Show 107: Animals in Music!

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 7.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show107.  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.]
This show was about animals, pieces of music that refer to animals.

Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf	The best-known classical piece for kids is Sergei Prokofiev’s Soviet era story of Peter and the Wolf.  Here Leonard Bernstein narrates, and conducts.
Bach / Brian Slawson: Das Roach	Two-part Invention in A minor, No 13 by J. S. Bach, jazzed-up by Brian Slawson, and performed on percussion.  The title is, I believe, a sly reference to a song well-known in the Sixties called La Cucaracha, the Cockroach.
Saint Saens: Carnival of the Animals	This performance is narrated by Leonard Bernstein, who introduces the movements.  However, his forces are the strings of the New York Philharmonic, two pianos, and several young special soloists.  For some of the pieces, I used performances by Eugene Ormandy, and a very small chamber orchestra, which seemed more appropriate, in particular the Donkeys, or People with Long Ears. Note: the famous Swan movement, written for Cello, is played on a double bass!
Introduction and Royal March Of The Lion, Cocks and hens, Tortoises, Elephants, Kangaroos, Aquarium, People with Long Ears, Cuckoo in the heart of the Woods, Aviary, Fossils, The swan, Finale
Poulenc, de Brunhoff: Babar the Little Elephant Meets the Old Lady	This is a book in French by Jean De Brunhoff, a French author, which was set to music by Francis Poulenc.  It is narrated here by Jan Bookspan, and performed by a special orchestra.
Beatles: Hey Bulldog	A relatively little-known piece by The Beatles, which was included in the recent re-release of the soundtrack of Yellow Submarine
Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela	A beautiful piece by Jean Sibelius
Flanders & Swann: The Gnu Song, The Sea horse, The Hippopotamus Song	A few animal-related songs by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, from The Bestiary of Flanders and Swann.
Leroy Anderson: Waltzing Cat	Leroy Anderson (of Sleigh Ride fame) wrote this piece for the Boston Pops.  This performance is by a Czech orchestra.
Canteloube: Le Coucou	Dawn Upshaw performs this song based on a folk song of the Auvergne region in France.
Beatles: I Am The Walrus	John Lennon’s famous nonsense song.
John Denver: The Eagle and the Hawk	An amazing song sung in John Denver’s highest register.
Stravinsky: The Firebird	The Firebird arrives in a garden, chased by Ivan.
Rautavaara: Cantus Arcticus	A piece by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, which uses actual taped birdsong.

Hello, Listeners! How about some MAIL?

At the moment, we don't even know whether we have one tiny little listener!  Ah, ah, as The Count on Sesame Street would say!  (Lightning, etc, etc.)

The only way I can tell whether you're listening is if you would kindly mail me.  I know my wife listens to the show when she can (I have to hook my laptop up to the radio, because the signal is too weak, haha), but I don't know whether anyone else does.

So please write in; the addie is <archiewxpi@gmail.com>, and the subject line should be "We're Listening!" followed by anything else you like.

BTW, requests are welcome.  I don't know what people listen to these days, especially in classical music, so input is good!  Also, like Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, I would be delighted to fix any classical music problems you may have.

Arch.

Show 106: Beautiful Music

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 6.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show106.  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.]
 
Why do we like music?  * Sometimes a piece or a song has immediate appeal.  It might have a beautiful melody, or harmony.  *  Other times, a piece grows on you, because it has a more subtle beauty, or it is constructed beautifully, or the performer does a great job, or the words resonate with you, or it has a sophisticated melody or harmony.  *Yet other times, a piece attracts us because it is so full of energy, it makes us want to move.

Unfortunately, a piece that has a beautiful melody often doesn’t have the power to keep us coming back to it; perhaps for this very reason, in classical music, the slow, lyrical pieces are nestled between more vigorous movements.  In many symphonies, for instance, the opening movement (which is the one that most people identify with the symphony as a whole) is a vigorous one, whose principal grabber is some melodic fragment, which is developed beautifully.  The second movement is almost invariably the lyrical one, but without the opening movement to provide a contrast, it isn't able to impart grabbing power to the entire symphony.  The third movement is the one which has traditionally been evocative of dance, or, after Beethoven, humor.  The fourth, last movement can go in any direction, but is often a Rondo, with a recurring tune, which is energetic and rhythmic, and satisfies all the requirements of an effective sendoff.

Since the sort of music I’m trying to present is challenging to get, I have worked on the more dramatic, less immediately appealing outer movements, and not the lyrical slow movements.  This next program makes up for that, with all the lovely, gorgeous slow movements, whether they're the middle movements of concertos, or slow arias from operas, or simply pretty music from the late 19^th century.  This is classical Muzak, which is not very educational, but, well, everyone wants to listen to it.

Part A
Part B
Part C
Part D

Music	Text
Introduction Fugue for Percussion	Today’s show is a combination of pretty melodies, beautiful movements, and my favorites.  So far I have taken a sort of educational approach to this show: a sort of music appreciation for people tired out after a long week, and not in a mood to listen to anything, and it struck me that this show might lose all its listeners if people didn’t hear something they liked, sort of nice music.  For most people, that’s what classical music is: boring, pretty music (or ugly music that nobody wants to hear). Actually, classical music is a little like vinegar.  I hated vinegar for the longest time; like, there was this office mate of mine in university who would take me out to lunch, because she would order French fries, and couldn’t finish them.  She was anorexic, I suspect, and drank so much beer that she couldn’t function without beer and a few fries, but too many of them (fries) would make her ill.  But she hated to waste the fries, so...  Anyway, I had the hardest time making her not load the fries with malt vinegar.  I hated it.  But now, when I fix beef, or grill something, I need to have just a little vinegar or even lemon in the marinade.  You know?  The vinegar taste buds kicked in kinda late. I’m betting that, sooner or later, most of my listeners will like classical music more than they like it now, so I’m trying to give you a context for it.  That’s what is happening here. (That's what I have been trying to do in the earlier shows, at least.)  But for today, it's Beautiful Muzak, as Liberace would say.
Meditation, from Thaïs	This piece is called Meditation, from the opera Thaïs.
Air from Bach Suite 3 in D	This famous tune, a part of Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, was played by somebody an octave lower and titled the Air on the G string.  Nothing to do with bikinis, it (the G String) is the lowest string on the violin.  (The others are D, A, and E.)
Andante from Mendelssohn Violin Concerto	Violin concertos usually have a beautiful slow movement.  This is from the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor.  We play the last bit of the first movement, and the entire second movement, because they’re connected by a Bassoon passage, which is very interesting.
Adagio ma non troppo from Mozart Clarinet Cto	This is the slow movement from the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.  This concerto was played in Williamsport by Charles Neidich a few years ago (with the Williamsport Symphony), but this is a recording he made with the Orpheus Orchestra.
Pachelbel’s Kanon	A canon is essentially a round, a tune constructed in such a way that once it is started off with one voice, a second voice begins the same tune after a precise delay, so that the two voices together harmonize correctly.  Often additional voices can be added, depending on the tune.  Pachelbel’s Kanon is designed to be played with three voices, staggered by two bars.  Voices two and three have slightly different endings, so that they may all finish together.
Schumann: Traumerei	This beautiful piece is by Robert Schumann, from his collection of piano pieces called Scenes from Childhood.  It is named Traumerei, which means "Reverie".  The harmony is really beautiful.
Mozart: Minuet in D from Divertimento 17	This is another piece that my folks used to play when I was very tiny; it is a minuet from a Mozart Divertimento.
Schubert: Fantasie	This is the Fantasie in F minor, for Four Hands, one of the last pieces that Schubert wrote, before he died at the age of 31.  It is Played by Maria Joao Pires and Huseyin Sermet
Kreisler: Miscellaneous pieces and miniatures	Fritz Kreisler (Fritz is usually a diminutive of Friedrich) was an enormously gifted, and very influential violinist of the late 19th, and early 20th Centuries.  He played many major works, and to this day, his cadenzas are still used for certain violin concertos.  But he did the drawing-room and recital hall circuit, which is what you did if you had a lavish lifestyle, and played miniatures, or Salon pieces.  These next several pieces are played by Itzhak Perlman, and taken from Fritz Kreisler’s programmes.  A lot of the pieces were arranged and edited by Kreisler, for solo violin with piano accompaniment.
[Kreisler]	Caprice Viennois
Gluck	Dance of the Blessed Spirits, from Orpheus in the Underworld
Granados	Spanish Dance no 5
[Kreisler]	Schön Rosmarin
[Kreisler	Liebeslied
Albinoni: Adagio	An Italian musician, Remo Giazotto, claimed to have “discovered” the music of this piece in the rubble after a bombing raid in WW2.  It turns out that Giazotto had written it himself.  (It hardly needs the added notoriety; it is a lovely piece.)
Mozart: Adagio from K 488	Another famous slow movement from Mozart, the Adagio from his Piano Concerto no 23.
Paul Simon: Bleecker Street	A lovely song by Simon and Garfunkel.
Ed Mc Curdy:  Last Night I had the Strangest Dream	Ed Mc Curdy wrote this beautifully ironic anti-war song called Last Night I had the Strangest Dream, which is sung here by Simon and Garfunkel, from their album Wednesday Morning, 5 A.M.
Paul Simon: Sparrow	Simon and Garfunkel sing Who will love a little sparrow?
Rachmaninov: Vocalise	This beautiful song for soprano (or tenor), to be sung to a single syllable, such as "ah", was written by Rachmaninov, and sung here by Silvia McNair, from the album Divine Sopranos.
Elgar: Salut d'Amour	Another Kreisler favorite: Salut d'Amour by Edward Elgar, played by Gil Shaham.
Borodin: String Quartet no 2, Movement 3	This wonderful quartet by the great Russian composer Alexander Borodin has a famous third movement, from which a tune was borrowed for the Broadway musical Kismet.

The broadcast comments were a lot sketchier than the detail given above!  This time, I’m supplying details before the broadcast, so you can wait for a particular piece, if you wish.  I’m sorry that some of the tunes, when dynamically compressed (to moderate --meaning reduce-- extremes of loudness and softness, to make it easier to listen when in a car, for instance) result in lower quality than on the original disks.  Honestly, for a Saturday Night broadcast, I could just give up all this compression, and hit you with the file as is, normalized to a standard volume range!  Maybe I'll do that next time.

Note: for the next program (hopefully on August 23,) the theme will be animals.  Grrr.  [Added later: my apologies to those who are expecting The Trout, the famous piece by Schubert!  I did not manage to squeeze that one in.]

Arch

Setback, possibly permanent: we can't upload the podcasts

Sorry, fans of Archie's Archives; we’re having trouble uploading the files to the server (Google Sites).  After a couple more attempts, we will give up on it.  It looked very promising for a while ...

Anyhow, here is the more or less close text (transcript) of the show.

1 -Introduction	Okay; I think it’s time to bring out the warhorses; that is, the famous classical tunes that everybody knows, or has at least heard on Bugs Bunny.   Now I’m planning to do an entire Bugs Bunny Introduces the Classics show —which is not a new idea, I know— so I’m going to keep away from Bugs Bunny classics, for the most part. Let’s try two things in this show: Firstly, let’s try to get you to know the names of these pieces, and the composers. Next, let’s try to introduce you to something else, which is equally good, or equally catchy, by the same composer.   A sort of ‘What’s on the B side?’ approach. Just a couple more things. Firstly, we have set up a website, called ArchiesWXPIArchives.Blogspot.Com, where we’re going to post these shows after they air, as podcasts. Second, I have an e-mail address now; it’s archieWXPI@gmail.com.   There’s a link to it at the website. Send me mail, and I’ll read it and reply, or read out a response right here.
2 Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring	This next piece is what my folks played at bedtime when I was just about four years old.   It should put me right to sleep, except that we sang it in school for a prize day one time, and I was totally hooked.   Here it is, played from a MIDI file which I created using Finale.   It has a trumpet playing the soprano part.   (People don’t realize that the original scoring had the sopranos doubled with a trumpet.)   Listen to the inner parts.   The oboe is front and center, but there is a violin playing a really lovely counterpoint to it.   Also, the tenor voice has a really sweet line of music.   The bass line, of course, as in all of Bach music is interesting and important.
3, 4 Bach: Rondeau, Badinerie	Now I want to play something else by Bach. You’ve heard tons of Bach already, so I’m not going to try too hard.   But here is a pair of tunes that were actually on the B side of the record my Dad used to play.  Both of these are movements from the B minor (Orchestral) Suite.   These are the Rondeau, and the Badinerie.
5 Tchaikovsky: Waltz of the Flowers	Waltz of the Flowers, from the Nutcracker Ballet Suite by P. I. Tchaikovsky.   This is the whole thing, except for the Harp introduction, which I took out.
6 Tchaikovsky: Pathetic Symphony, movt ii	A lovely movement from Tchaikovsky is from his Pathetic Symphony (Symphony No 6).   This movement is in quintuple time, and the stress is on beats 1 and 3.   You’ve all heard Dave Brubeck’s Take Five.   That one is in compound quintuple; this one is in plain old quintuple.   It is in ABA form, or rather A1 B A2 form, where A1 and A2 are almost the same, but obviously, A2 is slightly modified, as an ending.
7 Beethoven: fragments from Symphonies 9, 5, and 3	There is a lot of Beethoven that people might have heard, including the famous Ode to Joy from the 9th Symphony: Then the famous 5th Symphony: A little less well known, but as brilliant, or even more brilliant, the Eroica, or the 3rd Symphony: I’ll play all of these movements in completeness sometime.
8, 9 Beethoven: Sonata No. 14, fragment from Movt 1, complete Movt 2.	Here is the recapitulation from the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, by Wilhelm Kempff. Here is the middle movement, which is a lot less well-known, played by Emil Gilels.   Listen to his control of the piano!
10 Haydn: ‘Emperor’ Quartet, excerpt	Haydn was a major composer.   He practically invented the String Quartet, though really, it was a sort of team job. I’ve played a couple of Haydn pieces, notably an aria from the Creation.   Here is an excerpt from his Emperor Quartet, from which is taken the Austrian National Anthem, and the German National Anthem.
11 Haydn: Great Whales, from Die Schöpfung (Creation)	The aria ‘And God created Great Whales,’ from Haydn’s Creation.)   Note: the text of the entire oratorio was taken from Milton’s Paradise Lost.
12 The Seekers: Georgy Girl	It’s been some time since we heard a song from the Seekers being played.   The Seekers were an Australian group who sang lovely open harmony.   Here’s one that used to be really well known, because of being featured in a movie: Georgy Girl, starring Vanessa Redgrave (Sorry: it was Lynn Redgrave.)
13 Seekers: Walk with me	Another song by the same group is Walk With Me, which has a really lovely interlude, played on the 12-string guitar
14 Schubert:   Unfinished Symphony (excerpt)	Schubert is famous for his Unfinished Symphony.   It was not a symphony that he died before completing, in the sense that he ran out of time.   It was just one that was either complete in two movements, or one that he set aside.   Here’s the beginning of the first movement.   (I feel bad to play enormously long movements for obvious reasons, so this is just an excerpt.)   You could easily find it on YouTube, for instance, if you like it.
15 Schubert: Who is Silvia	Schubert also wrote a song based on a Shakespeare sonnet called To Silvia.   Here are the King’s Singers, singing it a capella.   You can hear them faking the piano part.   Schubert was Austrian, but they loved Shakespeare over there (back then).
16 John Lennon: Imagine	John Lennon’s Imagine is really well known.   He did not write Yesterday, that was Paul McCartney.   So, here’s Imagine.   Does Religion create a world without strife, or does Religion add to the strife?   I think opinion is pretty well equally divided on the issue.
17 John Lennon:  Aisumasen	Another song he sang was Aisumasen, which is Japanese for I’m Sorry.   Listen to the awesome guitar interlude.
18 Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto	Felix Mendelssohn is credited with writing the tune to Hark the Herald Angels Sing.   One of the best known Wedding Marches is also his.   It’s taken from the music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.   Like I said, the German people of the nineteenth century thought Shakespeare was utterly romantic.   Here is a bit of it: Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto is one of the great entries in classical music.   Here are the first few minutes of the Violin Concerto in E-minor:
19 Wagner: Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin	I’ve played for you a couple of pieces by Wagner.   Many of you know the Ride of the Valkyries, from Apocalypse Now, and you know the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin, which is often used as a wedding march.
20 Die Engel	Wagner wrote several beautiful Lieder, that is songs, that were nothing to do with opera at all.   Here’s one, called The Angel, one of the Wesendonck Lieder
21 Hollies: Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress	If you’ve heard of Crosby Stills and Nash, then you know about Graham Nash.   He was earlier a member of an awesome group called The Hollies.   Here are two songs by them; it’s hard to tell which of the two you might have heard.   This one is called The Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress.
22 Hollies:   Bus Stop	The second song is one of my all-time favorites: Bus Stop.
23 Elgar: Pomp & Circumstances	At graduation time, this tune is heard all over the US: Actually it is part of a much longer march: Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 by Edward Elgar.
24 Edward Elgar: Nimrod, from Enigma Variations	Almost better known than the Pomp and Circumstances marches is the set of variations called the Enigma Variations written by Elgar.   Out of these, the variation called Nimrod is the best known. It is a piece of great dignity (or rather gravity), and often used at funerals.   Here it is played by the London Philharmonic with Daniel Barenboim conducting.
25 George Gershwin: Summertime	Who comes next?   Let’s see whether you can identify the composer of this one.
26 Gershwin: Prelude 2	This is the famous Prelude No. 2
27 Brahms: Lullaby	The best-known piece by Brahms is his famous Lullaby (Weigenlied), one of a set of several songs he wrote for voice and piano.   Here’s the original.   All the versions we usually hear have been —improved— by various people.   I slightly improved this one by instrumenting it for strings and woodwind, and changing two notes.  Actually, 4 notes, since it is repeated.  I just couldn’t resist.   I might change them back before I put the show on the air.  (I didn’t.)
28 Brahms: Hungarian Dances	The obvious choice for the second piece by Brahms is his famous St. Anthony Chorale Variations, but I only have that on LP, and it’s too late in the week for me to make an mp3 out of that.   So it’s going to be one of the Hungarian Dances. The Hungarian Dances are not a dance suite, like the Bach Suites.   They’re collections of dances for people to play at home, so it’s music for amateurs to play.   Just about the time of Beethoven, which is about the time of the American Revolution, composers could no longer make a living from being court composers, so they had to start publishing printed collections for ordinary people.   Everything becomes more interesting if you connect it up.   Certainly history becomes more interesting. Well, guess what.   I found it hard to pick one of the dances to play for you; the first seven of the collection of 21 were all familiar.   Robin Fountain and the Williamsport Symphony played several in orchestral versions back in 1993.   These were all originally written to be played by two people at the same piano, called piano four hands.   A lot of fun.   This one is no. 5 in G minor.
29, 30, 31 Mozart: Sonata K545 in C, Movts 1, 2, 3	For Mozart, let’s play this well-known Sonata in C major, sometimes called the Easy Sonata (or the same thing in French, you can look it up), K 545.   This is played by Glenn Gould, who was supposed not to care for Mozart very much, so he races through this first movement.   He also plays without much pedal, which was something a lot of people didn’t like.   But he plays it so fast that I can play all three movements for you.   Here’s the first movement.   The first part introduces two themes.   The middle part develops them.   Then there’s a recap of the two themes, with a slight variation. For the middle movement, I’m going to play a recording by Walter Klien, who is a much more reasonable pianist —now don’t go quoting me on these things— anyway, it’s a little slower and quieter.   It is a Rondo, which is in an ABACA, or ABACADA form.   Many pop songs are in this form. Okay, back to Glenn Gould for the last movement.   I think that the theme is supposed to represent “ha ha ha, hee hee hee”   Listen, and tell me what you think.   You also see how on the money Peter Schaffer’s play Amadeus was.   All the little musical bits are actually taken from Mozart music.   It is not a parody of Mozart at all; it is a real depiction of the man, slightly exaggerated, and presented as a parody, for the sake of people who might be a little aghast at the sort of person Mozart really was.   It might well be a parody of Salieri.
32 Mozart: Gran Partita, Movt 3	Talking about Amadeus, For the last piece, I’m going to play this movement from one of the Mozart Serenades.   This is the most famous one.   In Vienna, there were groups of guys who got instruments from somewhere, usually from wealthy families who sponsored them, and formed private music clubs, and walked around the streets at night, and played outside famous the town houses of these families.   Mozart wrote some of his best stuff for these roving minstrel bands, including this one.   It is a multi-movement work, and this is the third movement, the Adagio, which means slow.   (All the speed indications were in Italian.   If I said it had something to do with the Catholic Church, people would totally get on my case, but that’s what I think.)   This is from the Serenade no. K 361, or the Gran Partita.

That was the whole thing, except for three station breaks, during some of which I played that crazy march, about which I will explain sometime.  Thanks for listening!

Archie