale from Symphony No 40
The last movement from the same symphony.

Mozart: Un' Aura amorosa sung by the Swingle Singers
This aria is from Cosi fan Tutte which means, in Italian "So do they all," meaning that women are sentimental and easily influenced creatures.

Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik - Finale  Swingle Singers


Mozart: Canzonetta from Don Giovanni
Another lovely aria, with an interesting countermelody, also sung by the Swingle Singers.

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte - Terzettino
An utterly bewitching ensemble number from the opera.

Mozart: Piano Concerto No 21 - Andante
The melody made famous in the movie Elvira Madigan

Mozart: Requiem - Hostias

Mozart: Piano sonata in A major - Finale, Alla Turca
Another famous tune from Mozart, the last movement from the sonata which opens with a set of variations we played some weeks ago.

Mozart: Fantasia in F minor and major
This is from one of Mozart's little-known organ pieces.

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker - Waltz Of The Flowers
There is a lot of magic in The Nutcracker, which is also a piece with a Christmas theme, so it seems to fit in well with the music for this week.

Nina and Frederik: Little Donkey
The group of Nina and Frederik were well known in the Fifties.  I was dismayed to learn that after the couple divorced, Frederik joined a drug trafficking gang in the Philippines, and was gunned down in a gang-related shooting.  That has little to do with this piece, so I will leave it alone.

Nina and Frederik: Mary's Boy Child
This is my favorite version of this carol.  It is from an album featuring Louis Armstrong, but I'm not sure whether we can conclude that the trumpet solo is by him...

Archie

The Swingle Singers

The last edition of Archie's Archives was, as I explained, generated by random selection of an enormous collection of music files I had placed in a folder at WXPI, just for the eventuality that I might someday not have a program (of the usual sort) ready to air.  The selection of tunes on the program were as much a surprise to me as it might have been to anyone listening to the broadcast.  Among other things, it reminded me about what an awesome group the Swingle Singers were.

From what I can gather, The Swingle Singers was formed in the early Sixties in France, by Ward Swingle, an American jazz musician.  The original group performed all sorts of music, but their genius was the scat singing (singing to the nonsense syllables used by jazz singers) of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, most famously, the Air from the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, which has come to be known by the odd name The Air on the G String, because some fellow decided to play it on the G string of his violin.  (Some years ago, the local Civic Chorus decided to sing this piece Swingle Singers style, and I was in love.  It was just awesome to sing, and just as great to listen to.  The original movement, in four parts, was a masterpiece of writing, and the Swingle Singers sing it essentially unaltered.)

You can read the Wikipedia article on them for yourself.  (The Wikipedia folks make some snide remarks about documentation, but the information about recordings credits and commercial appearances are a matter of record anyone can look up, e.g. on CD inserts, and the credits for TV shows.)

All along, I gather, they have sung works by a variety of composers, even if their fame rests largely on their singing of Bach.  Their singing of Mozart, especially, seems very effective.

I'm still working on the show with the theme of Magic for this weekend, but I might include a number of pieces by the Swingle Singers, in particular their Mozart pieces, and among them the Canzonetta from Don Giovanni that was played last Saturday.

Archie

I know what you're thinking!

Was that a crazy show last night (Dec 6, 2014) or what?

I was trying to get a show of the usual kind ready for 8:00, but late on Thursday I knew I just could not make it.  So when I went in to help Curt Musheno, our audio engineer, with getting our first radio play ready for broadcast (which will air, I think a week from tonight, at 8:00 p.m.) I prevailed upon him to make my show run automatically.

I described this process a couple of months ago.  Basically, it goes like this: I create folders at the Station, on their main computer, with hundreds of music tracks from many of the CDs I own.  Then Curt coded the program to play from a new playlist.  This playlist only had that crazy sign-on thing that sounds like a commercial: “If you, or someone you love, is interested in classical music, listen carefully...”  Then, when it runs out of music —which it will in just thirty seconds— it looks in that huge music folder for music to play at random.

The tunes are played totally at random.  A disproportionately large number of Beatles songs aired last night, before Tune-In Radio quit on us.  I think this is because I have  ripped almost all the Beatles CDs, whereas I have ripped just a few of my Beethoven CDs, for instance.  This is not the case with other CDs, unless I bought a CD digitally, in which case of course all I do have is the MP3s.

The program keeps track of the files it plays.  (Can you believe this?)  And if I do this again —which I will, because I'm going to be out of town for several weekends— it will not repeat a track until it has exhausted all the tracks it hasn't played yet.  So you're not going to hear Helter Skelter, which is a lot of work.  (That thing seemed to die several times, and get right back up and keep going!  Hoboy.)

Amazingly, there were some tunes that got played last night that I had never heard before.  One of them was just gorgeous —well, a little trite, so I couldn't stand to listen to it too many times, but still really lush and pretty— and it must have been among my MP3s, but as I said, it was completely new to me.  I have to find out what it is, and I'm hoping that the computer program that runs the station (called Sam) has the playlist somewhere I can see it.  Now that's really amazing.

Now, note: the program for Saturday, December 20th I have planned to make a special Christmas edition.  It will have a few cuts from Messiah, an equal number of cuts from The Christmas Oratorio by Bach, a couple of comedy tracks (Tom Lehrer and Weird Al) and Leroy Anderson, Engelbert Humperdick, and sundry other Christmas-related pieces.

This Blog had 9 visitors this morning, more than ever before.  Some of you had your minds blown by the program, obviously, but I cannot say whether in a good way, or bad.  Please let me know; if you would prefer not to have too much Beatles, I can arrange to remove the Beatles tracks from the database.

Regards,

Archie

“”—

Guest Host Helena Della: My Favorites

Saturday's show was presented by Helena Della, a guest host!

Here's the transcript.  Helena Della writes:

Surprise, it’s not Arch, it’s Helena Della, your guest host tonight for the Archives!   Arch has graciously invited me to play whatever I like, as long as at least half the program is classical.

Most of what I like in classical music I absorbed as a very small child, when it came pouring out of my parents’ Hi Fi.   It is so easy to picture my mother’s head bobbing and elbows flying as she ironed in time to the music, or my father puffing on his 99th cigar and sipping his third whiskey, with his elbows on the kitchen table and his face in a book.

Part A: Music my Mom would have enjoyed.

Mom, Anne Moller, loved warm, emotional composers like Gershwin, Prokofiev, Debussy, and Ravel.  She had a rich alto voice and adored choral music.  My Dad, George Moller had a lot of folk music in his collection – the Brothers Four, Leon Bibb, and some marvelous 78s of traditional English folk songs.  His classical taste was light and lively.  Enesco rhapsodies, Chabrier, and Rossini were up his alley.  He also admired classical guitar.

Here are three of mom’s:  Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3; with Martha Argerich and the Berlin Philharmonic; then Philip Glass’ Beauty and the Beast, played by Angele Dubeau and Pieta; and finally, “My Man’s Gone Now” from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, sung by Inez Matthews for the 1959 movie version.

Part B: Some music from Dad's collection, and more.

From my Dad’s collection, first we’ll hear Chabrier’s Espana, played by Michel Plasson and the Toulouse Capitol Orchestra, then Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance with the Royal Philarmonic, and a selection from Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco’s Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra.   That one is played by Miguel Gomez-Martinez and the English Chamber Orchestra.

The next two coming up are:  Signor Bruschino Overture by Rossini, with Neville Mariner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.  Then two Debussy piano arabesques played by Alain LeFevre.

Part C: More Helena Della favorites

The next set of two are performed again by the all-female Canadian ensemble, Angele Dubeau and Pieta.  Archie and I saw these women at Bucknell a few years ago, they are wonderful performers.  Angéle Dubeau can make her Stradivarius do anything she wants.   The CD named Fairy Tales was made for lullaby time.  Parents, are you listening?  This stuff puts me in a serene and restful state of mind, so it should work well on small rambunctious children.  (It’s better than strangling them.)  First, we will hear Fantasia para un Gentilhombre, then another version of Beauty and the Beast, this time not by Philip Glass but by Francois Dompierre.

Part D: Wake Up!

Wake up! Want to hear “Lost in Space” played by the Czech Philharmonic?  How about a ditty called “Birds Chirping” played on a Wurlitzer Theatre Organ?  (That’s played by an organ roll, not a person.)  And I KNOW you need to hear Enesco’s Roumanian Rhapsody No. 2 played on the harmonica (by Larry Adler).

[I did not introduce the next three, because they were chosen after the announcements were taped.  They are the King's Singers, who usually sing a capella, but are accompanied here by a few instruments, singing three unidentified songs.  These were recorded for me by Arch back in 2009, and we weren't very careful about keeping track of the names of the pieces.  But Arch still has the CDs, and if you're interested, we can do some research.]

Part E:  Crossover and New Age music before New Age was born.

Renaissance,
Gryphon, and
Winter Consort

To finish up, I want to play some music of the 70s that uses classical instruments played by classically trained musicians, but adding rock influences.  Remember Gryphon, King Crimson, Emerson Lake and Palmer, the Moody Blues, and all those classy, rich rock songs of the early 70s?  You’ll recognize most of what I have coming up next.  On the air, I promised to put the playlist right here, and here it is:

Stupidity Tries: Radiohead, performed by Christopher O'Riley
Running Hard: Renaissance, vocals by Annie Haslam
Second Spasm: Gryphon
Black Flame: Renaissance, Annie Haslam
Icarus: Paul Winter Consort
Opening Move: Gryphon
Bordel 1900: Astor Piazzola, performed by Al di Meola

[Added by Archie: the amazing Annie Haslam was performing as recently as two years ago; search for her on YouTube.]

Thanks for everything, and become a member and support the Station!

Helena Della

Songs

The show on Songs aired as scheduled.  Here are the podcast files for the show, in four quarters.

Part A
Part B
Part C
Part D

This is one of the earliest shows I put together, and one with which I was most pleased when it was finished.  If you go back to the blog post for when it first aired, there is mention of a bad bass rumble.  It turns out that my own subwoofer was turned up a little too high, and when the station software turns up the bass just a little ö—most of the music it plays sounds a little better with a punchier bass, I suppose— the result was a little overwhelming.

My script for the show is incomplete; as the deadline grew closer, I threw the script out and ad-libbed the introductions to each song, or just left them completely out!  So here are short remarks to go with each song.  All the featured works were songs, or more properly, arias.

Michael Arne: The Lass with the Delicate Air
Michael Arne was the son of Thomas Arne, who wrote Rule Britannia, which, as I remarked on the show, was a wildly patriotic British anthem, still sung on patriotic occasions over there.

This song, a very lighthearted one, was sung by Julie Andrews in an early recording, when she was in her twenties, at most.  There is rather an affected flourish with which she ends it, but it doesn’t seem inappropriate for the song, in retrospect.

Thomas Arne: Where the Bee Sucks
This is a song very well known in Britain, taken from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  Emma Kirkby, one of Britain’s greatest sopranos, married to Christopher Hogwood, incidentally, does a great job, as does Mr. Hogwood himself in the accompaniment.

Kurt Weill: Moritat Vom Mackie Messer
Lotte Lenya, who was said to be Kurt Weill’s muse, made this song from The Threepenny Opera popular throughout Europe, and then the song went on to be a hit for American singers from Louis Armstrong to Bobby Darrin, in its English translation as Mack the Knife.  We merged two recordings: one with Lotte Lenya singing it in German, with a second one where she sings it with Louis Armstrong in English.

Joseph Haydn: Nun beut die Flur
Milton’s Paradise Lost was proposed to Joseph Haydn as a possible libretto for an oratorio.  The gentleman who brought it to Haydn’s attention provided a German translation, and the result was one of the greatest entries in the oratorio form: Haydn’s Creation.  In this song, the Angel Gabriel wonders at the beauty of the newly-created flora.  The soprano is Helen Donath, who was born in Texas, but went on to excel in German opera in Germany and Vienna.

P. D. Q. Bach: Now is the season
P.D.Q. Bach is the fictional 20th son on Johann Sebastian Bach, an invention of Peter Schickele, the talented and imaginative American composer and graduate from Juilliard, who performed in Williamsport around 1985 in the Scottish Rite Auditorium.  The aria, sung by the brilliant Lorna Haywood, is from the Oratorio The Seasonings.  (In case you miss the joke, there is more than one Oratorio named The Seasons, notably one by Haydn.)

Schumann: Der Nussbaum
This is a beautiful Lied, by Robert Schumann, sung by Emmy Ameling.  (Der Nussbaum means The Nut Tree.)

Tom Lehrer: Poisoning Pigeons In The Park
Possibly the best known song by Tom Lehrer, this song should be sung in April, ideally.  Someone who was around in the spring of 1965 would be better able to describe the facts around the curious title: did they actually poison pigeons back then?  They must have, otherwise the song would not be so funny.

George Harrison: All Things Must Pass
This was one of George Harrison’s most lovely songs, but I think this rendering by Paul McCartney, during a memorial concert for George Harrison, is almost better than George’s own, but that might be sacrilege.

Richard Strauss: Im Abendrot
A cousin of the Waltz Strausses, Richard Strauss is best known today for writing the tone poem Thus Spake Zarathustra, whose stunning opening theme was borrowed by Stanley Kubrik for 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Strauss wrote Four Last Songs, a tour-de-force of Wagnerian songwriting, and this is one of them: Im Abendrot---at Sunset.  You hear birds flying away several times, depicted by a pair of trilling flutes.  I don’t understand the original German, but I would venture a guess that it is about departure.

J. S. Bach: Mein glaubiges Herze
This is a complete reversal of mood, quite unintentionally.  This aria from Cantata 68 is a reworking (a parody aria) of an earlier aria from a Secular Cantata, about Hercules at the Crossroads, or something like that.  At any rate, in the earlier tune, there is an extensive postlude that goes on for about a minute.  When Bach borrowed the tune for his church cantata, he could not bring himself to abbreviate the long postlude, so it remains as an extended ending to Mein glaubiges Herze (My joyful heart, or “My heart ever faithful,” in the versified English translation.  This is sung by Julianne Baird, Professor Emeritus of music at Rutgers, accompanied by the Aulos Ensemble.

Richard Wagner: The Making of the Prize Song
I introduced the Overture to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, in an earlier show.  Walther von Stoltzing is a young aristocrat who comes into Nuremburg to meet with Hans Sachs, a skilled poet and composer of the 16th century, to further his musical education.  While there, he sees and falls in love with Eva, the young daughter of the city Goldsmith.  Unfortunately, the Goldsmith, who is the President of the Guild of Mastersingers, has promised that the winner of the annual song competition shall have first choice to marry Eva.  (If Eva turns the song champion down, she must remain unmarried for life.  Evidently they had moved beyond forced marriages, at least in Wagner’s imagination.)

Walther, once he learns of this, is desperate to join the Guild, and win the competition, which is impossible.  But this is opera, so he succeeds.  In this scene, Hans Sachs helps the young fellow to write a suitable song in the required form, for the competition.  I rudely provide a translation as a sort of voice-over.

Steve Goodman: City Of New Orleans
You should read up the history of this song, which was made popular by Arlo Guthrie (the son of Woody Guthrie).

J. S. Bach: Vergnügte Ruh
This lovely Bach aria is sung by Guillemette Laurens, and accompanied by Diego Fasolis and I Barrochisti.

Arthur Sullivan: Yum-Yum's Song
This is a lovely aria from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, sung here by Marie McLaughlin.

Edie Brickel: 'Stwisted
Texan Edie Brickel first became famous as a singer songwriter with her group the New Bohemians.  Edie Brickel was later married to Paul Simon.  This is sung by long-time Williamsport resident Uma, with her now-defunct group Episodes.

Meredith Willson: Till There Was You
Paul McCartney loved this song from The Music Man, and sang it with the Beatles in an early album.  There is a lovely acoustic guitar interlude, which gives it a sort of C & W flavor.

Nelson Lee: Welela
One of Miriam Makeba’s best known songs.  Miriam Makeba, a brilliant South African singer, was admired and promoted by Harry Belafonte.

Anonymous Folk Melody: Deep River
This song was made popular by Paul Robeson, and featured in the movie Showboat.  Here it is sung by Bryn Terfel, the Welsh bass.

P. I. Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart
Paul Robeson sings this Tchaikovsky song, which has been frequently reviled as being too sentimental.  Evidently the words are a translation of a poem by Johann von Goethe

Giaccomo Puccini: O mio babbino caro
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf sings this well-known Puccini aria.

Paul Simon: Still Crazy After All These Years
From the album There goes Rhymin’ Simon comes this Paul Simon song, with a lovely saxophone interlude.

W. A. Mozart: Laudate Dominum
In my younger days I bought a Laserlight CD of The Best of Mozart, and this lovely piece was in it, sung by Maria Zadori.  I have never heard anything sung by this lady with such a lovely voice since, but I tried to find out more about her, and have only turned up that she is Hungarian, and a Handel expert.  Unfortunately, European Handel experts are seldom heard in the US, since Brits have got a lock on all things Handelian.

Björk: Human Behavior
This whimsical singer from Iceland has created some amazing songs, which were brought to my attention by my daughter.


Tomás Méndez: Cucurucucu Paloma
This song written in 1954 was performed by numerous singers, including Harry Belafonte, who sings it here.

George and Dhani Harrison: Horse to the Water
This song was one of the last sung by George Harrison, with Jools Holland’s Blues Band.  On the Concert for George, it was performed by Sam Brown, and this track is taken from the video performance.

WXPI is trying very hard to attract more listeners, and we're trying to expand and improve our website.  One thing we're going to do is to put a brief music file, a sampler of the type of material on the show.  Here's the track I will be putting there, as soon as it can be arranged.  Take a listen, and write in your suggestions!

Archie

Show 115: Chamber Music

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 15.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show115.  For instance, the July 4^th show for this year will be numbered numbered Show201, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]

First of all, WXPI is going to present a radio play sometime soon.  Archie, Veronica, Betty and Jughead ride again in this silly little skit about the holiday season.  I got to play one of the most interesting roles in it; I'll tip you the wink when I find out when it airs.

Today's show has been uploaded already, and will hit the airwaves tonight at 8:00.  However, I'm trying something new, and it might get screwed up.  Basically, instead of preparing twenty or twenty-five independent files (I explained why that was desirable a couple of weeks ago), I prepared four half-hour (actually, 28-minute) segments.  This means that the station doesn't get to break in at random times between files.  But if for some reason the station does break in, it will screw up royally, because it will discard an enormous chunk of music.  I guess I am playing with fire.

Anyhoo, here are the links to the podcast.

Part A:  Bach, Brahms, Mozart, Dvorák

Mozart:  Clarinet Quintet in A
This is an amazing work, possibly one of Mozart's best known.  Every movement is a jewel of perfection; this is the opening movement.  I have played the slow movement before.

Brahms: Sextet in B Flat
A lovely piece by Brahms, for a string quartet (two violins, a viola and a cello) with one additional viola and cello each.


Dvorák: Bagatelles, Op. 47
This is a quartet for an unusual combination: two violins, a cello, and a harmonium.  Harmoniums are little pedal organs where the sound is from reeds.  Not the sort of reeds you get in clarinets and bassoons, but the sort you get in a harmonica, or a piano accordion: a tiny brass strip tuned to a particular note.  I'm breaking with my usual habit of playing just one movement, and playing four of these bagatelles, because they're so delightful.  Warning: the set is interrupted in the middle by the station break, so the last couple continues afterwards.

Part B: Schubert, Thomas Morley

Schubert: Octet for clarinet, horn, bassoon & strings in F major
I was obsessed with Octets for some time, and I saw this Schubert octet on the shelf, and I got all excited.  When it arrived, I just loved it.  Schubert was as much of a genius as Mozart, especially in the department of melodic invention.  This is the first movement of an octet that was written for a string quartet, augmented with an oboe, a clarinet, a horn and a bassoon.  It is Archibudelli (which means ancient strings, because they play either original seventeenth century instruments, or reproductions of such instruments), and Mozzafiato, a word whose meaning I do not know.  Mozzafiato is led by Charles Neidich, who performed at the Community Arts Center (in Williamsport, Our Fair City) in the nineties.

Thomas Morley: Now is the month of Maying
This is a madrigal, sung by the King's Singers, who are all alumni of the King's College Cambridge Choir School.

Part C: Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bach, Mozart

Schubert: Piano Quintet (The Trout) - IV
Schubert wrote a lot of songs, and one of the most popular was one about a trout.  He later wrote a Piano Quintet, called The Trout Quintet, in which one movement is an air and variations on the tune of the song The Trout.  This is that movement.  The performers include Alfred Brendl on the piano.

Mendelssohn: Octet for strings in E flat major-Scherzo
The Scherzo from Mendelssohn's Octet from String is a lovely piece that features the sort of fairy music that Mendelssohn was so brilliant at, and which you hear in his Midsummer Night's Dream overture.  This is Hausmusic, London led by Monica Huggett.

Bach: Trio Sonata 1 in E Flat, ii
I have played the first movement of this one already for you, in our very first broadcast.  Here is the slow movement, played on a pedal harpsichord by E. Power Biggs.  A pedal harpsichord is just a harpsichord with a pedalboard, which is a keyboard intended to be played with the feet.

Mozart: String Quartet No 17 in B flat major ('Hunt')
Haydn and Mozart sort of taught each other to write string quartets.  Haydn is generally credited with inventing the genre, and immediately afterwards, Mozart heard some of them, and was soon writing even more beautiful string quartets, which Haydn got to hear, after which Haydn wrote some more fabulous quartets, and so on.  This is the Hunt quartet by Mozart, no. 17 in B Flat.

Part D: Mozart, Camerata Brasil, Wagner, Ravel

Mozart: Serenade in E-flat major K375- Adagio
This is a Mozart Serenade.  These were written for a small ensemble of maybe seven or eight instruments, but it is not chamber music at all, in fact it is outdoor music.  Bands of amateur musicians formed themselves into little performing groups, and serenaded homes from the street, a little like Christmas Caroling.  This is a lovely slow movement from the E Flat major serenade.

Vou Vivendo - Camerata Brasil
Taken from an album titled Bach in Brasil, this highly rhythmic little movement is played by the string band Camerata Brasil.

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll
Now, Wagner was unhappily married, but around 1870, he fell in love with the daughter of Franz Liszt, Cosima, who happened to be married to the conductor Hans Von Bulow.  After a while, the respective spouses allowed the two of them to move in together, and they had a child, the famous Siegfried Wagner, who at one time controlled Wagner’s opera hall in Bavaria, called Bayreuth.  Anyway, either Siegfried’s or his mother’s birthday was Christmas Day, I believe, so Wagner wrote this lovely, lovely one instrument-per-part tone poem, called Siegfriend Idyll, and early morning on Christmas Day, arranged for thirteen players to play it on the stairs of his grand home in the hills of Munich, or wherever his home was.  Ironically, this piece written for a small group of thirteen or so instruments is better known and loved that many of Wagner’s larger-scaled works for an orchestra of more than 100 instruments.

Ravel: Introduction and Allegro
Here is a relatively infrequently played piece by Maurice Ravel for a string quartet, flute, clarinet and harp.  It runs for more than 10 minutes, but I’ll play about four minute of it.  This is James Galway, Richard Stoltzman, and Heidi Lehwalder on Flute, Clarinet and Harp, respectively.

How did Archie make that Scary Introduction last Saturday?

Heh heh!

It was done using my all-purpose sound editor, Audacity.

Given a piece of sound, Audacity can do lots of things with it.

(1) Make it louder or softer.
(2) Edit it; that is cut piece of sound out of one place, and insert in another place; trim a piece of music as desired, and rearrange it.
(3) Speed it up, which means of course, the pitch rises.  Or slow it down.
(4) Speed it up or slow it down at the same pitch.  This is very clever; the piece is analyzed into individual notes, and the frequencies of each note, and its duration.  Then the duration is increased, leaving the frequency alone, and finally the piece is reassembled.
(4) Raise or lower the pitch, keeping the speed (the Tempo) as it is.

What I did is to [1] make a copy of the initial segment of the tune, where I say: "If you or someone you love ...".
[2] Then I pasted it somewhere away from the Intro, and raised the pitch an augmented fourth.  This is an interval that sounds unsettling (for instance, B to F).
Then [3] I pasted the modified copy alongside the original.  Now I had two voices, speaking exactly an augmented fourth apart.  If it had been two different people speaking at the same time, it would have sounded quite normal.  But since it was me speaking at two pitches, it sounded strange.  In addition, the music, too, was shifted.  That was the whole thing!

Actually, I did one more step.  Audacity can, in addition,

(5) Do a sound effect called Phaser.  What this does is to switch the Stereo channels back and forth from Left to Right in such a way that it seems to rotate around the room.  It is a combination of gradually switching channels, and making them louder and softer in rotation.  (This effect was available in Hammond Organs back in the Sixties, by rotating speakers inside the speaker boxes, and it was called Leslie!  Nobody has rotating speakers anymore, but a fake Leslie effect can be obtained with this Phaser effect, and it is actually superior to Leslie.  It can be used over the speakers in an Auditorium, for instance, which you could not do with old-time Leslie.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed all that nonsense, and how it was done!

Archie.

Show 113 Finally

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 13.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show113.  For instance, the July 4^th show for this year will be numbered numbered Show201, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]

Show 13 did finally air, but there were enormous technical errors, mostly centering around the automatic crossfading that the Master Program had been set to do.  This is a setting in which each music track is faded out and the next track is faded in, in an overlapping way.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all well for speech, as it does for music.  Normally, crossfading is set for about two seconds of overlap, but I suspect that last night it was set for more.  It effectively shortened the 2-hour broadcast to an hour and twenty minutes.  It is frustrating, but I take it on the bump as we used to say (a saying that derives from the game of Cricket, which I have not really played.)

Anyway, here we are with the podcast.  I don't do a podcast for the actual broadcast because that doesn't allow me to put the performer and the album information into the metadata (the stuff that shows up on your car radio while the music is playing.  Actually, I have an older car, and the stuff doesn't show up, anyway.)

Part A (28 minutes, more or less): Handel, Bach, Mozart

Handel: Overture to The Watermusic.  Handel was initially the court composer of the court of Elector Georg of Hanover.  He was a rising musical star in his youth, and managed to get leave of his master to travel in Italy.  He kept extending his leave, and eventually landed in Britain, where his music was so appreciated that he stayed on for several years.  To his horror, on the death of the British monarch, Georg of Hanover ascended to the British Throne, and Handel was in the awkward position of having played hooky from his job in Germany for several years.  But the resourceful Handel arranged to accompany a water party on the Thames given by George, and play music specially composed for the occasion from a barge (or barges), and regained favor with His Majesty.  Anyway, that's the story.  This overture is the first movement of the music composed for that occasion.  [Raymond Leppard, English Chamber Orchestra]

Some centuries later, Sir Hamilton Harty, who was one of the principal organizers of the London Proms, arranged extracts from the Watermusic into a more Victorian, sumptuous romantic score, which was immensely popular in the 2oth Century, but in the Sixties, the original work regained popularity, with the rediscovery of Baroque orchestras and instruments.

Bach: Overture to Suite No. 1 in C major.  This is a grand piece for large orchestra from the time of Bach's stay in the Ducal court of Weimar.  The entire orchestral suite is lovely.  [Akademie fur Alte Music, Berlin]

Handel: Overture to Messiah.  Notice the characteristic dotted rhythms of the slow introduction, which is followed by a faster contrapuntal section, after which the slow section returns.  This ABA form is often expanded by repetition into an ABABA form, with greater ornamentation in the later repeats.  [London Philharmonic Orchestra, John Alldis]

Mozart: Overture to The Marriage of Figaro.  The overture, which was composed at the last minute, is one of the best-known works of Mozart, and is an exciting romp of just about 5 minutes.  While musically it is hardly remarkable, it is all elegance and style, and manages to focus all the attention on the play itself, and not on the music.  [Origin uncertain!  Could be any one of a number of my personal collection of recordings...]

Part B (28 minutes): Mozart, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Beethoven

Mozart: Overture to The Magic Flute.  The Magic Flute was composed as a singspiel, which literally means musical play.  It was a deliberate attempt to depart from the Italian-dominated opera tradition towards a more folk-centered German theatrical tradition which was gaining popularity with the people.  As mentioned earlier, it had a strong masonic flavor, though ultimately the masonic elements are of greater interest to the Freemasons and historians than to music-lovers.

The overture is a marvel of construction, in utter contrast to the previous one.  The heavy brass in the trombones is a huge contrast to the light, fluffy orchestration of Figaro.  [Staatskapelle, Dresden; Colin Davis]

Beethoven:  Overture to Fidelio.  Beethoven wrote just one opera, Fidelio, and he labored over an appropriate overture to it.  (Presumably Mozart was a tough act to follow.)  The opera is highly regarded, at least by Beethoven fanatics.  Beethoven wrote a total of four overtures to the opera, and this one is the most frequently performed with the opera, at least that's what I understand.  I was seriously underwhelmed by the piece, and I apologize for cutting it short.  [Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell]

Mendelssohn: Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream.  The Mendelssohn family loved Shakespeare to pieces, and in his youth, young Felix wrote this amazing overture, as well as incidental music to accompany the play.  I am not sure of the details, but there is enough incidental music to suggest that the play was performed with the music in Mendelssohn's lifetime.  The family was very well off, and Felix and his sister and friends often put on various plays and performances in the house, which were attended by a large circle of friends.  [London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado]

Handel:  Air from Watermusic.  This was a centerpiece of the Hamilton Harty arrangement.  It is a lovely horn tune, which found its way into easy pieces for piano and practically every conceivable instrument. [Raymond Leppard, English Chamber Orchestra]



Part C (28 minutes): Mendelssohn, Wagner, Frederick Loewe

Mendelssohn: Fingal's Cave Overture.  Written to commemorate a visit to Fingal's Cave in the Hebrides, in Scotland.  [London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado]

Brahms: Academic Festival Overture.  Written in response to being awarded an honorary doctorate at Breslau U.  [BBC Philharmonic Orchestra]

Wagner: Overture to Die Meistersinger.  Most of the overture, with voice-over identifying the various themes.  I did not remember to point out that after the famous triple counterpoint towards the end, the Rules and Regulations theme is played to generate a little more excitement, before the big cadenza.  [Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan]

Frederic Loewe: Overture to My Fair Lady.  This would be hard to guess for a younger audience which hasn't heard the tunes from the musical or movie ad nauseam.  You should be able to identify: "You did it", "On the street where you live", "Wouldn't it be loverly", and a couple more.  [Andre Previn]

Part D (28 minutes)

Wagner: Overture to Tannhauser.  This opens with the Pilgrim's Chorus (horns and trombones, later with strings joining in), then after the Pilgrims go off into the distance, we hear the seductive music of Venusburg, and Venus herself, represented by the clarinet.  Our hero enters and sings a paean of praise to the goddess, and just as things are getting out of hand, the Pilgrims are heard returning, this time joined by a huge marching band they have linked up with somewhere.  (Believe it or not, the Pilgrim's Chorus is the very first tune I tried to harmonize by myself.  It turned out mostly pretty close to the original, but I later heard some really amazing chromatic details I had missed as a 13-year-old.)  [Festival Orchestra of London]

Hammerstein: Overture to The Sound of Music.  This was puzzle for you to guess.  The overture leads straight into the Nun's Chorus.  [Original Soundtrack Recording (Irwin Kostal?)]

Wagner: Prelude to Tristan and Isolde.  This sad story ends with the suicide of the young lovers.  The movie of a couple of years ago captures the mood very well.  [RSO, Ljublana]
 
Bernstein: Overture to Candide.  [New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein]

Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture.  This version has a full chorus singing the first theme, which is a hymn.  This is a later addition (see here) by Igor Buketoff.  The Russian Orthodox hymn is to the words "O Lord save Thy People".  [Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Jarvi]

Archie

Apologies: WXPI was off the air

The station engineers are tinkering with the transmitter, and the station has been off the air for close to a week.

I'm going to leave Saturday's show on the system for next weekend; there's no point putting something new on if the one in the queue hasn't aired!

General News
Omissions.  As you can see, some notable items are missing from the shows; for instance, there are tons of duets that you might have been looking for, but did not hear on that show.  I recently discovered an entire disc of duets by Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna.  There is an article about the lovely opera star, talking about her breakup with Mr Alagna, which you might be interested in.  I don't listen to a lot of Italian opera, so I will find it difficult to select a duet or two to play on the program.  The pop duets available are numerous, and I will try and find some for you on another show!

Overtures, too, are numerous; classical music fans all have their favorites, and might not find all of them on next Saturday's show!  The same with the Variations; the Enigma Variations were conspicuous by their absence.  I will try to squeeze them in.  Also, I want to present a set of variations of the sort: What if Mozart wrote "Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas"?  I don't know where to look for those sorts of things!!

Running a Radio Station.  All I really know is how my particular show is run!

There is a computer in the station, with an enormous hard disc, and a clock-driven program that runs continuously.  Like an alarm you might have running on your own computer or on your smart phone, the station program is designed to play music from a particular folder at a particular time.  That's mainly it.

At particular times, too: roughly every 30 minutes, according to FCC (radio) rules, the program is instructed to play a station identification, which sits in a particular folder.  At these times, brief service messages (Public Service Announcements, or PSA's) are played, to take up a total of two minutes, for announcements and identification.  The messages played on the hour are a little more formal than those played at the half-hour.

For some programs, the show host sits right in the studio at the microphone, and plays music he has got ready as MP3s, or conducts an interview, or anything he likes.  These are live shows.  In these sorts of cases, the show host is in charge of the mid-hour interruptions.

For other programs, the show host sends in (by mail, by Internet, or by actually coming into the studio and uploading it) two 28-minute MP3s.  That leaves 2 minutes for the station messages at the half-hour and the hour.  This is called a Podcast, and they tried to get me to do this.  Unfortunately, when this plays over a car radio, for instance, no information is displayed except the name of the program.

For yet other programs, like ours, all the music files are loaded into the computer, with a playlist, which is just a text file with the music files listed carefully in order.  When the Station program plays this playlist, your car radios (and some home stereos) have the ability to display: the Title, the Performer, the Album, and some other information.  I like that, because I don't always announce the performer, but I make sure that the performer is listed on this extra information, which is called metadata.  If I tire of providing all that, I can go into a podcast format, where the extra information is not broadcasted.  I have to organize the playlist so that the music playtime adds up to four groups of 28 minutes (plus a couple of seconds, possibly), so that the program can splice in the station messages every half hour.

Finally, if there are slots where local programming is not available, the Station program is instructed to splice in a program from somewhere else.  These are called syndicated programs, which are selected by a sort of committee at our radio station.  We only air syndicated shows that are free; commercial stations have to pay for their syndicated shows, and NPR stations have to pay for their shows as well.

The broadcast stream.  The signal from the station goes via a trunk Internet line to a computer sitting at the foot of the transmitting tower, where it sends the signal (and a power cable) up the tower to the transmitter.  Ours is a tiny 1 Kilowatt transmitter, which only transmits at about 50% capacity, because it is old, and the connections are corroded, and there is a lot of power loss.  The station is in a constant battle to get a more powerful transmitter, and a higher location.  It so happens that a commercial station in Martha's Vineyard has just upgraded to a more modern transmitter, and we're trying to get their older transmitter for ourselves.  But we can't afford the extra juice it will need, and we don't have the resources to lug the transmitter here from Massachusetts!!!  Everybody at our station is a volunteer, though some of them would dearly like to be paid a stipend.

We have an agreement with TuneIn Radio to carry our broadcasts live on the Internet.  If you click on this link right away, you're going to get an error message because we're off the air.  Within a day or two, however, clicking on the link above at 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday should get you our show live.

Ideas for Future Shows
Obviously, I have to keep a list of potential themes for future shows.
Children's Music.
Early Music.  This is music from before Baroque times, and even early Baroque.
Unusual Instruments, and Early Instruments.
Unusual performances of well-known music.  I do some of this already, but there's a lot more available.  Computer performance is a major subclass.
Opera.  We've heard a certain amount of opera, but a few snippets could be interesting.
Modern Music.  I'm going to be very selective here, and only feature very mainstream music from the 20^th century and later.
Music with stories associated with it.
Modern Suites.  For instance, the Mother Goose suite of Modest Mussorgsky, and Pictures at an Exhibition.
World Music.  There are other programs on our station that are based on this theme, but it's a big world.
Folk Music.
New Age takes on classical music, in other words, fusion music, and crossover music.
[Added later:]
Sonatas for various instruments.
Death, suffering and Grieving.  I don't know about this; young listeners are often hostile to this sort of thing.  But a lot of music was written in troubled times, and it is useful to be familiar with works that are concerned with suffering, death and anguish, so that when you're in that mood, you know where to go.
Choral music.  Writing good choral music is very hard, and when you hear good choral music, it is amazing.  It might be an acquired taste, and if you've sung in a choir, you're halfway there.
Marches.  This is a more popular genre than anyone would think, ranging from military marches to songs and tunes that just happen to be written as marches.
Music for plucked string: guitars, banjos, mandolins, lutes, and harps.  And, of course, harpsichords.
Symphonies.  These are just large-scale works according to a certain pattern, or form.  We've already listened to a number of them.  The 19th and 20th centuries had a surfeit of them, but some of them are excellent, and worth getting familiar with.  Obviously I don't know all the good ones, but I'm happy to share the few that I do know.
Halloween!!  I'm going to try and get together a nice mix of music, but scary music is not very common at all, unfortunately.  Luckily for all of us, another theme in Halloween is humor and comedy, and that might be helpful.


If you have ideas, tell me about them!

Archie.

Show 113: Overtures

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 13.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show113.  The July 4th show for this year will be numbered numbered Show201, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]

Introduction   
This program did not air as scheduled.  We are performing a major overhaul of our system, and until that is completed, the station will be off the air.

When the program finally airs, it is going to consist of Overtures.

The modern meaning of the word is, of course, something that precedes something else, for instance the opening movement of an Opera, or Broadway show, or whatever.  This is how things started off; in the time of King Louis the 14^th of France, it was a ceremonial promenade during which the King would make his entrance, after which there would be an evening of Dance.  Of course, if new music had been written for the occasion, the Overture would be the opening movement of the set of dances.  According to Wikipedia, the French word Ouverture literally means opening.

Later on, during the time of Beethoven and after, an Overture began to be a single-movement work that had some literary foundation: a piece about a person, or a scene, or a story, or some such inspiration from outside the realm of pure music.

But first, we start with some famous overtures from Bach, Handel and Mozart.

Handel: Overture to The Watermusic
This is the overture to Handel’s famous Watermusic.  I’m taking the position that famous pieces of music are famous for a reason, so I’m trying to squeeze in as many well-known classics as I can.  Quite sincerely, if you start recognizing tunes from the classical repertoire as a result of listening to this program, I shall think I have succeeded.

Bach: Overture to the Orchestral Suite in C major
Bach wrote four grand suites for orchestra, to be played when he was a court musician at Weimar.  Weimar is a famous German town, where Liszt was a composer, as well as Wagner, and from where the Weimeraner breed of dog originates.  Anyway, this is the introduction to the first of these Suites, and is one of my favorite movements.

Handel: Overture to Messiah   
The Christmas Season is approaching, and Messiah is a favorite at holiday time.  This is the Overture to Messiah by Handel.

Mozart: Overture to The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro has this mad, racing overture that is instantly recognizable.  We’re told that Mozart dashed this off in a few minutes the day before opening night.  Can you imagine?  Furthermore, the overture has absolutely no relationship to the opera musically.  Nothing.  Not a single musical motif from the opera is present in it.  Still, it’s one of the most famous overtures ever written.

Mozart: Overture to the Magic Flute
You should know that the Magic Flute had a lot of references to the Freemasons, which was gaining strength as an organization that provided a home to those who wanted some relief from the overwhelming influence of the Catholic Church.  Mozart was a fringe member —or maybe a plain old member— of the Freemasons, certainly one of the most famous members, and there are lots of masonic themes in the music, which I am ignorant of, not being a Freemason myself.

Listen to those three great, crashing chords that begin the overture.  This overture is just amazingly beautifully written, especially the orchestration.

Beethoven: Fidelio Overture
Beethoven wrote an opera, which is regarded very highly by some, called Fidelio, about a woman who goes into prison to rescue her husband.  Apparently this opera was featured in the movie Eyes Wide Shut, which I have not seen.  Anyway, here is an excerpt from the overture to Fidelio, conducted by George Szell

Mendelssohn: Midsummer Night’s Dream
Felix Mendelssohn was interested in Shakespeare, as were lots of Germans and Austrians in the late 19th century, and he wrote Overtures to various Shakespeare plays.  He was also into fairies in a big way, and one of his best known overtures is the one to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Here it is, with the London Symphony, conducted by Claudio Abbado.  By the way, Claudio Abbado is said to be descended from a Moorish Prince, Abdul Abbad.  Obviously that has nothing to do with how good a conductor Mr Abbado was, which was really great.  Anyway, Mendelssohn’s fairy music is unsurpassed.  Judge for yourself.

Mendelssohn: Fingal’s Cave
Mendelssohn visited a famous tourist spot in Scotland, called Fingal’s Cave.  He wanted to celebrate the occasion by writing a short piece of music.  It was increasingly becoming common to call these sorts of pieces overtures, and I can’t think of why that particular term would be used, and I don’t have the energy to do an etymological exploration of it.  It confuses things a little bit, when a word is used in a new way.  This is called generalization, such as when you use the word Xerox to mean any sort of photocopier, and even photocopying, the verb.  These days with the Internet, people do this all the time, and they rejoice when they’ve succeeded in introducing a new usage of a word into common parlance.  I’m talking softly, because this is early morning, and people in our house are still asleep.  So here’s Fingal’s Cave Overture, by Felix Mendelssohn.
   
Brahms: Academic Festival
So now we know that, by the time Mendelssohn, Schubert and people of that generation were composing, the word Overture had come to mean the musical equivalent of a short story, or even a journal article.

Johannes Brahms had been awarded an honorary degree from (The University of) Breslau.  Brahms wrote an overture to be performed during the ceremony, and it was a jolly thing with lots of undergraduate (read: Drinking) songs from Germany and Austria, including a Latin song called gaudeamus igitur, which translates like this:

Let us drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die;
let us delight in the pretty girls, and let us praise our Alma Mater, a font of wisdom.

I mean, there are a lot of verses, but this is the short version.
I’m going to fade right into the rowdy ending part.  Gaudeamus Igitur is the last big tune in the brass.

Wagner: Overture to Die Meistersinger
We’ve already heard the Meistersinger Overture twice.  Some people call it a Potpourri overture.  You probably know what potpourri is: a mixture of dried flowers and sweet spices and herbs that you cook in a pot when your house is full of cooking odors.  A Potpourri overture is just a mix of songs from a Broadway musical or movie, and the phrase is intended to be a sort of put-down.  The Meistersingers overture certainly contains snippets of tunes from the opera, but it is super highly structured, and we know that the last several bars is an amazing combination of three of the themes played simultaneously, combined with counterpoint.  So here is a shortened version of the whole thing, just because I love this piece.

Mystery Overture
This one you have to guess.

Wagner: Tannhauser Overture
One of the first pieces of classical music I learned about is the Overture to Wagner’s opera Tannhauser.  This overture actually represents, in miniature, the plot of the opera.
First, we hear a softly approaching hymn, which is the song of the Pilgrims, the Pilgrim’s chorus; they’re on their way to Rome, or somewhere.  Then the scene shifts to the garden of Venus, which represents the temptations of our hero.  The hero enters, and begins a rhapsodic song to Venus, but then the pilgrims are heard in the distance, returning, and their chorus drowns out Venus, and our hero is saved.  Wagner was a rather simple fellow, who wrote complex music.  He was vilified, about the time of World War 2, because the Nazis loved Wagner’s music.  Today, we take the view that if we start a witch-hunt to posthumously persecute anybody who was an inspiration to the Nazis, it would never end.  There were lots of people who were associated with the Nazis: Wilhelm Furtwangler, Herbert von Karajan, Konrad Lorenz.  They liked the color brown.  So, what are we going to do, not wear brown?  I hate the Nazis, of that time and of this time, but I wear plenty of brown, so sue me.  Anyway, Wagner’s Tannhauser, and the Pilgrim’s Chorus, and I hope you love it as much as I do!

Mystery Overture No. 2   
Guess this one too.

Wagner: Prelude to Tristan and Isolde
The story of Tristram and Isolde in the legend of King Arthur is a tragedy.  A young knight is sent out to Ireland to bring a princess to marry King Mark of Cornwall.  But on the voyage back, the young knight, Tristan, falls in love with the princess.  The story ends with the young lovers drinking poison together.  The overture to Tristan and Isolde is just a brilliant piece of music by Wagner.  I’m just going to play you the opening few seconds, just to put you in a lousy mood for the end of the show!  But this is an important piece of music, and you might just find these bars fascinating.

Bernstein: Overture to Candide
The overture of Bernstein’s highly regarded comic opera, Candide.  (A theme from it was Dick Cavett’s theme music for his talk show in the eighties.)

Another Mystery Overture
Guess.

Show 112: Variations

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 12.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show112.  The July 4th show for this year will be numbered numbered Show201, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]
 
Show 12, Part A : Dowland, Byrd, Handel, Bach, Mozart
Show 12, Part B : Mozart, Purcell, Britten
Show 12, Part C : Mozart, Chopin, Bach
Show 12, Part D : Brahms, Dowland

This post is, once again, in advance of the broadcast, which will be (October 11, 2014).  The links to the podcast were added on 2014-10-12.

The big challenge in classical music is to write major works, worthy of standing beside a novel. The novel began to appear in the 1700s, after the Renaissance, when artists began to see their creativity as their own, and not something in the service of some nobleman, or some religion.

The early attempts at creating large-scale works focused on multi-movement works.  Even today, most major compositions are in multiple movements.  Concertos, for instance, are multi-movement works focusing on a soloist, or several soloists. Suites are works consisting of several movements tied by some theme: either a set of dances written for an occasion, or a set of items intended to go with a theater production, or a set of movements for a ballet.

The idea of a set of variations is along the same lines: a number of different movements that elaborate on a single (musical) theme. There are several of these we shall listen to (today), and I'm not going to play all the variations in every set, but you might enjoy being introduced to these sets of variations, some of which are well known, and others which are interesting for various reasons.

William Byrd was a great composer of the 1500s in England, and John Dowland was another composer of about the same time.  Dowland wrote a tune called Lachrimae Pavan, which he himself arranged in different ways a dozen or more times, and William Byrd borrowed the tune, and wrote this setting, which is an arrangement of the tune in increasingly elaborate ornamentation, which is a little like an air and variations, but is not quite the same. So this is a way of acquainting you with a tune of John Dowland, and the keyboard music of William Byrd at the same time.  The recording we will play was performed by Sophie Yates.

Georg Friderik Handel, the man who composed Messiah, The Watermusic, and the Music for the Royal Fireworks, also wrote a set of variations on a simple tune, which was well known at that time. Here's the whole thing; it is quite short.   It is called the Harmonious Blacksmith.  This recording was by Igor Kipnis, who won a Grammy Award for it.  (In fact, he played the piece live at the Awards, and brought the house down.)

A few years ago, light classical music fans were absolutely crazy about this set of variations. Bach had been invited over to visit a certain noble house in Berlin in which his son was employed as court musician, because they had bought a grand new keyboard instrument. It was either a really awesome harpsichord, or an early experimental piano. The nobleman himself sat down at the keyboard, and gave Bach a theme, on which to base an improvisation. Bach improvised, but was dissatisfied with his own performance, so he sent a fantastic set of variations to the gentleman, and additionally, some really incredible canons, which are together called The Musical Offering. Anyway, here is the theme and some variations from the Goldberg Variations.  The harpsichord recording is by Gustav Leonhardt, a well-known Bach specialist from the Netherlands, who died recently.

If you prefer the sound of a piano, here is a recording of Glenn Gould, in MONO, from 1955, playing the Goldberg variations.  This is a rare recording; the stereo recording from 1981 is more commonly available,

This is a well-known piece, which is the third movement from a Mozart Sonata. Less well-known is the first movement, which is a theme and variations. Here is the better-know third (last movement), called the Alla Turca.   (It was supposed to be inspired by Turkish music, which was all the rage at the time of Mozart.)

This single movement from a Mozart sonata, Sonata No. 11, is a theme and variations all by itself. Mozart wrote better known sets of variations, such as one on the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but this one, I think, is more suitable for our program. The Theme and Variations from Sonata No. 11, in A.  Both the above movements were by Walter Klien.

The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.  Benjamin Britten, the brilliant British musician, wrote an introduction to the orchestra, in which the various groups of instruments are spotlighted in turn, in the form of a set of variations on a theme of Henry Purcell, another famous British composer of the 18th century. There's stories to tell about Henry Purcell, but mainly Purcell was crazy about the Theater, and hung out in the theater with actors and the various hangers-on at theaters; in short he was a fan. He wrote incidental music for various plays, and one of them was Abdelazar, about a Moorish man (which means, a man from Morocco, or actually any Arabic-speaking country).  This recording is by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, and narrated by a young person chosen by Bernstein. These are Themes A - F.

Next come the variations, one for each instrument, after which there is a fugue (on an original theme by Britten), at the climax of which the theme from Abdelazar is heard, played contrapuntally.

The aria "La ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni, the tragicomic opera by Mozart, was taken as a subject for a set of variations by Frederik Chopin. The set of variations was a very early work, Opus No. 2. Here is the original duet from the Mozart opera (sung by Bryn Terfel and Cecilia Bartoli)

Here is the Introduction, the Theme, and 5 variations, by Chopin, ending with a big finale (alla Polacca).  The pianist is Eldar Nabolsin.

An interesting sort of piece of Bach's time and earlier, is the Passacaglia. A theme is repeated in the Bass part, over and over again, and different harmonies are played over it. Here is one of the most famous, by J. S. Bach, the Passacaglia in C minor for organ, BWV 582.  E. Power Biggs.

Johannes Brahms wrote a set of variations for piano, based on a tune that appeared in a work by Joseph Haydn. The tune is called the Saint Anthony Chorale, and the Brahms variations are sometimes called Variations on a Theme by Haydn, and at other times the St Anthony Chorale variations. St Anthony is the patron saint of fisherfolk, as well as those who are looking for something they have lost.  This recording is by Marek Janowski and Pittsburgh Symphony.

We heard earlier this evening William Byrd's setting of John Dowland's Lachrimae Pavan. Unfortunately—according to the style of the times—the melody was so heavily ornamented that it was hard to hear clearly.  Here is the original Dowland tune, as it would have been played by a Consort of Music of the time, which was a small chamber orchestra of violins, viols and Lutes of various sizes (Opharions, Bass vils, Citherns, Mandores, Theorbos, etc). This is played by the Extempore String Ensemble.

Here's the same group playing another piece by John Dowland, a jolly dance in 4-4 time, just to prove that Dowland could write more energetic music if he had to.  It is called Sir Henry Guildford's Almaine.

Afterword:  I must confess that in each set of variations, only a few of the variations are really interesting.  I like almost all of the Bach Goldberg Variations, most of the St. Anthony Chorale variations, most of the Harmonious Blacksmith, which is a showpiece from beginning to end, but unfortunately almost none of the Chopin variations.  I love the later Chopin orchestral works, including the two piano concertos, but this set of variations leaves me cold.

Arch

Show 111: Duets

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 11.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show111.  The July 4th show for this year will be numbered numbered Show201, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]

Show 11, Part A
Show 11, Part B

NPR, or at least our local NPR station, was doing duets last week, so I thought we should do some, too.

There are only a few actual duets in the program; unfortunately, a  lot of what we might regard informally as duets are not classified as such in classical music; they're called either Double Concertos, where there are two soloists playing a multi-movement work with orchestra; or Sonata for two instruments, and so on.  In opera of course, as you can imagine, there are lots of duets.

The situation is worse.  If two instruments are accompanied by a piano, for instance, it really qualifies as a Trio, because in classical music, whenever only three instruments are involved, it is invariably a trio, whereas if only two instruments are involved, such as in a violin sonata accompanied by piano, it is called a violin sonata, quite unfairly.  Anyhoo ...
 
Introduction
Collaboration between two people often leads to interesting performances or pieces.  Last week we already looked at Double Concertos, where two soloists are featured in the same concerto.  The essence of a concerto is the dramatic contrast between either the soloist —or soloists— and the orchestra, or between one soloist and another.  In the Brahms Double Concerto, the violin and the cello were most definitely on the same side, and sometimes this is the case.

Bach: Double Concerto for Violin and Oboe
Bach wrote a number of concertos in his thirties, and then, when he moved to the great city of Leipzig to take up the post of the music director at St. Thomas’s Church and School there, he had several talented sons who were already excellent keyboardists, and he reworked his violin concertos as harpsichord concertos.

One of the best known was the Double Concerto in D minor, BWV 1060.  Bach music scholars studied this concerto, and came to the conclusion that it was really a rewrite of an earlier concerto for violin and oboe.  Here’s a snippet of the actually existing two-harpsichord double concerto:

As you must have noticed, that was actually two pianos and strings, not even harpsichords, so it’s a bit of a ripoff right there.  Anyway, here’s the conjectural violin and oboe concerto, as reconstructed by Christopher Hogwood.  This is the first movement.

Mozart: Pamina and Papageno duet, from Magic Flute
Mozart’s Magic Flute was not a traditional opera.  It is much more like opera today than when it was first performed; if you saw Amadeus, you might have got this strong impression.  The basic plot is that a wandering oriental prince, Tamino, is sent to “rescue” the daughter of the Queen of the Night, with the help of an innocent birdcatcher, Papageno, and a couple of magical objects: a magic glockenspiel, and a magic flute.

When they get near to where the girl Pamina happens to be, our intrepid duo get split up, and Papageno finds himself with Pamina, and they sing this quite unexpected little philosophy, about men and women and stuff like that.  It is just lovely, especially, to my mind, as the two young people are not romantically involved.  You might recognize it, because the tune has been used as the basis of a hymn-tune.

Don’t fall in love with a dreamer
Kenny Rogers sang some songs that I really like.  This is Don’t fall in love with a dreamer, which he sings with Kim Carnes.

Handel: The trumpet shall sound    The great baritone William Warfield has been unjustly neglected in my opinion.  He sang in the movie Showboat, and was a featured performer in a dozen major Broadway productions, and a few opera.
The aria The Trumpet shall Sound, from Messiah, is a sort of duet for Bass and Trumpet.  Here it is sung by William Warfield and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Beatles: If I fell
This lovely song was featured in A Hard Day’s Night.  It is a signature duet by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Bach: trio Sonata in E Flat, BWV 525
This is a piece I’ve played (for you) before, but here is it played by a flute and an Oboe.

Delibes: Flower duet from Lakme
One time I was traveling from New York to Colombo, passing through London, when for some reason the plane I was on was full, and because I did not have an overnight visa for London I was put on a plane to Bangkok.  That plane was almost empty, and I was boarded, and this amazing song came on, with an even more amazing video.  That video is on YouTube, just look for Opera Extraordinaire.  [Added later: this video has vanished from YouTube; there must be some interesting story behind the disappearance.]

This is from an opera by Leo Delibes, called The Pearl Fishers, which is, incidentally, set in Ceylon, or Sri Lanka.  It is called The Flower Duet.  This is Dame Joan Sutherland, and Jane Berbié.

Handel: He shall feed his flock / Come unto him
Handel’s Messiah has a really unusual duet.  Actually this duet is present in a few versions of Messiah, which Handel left to us in a number of different versions. In other versions, the whole number is sung by a single soloist.

The two-part aria has a contralto singing a passage from the Old Testament, in F major.  Then the music seems to stop, and then simply continues in B Flat major, with almost the same tune, but with a soprano singing a passage from the New Testament!  It’s a sentimental device on the face of it, but it is very moving for anyone who takes these things seriously.  Here is Colin Davis conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with soloists Heather Harper, and Helen Watts.  Ms. Watts sings the first part, and Ms Harper sings the second part.

Mozart: Che soave Zephiretto
The opera The Marriage of Figaro, by Mozart, is a miraculous work for a number of reasons.  If you saw the movie Amadeus, you would have learned some of the (political) reasons why it is such a fabulous work.  But, simply as a story, it is just amazing.

Basically, Figaro and Susanna are respectively the valet and the maid of a man, Count Almaviva, and a woman, Rosina, an orphan whom the Count was wooing.  Their love story is told in The Barber of Seville, a comic opera by somebody completely different from Mozart.  [Actually, Rossini, who wrote William Tell.]  But the main protagonist, the valet (actually, a barber in the earlier opera,) was so beloved by the opera-going public that Mozart decided to write a sequel.  So Count Almaviva has married Rosina who is now the Countess, and they’re, you know, in their early thirties, shall we say, and Susanna and Figaro are their personal servants.  The two servants have decided to marry, and the Count has given his permission.  But, according to the custom of those times, the Count was allowed to initiate the young bride to the joys of sex before she joined her husband.  This practice continued as late as the 18th century, but it was stopped at about the time of the French Revolution.  At the time of Figaro, the story, it was just going out of use, and the theme of the opera is: is the Count going to insist on his right, or is he not?

Anyway, Rosina, the Countess, and Susanna are very close.  [Rosina is aware that Susanna is unhappy about the prospect of having the Count take her virginity before the wedding, and is sympathetic.  By the way, this practice is technically coll Droit de Seigneur, which means, literally, the Privilege of the Master.]  Part of the charm of the opera is the friendship between the two women, and the sly sparring between the two men.  There are side plots, involving a silly young page, which is just brilliant comic relief, really, and if you can bring yourself to do it, I urge you to watch a video of The Marriage of Figaro, which is almost certainly available in the James V Brown Library.  (Incidentally, they’re gearing up for a massive membership campaign right now, so go get yourself a membership card.)

This next duet, is sung by Susanna, and Rosina, the Countess, writing a naughty love-letter to the Count, to lure him out into the garden.  The letter is supposed to be from Susanna, the maid, pretending to have a crush on the Count, to preemptively precipitate any designs he might have on the girl before the wedding takes place.  Just listen.  Okay, this is chick stuff, but, how nicely it has been done!

“A little song on the breeze (the title)
“What a gentle little Zephyr,
“This evening, will sigh
“Under the pines in the little grove.”
...And the rest he'll understand.

Bach-Camerata Brasil: Double Concerto in D minor for 2 violins, BWV 1043 Camerata Brasil, a group that performs classical pieces with guitars and banjos, performs the  Bach Double Concerto in D minor for two violins, BWV 1043.

Vaughan-Williams: British Folk Songs Suite
OK, this one has nothing to do with duets.  It is a piece by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, the British Folk Song Suite for wind band.  This is the Lycoming College Band playing under the direction of Bill Ciabbatari.

Weyl: Mack the Knife
Here’s a flashback to an earlier edition of our show: Mack the Knife, sung by Lotte Lenya and Louis Armstrong.

Bach: Qui Sedes, Ad dextram Patris
One of my most favorite singers is the late Kathleen Ferrier.  Here she sings the Qui Sedes from the B minor mass.  It is a sort of duet between the Contralto, Kathleen Ferrier, and the oboe.

Joan Szymko: Itakes a Village
The saying “It takes a village to raise a child” was said to come to us from Africa, and it was a favorite saying of Hilary Clinton, when Bill Clinton was in the White House.  It has been set to music by Joan Szymko, and was performed by the Lycoming Choir last weekend, for a Parent’s Weekend concert.  It is a fun song, accompanied by drums, very syncopated, and given a very African flavor.  Here’s the Lycoming Choir, conducted by Chris Jackson.

Lennon and Maisy: That’s what’s up
Lennon and Maisy, two sisters, sing a song called That’s what’s up

Gershwin: A woman is a sometime thing
I was looking for a duet from Porgy and Bess, but I couldn’t find one I thought would fit here.  So here’s Louis Armstrong singing A woman is a sometime thing.

Raposo: Sing
The children’s TV show Sesame Street had a lot of songs composed for it by a fellow called Joe Raposo.  They had the Carpenters appear on the show one time, and Mr. Raposo had written a song for Karen Carpenter called Sing.  This really catchy song had a brief burst of fame, and later the Sesame Street kids sang it by themselves, and I wish it were heard a lot more frequently.  Here’s Sing, performed by the Carpenters.

The Count: The Song of the Count
While we’re talking about Sesame Street, let’s celebrate the brilliant Jerry Nelson, who created the roles of The Count, and the Magnificent Mumford, the magician.  This is the Song of the Count, sung by Jerry Nelson.

Bach: Ach Herr mein Gott, BWV 113
I think I might have played the next piece for you before: it is soprano Magdalena Kozena and Counter-tenor William Towers singing a duet from a Bach Cantata, No 113.  It is just gorgeous, so please listen, especially if you haven’t yet begin to appreciate the sound of a counter-tenor, who are men who sing alto with a falsetto voice.

Pajama Game: Hey there
 If you remember, Pajama Game was a Broadway show whose story was inspired by an incident at a pajama factory, and the Pajama Factory here in Williamsport was used for some of the scenes in the movie Pajama Game.  (I said that the story of the play was actually inspired by events here in Williamsport, but that has not been confirmed.)  Anyway, here is a duet from the musical.

Pajama Game: There once was a man
Another duet, by Janet Paige and John Raitt.  Awesome singing by both singers.

Halvarson: The Entry March of the Boyars
Another piece by the Lycoming Band played at the Parents’ Weekend Concert by the Lycoming Band, conducted by William Ciabbatari.

Michael Jackson Medley
Lycoming Band, William Ciabbatari.