In the late 1980s, when I was in high school, I was obsessed with the music of the 1960s and ‘70s, what’s now called “classic rock.” I’m a little embarrassed to admit that it was really just because my friends were into it, and I so desperately wanted to fit in that I went for it. My mother still had all her old records in a milk crate and gave them to me: Beatles, Joan Baez, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Donovan, Big Brother and the Holding Company, etc. Some undeniably great music.
There was one album in there, though, that didn’t fit in with the others, either in musical style or album art:
What the hell was this? I listened to it a couple times, and was intrigued, but I was so ignorant of any context in which this music might be considered “cool” that I sort of hid it away and never looked at it again.
Also, this was approximately 1987, and you couldn’t just Google Ferrante & Teicher and learn everything about them. Nowadays, you would learn from Wikipedia that they “were a duo of American pianists known for their clever arrangements of familiar classical pieces, movie soundtracks, and show tunes, as well as their signature style of florid, intricate, and fast-paced piano playing performances.” They produced a number of albums of experimental music that are marvelous, including Pianos in Paradise and probably my favorite, Denizens of the Deep. They toured constantly, billed themselves as “the Grand Twins of the Twin Grands,” and wowed audiences around the world.
But before I launch into a book-length entry on how much I love them, let’s get to the Christmas stuff. Today’s song is their version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”:
Let’s all take a moment to appreciate the Herculean effort it took to make “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” an interesting song. Dig the structure of this: They play the full melody through four times—each taking almost exactly 30 seconds—first straightforward, then gradually ramping up the weirdness, turning one of the more boring Christmas standards into a brain-melter in under 2 minutes.
Dear World: More of this, please.
Notes:
My favorite tidbit (that word is a mirror-palindrome) from their Wikipedia article: “Ferrante and Teicher ceased performing in 1989 and retired to Longboat Key and Siesta Key, respectively, close to each other on the west coast of Florida. They continued to play together occasionally at a local piano store.” Imagine walking into a piano store looking for some sheet music or something and there’s Ferrante and Teicher playing together.
One more, which elaborates on why they are required listening if you enjoy the weirder fringes of melody: “The duo also experimented with prepared pianos, adding paper, sticks, rubber, wood blocks, metal bars, chains, glass, mallets, and other found objects to piano string beds. In this way they were able to produce a variety of bizarre sounds that sometimes resembled percussion instruments and at other times resulted in special effects that sounded as if they were electronically synthesized.”
The title “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” is not addressing some Merry Gentlemen, but rather some regular, non-merry gentlemen. “Rest ye merry” used to mean “keep you happy,” with “rest” being a transitive verb analogous to “keep” in 16th century usage. In other words, the title should be punctuated as “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” and not “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.”
This. Is. Epic!! Also I love me a midcentury Santa on a rocket ship, so they’re 2 for 2 on the album art here 😍🎅🏻🚀
well, besides being deeply amused, I learned a lot from this segment of your series, including that a "mirrored palindrome" is, essentially, a visual pun. Though not, strictly speaking, what I think of as a palindrome. One must make distinctions.