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