by Alan Chapman

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‘Twas All Hallow’s Eve
And all through the hall
Composers were throwing
A Halloween ball.

In the corner, an orchestra
Doing its job
With Mussorgsky’s Bald Mountain
And Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre.

Along the far wall
Was a monstrous buffet.
Rossini, it seems,
Had been cooking all day.

Granados brought specialties
Of his own casa
And Chopin showed up
With a load of kielbasa.

Tartini was serving
His tuna tartare
And Padre Martini
Was tending the bar.

And there in the light
Of a flickering candle
Was Johannes Brahms
All dressed up as Handel.

Hummel did Mozart
Exceedingly well
And Debussy passed himself
Off as Ravel.

Sibelius, not known
As a jovial fella,
Was decked out in feathers
As the swan of Tuonela.

And Wagner, that joker,
Was not to be missed.
With his stringy white wig
He declared, “Look! I’m Liszt!”

Verdi as Violetta
Was having a blast,
While Puccini as Musetta
Came fluttering past.

At midnight ‘twas Schoenberg
Who struck the twelve tones
Upon a marimba
Of skeleton bones.

And what happened next
Could not have been finer.
Bach played his Toccata,
The one in D minor.

And though the Toccata’s
Not really a song,
Schubert decided
That he’d sing along.

Which wasn’t so scary,
The crowd would agree.
Until Ives chimed in –
In a different key.

Along about one
The police got a call
And came to break up
This riotous brawl.

And despite the prodigious
Amounts they all drank,
Mussorgsky alone
Spent the night in the tank.

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©2009 by Alan Chapman
All Rights Reserved

Inspiration for the movement in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

 

~Alan Chapman

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Number 99 is one of the London symphonies that escaped getting a nickname (like the “Surprise,” “Clock,” etc.) I invited KUSC listeners to suggest a name and several ideas rolled in immediately.

Dylan Kellogg proposed the “Traveling Symphony.”

Frank Markovich was thinking along similar lines with the “Trip Symphony.” In its four movements he heard: Travel, Arrival, Destination, and Departure.

Carolyn Davies came up with “The Mockingbird” because of “its overall playful nature and especially the repetition of the flute in the second movement.”

Marian Bailey heard it similarly: I suggest nicknaming Haydn’s 99th symphony the ‘Bluebird’ symphony, because the flute in the second movement sounds the way a bluebird ought to sound.

Gene Manners thought it might be called the “Wind Choir” symphony.

And Katie Waitman had this perspective: Maybe it’s because I need to do some, but I kept thinking about bustling about the house while listening to this symphony, scrubbing the floor, vacuuming, so how about “The Housekeeping Symphony.” And she adds: Couldn’t be any sillier than some of the ‘official’ nicknames for the other symphonies!

~ Alan Chapman

 

While in New York I paid a visit to the Museum of Modern Art and augmented Picasso’s ensemble.

I was delighted to inverview Spamalot creator Eric Idle just before the opening at the Ahmanson Theater. Among Idles amazing revelations: Why the English are funny. He says it is, in part, their defense against miserable weather.

~ Alan Chapman

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You can hear a snippet of the Python-er via our Spotlight on the Arts here.
Or hear the entire ArtsAlive segment as part of our July 11th broadcast, available here.

I mentioned on air that ten years ago the Bank of England issued a twenty pound note with the Queen on the front and Sir Edward Elgar on the reverse. I invited listeners to suggest composers for American currency.

Jon Title immediately responded and was quite comprehensive, covering coins as well as bills. His ideas:

$1 = Aaron Copland (no brainer)
$5 = George Gershwin
$10= Scott Joplin
$20= John Phillip Sousa (watch out for those sousaphonies!)
$50= Philip Glass
$100= John Williams
$500= Irving Berlin
$1000= Frank Zappa

penny = Henry Mancini
nickel = Stephen Sondheim
dime = Leonard Bernstein
quarter = John Cage
silver dollar = Neil Diamond

Mr. Title inspired me to run up a rough version of the Copland dollar:

You can weigh in on the subject by adding a comment to this entry.

~ Alan Chapman

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Update:
And that inspired Mr. Title to come up with the John Williams hundred

Recently on the air I mentioned the eccentricity of the English composer Lord Berners. At one point he had a giraffe as a pet and tea companion. And he dyed the pigeons at his house in Faringdon in vibrant colors. (Here’s the picture you’ve been dye-ing to see.)

A question to ponder: If Berners, instead of Vaughan Williams, had written The Lark Ascending, what color would the bird have been?

~ Alan Chapman

Antonio Vivaldi, brilliant violinist, prolific composer, the “Red Priest” of eighteenth-century Venice, shares his name with a potato.

But why? We’ll get to that, but first a bit about the Vivaldi potato. It was gleefully announced by an English supermarket four years ago, proclaiming that this superspud “is so creamy in texture, most people feel they do not need butter with it.” Is there an implication that Vivaldi’s music is creamy in texture and doesn’t need butter? No. Read on. I mentioned the potato one recent morning on KUSC and admitted that I had no idea why it was named after the composer. To the rescue came KUSC listener Jerry Burnham, who directed me to the appropriate online source. (After all, any knowledge worth knowing is on the web.) There I learned that the Vivaldi potato produces oval tubers with yellow skin and pale yellow flesh. And there I discovered the connection to the composer.

Because the potatoes are grown both in the United Kingdom and overseas, they are available during all FOUR SEASONS of the year. So that’s it! Nevertheless, I still call your attention to the fact that Vivaldi’s music doesn’t need butter.

~ Alan Chapman

To accompany his St. Patrick’s Day related classical music selections (including the first composer to write ‘nocturnes‘), Alan Chapman’s whimsy comes out in the form of neck fashion.

Have a Classical KUSC kind of
St. Patrick’s Day!

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 UPDATE, By Request:
The Full Ensemble
—or—
“Alan Go Bragh”