Serious music should be fun ... right?

[Mark Antony Owen]

Turning Classical Music on Its Head

By Nicole Arthur
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 19, 2006

Who is this Beethoven, and why do we keep trying to make him roll over?

Take Richard Perlmutter. In 2002, he released "Beethoven's Wig: Sing Along Symphonies," a children's recording that set laugh-out-loud lyrics to a collection of classical music's best-known works. "Beethoven's wig/Is very big," Perlmutter sings on its title track, which is set to the composer's Fifth Symphony.

"When that line popped into my head -- 'Beethoven's wig is very big' -- I thought it was interesting," Perlmutter says. "The wig is kind of a symbol for classical music, and musicians are often called longhairs." He pauses. "And it's silly."

The disc's comic take on the classical canon resonated with listeners. "A week after it was out I was on NPR, and then a couple months later I was on the 'Today Show,' and that was the first time I had done a live performance." Along with its sequel, "Beethoven's Wig 2: More Sing Along Symphonies," the CD has garnered more than 30 awards, including two Grammy nominations, and has topped both classical and children's album charts.

Perlmutter, a Los Angeles advertising executive who wrote music for radio and television before "Beethoven's Wig" became a full-time job, still seems bemused by the disc's success. "It's just so cool," he says.

His songs are funny, but Perlmutter is not just a highbrow "Weird Al" Yankovic. The lyrics are hummable mnemonics, each imparting information about the work or its composer. "It makes the songs less random when the lyrics have to do with the pieces," Perlmutter says. "I would never sing, 'Go to the library, you'll really learn!' "

Parents aren't the only adult demographic enamored of the discs. "I think people sometimes think of classical music -- either players or composers -- as maybe either stuffy or somehow sequestered in concert halls and practice rooms," he says, "but they just seem to love this."

Perlmutter, along with four of the vocalists who appear on the CDs, will perform with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on Saturday in Baltimore. "You've heard me, so I'm not going to brag about my own singing," he says, "but the others are just astounding." Although Perlmutter frequently sings with smaller ensembles -- pianists, string quartets -- this is only his third appearance with a full orchestra. "To perform with an orchestra is just amazing," he says. "It's so much fun!"

The concert marks the release this month of "Beethoven's Wig 3." It differs markedly from its predecessors, each of its tracks highlighting the sound of a particular instrument rather than the work's composer. The concept necessitated looking outside classical music's Top 40 for material. "It was really, really fun because, first of all, some of those instruments don't get featured that often, and it was challenging to find a piece that would really express what the instrument was all about," Perlmutter says. "A really large part of it was finding [a work] that said, 'This is what the harpsichord means to me' or 'This is how a clarinet speaks to me.' "

Among Perlmutter's favorite tracks is "Play My Song," based on a little-known Beethoven work for mandolin. "Even people who know a lot about classical music aren't familiar with that piece," he says. "A lot of them don't even know that he wrote mandolin pieces." The lyrics tell a true story. "Beethoven was quite a, I don't know if 'womanizer' is the right word, but he was always chasing women. This woman was above his station in life, but he made a play for her anyway. She was an amateur mandolin player, so he wrote these pieces and dedicated them to her." She was apparently unmoved, and the composer never wrote another piece for mandolin.

The first of many planned books complementing the CDs, "Beethoven's Wig: Read Along Symphonies," came out late last year. Its whimsical illustrations by Maria Rosetti -- interwoven with the score of Beethoven's Fifth -- capture the lyrics' loopy imagery. "Most books about music have the actual music at the end," Perlmutter says. "I thought it would be really neat to try and integrate the music into the book." He says his other songs will make for more conventional narratives. "This first book was very, very tricky because it's not really a story. This book is more of a fantasy, a wig experience. "

Beethoven's wig is big all right -- and getting bigger. "I'm working on 'Beethoven's Wig 4' right now," Perlmutter says. "I've sworn not to tell what it's about, but it's somewhat thematic as well."

Three albums in, you wouldn't think any classical work would be impervious to Perlmutter's ability as a lyricist. But he says there are pieces that remain beyond his reach. "There are some that are really hard -- like 'The Flight of the Bumblebee,' " he says. "I've tried to kind of mess with that, and it may . . . end up being on the album. I don't know, but I don't know how to attack it yet.

"I don't think I can sing every note, that's for sure."

BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA WITH BEETHOVEN'S WIG CREATOR RICHARD PERLMUTTER AND GUESTS Saturday at 11 at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St., Baltimore. $12. 410-783-8100.http://baltimoresymphony.org.

[Ralph]

Sacrilege!

[karlhenning]

Well, I guess there just hadn't been enough dumbing down out there lately . . . .

[Haydnseek]

Well, I guess there just hadn't been enough dumbing down out there lately . . . .

Sounds more like smart comedy to me. Garrison Keillor has written some very funny lyrics to classical melodies including bizarre “translations” of opera arias and many may have heard this Flanders and Swann lyric to a Mozart horn concerto:

Ill Wind

Michael Flanders: It has long been my earnest wish to improve the standard of the music we have in these shows of ours

Donald Swann: Thank you very much!

Michael Flanders: Not at all my dear chap - nothing per. . . - you know that nobody has a higher opinion of your work than you do yourself. I simply meant we should have some more good music; and to this end I have been practicing the horn, or French horn, as they call it, or German horn, as the French call it, not to be confused with the cor anglais.

It's a marvelous instrument. I took it up because I very much wanted to play the music of Mozart, in particular his wonderful horn concerto in E-flat, Köchel rating 495, which he wrote at the age of about 18 months. Marvelous man. I practiced very hard, against considerable opposition, I may say, and I had hoped this evening to give you the very first performance of the last movement, the rondo allegro vivace. Owing to curious circumstances as yet unexplained I am not able to do this. I can only tell you why...

I once had a whim and I had to obey it
To buy a French Horn in a second-hand shop;
I polished it up and I started to play it
In spite of the neighbours who begged me to stop.

To sound my Horn, I had to develop my embouchure;
I found my Horn was a bit of a devil to play.

So artfully wound
To give you a sound,
A beautiful sound so rich and round.

Oh, the hours I had to spend
Before I mastered it in the end.

But that was yesterday and just today I looked in the usual place-
There was the case but the Horn itself was missing.

Oh, where can it have gone?
Haven't you-hasn't anyone seen my Horn?
Oh, where can it have gone?
What a blow! Now I know
I'm unable to play my Allegro.

Who swiped that Horn?
I'll bet you a quid
Somebody did,
Knowing I'd found a concerto and wanted to play it,
Afraid of my talent at playing the Horn.
For early today to my utter dismay
it had vanished away like the dew in the mom.

I've lost that Hom-I know I was using it yesterday.
I've lost that Horn, lost that Horn, found that Horn ... gorn.
There's not much hope of getting it back though I'd willingly pay a reward.

I know some Hearty Folk whose party joke's
Pretending to hunt with the Quorn,
Gone away! Gone away! Was it one of them took it away?
Will you kindly return that Horn? Where is the devil who pinched my Horn?

I shall tell the Police I want that French Horn back.
I miss its music more and more and more.
Without that Horn I'm feeling sad and so forlorn.

I found a concerto, I wanted to play it,
Displaying my talent at playing the Horn,
But early today to my utter dismay it had totally vanished away.
I practised the Horn, and I wanted to play it but somebody took it away.
I practised the Horn and was longing to play it but somebody took it away.

My neighbour's asleep in his bed.
I'll soon make him wish he were dead.
I'll take up the Tuba instead!

Thank you very much. I should warn you that he wrote two more in E-flat alone. Next time we'll take the Festival Hall.

[Corlyss_D]

Beethoven finally finds his proper place.