for instruments, children and bus conductor
by Knüt-Erïk van Pöpgöder-weäselbergAttention, s’il vous plaît! Apres moi,
Jän-Erïk-Knüt Pärsnjïp-Türjïpssöhn,
un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois, trois
ecoutez bien, ecoutez a moi…
Maestro Madya, if you’re Swedish, why do you use French?
Because it brings to mind some young Arlesienne wench,
plus nothing rhymes with Swedish.
Bonjour et bonsoir, Mesdames et Messieurs,
here is my fruit from the end of the year;
just listen how tasty the first movement whirls,
my orchestral sweet for young boys and girls.
Er, Maestro Madya, I thought it’s a symphony?
Shut up, you cretin, or pop goes your knee.
Here’s a potage so rich, of fine musicality,
complete absent is any tonality,
naturally flavoured with total banality,
add into the crunch of raw criminality,
plenty of spices of sharps, blunts, and flats,
apartments, terraced houses and a semi-detached
bar lines, rests, minim, crotchet and quaver
expand the score to make a much richer flavour,
a sprinkling or two of clefs and keys and locks,
and welcome, mes enfants, it’s away with the chocks,
brake off and take off, nobody halts !
Throttles full blast for the Z major Waltz
Un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois, huit,
if you’re tired after your homework, you can lounge in my suite.
Put a spoonful of Gershwin rhapsody on your crisp toast,
hear the music and watch the Normandy jam fly away,
watch the colours of Mendelssohn on the Hebrides coast,
listen to Saint-Saëns carnival animals at play.
The viola and violin, cello and bass,
not just the same family, but the same race,
the varnish the colour of a freshly baked cake,
but quite embarrassing when one of the strings break.
The viola? Well, give the Walton concerto a try;
In Tchaikovsky, the violin will fly by;
Haydn wrote a concerto in a few weeks, bright fellow,
but ask Julian Lloyd-Webber, he’s the expert on the cello.
The double bass sings deep, making the concert throb and hum,
or in jazz, you can pizzicato with finger and thumb.
In the wind section, we find four main ones here:
the flute, clarinet, oboe, the bassoon,
plus the Da Souza piccolo racing up in the atmosphere,
the rest of the group backing up the main tune.
If it’s the clarinet that you want to hear,
in ‘Out of Africa’, Mozart warbles across the lion and grass plain,
In Handel, The Queen of Sheba, the oboes are quite clear,
as they are in Roy Wood with ‘Flowers in the Rain’.
The flute you can try combined with the harp,
the interplay between them making you think
about fish in a pool, trout, goldfish and carp,
the colours of sunset, indigo, orange, and pink.
The bassoon doesn’t always get that much play,
rather it’s used as deep colour, or special sound
The trumpet, trombone,
scream, shriek, screech, scratch, scrape, graze, skrerch, skrerch, skrerch, ping
tweek, tweek, tweek, twack, twack, twack, mmm ting
pipizacato, wang, bunk, bunk, bunk, thunk
zimzamzumzeezeezee kunkkunk knuk phunk
Oui oui! C’est belle! What a beautiful noise,
the concerto for quartet for young girls and boys.
Um, excuse me, Maestro Madya, er, strings bunk and ting?
Shut up, you fool, if you don’t like the ‘ting’,
I’ll block up your ears with a double bass string.
Un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois,
Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, the woodwind are here!
Blow down the tube, as everyone knows
the bassoon wind comes out by the toes
Shimmering piccolos, military flutes
clarinet warbles for rhapsody hoots
Herr Handel greets Sheba in adenoid style
then Wagner in Egypt bassoons up the Nile,
Maestro Um, I think you’re getting mixed up again.
No, I didn‘t, you idiot. I just caught the wrong plane.
Un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois, douze,
from Cairo I’ll get the first flight to Toulouse.
dans la Camargue, st Marie de la Mer,
Aix en Provence, TGV a Nanterre,
Place de la Concorde, St Andre des Arts,
Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Seine, Champs de Mars,
Boulonge, and Calais,
the children will come to hear the symphony play
Musique of the stars, my solar powered noise,
my quintet for woodwind for young girls and boys.
Musical Maestro, it’s a symphony in Z.
Shut up, you halfwit, or I’ll drumstick your head
Guiseppe Rossini makes the Lone Ranger
with Tonto the sidekick, they ride out of danger
I love it when trombone makes strip-teasing slide
the shoulders, lips pouting, the sensual flirt
J’adore the moment she takes of her skirt
the children ! they‘ll
Monsieur, quelle problem?
shut up or on the spike of the cello
with the end of the cello
bah bah bah tah tah tah pah pah pah fump
wah wah wah weh weh weh woh woh woh whump
buh buh buh boh boh boh bah bah bah wing
phuh phuh phuh bhuh bhub bhub fhuh fhuh fhuh zing
Er, Maestro Professor, we must have a discussion.
Not now, you cretin, it’s time for percussion.
un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois, trois
oom ba ba, oom ma ma, oom pa pa pah
Ping, ting, bing triangle, ACE timpani,
brass cymbals, bass drum, and a tubular symphony,
chichi maracas, the snare drum tight wire,
hickory drumsticks paint rifle fire.
crashcrashcrash bash bash bash smash smash smash wheee
ping ping ping bing bing bing ging ging ging zeeee
rha rha rha cha cha cha ghah ghah ghah feeee
nak nak nak nok nok nok nuk nuk nuk beeee
stab air with baton, waving my arms
and start thinking strange things when I listen to Brahms
I am a Berliner, an Opel Berliner
