I borrowed the lasso d'amore from a percussionist friend. I got the cardboard tubes from old christmas wrapping paper tubes, and cut them up to appropriate lengths
Many years ago, I had the pleasure of listening to Schickele himself play the "Lasso d' Amore" in the Green Room at Ford Auditorium in Detroit. He played it wonderfully (and even in tune!) Made me wish I had one available years later when I was in the chorus performing "The Seasonings" when he was guest conductor. :D
I always love to see it when classical musicians don`t take themselves too, too seriously. I burst out laughing through this. It was really cute....but I thought it was to be 7 hours long! (After my parents moved us from a small Colorado city to the DC area in late 1968, the following year they saw that a Bach concert was to be played at Constitution Hall in DC, so they figured it would be a nice culture night out with a Bach--PDQ in this case--besides the well-known Johann. What did we know? When the musicians came out in army boots and sat on the podium and then Schickele himself swooped down to the stage on a rope, I wondered what on earth was going on--this to a 13 year old kid, mind you. As the "concert" went along in increasing compositional and performance mayhem, I literally asked my parents, "Is this for real??")
+katwatson007 Because a piano with parts falling off and a few broken strings buzzing against the soundboard will create a tonality the composer would have appreciated.
I just read about this guy in a local free paper in my area called The Valley Advocate and wanted to see if he had anything on RU-vid. Glad I read the article and watched this!!
As incredible as this piece actually *is*, performers should take NOTE to use the microphone to full advantage. Many sounds were obscured by the volume of the piano and were not properly caught by the mic, like the gargle, for instance.
+Dick Silk For the record, my favorite part is the slide whistle :-) but I really gotta give 'em credit for the pan pipes (?) made from paper towel cores.
+Dick Silk yeah your totally right! We weren't intending on mic'ing anything (I think) and we didn't sound-check or anything, since this performance was a mystery/surprise to everyone!
P.S. granted this show has come and gone, but P.D.Q. /Peter was recently @ The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield MA. on 7/26/14. Wish I had found out earlier... :,-(
So that lasso d'amore is actually manufactured to be a musical instrument?! Weird! Thanks for the wrapping paper tube tip. By the way, nice idea to hide the instruments in a bag for the surprise factor....
Agreed. The way they laugh loudly over absolutely everything the whole way through is incredibly annoying snd distracting. A lot of it is just forced laughter; it detracts from the experience.
