Show 125: Contrasting Versions

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 25.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show125.  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 started out wanting to present some rain-related music, but instead ended up presenting pairs of performances of the same piece.

The first is Arabesque 1, by Debussy, played on the piano by Kathryn Stott, immediately followed by an orchestral transcription (or arrangement; usually the word "transcription" is used for a piano reduction), by the Philharmonia Orchestra --I think; it might be another one!  It's lovely growing old; you laugh at the same jokes even if you hear it recounted twice within an hour!

In a later pair of pieces, I cut between one version and another.  I don't know whether that's strictly legal; credit must be given for each recording, as part of our arrangement with ASCAP, and so on, but with mp3 which contain blended music, it's difficult to put all the credits in the metadata (the information about the performance that is displayed on some radios and computers, as the music is playing).  This is what I do with The Gnome, a movement from Pictures at an Exhibition (Mussorgsky).

For the last several days the song "I'm crying, baby, baby" has been in my head.  It took me a while to realize that I was hearing two different versions on the radio.  Evidently, the song was written by Smoky Robinson, and later covered by the version I'm most familiar with: by Linda Ronstadt.  I did not feature that pair of performances on the show, but I have to mention that it actually triggered off the idea.

This weekend I have to go off to the wilds of Massachusetts, where there is no easy Internet access where I'm visiting (I mean, they do have a Laundromat that has free Internet, provided you wash clothes there...) so I'm leaving my computer behind, and uploading the podcast will have to wait until later next week.

In pop music, of course, when an artist covers a song, it is usually a different arrangement of it.  Few artists sing the exact arrangement of a song they're covering.  In classical music, though, different performances of the exact same piece can sound very different, because the instruments being used, the venue, the particular sound of the performer, all put their stamp on the performance.  For instance, a performance of the Beethoven 5th Symphony, one of the most iconic pieces in the classical repertoire, from the 1940s would sound entirely different from a performance in the 1980's.  By 1980, people had discovered the principle of using "original instruments", which means that almost any instrument from back in the days of Beethoven would have sounded weaker and --to our ears-- harsher, or sometimes a little edgier, and in other cases, more mellow, than the modern equivalents.

To take just one example, in Bach's day, they had a certain sort of valve-less trumpet, where you had to get the different notes by lip control and pressure control alone, without the use of valves or pistons.  The bore (the inner diameter of the tube) was smaller, so some things were easier to do, I'm told.  But their sound was quieter, and they had a certain shining bell sound.  Modern valve trumpets have a lower range, to begin with, because each additional loop of tubing makes the note lower.  Also, the wider bore makes it easier to play lower notes rather than higher.  Finally, as everyone knows, modern trumpets are very loud; the trick is to play them softly.  Baroque trumpets (of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries) were soft-sounding.

Similarly, all the instruments: violins and the violin family, flutes, clarinets, bassoons, oboes, all sounded different back then.  So the more recent performances of old music (I mean 18th and 19th century music) actually sounds even older than it would have sounded if played a few decades before that, because we can now play instruments that are copies of instruments of the sort played "back when."  It is a little confusing, that as time goes on, we learn more about the past, and can imitate it better!  Comparisons of performances of the 1940s with performances of the 1990s will have to wait for another occasion.

Part A

Claude Debussy: Arabesque No 1
Here we feature the piano version followed by an orchestral version

Felix Mendelssohn: Octet for strings in E flat major, Op 20- Scherzo, Allegro leggierissimo
First we have Hausmusik London, led by Monica Huggett, the original octet scoring, and then The Academy of St Martin In-The-Fields in an expanded orchestral version.

Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition - Gnomus
First the piano version, by Vladimir Askhenazy, then a full orchestration.  There are two orchestrations: one by Maurice Ravel, and the other by Mussorgsky himself; I don't know which this is.

Johann Sebastian Bach: The Art of Fugue - Contrapunctus 1
The first version is played by Loeki Stardust Recorder Quartet of Amsterdam.  As you will hear, the bass is a little weak; bass recorders are soft in the lower registers, and nothing can be done about that.

Part B

Johann Sebastian Bach: The Art of Fugue - Contrapunctus 1
That performance is followed by an orchestral arrangement by William Malloch.  This particular movement has been orchestrated fully, and transposed up to a higher key; in later movements, Malloch takes far greater liberties with the music.

Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin- No 3, Forlane
First we have an orchestral transcription.  The transcription was by Ravel himself.  Then we have Kathryn Stott playing the original piano version.

John Denver: Leaving, On a Jet Plane
First we hear John Denver's own performance, accompanied by several guitars; then we hear Peter, Paul and Mary singing the version that went to the top 10, two guitars and string bass.

Pete Seeger: If I Had A Hammer
Trini Lopez, a nightclub singer with lots of charm, very well known in the 60s, sings the first version.  Then we have Peter Paul and Mary again, singing their hit version from about the same time.

Part C

The Von Trapp Family Singers
There actually was a group of musical performers from the Von Trapp family, made famous in The Sound of Music, and they have a popular ski lodge in Vermont to this day.  They sing and play three pieces, as follows--

• Brahms:  Guten Abend, Gut' Nacht (Wiegenlied)
• Anonymous: Two Old Netherland Dances, played on recorders
• Anonymous Scottish: Eriskay Love Lilt.

Gregorio Allegri: Miserere
This famous piece has a lovely high soprano line, especially for two places in the melody.  I play only one version of it, by a mixed choir, though originally it would have been sung by a boy's choir.

Leigh Howard Stevens
This performer is an expert in the symphonic marimba.  He plays four Bach pieces, a couple of which we have heard played on the Moog Synthesizer a couple of weeks ago, and another on a modern synthesizer.

• Fugue in B-flat major
• Two-Part Invention No 3 in C major

Part D

• Two-Part Invention No 4 in D minor
• Two-Part Invention No 5 in B-flat major
• Two-Part Invention No 6 in F major

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No 27 in B flat major, K 595
This is the opening movement of one of Mozart's most mature works.  Only one version is being played here; this is an authentic performance, with a period fortepiano, an early sort of piano that sounds a lot quieter than a modern concert grand.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 in F major, op 93 - Movement 1
The opening movement of the Eighth Symphony, particularly liked by Richard Wagner.

I hope you enjoyed that, and I'll see you next week!

Archie

Show 124: The Spring Equinox, and J. S. Bach's Birthday!

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 24.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show124.  For instance, the July 4^th show for this year will be numbered Show 201, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]

The Spring Equinox usually takes place somewhere between the 20th and 21st of March.  This is not coincidence; the calendar has been adjusted to make this happen.  Why?  Because that's what the calendar does: it divides the year into the exact number of equal days that ensures that the earth is in the same location around the Sun every year on any given day.  This is not easy, since the year is not an exact number of days, so they have to fudge it with Leap Years, and so forth.

If we stick to the year being "365¼ days", over many years, any given date will occur later and later.  For instance, J. S. Bach's birthday, which was recorded as March 21, took place well into the Spring (actually just about 10 days later; I had believed it was sometime in June.  I was wrong.)  As everyone knows, March 21 is now supposed to be the very beginning of Spring.  It used to be early Spring even in the time of Julius Caesar, but by the time the Roman empire had fallen, and Pope Gregory was in the Vatican, the too-large year had forced the date March 21 to move into March 31.  Of course, it wasn't easy to move the date back to where it should have been; essentially the astronomers and the politicians advised that March 20th should be followed by March 31st.  Landlords were delighted, but the renters were pretty furious to have to pay a full month's rent for just 20 days.  The reason for all this is that the year is not even just 365¼ days long, but roughly 365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 12 seconds, according to Wikipedia.  To make sure that this sort of thing won't happen even after several thousand years, they now even have leap-seconds.  Don't worry about them; they're small.

Here's how to think about it: what date is more likely to have been important to J. S. Bach himself?  March 31 or March 21, which was the date on the Baptismal register?  I figure it's the latter, since Bach, being a good protestant, probably did not pay much attention to the Vatican-championed calendric reform.  So I celebrate Bach's birthday on March 21st, which is conveniently the first day of Spring, too.

Part A

Johann Sebastian Bach: (Organ) Fugue in C Major, BWV 545
This is playing under my introduction.  This version (since many listeners, including my wife, do not like anything played on an organ) is played with guitar and other tuned percussion sounds via MIDI, created by your favorite radio host, me.

Joseph Haydn: Nun beut die Flur das frische Grün (Now robed in cool refreshing green)
This aria from Haydn's Creation, whose libretto was taken from Milton's Paradise Lost, celebrates the creation of green vegetation.  The soloist is Sunhae Im, a soprano of Korean descent.

Ludvig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F major, op.68 Movement 1: Pastorale
I was asking around for nominations for pieces to play for a Spring celebration, and this was a quick suggestion from my stepson, because the piece was played in the first Walt Disney Fantasia, and had a very-springlike animation to go with it.  Beethoven is recorded as being a nature lover, and is said to have loved to walk through the woods and fields.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Double Concerto in C Minor for Oboe and Violin BWV 1060 - i Allegro
We had to have some Bach, for his birthday.  This movement is a universal favorite.

Part B

George Gerschwin: Rhapsody in Blue (orchestrated by Ferdinand Grofé)
Johann Strauss II: Voices of Spring Waltz, Op 410
The well-know waltz has a part for soprano, here sung by Dilbér.

Philip Glass: Dance II from Glassworks
Sorry, I forgot to announce this on the broadcast

Henry Purcell: Dioclesian- Overture
Purcell was crazy about the theatre, and wrote lots of music for various plays, including some by Shakespeare.

Part C

Johann Sebastian Bach: Matthew Passion, opening chorus Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen
The Passover, and therefore Easter, is usually celebrated in the early Spring, so it's appropriate to listen to this piece at this time.  However, for various reasons, some of them political, and others calendric, the Jewish feast of the Passover, and the Christian feast of Easter have been de-coupled.  I sincerely hope that eventually these religions can find a way to get their acts together.

This opening chorus is possibly one of the most complex movements Bach ever wrote.  It is written for two choirs, each with its own orchestra, and a small chorus of children's voices (the ripieno treble chorus.  All trebles of Bach's time were young boys, so this designation has only been important since the 19th century).  The chorus starts off with choir no. 1 declaring "Behold!", and choir no. 2 asking "Who?", and choir no. 1 resumes with "The Bridegroom," and so on.  For the first several dozen bars, choir no. 2 only gets to interject monosyllabic questions, but soon the antiphonal chorus is in full swing.  The entire Passion is technically performed within the division into two choirs and orchestras, but only this first chorus has an antiphonal element in it.

Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford: Money
This performance is by the Flying Lizards, a band at one time well known in the punk rock movement.  This is an allusion to last week's broadcast, in which we played the Beatles singing this number.

Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question
This composition by Yale graduate Charles Ives was championed by Leonard Bernstein.  The piece was originally scored for string quartet and solo wind instruments, but was later reorchestrated for full symphony orchestra.  It is programme music of the most direct sort, except that the composer did not supply the programme for it; we are left to interpret the music as a question, with attempts at a response.

Part D

Medley by the Regimental Band of the Coldstream Guards

Crown Imperial, by William Walton
Colonel Bogey March, by Kenneth Alford (F. J. Ricketts)
Men of Harlech (Anonymous Folk Tune)
It's a Long Way to Tipperary by Jack Judge

Crown Imperial is often performed by the Lycoming Band on formal occasions.  Walton is a great composer, but the piece seems rather bombastic to me.
The Colonel Bogey March seems to have something to do with the game of golf; you can look it up.  It was featured in the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness, and filmed partially in Sri Lanka.
Men of Harlech is heard in the movie The Englishman who went up a hill, and came down a mountain.
It's long way to Tipperary was apparently written for a bet, and became popular during World War I.

Electric Light Orchestra: Mr Blue Sky
This song was used in a fabulous Flashmob in Ireland.


Tom Lehrer: Poisoning Pigeons In The Park
This song seems to pop up more frequently than ever on our show.  This is an weird anthem to Springtime, about an initiative from the early seventies, it appears, to reduce the pigeon population in a city part in New England somewhere, possibly New Haven, CT. 

Archie 

Show 123: Rhythm 'n' Blues, or Rock 'n' Roll?

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 23.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show123.  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.

Also, this show contains  R+B, a little Soul, and Gospel.]
 
Well, last Saturday's program didn't go the way I had planned. I said in my Introduction, that since I was visiting in the SouthWest, I wanted to make a broadcast that was South Western in flavor, and also feature some Rhythm 'n' Blues. From the outset it was clear that (a) I could feature very little music from the Southwest, because I was traveling, and my CD collection was at home, and (b) my understanding of Rhythm 'n' Blues was at odds with how practically everyone else understood it, not least, Katie. Pop, Rock, and other semi-popular genre music enthusiasts were eager to engage in what is clearly musicology, but since they were inventing an entire field of study, namely the musicology of music that was outside the classical domain, they had to take up the enormous task of inventing terminology for their new field.  What is jazz?  What is gospel?  What is blues?  What is Rhythm 'n' Blues?  What is Motown?  What is Rock 'n' Roll?

Now, almost everyone seems to think they know exactly what all of these things are, but because of the extreme youth of the field everyone seems to feel at liberty to reject all the existing definitions of a particular term, and introduce their own.

For your entertainment, I'm going to try and give you what I think the definitions (or descriptions) of these genres and terms are, even though I don't know diddly-squat about them, except for blues.  I know very little about blues, but I feel comfortable saying that I can tell blues when I hear it.  But there are many sub-genres within blues, so I might be confusing all of blues with some sub-genre.

Jazz:  Now, this is a difficult one.  I don't think I can define it, but I've picked up some of the characteristics of the genre, though jazz musicians tend to push the boundaries of their art all the time, thus making it impossible to define it.  It is definitely improvisational in nature (but a great deal of it is written down, especially classic, big-band jazz); a lot of jazz is improvised on specific popular tunes (though a lot of jazz is based on original tunes); and jazz is highly rhythmic, and syncopated (though other sorts of music is also highly rhythmic, and syncopated.  So I give up.

Gospel:  I know even less about gospel and soul, so I'll leave this one alone, too.

Blues:  Most music lovers will agree that blues has a very recognizable structure: a 12-bar unit, the bars being almost invariably in quadruple time (except for the very last bar, which might be in a free rhythm sometimes).  There's a 4-bar line, then another 4 bar line with essentially the same tune, and a 4-bar 'answer', making a sort of verse.  Then there's another verse.  Then there is essentially a 12-bar instrumental interlude.  Then there is a final 12 bar verse.  So the song will be in AABA form.  Sometimes it can be extended with two interludes, to AABABA, or even AABACA.  The tempo is loose, allowing the singer to give special emphasis to particular words and phrases.

Rhythm 'n' Blues on the other hand, as I understood it, was essentially a blues tune, often an existing one, played with a steady rhythm, accompanied by a bass and drums.

Today, however, people are accustomed to thinking of this as Rock 'n' Roll, like Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, and consider Rhythm 'n' Blues to be a much wider variety of songs, essentially including all music performed by African-American musicians, for African-American musicians audiences.  You can see exactly where this —essentially unusable— definition has come from: some musicologist has expected popular music to fall into clear-cut categories which can be individually labeled.  This has been a vain hope in classical music; it seems even more hopeless in popular music.  In despair, the musicologist —who is most probably either someone outside the African American community, and feels comfortable lumping all Black music into one enormous bin, or was trained in the White-dominated classical music mainstream— has abandoned all hope at reasonable classification.  Classification is difficult, inexact, and very useful.  Classifications that are too exact are too fragile to be useful; classifications that are too broad are even less useful.

All of Chuck Berry's work, most of Bonnie Raitt's early recordings, Tracy Chapman's songs, are clearly in the Blues / Rhythm 'n' Blues  category, and that's why I featured lots of songs by them.  The Beatles, in their early days, admired the songs of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, and other major R & B musicians of the fifties and early sixties, and covered lots of the tunes they loved; I played a large number of Beatles songs of that kind.  But that style is now called Rock 'n' Roll, apparently.  We have reached the point at which classification is getting too academic!  It's all interesting stuff, but I'm not that interested in it!

Part A

Do-Re-Mi:  It's the 50th Anniversary of The Sound of Music, as you can tell by the number of features on Julie Andrews in the Media!  This is an awesome song, by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein III

Don't you ever love me:  Harry Belafonte's song.  Another song is sung to the same tune--Yellow Bird.

Concerto in A minor for Violin:  A high-energy Bach movement, that can stand up to the pop songs in this program...

Rock and Roll music:  The Beatles cover Chuck Berry's masterpiece.

Bad Boy:  One of my favorites from early Beatles.

Please Mister Postman:  The Marvelettes hit, covered by the Beatles

Beatles Kansas City - Hey hey hey:  Lieber and Stoller's song, from early Beatles

Part B

Long Tall Sally:  The Beatles' cover of Little Richard's hit.

Roll Over Beethoven:  Beatles cover of Chuck Berry's hit.  The the vocal solo is by George Harrison.  (For the podcast, we have merged the recordings of the Beatles, and Chuck Berry.  My apologies if you hate it.)

You Really Got A Hold On Me:  A song originally by Smokey Robinson.  But the Beatles give it a somewhat unusually dark spin.

Matchbox:  Ringo Starr sings this Carl Perkins standard.

Jig Fuge:  This is the Swingle Singers singing a fugue by J. S. Bach, nicknamed the Jig.

Dizzy Miss Lizzy:  One of my favorites, the last cut on the Help album by the Beatles, written by Larry Williams, with John Lennon singing the vocals.  It must have given him a terrible sore throat.

Italian Concerto-1-Allegro:  A movement recalling an earlier broadcast, the Bach Italian concerto.  This is by Don Dorsey again.

Quam olim Abragae:  The Swingle Singers again, singing a movement from the Mozart Requiem.

Cecilia:  A rowdy piece by Simon and Garfunkel.

Don't let me down:  The B side of the Beatles single Hey Jude.

Part C

Revolution:  A rock 'n' roll number by the Beatles that deserves better recognition from younger listeners.

We Shall Not Be Moved:  A gentle protest number from the Sixties, sung by the Seekers

Love And Affection:  Joan Armatrading.  This is not R&B, but Joan Armatrading sang lots of rhythm 'n' blues.

Give Me One Reason: A signature song by Tracy Chapman

Look Don't Touch:  A goofy number by former Williamsport resident Uma de Silva, with Sock!Fight

Eat It:  Weird Al Yankovich!  Incidentally, Weird Al is coming to Wilpo in the summer.

Fiddle-Faddle:  by Leroy Anderson.  A fast-paced popular number from the late fifties.

Part D

Can't Buy Me Love:  If this isn't Rock 'n' Roll, I don't know what is.  It's funny how Rock purists keep insisting that the Beatles never sang Rock 'n' Roll.

Come Back Liza:  A bluesy calypso number by Harry Belafonte.

Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth):  George Harrison

The Purple People Eater:  I think this might be sort of bluesy, despite its doubtful pedigree.

Get Back:  One of the Beatles's last group performances.

Money:  An early Beatles cover.  This song was also covered by another group whose name eludes me.

Twist and shout:  An favorite Beatles live performance item.  A thinly disguised version of La Bamba.

Johnny B Goode:  Chuck Berry song, immortalized in Back to the Future.

Love Me Like A Man:  An awesome song by Bonnie Raitt

Mind Games:  John Lennon

[The podcast is slightly different from the broadcast; there is more information in the notes, too.]

Archie

Show 122: Raise the Region

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 22.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show122.  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.]
 
Here's the link for Raise the Region: <https://www.raisetheregion.org/#npo/wxpi-community-radio1>.  Starting on Wednesday, March 11, 2015, you can donate anything between $25 and $10,000, until a minute before midnight on the following day: Thursday, 12.  You can donate any amount, but only $10,000 counts towards the tally.

The organization that wins the competition will get stretching funds (read about it on the website), but WXPI will get your pledges at the very least.

More later,

Arch