Rare Video

Every now and then you run into something really unusual on YouTube--and sometimes the clip is completely mis-labeled. Take this one for example. It says it is Chet Atkins, Leo Kottke and Doc Watson jamming around on "Last Steam Engine Train" when it is obviously a colorized clip from 1931 when Arnold Schoenberg was in Barcelona working on Act II of Moses und Aron. While there, he was visited by his students Anton Webern and Alban Berg. In the clip, Schoenberg is seated on the right, Webern on the left and in the middle, at the back, is Berg. You will notice that, uncharacteristically, it is Webern that takes a solo with, for him, a plethora of notes. Notice that he does make reference to his usual pointillistic style. Towards the end, Berg essays a few ideas while throughout it is the teacher, the elder Schoenberg, who provides a strict harmonic framework for his two students.

Musical Satire

As someone who has an overdeveloped sense of humor, I take particular notice of humor and satire in music. Wikipedia avers:

Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.

There are some famous examples in music. One of the best sources for humor in music is Haydn, but he really didn't do satire as such. But we do find excellent examples in Shostakovich and I just ran across one in François Couperin. Sometimes musical satire is purely instrumental, with no accompanying text to alert us. A good example is the Polka from the ballet The Golden Age that was written in 1930. Wikipedia summarizers the plot:

The ballet is a satirical take on the political and cultural change in 1920s' Europe. It follows a Soviet football (soccer) team in a Western city where they come into contact with many politically incorrect bad characters such as the Diva, the Fascist, the Agent Provocateur, the Negro and others. The team falls victim to match rigging, police harassment, and unjust imprisonment by the evil bourgeoisie. The team is freed from jail when the local workers overthrow their capitalist overlords. The ballet ends with a dance of solidarity between the workers and the football team.

In the early days life in the Soviet Union was more fun than later on... Here is a performance by the New Russian Quartet:

My second example is by François Couperin, from the Second Livre de pièces de clavecin, Onzième Ordre. The title is Les Fastes de la grande et ancienne Mxnxstrxndxsx ("The Splendors of the Great and Ancient Minstrelsy"). The unpronounceable last word is Couperin's satirical rendering of the name of the Parisian guild of minstrels, the Confrérie de St. Julien-des-Ménétriers, or the last part at least. A lot of Couperin's titles seem like private jokes, but we can find out part of the back story for this one:

In Couperin's time, there was a running controversy over the authority of the minstrelsy and the musicians of the royal court and the churches. He depicts his view of the guild in a delightful little suite, a drama in five acts. His titles and notations in the score tell the tale.

From this website where we also have a listing of the parts of the piece--a harpsichord piece in the form of a five-act play:

Premier Acte. Les Notables, et Jurés-Ménéstrandeurs, Marche, Sans lenteur (first act: the notables and the minstrel jury, march, not slow)

Second Acte. Les Viéleux, et les Gueux, Premier Air de Viéle with Bourdon, Second Air de Viéle (second act: the hurdy-gurdy players and the beggars, first and second air for hurdy-gurdy with drone)

Troisième Acte. Les Jongleurs, Sauteurs, et Saltinbanques, avec les Ours et les Singes (third act: jugglers, tumblers, and tight-rope dancers, with bears and monkeys)

Quatrième Acte. Les Invalides, ou gens Estropiés au service de la grande Ménéstrandise; [right hand:] Les Disloqués; [left hand:] Les Boiteux (invalids, or those crippled in the service of the great minstrelsy; right hand: contortionists; left hand: the lame)

Cinquième Acte. Désordre et déroute de toute la troupe, causés par les Yvrognes, les Singes, et les Ours, tres vîte; [left hand, toward the end:] les béquilles (fifth act: confusion and rout of the whole troupe, caused by the drunkards, the monkeys, and the bears, very fast; [left hand, toward the end:] the crutches)

There are also some jokes in the notation. For example, act three is notated like this:

Click to enlarge

The tumblers are referred to by putting the time signature upside down: 8/3 instead of 3/8. For act four, each hand of the player represents a different group, the right hand the persons with dislocations and the left hand the lame:

Click to enlarge

In addition to the contrasting rhythms, Couperin marks the deformations by using "white" notation, where the noteheads are hollow. The last movement is in the form of a moto perpetuo to indicate the confusion and rout.

As the custom these days is to redundantly announce each piece to the audience even when there is a printed program, I confess that I long to attend a concert where this piece will be played--just to hear how they pronounce the title. Here is a performance by Olivier Beamont:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gITCRbrDR90&t=85s

Seven Habits of Highly Annoying Classical Music Snobs

(This is just for fun, no popular music fans were harmed in the making of this satirical writing.)

1. They know all this really obscure stuff about music like keys and time signatures and stuff.
2. They are always listening to weird music by people I have never heard of like the Emerson String Quartet or Pierre Boulez. I mean, how do you even pronounce that? Booolay? Bulezzz?
3. Half the time, you're talking to them, you don't even know if they are listening or not?
4. They actually listen to music on "sound systems" with "subwoofers" and stuff instead of a laptop or iPod like the rest of us!
5. You start to tell them about this great new song you just heard, Lean On by Major Lazer, and they just glaze over and start muttering about "derivative reggae clone with low-fat musical content..."
6. They are actually proud of never having heard anything by Justin Bieber who is just, like, loved by so many beliebers!
7. Classical music is the dead penumbra of obsolete white privilege, so why do they act like they have all the good music?

And now, for our musical envoi, "Lean On" by Major Lazer, featuring MØ on vocals:

What I've Learned: Ludwig van Beethoven

Classical composer, 55, Vienna

Some say that classical music is dead, but you know what? I don't think so. To me classical music is just music--the best you can do--and it will be around forever.

I guess everybody knows that I've got a hearing problem, but it hasn't slowed me down any. This year my good friend and patron, Prince Nicholas Galitzin, has asked me to write him some string quartets and I think that they will be the best thing I have ever done.

No, I never married, though I fell in love a couple of times. I came close with one young lady, a piano student of mine, but she ended up marrying a minor noble. Women, eh?

Do I take any drugs? Does coffee and Rhine wine count?

I first got famous for my piano-playing. I used to go round to the noble salons and floor everyone with my own music, with improvisations and with some preludes and fugues by old Bach. I've had the manuscript of those for years. It's not true that I used to amuse people by doing variations on "Happy Birthday", but I did do some variations on "God Save the King". I wrote some killer piano concertos too. Not as many as that brat Mozart, but mine are longer!

Because of my hearing loss I can't play the piano any more, and have to do everything in my head. But that was mostly what I was doing anyway, so I'm still going strong.

I love nature. I love taking walks in the countryside around Vienna and I even got a pretty good symphony out of it. I don't need a lot of fancy things: a decent apartment, some good food and wine, a good piano. You know that I was always pestering the piano builders to add more keys, right? My earlier sonatas don't go down as far in the bass as my later ones.

I don't have a favorite piece that I have written. Definitely not the Moonlight Sonata! God, after I wrote that I thought people would never listen to anything else! I guess I like most the piece I just finished, whatever it is. Actually, I just wrote a string quartet in E flat major that I think is pretty good and I've got ideas for a couple of others. One is going to be the Fugue to End All Fugues!

Am I happy? With my music more than my life, I guess. Like I say, I never married, though I wanted to. No kids. Bad relationship with my nephew and his horrible mother. Fought with everybody over something. Damned publishers always stealing my music! Never managed to get out of Vienna, even though I was invited. At least Papa Haydn got to go to England a couple of times.

Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have gone into some other profession than music, but I didn't have a lot of choice. After everything that Mozart did under his father's tutelage, every single musician father with children with any talent drove them into a musical career. I don't think most people should try to be musicians. The pay is poor, the hours long and the respect minimal. Don't do it unless you really feel that you live in the world of music.

Did I waste my life? I wrote some pretty good music, but if people all end up listening to Pharrell Williams instead of my string quartets, then I gotta ask myself, what was it all for?

You want to hear some music? How about that fugue I mentioned?

[This is a satire, inspired by the Esquire series, that I mentioned in my Friday Miscellanea.]