In the King Arthur legends, there’s all kinds of adultery, usually achieved by one person tricking another through magic. While everybody knows the famous love triangle of Arthur – Guinevere – Lancelot, fewer know about the directly attached love triangle of Guinevere – Lancelot – Elaine.

It’s all so screwed up. Lancelot is mad because he got tricked into marrying Elaine (NB: make sure you actually look at somebody before you sleep with them); Elaine is mad because Lancelot doesn’t love him (NB: don’t use trickery to get someone in bed); Guinevere is mad because she has to share her lover now (NB: don’t be so greedy); Arthur is mad because he has to pretend not to notice (NB: laws that demand adulterers be put to death can really mess up your family life); Morgause is mad because Arthur’s family has ruined hers (NB: incest is not necessarily the best form of revenge).

Edward MacDowell is one of the first highly-trained American composers. He is one of the Boston Six, the American answer to France’s Le Six or the Russian Mighty Handful: a group of composers who were shaping a national sound for the relatively young country. His tone-poems are on par with the best of the European masters, though they are largely ignored today. MacDowell’s tragic Lancelot and Elaine borrows its sound from the epic musical legends of Wagner.

In the late 19th century, Richard Strauss became the champion composer of tone poems – musical pieces which illustrate non-musical ideas, such as poetry, stories, or even philosophy. Tone poems can be representational (like Berlioz‘s March to the Scaffold, in Symphonie Fantastique) or abstract (most of Also Sprach Zarathustra); you can listen carefully for specific events in the story portrayed, or just sit back and enjoy the music.

Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks is a representational tone poem – Strauss has taken a number of scenes from Till’s life and set them into easily recognizable sections.

Wait … you don’t know who Till Eulenspiegel is? Let me “Till” you …

Till Eulenspiegel is pretty easy to sum up – he’s a wily trickster who loves to play jokes on everybody. I’d also recommend reading his history – especially the origin of his name and his *ahem* crappier tricks (not for children! or maybe, more appropriate for children …). Like many tricksters, he is tolerated for a time, and then despised as people tire of his foolishness.

The work begins with a legendary musical statement by the strings that supposedly says “once upon a time” in German. We then hear the merry prank theme in the horn – easy to recognize, and returns often. Till is represented by the Eb Clarinet – a squeaky little thing that should never have been invented – which represents the goofy character perfectly. We hear a number of his tricks: knocking things over in the market (3:07), dressing up as a priest (7:06), chasing after women (8:43). Eventually he is caught and sentences to death (12:27), pleads for his life a couple of times (12:43 & 13:00). We think he has died (14:15), but in the end, he escapes! (15:31)

Frederick Delius was born in England, and is considered an English composer, though he spent most of his life elsewhere. In his young adult years, he was forced to move to Florida to work in the orange business, but his heart wasn’t in it. He moved to (where else?) Leipzig to study, where he befriended the Norwegian composers we listened to this week: Edvard Grieg and Christian Sinding. He later moved to Paris, and remained on the continent for the rest of his life, only moving back to England during World War I.

The English are known for their love of nature, and this pastorale tone poem by Delius particularly smacks of Vaughan Williams‘ nature-inspired works. Delius writes musical bird calls (it’s fairly easy to recognize the call of the cuckoo), and also quotes a Norwegian folk melody as a way of “tipping his hat” to his Scandinavian friends.