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