Classical Music Doesn't always sound Classical

Perhaps it’s because of my particular sense of humor, but I have some affinity for “alternative” presentations of classical music. I also am inclined to think that this may be another way to interest people in considering classical music as an approachable and listenable experience.

Do you remember any of these? (If so, you’re showing your age, and pretty accurately guessing mine.) Spike Jones and his Cityslickers. Allan Sherman. Walter (now Wendy, but that’s another story) Carlos. The Swingle Singers. P.D.Q. Bach. Gerard Hoffnung. Flanders and Swann. Jacques Loussier. Victor Borge. These are not in chronological order, simply as they come to memory. I don’t think space will permit commenting on all of these, so I’ll pick and choose my favorites.

All of these offered some version of well-known classical music melodies. Spike Jones and his band “murdered” classical melodies by famous composers, including 1812 Overture, None but the Lonely Heart, and Dance of the Hours. His performances included cow bells, pistols, glass bottles, just about anything you might consider even remotely musical.

Allan Sherman’s big hit was “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah,” also based on Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours. Remember these words?
    Hello Muddah, hello Fadduh,
    Here I am at Camp Grenada
    Camp is very entertaining
    and they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining.
He continues about malaria, food poisoning, poison ivy, alligators, a lost camper and so on, pleading to go home. Then the sun comes out and all is well, so “Muddah, Faddah kindly disregard this letter.”

Sherman recorded an album with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops. It was called “Peter and the Commissar,” after the longest piece on the album. It was a take-off on Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.” It was hilarious! I finally found a CD recording of this that, although short in duration, was worth it. The album also included “Variations on ‘How Dry I Am’” with solo hiccups skillfully presented by Maestro Fiedler himself. Finally there was a piece called “The End of the Symphony,” taking long and laborious symphonic finales and showing how something like Porky Pig’s “Th-th-that’s all folks!” would have worked better.

Along came Peter Schickele. He already had a reputation as a music arranger, and had arranged music for several top singers. Now he turned his energies to P.D.Q. Bach, the last and least of Johann Sebastian’s 20-something odd children (supposedly). Bach wasn’t his only target. One of my favorite performances is a play by play account of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony as a sports broadcast. Then there were the parodies of baroque music that are even  funnier if you know something about baroque music. “Operas” include some delicious examples of plays on words. One considers the challenges of running that only the running knows. The running knows, the running knows (or is it the running nose?)

Michael Flanders and Donald Swann were British musical comedians. They had several LPs released by Angel Records here. Although much of their music was original, there was a delightful parody of the final movement of Mozart’s 4th Horn Concerto. In this piece, as usual for this pair, there is wonderful wordplay that nicely complements the music. Probably a more popular non-classical song was “The Hippopotamus,” with its rollicking chorus, “Mud, mud, glorious mud! Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood. So follow me, follow, Down to the hollow. There we will wallow In glo-o-o-orious mud.”

Finally, who could forget Victor Borge, the Great Dane of classical music? You may have seen him on any of a number of PBS broadcasts. A trained classical pianist, Borge saw the humor in classical music and focused on that aspect. His routine was as much visual as musical. He enticed a number of well-known musicians to collaborate with him, often as straightman to his comedian. I met Borge when he performed in San Diego, and concluded that he was the same person off stage as he was on - humorously outgoing and engaging in a most friendly manner. This most certainly was a golden memory to treasure.

All of this leads to something on the internet that was brought to my attention the other day. Someone has taken “1000 ringtones and 2000 text alerts” and put them together to play a theme from Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. (Sure, you remember this one. A while back Quaker Puffed Wheat/Rice used this melody as we heard “This is the cereal that’s shot from guns. Boom! [Repeat.]) This may not be as complex as programming a Moog Synthesizer, but it is worthy of notice as another contribution to the spreading of classical music. You can check this out at http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/23/tchaikovskys-1812-overture-reconstructed-from-1000-cellphone-ri/

Hope you enjoy it, and perhaps even find your musical appetite whetted to explore more classical music-  in one form or another.