[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 4th show for this
year will be numbered numbered Show201, and so on. If you didn't figure
this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]
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!
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| 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
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| 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
