Show 214: Happy New Year, and Here's Some Music You're Going to Hate!!!

I can't resist.  It's been a trying year in many ways, and I want to get even.

Well, the music is uploaded to the infamous WXPI computer.  I think the system is still shaky, but this link seems to work: WXPI Listen Live.

Here's the minimally annotated playlist.  I played a little more Bach than I usually do, which is a lot.

Part A [Bach, Beethoven, Karl Jenkins]

Bach:  Introduction - BWV 543 (fragment)

Beethoven:  Romanze for Violin and Orchestra Nr 2 in F major, Op. 50

Bach:  Concerto in A minor for Violin, BWV 1041
We play all three movements.

Karl Jenkins:  Adiemus
His most popular hit.

Part B [Bach]

Bach:  Gloria In Excelsis Deo  from the Mass in B minor.

Bach: Italian Concerto for keyboard solo in F major, BWV 971 - Andante  (Angela Hewitt)

Bach: 10 - Brandenburg Concerto No 2
All three movements (Amsterdam Guitar Ensemble), courtesy of Joseph Le Blanc

Bach: Selections from the Musical Offering.
Ricercare a 6

Part C [Bach]

Ricercare a 3
Trio Sonata, II - Allegro
Trio Sonata, IV - Allegro
Group 2, 5 Canons

Part D [Beatles, Dave Brubeck, Leroy Anderson]

Beatles:
The Fool On The Hill (Magical Mystery Tour)
Hello Goodbye (Ibid.)
I will (Album, White)
Long, Long, Long (Ibid.)
Savoy Truffle (Ibid.)

Dave Brubeck: Three to Get Ready

Leroy Anderson:
Blue Tango for orchestra
Fiddle-Faddle for string orchestra

Archie: Tune - Orchestra (A fantasia based on Jonny Heykens's "Starlight Serenade")

Archie

Show 213: Bethany's Music

Added later: As most of our listeners know, we upgraded the Station computers to Windows 10, and I believe that the station software was also upgraded, which threw everything off.  Our link from the Station to the Transmitter is also via the Internet, so WXPI has apparently been off the air for more than a week.

I have no actual information about whether last Saturday's program actually hit the airwaves, but I'm going to air the same program again, mostly because it would be a dirty trick to play on Bethany not to air her program at all; certainly a worse trick than airing her program twice, back to back!  We will have a seriously Christmassy program the following week, which will be Boxing Day.

I interviewed Bethany H. from Montgomery, and we talked about the sorts of music she likes, and her varied musical experiences.  Bethany is an alto (or contralto, as they call the voice type), and sings in the Lycoming Choir, and sang in her high school choir, and acted in at least one musical, namely Shreck, the Musical.  She has an enormous voice range, from low Alto, sneaking into the Tenor range, and all the way up the treble staff (and probably higher!)

They cut the Montgomery Area HS choir program, for lack of interest, and Bethany survived that tragedy.  It is such a tossup (unless one's parents are willing to actually move to a school district with a strong choir program) whether you're going to get the benefit of a good musical education as part of your school program.  Bethany is a math major, and both Bethany and Coral were in my class of Geometry students this last semester, and it was fun teaching them.  (I asked them all whether they'd like to be interviewed on Archie's Archives, but all except these two could not bring themselves to actually say they liked music, though they probably do.)

I'm getting these links up in a hurry, anticipating the worst with the Radio Station, and its unreliable website.  I'll expand the page after the show airs.

Part A:

Part B:

Part C:

Part D:

Show 212: Flutes with Coral

I am interviewing a talented undergraduate, Coral, from Ashland, PA.  She's a mathematics major, also minoring in Computer Science, and an accomplished flutist.  In the interview we discover that she's also trying to teach herself the oboe and the clarinet.

The interview segments are self-explanatory, and serve as a springboard for a number of woodwind-related tracks we play.  We also listen to some 90s-style rock, because that's what Coral likes to listen to when she's off duty!

Part A

Part B

Part C

Part D

An idea whose time has come: Interviews

Because my show is not live—as my listeners and readers know by now—I have not tried to do on-air interview thus far.  But I’m beginning to think that it is time I went in that direction.

I am planning to feature an interview or two for my next show, to start with, one of my students, Coral, who happens to love music, even if mostly popular music.  However, she is also a awesome flutist, so I bet we can make her talk about classical music if we try, especially the flute repertoire.

I do not really mind popular music at all, really.  The Irish group, The Cranberries, used to be one of my favorites.  With Coral, I might have to expand my horizons considerably, because she warned me that a lot of music she likes is “angsty!”  I’m surprised, because Coral is so not an obviously angsty person!

Another student who has agreed to be interviewed, tentatively, is Bethany, who has wide interests in music, but who sings in the choir.  I have to wonder whether she likes the choral repertoire, or whether she likes strictly popular music too, even if she likes a variety of rock performers.

So that’s what you have to look forward to!

Archie

‘’—“”

Show 114: Halloween!

This show is scheduled to air today, October 31^st, on Halloween.  It is a re-broadcast of the show from one year ago, because I don't really have enough scary music to make an entirely new Halloween show.  The backgrounds to the pieces are interesting, and next year I will probably remove my spoken introductions, and put in a few more pieces from somewhere.

Also, in contrast to more recent blog posts and podcasts, this post has lots of awesome images.

Part A

1  Introduction    It is Halloween, and tons of little people are out on the street trying to scare everyone with their costumes.  It seems like a good time to play some scary music!

Unfortunately, I know very little scary music.  Scary classical music really came into its own in the early nineteenth century, and even then, only in program music, and musical theater and opera.  Anyway, that’s going to be our theme.

2  Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565    For some reason, Bach’s perfectly innocent Toccata in D minor has become a favorite scary tune.  There’s nothing scary about it, except that it is a big, showy piece that mad geniuses have often played in the movies.  Here it is, and I hope you don’t get too scared!  This is James Kibbie, and it is a very non-scary performance.

3  Barnes & Barnes: Fish Heads    Halloween is also a time when we celebrate the macabre, and the weird and the disgusting.  For instance, here is Fish Heads, by Barnes and Barnes, from a Dr. Demento anniversary album!

4  Ligeti: Music from 2001: A Space Odyssey    Some of the scariest music I know was written for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Here is a selection of it.  The composer is Gyorgy Ligeti.

5  Brahms: Deutches Requiem    Brahms’s German Requiem is a choral work to remember the dead.  One number in it is about "all flesh is as grass," and is really the only somewhat ominous-sounding piece in it, except for The Last Trump, or rather, the Last Trombone, which I shall play for you sometime.  Here is Alle Fleisches ist wie Gras, which means exactly what it sounds like:  All flesh is as grass.  (In German, you capitalize all Nouns.)  [Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra]

6, 7  Mussorgsky: The Gnome, and The Old Castle    From Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, here is The Gnome.  It is only scary to little kids, and maybe not even to them!
Next is The Old Castle, which seems haunted to me. [Jahni Mardjani, Georgian Festival Orchestra.]

Part B

8   Mussorgsky: The Catacombs, and With the Dead.    The next two pieces in Pictures at an Exhibition are The Catacombs, and With the Dead.  Mussorgsky is supposed to have written these pieces to describe an actual exhibition, but it must have been a strange one, if there was a picture called With the Dead in it.  Actually, what I’m hearing is this.  Mussorgsky depicted the people walking from one picture to the next, sort of a group march, and between pictures he had this promenade.  But after the Catacombs, which, incidentally were an extensive system of tunnels under the City of Rome in the first century, in which the Christians and slaves hid from the Roman security, because of course, they were hunted.  Today, we know, there are many tombs down there, some from before the Christians, and some of them were the Christians themselves.  So we hear a minor key version of the promenade, presumably the museum group walking with great fear and trembling among the scary pictures.

9  Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain    This piece by Mussorgsky was used by Walt Disney in Fantasia where it was shown to represent a fantastic dance in a horror setting.

10  David Seville: The Witch Doctor    The famous song from the Sixties, sung by the creator of the Chipmunks.

11  Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms    Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms is a choral work, with lots of amazing orchestral techniques.  It sounds haunting, but is not at all intended to be scary.  But this movement, starting with the phrase Exaudi, sounds weird and obsessive.  Exaudi means Hear us, in Latin.

12  Holst: Mars the Bringer of War    This piece is by Gustav Holst, a British composer, and this is one of the movements from The Planets, a very influential musical suite.  Just listening to this one movement, you can see how Holst influenced movie music, especially Space music.  The piece is in quintuple time, that is 5 beats to a bar.  To make it clear, I have inserted a little clip with the opening notes simplified to just three instruments.  [John Eliot Gardiner]

Part C

13  Dead Puppies    Dead puppies, by Ogden Edsl.

14  The Monster Mash    Monster Mash, by Bobby “Boris” Pickett.

15  The Time Warp    The Time Warp, from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  The movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show was released in the late Seventies, and quickly became a weekly event in lots of College Town cinemas across the country.  People would show up in costume, and sing along with the numbers.  There were a number of famous names in the cast: Susan Sarandon, Meatloaf, and Tim Curry, to name just three.  The Time Warp is probably the best known song in the movie.

16  Simon and Garfunkel: Richard Cory    A song by Simon and Garfunkel, about a man who shot himself.

17   Beatles:  A Day in The Life    John Lennon’s strange song from Sgt Pepper.

18  Bach: Prelude    This Bach prelude is performed by Brian Slawson, who calls it The Hammer.

19  Michael Jackson: Thriller    The well-known hit by Michael Jackson, featuring a rap by Vincent Price.

Part D

20  John Lennon: Revolution 9    This is a whimsical piece by John Lennon featured in The Beatles, also called the White Album.

21  Kandosii: Sludge    A recording by a band that does not exist any longer: Kandosii, based in Shamokin, Pennsylvania.

22  Mozart:  (Don Giovanni) A cenar teco m'invitasti    This song from Don Giovanni is entitled “You invited me to dinner.”  Don Giovanni is a nobleman who makes a habit of seducing young women and then throwing them out.  One time he invites the father of one of these girls to dinner, but when the old man discovers that the Don has pretended to be his daughter’s fiancée and spent the night with her, he challenges the Don to a duel, and gets killed by Don Giovanni.  Then his ghost, animating a stone Statue, turns up at the Don’s castle, saying that the Don had invited him to dinner.  The Don is scared stiff, and eventually is hounded into hell by the stone Statue.  In the song you can hear the Statue announcing its arrival, and Don Giovanni stammering a reply, and the Don’s faithful servant Leporello muttering fearfully to himself.  [Colin Davis, Covent Garden]

Show 211: Rachmaninov

by Boris Chaliapin

I discovered Rachmaninov late in life, so I haven't built up a large collection of his works; like any newbie, I have mostly sort of omnibus CD's; none of them actually advertise themselves as "The Last Rachy CD you'll Ever Need!!!", but they sort of are that.

Anyway, that's what this Saturday's show will be.

Remember, the next week it will be Halloween, and I will present something essentially similar to the show from last Halloween, with some updates.

Show 210: Mostly Music for Piano

My apologies, but the broadcast somehow was shorter than it should have been.  Anyway, here is the "podcast".  By the way, I have learned that there is a very specific file type called a podcast, which can be downloaded by a portable music player, but here we only have a bunch of mp3 files.

Part A

Introduction [Hélène Grimaud playing a transcriptions of the Bach organ fugue in A minor BWV 543]
Scarlatti: Piano Sonata, in D Minor, K 9 [Claudio Colombo]
Albinoni: Concerto a 5 in D minor  [I Musici, Heinz Holliger]
Mozart: Piano Sonata No 8 in A minor, K 310 [Walter Klien]


Part B

Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin, for piano, i - Prélude, ii - Fugue  [Kathryn Stott]

Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin, for orchestra, iii - Forlane  [Academy of St. Martin In-the-Fields]
Beethoven: Sonata No 23 in F minor, Appassionata- Op 57, i - Allegro; ii - Andante; iii - Allegro [Vladimir Horowitz.  The Allegro is on Part C, below.]

Part C

Scriabin: Twenty Four Preludes Op 11 No 8 In F Sharp Minor [Mikhail Pletnev]Beethoven: Romance for Violin in F Major No 2 Op 50 [Igor Oistrakh]
Debussy: Images for piano, Set I, L 110- No 1- Reflets dans Leau  [Kathryn Stott]
Station Break - Tune


Part D

Waltz No 6 in D Flat [Denes Varjon]
Polonaise No 3 in A [Halina Czerny-Stefanska]
Fantaisie Impromptu Op 66 [Halina Czerny-Stefanska]
Mazurka in D minor No 2 [Denes Varjon]
Grande Valse Brillante [Halina Czerny-Stefanska]
Waltz No  7 in C Sharp minor [Dinu Lipatti]
Nocturne in E Flat No 2 [Denes Varjon]

Archie

Just a test: The whole show

Show 209: Performing Bach on the Piano

I got an idea for the theme for this show at the last possible minute, so this is being put together in hurry.  The inspiration for the show is this video:



To make things absolutely clear, when Bach was writing his music, the modern piano (or even any sort of piano) did not exist, or was in the experimental stages.  Bach may have played a very early piano a couple of years before he died.  But this means he could not have possibly written the greater part of his keyboard music for the piano.)

But today, most ordinary musicians who don't have harpsichords, and people generally, play Bach on the piano.  To some, this is sacrilege.  But Andras Schiff explains why it actually makes musical sense to play Bach on the piano as well as on the original intended instrument.  He goes on to explain what the original instruments must have been, for the 48 Preludes and Fugues (the so-called Well Tempered Clavier), which was one of Bach's best-known composition cycles.  They were not intended all to be played on the same instrument.

Musicians of our time who actually preferred to play Bach on the piano include Glenn Gould (who died a few years ago), Angela Hewitt, Andras Schiff, and Murray Perahia.  There's absolutely no doubt that the lowly piano, which so many middle-class families own, is a perfect miracle of engineering and instrument development.  (Unfortunately not a very durable miracle.  In my humble opinion, someone should consider inventing an --acoustic-- Piano made out of fiberglass and plastic, even if there is a small lessening of tone quality.  The piano is, regrettably, one of the few instruments whose value actually depreciates, unlike a violin or a flute, for instance.  And it is due to the sort of construction used.)  So it is all the more satisfying to hear Andras Schiff's endorsement of the appropriateness of using one to play Bach.

As a general principle, most musicologists and music-lovers agree that there is great benefit in hearing music by any great composer performed on instruments similar to--or identical with--those the composer imagined his music to be written for.  I do not take an extreme view of this; once you've heard a piece on "original instruments," there's nothing wrong in preferring to hear the piece played on modern instruments.  But we owe the composer at least one listen on the original, or authentic, instrumentation.  But, let's face it, using non-authentic instruments is just a whole lot of fun!

Show 207: Music and Humor

I forgot to post the podcast for this episode.  This was an important show, so here's the blog post for it.

Humor and music don't mix very naturally, but when they do, it really works well.  We start off with humor that does not depend on text: purely musical jokes; then follow up with funny songs.

Show 208: Other Movements

In this show we try to introduce you to less-well-known movements in works where we're already familiar with a better-known movement or two.

Egads! I just found out why some of my shows SOUND SO HORRIBLE!

Because it is so difficult to get WXPI 88.5 off the air, we have to connect our stereo to one of our phones, or a computer, and get it off the Internet.  About 30% of the time, the broadcast sounded terrible; there was a lot of rumble and distortion in the signal, and I was beginning to suspect that TuneIn Radio (which hosts the Internet feed) was sabotaging my program, for reasons unknown.

Then, for various reasons, I found out how to access the Station's radio archives.  (Radio stations are either required to maintain archives, or choose to maintain archives, I don't know which.)  I was actually trying to locate an old program by somebody else, when I became curious and hunted down one of my own Saturday night broadcasts, and---OMG!!  It really was terrible.

Then I pulled the thing into Audacity (which is audio-editing software, and almost the only way you can trim the archive file to exactly a single broadcast), and looked at the segment of my show that was in one of the files; about a whole hour of it, station breaks and all.  And I saw that it had been compressed.

A word about compression.

As you know, the volume of a program varies naturally from moment to moment; when I'm talking, for instance, the volume between one word and the next is almost zero.  In contrast, the volume of a piece of music is never zero, but also varies with the volume of the music.  Here are some examples:

If further explanation is necessary: in this example, both left and right channels have roughly the same volume throughout.  Observe how the spoken part has lots of silences, especially at the end, before the music starts.  Some of the very soft sounds are just me breathing, if you can believe that.

Now, I'm going to compress this clip.  This is where the software amplifies the soft parts, and softens the loud parts.  This makes the contrast between loud and soft a little less, so that the music will be audible inside a car, but not too loud (so you can concentrate on driving instead of the volume control).  The resulting signal looks like this:

Observe that, in comparison with the original sound clip, the "soft" parts are not as soft, and the "loud" parts are just about as loud as before.  This is a tricky transformation; the program must, at each point in the clip, calculate the "average" volume for the fraction of a second around that point, and juice up (or juice down) the clip for that moment, and go on to the next.  To really see the effect of compression, you have to look at both the images and compare.

Now, when I manually compress my program, I leave my introduction alone.  But it appears that if the sound file is too soft, in the judgment of the Station program (SAM), it compresses the entire file.  This means that even the soft sounds of a breath I take is amplified, until it sounds as if I'm having an Asthma attack.  Similarly, the very soft sounds of the music in the quiet passages are amplified, and we hear the rumble of passing trucks near the studio where the recording might have been made.  This is a lesson for us: compression must be undertaken judiciously, and not left to the studio computer.

In my desperate attempts to avoid distortion, I was actually making the perceived distortion worse.  So last week, I made each file as loud as possible.  This made the program SAM believe that the file was nice and loud, and needed no compression.

I continue to do my own compression, because some passages are so incredibly soft, you have to wonder what the recording engineers are thinking.  These files played over a weak radio transmitter will almost disappear entirely.  But now I know that I have to save all my sound files at maximum volume, and everything will be fine.

Show 206: Form and Structure of Larger Musical Works

This was an abbreviated show of about an hour, but the topic is important, even if we did not go into it in great depth.

Writing a short piece of music is not hard: you think up a tune, polish it up a little, put in some harmony, and you’re done.  When you want to write a major piece of music (I don’t mean to suggest that you listeners want to do this, but it helps to look at the problem from the point of view of the composer) structure raises it’s —not necessarily ugly— head.

Show 205: Slow Movements

a Pas de deux is typically danced to a slow movement

Back in the old days when we older folks used to listen to cassette players, I would make lovely 2-hour cassettes of my favorite cuts from the LP's that I owned, and put them in a little portable cassette player —the predecessor of boom boxes, which in turn are the predecessors of mp3 players— and listen to the music on headphones.

The first really carefully-planned cassette mixes I made were of the middle slow movements of a variety of major works that I liked.  This worked beautifully for when I was studying in a library, to keep me calm and focused.  (I didn’t need fast, energetic music to keep me awake, because I was really into whatever I was working on; the music was more to cover the distracting sounds of undergraduates carrying on about something totally silly, from my exalted grad student point of view.)  Since last week we listened to the high-energy finales from major works, I thought this week we’ll listen to the soothing sounds of slow movements.

Many of my friends, whom I have forced to listen to Archie’s Archives, have cracked up when there is a transition from something slow and serious to something quite unrelated.  Such moments were frequent in the earlier broadcasts; I would follow a romantic duet from a serious opera with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters singing Tonight you belong to me.  It seemed perfectly logical to me, but not to everybody else.  At least on this next show, it will all be slow movements, or mostly slow movements!  In classical works, like symphonies and sonatas, these slow movements were a contrasting, lyrical interlude between more dramatic outer movements.

Show 204: Grand Finales

The theme for this week is those jolly and rousing send-offs that end multi-movement works.  Here's the spoken introduction we put on the air to begin the show:

Part A  (Bach, Schutz, Dylan)

Introduction
Hello, Welcome to Archie’s Archives on WXPI 88.5.  I’m Archie, and this weekly program introduces listeners to classical music.

As I have said before, there is a lot of different kinds of classical music, and since I’m only a volunteer, and like all WXPI show hosts, do this because I like classical music, you’re going to hear mostly the sort of music that I like, unless I specifically try to play something that I don’t like, or I happen to play something that I didn’t listen to first, and so I haven’t got an opinion about it one way or the other!

You probably know by now that I write music in a small way.  I’ve already played a couple of pieces I wrote.  The piece that I wrote first is a chorale-prelude, which means that it took as its springboard another piece, in this case a chorale by Johann Cruger.  I’ll play that for you sometime.  (Actually, it's right here, if you just can't wait to hear it.)

All these pieces I wrote are very short, less than 5 minutes long, most of them.  It’s when you begin writing extended pieces, long works —full scale musical pieces like symphonies are called works, if they can be plausibly published all by themselves— you run up against the problem: how to write a long work?  That’s a discussion we should get into sometime, and look at various solutions composers have adopted.  But the earliest solution is to write a multi-movement work.

These sorts of multi-movement works usually have a nice, upbeat ending, which is usually called the Finale.  (I looked up the pronunciation of this word, and the British pronunciation is fi-na'-le, and the American pronunciation is fi-nal'-li.  It is an Italian word, so it probably ought to be pronounced fi-NAH-leh.  Like Machchi-AH-to, or Prosci-OOT-Toh.  Anyway, these last movements are a lot of fun to listen to, so that’s going to be the featured sort of movement I play for you today.  And, as always, it’s going to be my favorite finales, so don’t be sore.  If you would like to hear your favorite finales, you have two options, at least.
[1] write to me, archiewxpi@gmail.com, and tell me what you would like to hear.  If I think it fits in with one of our program themes in the next few weeks, it will be there.  If it is really interesting, theme or no theme, I’ll put it in anyway, if I can find it.
[2] You can always sign up as a show host for WXPI — just contact Curt Musheno at station@wxpiradio.org
You can call your show: Pieces Archie Refuses to Play, or something like that!

Hélène Grimaud

The theme music today is being played by Hélène Grimaud, who is a lovely lady, and I must put up a picture of her on our website.  Our website could do with a few nice pictures on there, I have to admit.  I must not be sexist, but in this post-PC world that we are slowly entering, I should hope that Mlle Grimaud does not take exception to being characterized as a beauty.  Let me say, in case you misunderstand, that she is being featured because she is arguably one of the two people who play this piece the best; the other being Mr. Alexis Weissenberg, whose performance I put in our podcast for last week.  I took out Mr. Miecszyslaw Horzowski’s performance, because I thought Mr. Weissenberg does a better job.  (So, obviously, the pieces on the podcast are often just a little different from the pieces on the radio broadcast.)

Show 203: Space Sounds

This show will feature space-related and astronomy-related sounds and music.

To start things off, here is a video from NASA in which radio-frequency reception from radio telescopes has been converted into sound:


We're going to play On the Beautiful Blue Danube, and you should know where that river is located, so here's a map for you:

The path of the Danube

The Danube is a 1795 mile long river in Europe, which has its headwaters in the Black Forest of Germany, and then passes through, more or less in turn:
Austria
Slovakia
Hungary
Croatia
Serbia
Bulgaria
Ukraine
Moldova
Romania,
and runs into the Black Sea.  If these places are unfamiliar to you, you should look them up.  The map above indicates the path of the river from west to east, in red.

Show 202: Slap that Bass

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 102.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show202.  The first digit will indicate which series the show is from: 1 for the first cycle, 2 for this second cycle, and so on.  For instance, the July 4^th show for next year, 2016, will be numbered numbered Show301, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]
‘’—“”
A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by the famous Rick Smith, whose daily talk show we feature at 3:00 p.m. on weekdays on WXPI. His talk show is primarily political commentary, and while thinking of what we could talk about he happened to mention that he had played the bass, as a young fellow, and he approached music by listening for the bass line.

Most occasional listeners to classical music don’t find it easy to relate to the bass in classical music for various reasons, mostly because classical harmony is a little more subtle than harmony in pop music. Pop harmony is getting more sophisticated all the time, but after introducing a certain degree of harmonic complexity pop musicians back off, because they’re afraid that their music is going to sound too classical. In this show I’m going to try and highlight the bass lines, and what makes them interesting.

I also promised to put in a picture of a set of viols, which I have playing the Bach C minor Passacaglia, so here it is on the right.  Modern Double-Basses are essentially Bass Viols, with very minor modifications to bring them partially in line with the violin family of stringed instruments.  But the sloping "shoulders" give away it's antecedents.  In fact, a modern double-bass looks pretty much like the big reddish-wood instrument at the bottom center in the illustration.  (The phrase alio modo has something to do with onions, or ice cream.)

[Clicking on the image will take you to Gateshead Youth Orchestra]

Show 201: Nationalistic, International and Folk Music

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 36.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show201.  The first digit will indicate which series the show is from: 1 for the first cycle, 2 for this second cycle, and so on.  For instance, the July 4^th show for next year will be numbered numbered Show301, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]

With this broadcast, we begin a new year of Archie's Archives.  It's July 4th, so we're going to feature national anthems, and other patriotic songs, both from the USA and other lands.

Part A

The Star Spangled Banner (Francis Scott Key, John Stafford Smith), sung by Lauren Hart, and also by Phi Mu Alpha National Sinfonia Fraternity

National Emblem March (Edwin Bagley), which features a motif from the Star Spangled Banner.

The National Anthem of the Netherlands (Wilhelmus Van Nassouw)

The National Anthem of South Africa (Enoch Sontonga, C. J. Langenhowen), sung by Nianell (Namibia) at the 2014 Rugby World Cup South Africa/New Zealand match.

Jerusalem (And did those feet in ancient time, William Blake, C. H. H. Parry, orchestrated by Edward Elgar) by the BBC choir and orchestra, Last night of the Proms, 2012.

Finlandia Hymn (Jean Sibelius) sung by Carmina Slovenica.

God Bless America (Irving Berlin)

Lift Every Voice and Sing (James W and John R. Johnson)

The National Anthem of Israel, performed by the Swarovsky Orchestra

Part B

The National Anthem of Spain, performed by the Swarovsky Orchestra

The National Anthem of Canada, performed by the Swarovsky Orchestra

The National Anthem of Japan, performed by the Swarovsky Orchestra

All you need is Love, sung by The Beatles

La Marsellaise, performed by the Swarovsky Orchestra

The National Anthem of India performed by several artists

Lionel Ritchie, Michael Jackson We Are The World

This information is freely available, but for convenience, here is the list of soloists as given in Wikipedia:

Soloists		Chorus
Lionel Richie Stevie Wonder Paul Simon Kenny Rogers James Ingram Tina Turner Billy Joel Michael Jackson Diana Ross Dionne Warwick Willie Nelson	Al Jarreau Bruce Springsteen Kenny Loggins Steve Perry Daryl Hall Huey Lewis Cyndi Lauper Kim Carnes Bob Dylan Ray Charles	Don Henley Harry Belafonte Lindsey Buckingham Mario Cipollina Johnny Colla Sheila E. Bob Geldof Bill Gibson Chris Hayes Sean Hopper Jackie Jackson	La Toya Jackson Marlon Jackson Randy Jackson Tito Jackson Waylon Jennings Bette Midler John Oates Jeffrey Osborne Anita Pointer June Pointer Ruth Pointer Smokey Robinson

Bedrich Smetana: The Moldau

Richard Rodgers: Laendler, from Sound of Music

Guantanamera (Jose Marti, Unknown) performed by Playing for Change

Part C

Bach-Vivaldi: Concerto in D performed by German Brass in Swinging Bach
Bach: B minor Suite, performed by Jiri Stivin
Quintessence Sax Quintet: Fudge fugue in G minor
Bach: Double Concerto in D minor, played by Adele Anthony, Gil Shaham, and the Gewandhaus Orchestra
Turtle Island String Quartet: Variations on Bach Themes
Jacques Loussier Trio:  Gavotte
King's Singers: Deconstructing Johann

Part D


Bobby McFerrin, Jacques Loussier trio: Improvisation on Wachet auf
Turtle Island String Quartet, Miles Davis: Seven Steps to Bach
Tom Lehrer: We Will All Go Together When We Go

Show 135: A Retrospective

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 35.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show135.  The first digit will indicate which series the show is from: 1 for the first cycle, 2 for this second cycle, and so on.  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.]

Notice that our web page cover art already incorporates the Rainbow theme: the five Adirondack chairs are all colored brightly!  This is a great week for people of alternate lifestyles, and I'm sure that very soon that phrase: "Alternate lifestyles" will stop being so useful.  I am a little uncomfortable with all the crowing that is going on; it is quite unnecessary to present the triumph of the LGBT community as a massive defeat for gender-conservatives, to coin a phrase.  Jesus loves and forgives everybody, just as he has forgiven countless TV evangelists for their adultery over the past several decades.

It has been just about a year since I started hosting this show, so I'm going to play one track from each of the 34 original shows I put together.  (I can hardly believe that I did not provide original shows on 17 occasions!!  Some weeks, it was just too much to do, to come up with 112 minutes of material.  In the early weeks, where the shows were actually much more ambitious than the last several shows, I put in more than 10 hours for the two-hour show.  Obviously I could not keep that up.  In the later shows, I essentially put each show together in about 6 hours.)

Show 134: Something for Parents :)

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 34.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show134.  The first digit will indicate which series the show is from: 1 for the first cycle, 2 for this second cycle, and so on.  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.]
 
It's getting close to the anniversary of this show; it was the week before July 4th last year that I put up the first edition of Archie's Archives!

This show will try to celebrate parents of both sexes — why have two separate days for mothers and fathers?  (Answer: so you get to spend more money!  It's good to have these answers ready.)  Some of the pieces I have, unfortunately, are religious in inspiration, but I decided long ago that I would enjoy religious music without any embarrassment, despite being a firm unbeliever, because it's too much frustration having to avoid religious music, and I imagine that in an ideal world, composers would have written beautiful music even if they were totally non-religious.  In the —a little less than ideal— world we actually have, of course, many composers would have written very little, if not for the religious inspiration, or being faced with the duty of supplying music for weekly worship.  In good times, religion serves as stimulation for art, sort of artistic insulin, if you will.  In bad times, religion comforts those who suffer, providing the opiate for the masses, and enables those who impose suffering to do so without too much backlash.  And we all know who they are.

Johann Sebastian Bach was often called Papa Bach, and Joseph Haydn was called Papa Haydn.  So we can feature works by these composers with no apology.  In fact someone (I can't remember who) said that Bach should not have been called Bach, which means brook, but rather, Meer, which means, the sea.  In Dutch, the word for sea is zee, and those who cross the Tappan Zee Bridge must know that it refers to the fact that The Mighty Hudson is particularly wide at that point.  (My wife always calls it The Mighty Hudson, and it gives us a good chuckle, though the allusion eludes me.  I guess all I have to do is ask her...)

Show 133: Name That Tune

Richard Strauss

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 33.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show133.  The first digit will indicate which series the show is from: 1 for the first cycle, 2 for this second cycle, and so on.  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.]

 This week's show will be a quiz.  After a short clip, you will be given a few seconds to recognize the name of the work, and the composer.  One point for getting it right, except for a few exceptions, where you're allowed two points.

I'm putting this photo up, because Richard Strauss's birthday was on Thursday, June 11.
If you're determined to cheat, here is a list of the pieces, so you can play match the names and the tunes:

• Air (on the G string)  —Bach
• Symphony 5  —Beethoven
• Hungarian Dance  —Brahms
• Arabesque  —Debussy
• Pavana Lachrimae  —Dowland
• Nimrod  —Elgar
• Rhapsody in Blue  —Gershwin
• Watermusic  —Handel
• Midsummer Night's Dream  —Mendelssohn
• Violin Concerto  —Mendelssohn
• Clarinet Quintet  —Mozart
• Symphony  40 in G minor  —Mozart
• Pictures at an Exhibition  —Mussorgsky
• Suite from Abdelazer  —Purcell
• Fanfare from Also sprach Zarathusthra  —R. Strauss
• Unfinished Symphony  —Schubert
• Die Moldau  —Smetana
• Liberty Bell March  —Sousa
• 1812 Overture  —Tchaikovsky
• Ride of the Valkyries  —Wagner

Show 132: Versions-New tunes from Old

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 32.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show132.  The first digit will indicate which series the show is from: 1 for the first cycle, 2 for this second cycle, and so on.  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.]
 
This show is concerned with pairs of pieces or performances, either contrasting performances of the same piece, or a pair of pieces, one derived from the other.

Part A

Bach: Brandenburg No 4 in G Major, BWV 1049-Allegro, (Anthony Newman, Brandenburg Collegium), BWV 1067 in F major, for Harpsichord (Sviatoslav Richter)

Mozart: Piano Concerto no 23 in A major, K488 (First with Chick Corea and Bobby McFerrin conducting the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, then with Malcolm Bilson and John Eliot Gardiner conducting the English Baroque Soloists, with original instruments)


Part B (continuing with Mozart K 488)

Disney: Sleeping Beauty Waltz; Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty Waltz

Britten: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra-Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Purcell;  Henry Purcell: Abdelazar

Huey Lewis and the News: I Want A New Drug; Weird Al Yankovich: I Want A New Duck


Part C

Eric Carmen: Never Gonna Fall In Love Again; Rachmaninov: Symphony N 2 in E Minor Op 27 3  Adagio

The Beatles: Revolution

Wagner: Overture to Die Meistersinger (Herbert von Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic; Glenn Gould, Piano)

Part D, continuing with the Gould piano transcription

Mozart: Gran Partita, iv-Adagio (Hogwood, Academy of Ancient Music; Marriner, Academy of St Martin In the Fields)

Bach: Cantata No 11 'Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen' (Janet Baker); Mass in B minor - Agnus Dei (The Bach Guild)

Note: Our Signoff Tune is presented here in a full brass band version.

For next week:  I'm planning to present a Name That Tune type quiz.  All the mystery tunes will be from Archie's Archives broadcasts.

Archie

Show 131: Swinging Bach, and The Entertainer

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 27.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show127.  The first digit will indicate which series the show is from: 1 for the first cycle, 2 for this second cycle, and so on.  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.]

You'd think, because the school year is over (for our school, anyway), that I would produce better crafted shows, but no; they're even more arbitrarily slapped together than ever.

This show was initially inspired by Scott Joplin's The Entertainer which was being broadcast from a passing ice cream truck, and I got to thinking that it might be fun to make a MIDI file out of it, by ear, and feature that on the show.  Then, I got to thinking, it might be nice to show how I go about doing it, in stages.  (It's still by ear, mind you; I did not go to the written score, as I do with Bach, for instance.)

Once I got started, I ran out of material pretty soon, but I stumbled on the DVD of Swinging Bach, from 2000, centered around Bobby McFerrin.  Now, the WXPI agreement with ASCAP and the, er, corresponding institution in the UK permit us to play any music from any recorded source, for non-profit purposes.  So I went about trying to acquire the soundtrack of the movie, but I failed.  But I acquired the video of it, and extracted the sound from that instead.  That provided about another half hour.

Then Uma, a close friend, posted a page that linked to several tracks of the music of the band she plays with, Minstrel's Ghost.  That was the last track for the night.

So there's really no rhyme or reason for the compilation for tonight; it's a bunch of music that hit my radar over the week, filled up with recordings from my collection, to balance classical, popular, folk, humor, and curiosities.

Unfortunately, my plan of making each show balanced with all these elements has resulted in less of an overall theme for each show.  Now, it is possible impose an overall structure for each show even while maintaining the four or five departments of classical, folk, popular, humor and curiosities.  For instance, for the week of July Fourth, you can easily imagine a program that concentrates on nationalistic music in each of those categories.  (I try to imagine that I live in a post-adolescent USA, in which the common man is comfortable with hearing music of foreign lands even during Independence Week.  In some parts of the country, people listen to nothing but the Star Spangled Banner all year long.  These are the places where people don't pay taxes.  Did you get the irony there?)

But I get into an "Off Duty" sort of mood over the summer, and it feels like a lot of work to put together a show that has structure in the rows as well as the columns.  Still, I think I will do a careful job for July Fourth, the first week of July; in fact, if I repeat last year's show, it already has all these elements.

Part A
Part B
Part C
Part D

Archie

Show 130: Glorious Medley

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 30.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show130.  The first digit will indicate which series the show is from: 1 for the first cycle, 2 for this second cycle, and so on.  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.]
 
I spent most of last week away from my music collection, so I had to fall back on whatever I had on my so-called hard drive.  I'm putting up the playlist, for the simple reason that there really is no pattern, (there seldom is, is there?) and if you want to hear any of these, you would have to listen for it until it shows up.  I hope they get played in this order:

Part A

Bach:  Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, Chorus from BWV 147
This is the opening chorus (once again) from the Cantata from which the most popular "Jesu, Joy of man's desiring" chorale is taken.

Chanticleer: An American Folk Medley
Includes O sinner man, and several others.

Mozart: from Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), The birdman's song (Ein Vogelfänger ich bin, ja)

Johann Strauss, Jr: Trisch-Trasch Polka (King's Singers)

Philip Glass: Closing, from Dance Suite

Peter, Paul and Mary: I Dig Rock and Roll Music

Part B

Johannes Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, Op 80
 
George Frederick Handel: Alla Hornpipe from The Watermusic
 
J. S. Bach:  Air, from Suite 3 in D major for Orchestra (Classical Music String Quartet)

J. S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No 1 in F Major - Adagio

Franz Josef Haydn: Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major I Allegro (Rolf Smedvig)
This is in memory of Rolf Smedvig, who was a founder member of the Empire Brass Quintet, and was the music director of the Williamsport Symphony in the mid 80's.  He passed away last week.

Part C

Frederik Chopin: Etude No 10 In A Flat Major from Op 10
This is new to me, but is certainly lovely.

George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (Original Jazz Band Version) (Joanna McGregor)
The version heard most commonly today is a symphonic version; apparently this is the original composition, written for piano and a jazz band.

Leonard Bernstein: Overture to Candide

Brahms: Hungarian Dance No 5 in G minor

Part D

Pietro Mascagni:  Ave Maria from Cavalleria Rusticana (Angela Gheorghiu)

Stephen Foster:  I Dream of Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair (John McCormack)
 
Ludvig van Beethoven:  Symphony No 5 In C Minor, Op 67, movements 3 and 4
Apologies: these were horribly distorted on the broadcast.  They are repaired here!]

[Bonus track:] Archie's Mystery Tune, in Waltz Time

Archie

Show 129: A restructured Archie's Archives, and lots of repeats

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 29.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show129.  The first digit will indicate which series the show is from: 1 for the first cycle, 2 for this second cycle, and so on.  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.]

In this episode I make the changes I have been planning for a while: to focus on
Part A: Classics for the first half hour,
Part B: World music and Folk music for the next half hour,
Part C. Pop music for the third half hour,
Part D: Comedy and curiosities for the last half hour.

Already, last week, I discovered that this would not work.  Still, this is roughly how this program, this week, was structured, so I leave it at that.  (Next Saturday, it will be a completely unstructured show, probably played at random by SAM, the studio computer.)

The playlist for last Saturday, May 9th, was as follows:

• Mozart: Piano Concerto No 24 in C minor K 491.  This was almost completely chopped out by the station computer program.  Sorry about that.

• Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No 5 in D Major
   
• Bach: Contrapunctus I from The Art of the Fugue
   
• Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin- No 3, Forlane
   
• Mary Hopkin: Blodwyn Gwyn
   
• Anonymous: Bransle de la Torche
   
• Anonymous: Waly, waly (Choir of New College, Oxford)
   
• John Dowland: Mr Giles Hobies Galiard (The King's Noyse) 

• Vienna Boys Choir
• Trisch-trasch Polka
• Mozart:  trio from Magic Flute
• Innsbruck, ich muss' dich lassen

• Paul Mc Cartney, Michael Jackson: The Girl Is Mine
   
• The Beatles: Every little thing
   
• America: You Can Do Magic
   
• Renaissance: Black Flame
   
• Dowdon, Besly: The Second Minuet (sung by Webster Booth and Ann Ziegler)
   
• Jimmy Fallon-Jack Black-Extreme Side by Side Comparison of More Than Words
   
• Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas: Little Children
   
• The Beatles: I'll follow the Sun
   
• Harry Belafonte: Man Smart, Woman Smarter
   
• George Harrison: My Sweet Lord
   
• St. George and the Dragonet (Stan Freberg)
   
• Edward Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance march no 1

Show 128: Close Harmony and Barbershop

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 28.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show128.  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.]
 
Well, something went slightly wrong with last Saturday's broadcast; the programming computer was cutting songs off before they were completed, so that the program ended several minutes too early.  Anyway, here is the podcast.

Part A

Ever since my father brought home an LP of the Yale Whiffenpoofs (the glee club) in 1964, I was hooked.  I was surprised and delighted to learn that my eldest stepdaughter had belonged to a girl barbershop quartet in high school, and saw several videos of them performing at the State Fair in Bloomsburg.

Close Harmony and Barbershop are not exactly the same thing, but I'm going to include both kinds, even a little classical music.  The groups being featured are the Yale Whiffenpoofs of 1973, Chanticleer, a group from the San Francisco area; the King’s Singers, alumni of the world-famous choir of King’s College, Cambridge; Manhattan Transfer; The Chordettes, a female group from the fifties, and The Quintones, from even earlier, and a couple of others.

At the moment, the selections by the King’s Singers are a little on the esoteric side, consisting of madrigals, both English and French and Italian, and one in German.  The playlist is as follows (with possibly some changes in sequence):

Puttin on the Ritz
Mr Sandman:  Roberto Rico and his band.

Sweet and Low:  The Chordettes

Amor vittorioso, balletto for 5 voices: King's Singers

Mozart:  Piano Concerto No 21 (Elvira Madigan) -- iii-Allegro vivace assai

When My Sugar Walks Down The Street:  The Quintones


Brigg Fair: Chanticleer (Wondrous Love)

Part B

Popurri los Trios: Sin Ti, Solamente Una Vez, Sabor a Mi, Quisas Quisas,  by Mariachi Sol De Mexico (La Nueva Era)

The Times They Are A Changing: Peter, Paul & Mary (Lifelines)

El Manisero: Chanticleer (Wondrous Love)

Stewball: Peter, Paul & Mary (Lifelines)

Of All the Birds That I Do Know

The Silver Swanne, madrigal for 5 voices: The King’s Singers (Madrigal History Tour)

Loch Lomond:  Chanticleer (Wondrous Love)

Aphrodite: Whiffenpoofs of 1973 (Sunshine Girl)

La, la, la, je ne l'ose dire: The King’s Singers (Madrigal History Tour)

Sunshine Girl: Whiffenpoofs of 1973 (Sunshine Girl)

Il est bel et bon, commere, mon mary (Chansons musicales, Paris 1534)

The King’s Singers (Madrigal History Tour)

Whiffenpoof Song: Whiffenpoofs of 1973 (Sunshine Girl)

L' Amour de Moy: Chanticleer (Wondrous Love)

We Three: Chordettes (Close Harmony)

Lirum bililirum (Un sonar de piva in fachinesco), madrigal

The King’s Singers (Madrigal History Tour)

Java Jive

Whiffenpoofs of 1973 (Sunshine Girl)

Il bianco e dolce cigno, madrigal for 4 voices, S 2

The King’s Singers (Madrigal History Tour)

La Villanella

Chanticleer (Wondrous Love)

Tantzen und springen

The King’s Singers (Madrigal History Tour)

Un Gentil Amoureux

The King’s Singers (Madrigal History Tour)

Cucu, cucu, cucucu, cancionero (from Cancionero de Palacio)

The King’s Singers (Madrigal History Tour)

Babylon / Oh, Sinner Man

Peter, Paul & Mary (Lifelines)

Nelly Bly

Chanticleer (Wondrous Love)

Oy, Polná, Polná  Korobushka

Chanticleer (Wondrous Love)

Delia

Whiffenpoofs of 1973 (Sunshine Girl)

Vitrum Nostrum Gloriosum

The King’s Singers (Madrigal History Tour)

Glorious Apollo

Harvard and Michigan Glee Clubs

Leroy Anderson Potpourri

Lycoming College Band (Spring Concert 2015)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Die Zauberflöte  /  Divertimento, O Isis

Bernd Hassel, Juergen Gode, Stefan Zimmer (Music for 2 Clarinets and Bassoon.)

Faure: Cantique de Jean Racine

Lycoming College Choir, Lycoming Community Orchestra

Mozart: Piano Concerto 21

Annie Fischer, Philharmonia Orchestra

My Apologies!

Last Saturday's issue was meant to be a repeat, but the one that was aired was not the one intended!

I thought I had placed a much older show ready to go on the program queue, but it repeated the show from just one week ago instead!  I guess this means I have to get a whole new one ready for next week.  Anyhoo, on the bright side, the show that aired was this one, from April 11.  I don't have to put up a new podcast!!

I'm trying to put together a new program that highlights close harmony.  I have a feeling that I might not be able to find too many different recordings, or at least a good variety.  But that's the plan.

Arch

Show 127: Folk Music, Traditional Music, World Music, and Folk

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 27.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show127.  The first digit will indicate which series the show is from: 1 for the first cycle, 2 for this second cycle, and so on.  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.]
 
Notice the distinction between Folk Music, and Folk.  Folk Music is music passed on by the oral tradition, Folk is music written in a certain style (e.g. Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, John Denver, Gordon Lightfoot).  Traditional music is a little more vague: it is music written in the last couple of decades, embodying national or regional aspiration, and widely adopted as music of the people, but not pop music, e.g. "Drink to me only" by Ben Jonson, "Loch Lomond" by Robert Burns, and "Swanee River" by Stephen Foster.

Part A

Introduction--Bach: Organ Fugue in C major, BWV 545, with rhythm track
When I first signed up to do a show on WXPI, they interviewed me and asked me to describe what sort of show it would be.  So I said, it’s going to be all classical music, with lots of peripheral information so that people wanting to get a handle on it could do that.  I was asked whether there would be World Music, and I said, well, maybe a little of that.  But it was soon clear that a lot of the so-called Core Group (which is a sort of informal committee that meets every week) was really interested in World Music.
So this week, I’m going to do my bit for World Music.  I’m going to play a lot of classics as well, because I don’t want to use up my entire folk music collection.
Again this week, we have a different fugue for our theme music, but we will go back to the old tune next week!

The opening scene of Figaro, from another production

Mozart: Duettino 1 from The Marriage of Figaro--Figaro and Susanna
Now, you know Mozart’s mother tongue was German, which is what is spoken in Austria.  So, though he wrote his best-known work, which is The Marriage of Figaro, to be sung Italian (it was a play by a Frenchman, of a story set in Spain, written by an Austrian, to be sung in Italian.  How about that?), anyway, German speakers swear that the translation of the libretto into German is funnier and better than the original Italian libretto.  So here’s the opening scene with Susanna and Figaro, sung n German, where Figaro is measuring the bedroom for a new bed, for after they’re married.  Their new bedroom is conveniently near the suite of the Count and the Countess.  Figaro is being sung by a well-loved German bass, Walter Berry.

Mozart: Recitative and Duettino 2 from The Marriage of Figaro--Figaro and Susanna
In these two cuts, Susanna explains to Figaro just why being so close to the bedroom of the Count is a problem.  He could send you on an errand, she says, and when you're gone, the Count might get a headache, or something, and might need a massage from me, you know?  The whole opera is about this problem: that the Count has his eye on Susanna.

Muththuswamy Dikshitar: Vaathaapi Ganapathy
To start our World Music features, I’m going to play a hymn to Lord Ganapathy.  Ganapathy is the Hindu God represented by a being with an elephant’s trunk, a child of the god Shiva, and a secondary deity in the Hindu pantheon.  The song was composed by Muththuswami Dikshitar, who holds a place similar to Bach among Karnatic composers, so is greatly venerated.  The vocalist is M. S. Subbulakshmi, one of the greatest female South Indian classical vocalists, who was invited to sing at the United Nations, and was introduced by U Thant.
The words are in Sanskrit, and I can only recognize the words Varanasya, which is Benares, and Swayamvaram, which means debut or introduction, and of course, Ganapathy, to whom the hymn is addressed.  The raga is Hamsadhwani, which consists of just five notes, 1,2,3,5,7.  (The Pentatonic scale has the same number of notes, but different notes: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6.)  As you will hear, the tune sounds like an ongoing fanfare, and this raga is used for grand music on formal occasions.

James Galway / The Chieftains: Over the Sea to Skye
This is a New Age-ization of a traditional song of Scotland.  James Galway was a flutist who played in the Berlin Philharmonic in the seventies.

Mozart: Violin Concerto No 5 in A major ('Turkish') K 219 -- Finale
In the time of Mozart, the major foreign (non-European) country that they had a lot of information about was Turkey.  Turkish musicians performed in restaurants and various other places in all the capitals of Europe.  The people of Germany and Austria had only the merest idea of what the music was about, but Mozart loved it, and this movement from his Violin Concerto No. 5 is nicknamed The Turkish, because of some passages that have a little Turkish influence.  (Of course, if anyone from Turkey is listening now, you would say that the music is about as closely related to the music of Turkey as American Chinese food is related to the cuisine of Mainland China, which is: not very.)

Part B

Burns: Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon
Folk music, as you know, is music passed down from parent to child, so its oral tradition music.  World music, is often Art music, that is, composed by professional composers, as art, and the Mutthuswami Dikshitar piece is an example.  Here’s a song written by Scotland’s most favorite poet and songwriter: Robert Burns, Ye banks and braes of bonny Doon, a song of a girl reproaching the River Doon for being so beautiful, when her lover has left her.  The vocalist is Kathleen Ferrier, a great artist who died some sixty years ago.  The pianist is Gerald Moore, a famous accompanist.

Peter Yarrow: River of Jordan

L-R: Mary, John Sebastian, Ronnie Gilbert, Buddy Mondloch,
Tom Paxton, Richie Havens, Noel, Dave Van Ronk,
Fred Hellerman, Peter, Odetta, Susan Werner

Folk music, as I said, is music whose composer is not known, and listed as Anonymous.  In contrast, in the fifties and the sixties, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and a lot of others began to write and sing songs accompanied only on an acoustic guitar, and this style came to be called Folk.  So we’re stuck with that designation.  Peter, Paul & Mary had a grand concert celebration to mark, like 25 years of singing together, and they recorded a lot of songs at this reunion of folk singers of their era.  This is from that album.

Galway/Chieftains: The Minstrel Boy
The Minstrel Boy is a war song; or rather an anti-war song, I'm not sure.  It is a traditional song which we learned at school.  [Wikipedia states that it was written by Thomas Moore at about the time of the Irish Rebellion.]

Donna Missigman: Down in the Valley
Ms Missigman is a local artist, who lived in the Hughesville area.  Down in the Valley is a song that was featured in the Richard Pryor, Gene Wilder movie Stir Crazy.

W. D. Amaradeva: Sannaliyane

Amaradeva, playing an instrument he designed.

Now we go to the East, to Sri Lanka, and we have W. D. Amaradeva, who was a major force in the classical Sri Lankan music world for some fifty years.  He was a composer and a performer, and he set to music the lyrics of an important poet, Mahagama Sekara.
This poem is in three verses.
The first verse asks, O maidens, for whom do you sew that lovely little dress?  And they answer: for the little girl who was born yesterday.
The next verse asks: O maidens, for whom do you create those lovely robes?  And the answer is: for the same young girl, who is to be married tomorrow.
And the last verse asks:  O maidens, for whom do you weave your shroud?  It is to cover the corpse of the woman, who died last night.
[A lot of Sinhala poetry elaborates on the Buddhist principle that life is fleeting, and that we should raise our eyes to higher things.]

Karl Jenkins: Adiemus
This next piece is almost the opposite of both Folk music and International, or World Music.  A British composer called Karl Jenkins writes songs intended to be sung by a large choir, and soloists, and he uses Celtic instruments, and a small Finnish women’s vocal ensemble, and there are so-called tribal elements in the song, and he has African vocalists singing as well.  Most interestingly, he uses nonsense syllables that sound like Latin, but are not.  He feels that having literary meaning will distract from the effectiveness of the songs.  This is his best known, Adiemus.
 This video shows Anastasia Volochkova dancing to this piece.


Part C

Nando Carneiro: Verao de 74 DeSengano
This is a CD without a cover, which I borrowed from HelenaDella, and I know very little about it, except that it sounds interesting, and Nando Carneira is a Brazillian jazz/crossover musician.

Galway / Chieftains: Danny Boy
Not their best effort.

Bach / Bela Fleck: Well-Tempered Clavier, Fugue No. 20 in A minor
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones are a banjo band that do some very sophisticated arrangements of classical pieces, and their own original compositions.

Ch'uva Yacu Bolivia:  San Juan
This is a Bolivian band that plays music by composers such as Irving Berlin, at County Fairs across the US, to raise awareness of environmental problems in Bolivia (probably caused by US businesses operating there).  The CD was picked up by my step-daughter, Wendy.

Putumayo: World Playground
This is a low-priced CD I bought around 2008 in Canada.  This company gives a portion of its income to charity.  This particular collection, intended for children, contains:

Fatou Yo Touré Kunda,  Senegal
La Mariposa  Colibri, Bolivia

Part D 

Three Little Birds  Cedella Marley Booker; Taj Mahal, Jamaica

James Galway / The Chieftains: The Last Rose of Summer
One of the loveliest cuts on the album, featuring a large string orchestra.

Galway, Cheiftains: Cath Chéim an Fhia
This tune sounds like the Hobbit theme from The Lord of The Rings.

Tom Lehrer: (I'm Spending) Hanukkah in Santa Monica
Self-explanatory, about the cold winters of the East Coast.

Lord Melody: Sweetheart from Venezuela
Harry Belafonte sings this great song.  Do I remember it from Beetlejuice?

Bela Fleck: Rococo

Hope you enjoyed that!  See you next week.

Archie