Bunny v. Beethoven by Rick Kast

The lights go on and a man in a sky-blue sports jacket and black pants comes out onto the stage holding a microphone. He waits for extensive applause and cheering from a large audience to subside before introducing himself as Marv Butler, host of “everyone’s favorite show,” PICK YOUR FAVORITE.

BUTLER: Thank you, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to our show. Tonight we are going to leave it up to you, the people, as we always do, to decide what is the greater piece of music: “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” or Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony? You know how it works. We have presentations made on each side of the question by experts. Then we take a vote. You in the audience, and everyone who chooses to do so in our television audience, will vote. Then we’ll announce the result. So let’s get underway. On the side of Peter Cottontail we have Alf Rudnik, a DJ and hotdog-eating champion from Cleveland. On the side of Beethoven, we have Dr. James Somerville from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Alf let’s start things out with you. What do you have to say for Peter Cottontail?

RUDNIK: Well, Marv, I’d like to start with my three-year-old daughter Sophie singing the first verse from this truly great song. Listen to this:

Here comes Peter Cottontail,

Hopping down de bunny trail,

Hoppity-hippity, hoppy,

Easter on its way.

Bringing every girl’n boy

Baskets full of . . . stuff

To make your Easter bright as hay.

Is that charming or what? I mean such innocence.

BUTLER: There’s not a dry eye in the house, Alf, but surely you don’t think Peter Cottontail can beat Beethoven just because your daughter can sing it?

RUDNIK: Far from it, Marv. The true greatness of Peter Cottontail can only be appreciated by the extraordinary diversity of possible interpretations. So I asked somebody who listens to a lot of music who they thought had the purest voice in recent times and he said probably Emma Kirkby. So I called her and asked her if she would be willing to sing “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” and she declined. She said she was kind of retired.

SOMERVILLE: Astonishing!

BUTLER: No, kibbitzing, Doctor. You’ll get your turn. So what did you do, Alf?

RUDNIK: I had this computer whiz friend of mine replicate her voice singing it. Listen to this.

Here comes Peter Cottontail,

Hopping down the bunny trail,

Hippity-hoppity,

Easter’s on its way.

Bringing every girl and boy

Baskets full of Easter joy

To make your Easter bright and gay.

Isn’t that something? I mean really something.

BUTLER: Yes, extraordinary purity of tone. I hope you don’t hear from her lawyers. Anything more to say, Alf, before I turn it over to Dr. Somerville?

RUDNIK: Well, you know, great music has to be able to inspire different moods. I thought Peter Cottontail should not just be innocent and pure. It also should also be able to be threatening and full of dread.

BUTLER: You did?

RUDNIK: Absolutely. So I talked my friend who set me on to Emma Kirkby and he said why not have Chaliapin sing it?

[Somerville explodes into laughter.]

BUTLER: Who was he?

RUDNIK: He was a Russian bass. Been dead a while. Sang the part of the devil. But my computer friend was able to duplicate his voice. Listen to this:

Here comes Peter ZEE GREAT COTTONTAIL.

Hopping,

Hopping,

HOPPING DOWN zee BOGATYR BUNNEE TRAIL.

Hippity,

Hoppity . . .

HOP!

Bringing every devotchka and boy

Baskets full of Easter joy

[sinister laugh]

To make your Easter bright and gay.

BUTLER: That’s bone-chilling, Alf. But it strays a bit from the song, doesn’t it?

RUDNIK: Poetic license.

BUTLER: What do you have to say the that, Dr. Somerville?

SOMMERVILLE: Please call me Jim.

BUTLER: Okay, Jim. Make your pitch for Beethoven.

SOMMERVILLE: Well, certainly Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is one of the crowning achievements of Western music.

BUTLER: That may be but why should our audience think it’s better than “Here Comes Peter Cottontail”?

SOMMERVILLE: Just listen to this. [He plays the opening of the symphony.] Isn’t that amazing? Da Dum. Da Dum. Da DUM. Da da da da da da DUM! Such drama, Such incredible drama. It’s so moving. It makes Peter Cottontail sound like a basket full of baby bunnies.

BUTLER: Tell us more, Jim.

SOMMERVILLE: Well, I mean, it’s built on indeterminate open fifths on the dominant and builds to a great crescendo.

BUTLER: Okay. Did you use any computer enhancement?

SOMMERVILLE: Of course not! Why would anyone do that?

BUTLER: Just asking. Go on.

SOMMERVILLE: The scherzo is a real earworm. Listen this. [He plays a portion of the scherzo.] Try to get that out of your mind. You know, it was used as a theme for the “Huntley-Brinkley Report”.

BUTLER: What?

SOMMERVILLE: It was a famous news program.

BUTLER: Okay. What else?

SOMMERVILLE: It was the first symphony with a choral finale. Surely you’ve heard the Ode to Joy.

BUTLER: Tell me about it.

SOMMERVILLE: Let me play some of it. [He plays he opening of the choral section.] You don’t need computer generated voices for that, do you? It’s magnificent. And do you know it was composed by a deaf man?

BUTLER: I think I’ve heard that. Little joke there, Jim.

SOMMERVILLE: What we have here is achievement at the apogee of human artistic endeavor as opposed to trite drivel about a rabbit.

BUTLER: Well, that’s up to the audience, isn’t it? Shall we put it to the vote?

SOMMERVILLE: Here’s what Bernard Shaw said. You know he was not just a playwright. He was also a music critic: “There is nothing in the Bible greater in inspiration than Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.”

BUTLER: Okay. Anything else?

SOMMERVILLE: I guess not.

BUTLER: Anything more from you, Alf?

RUDNIK: The rabbit wins! The rabbit wins! [He jumps up and down pumping his fists. The audience cheers.]

BUTLER: Jim?

SOMERVILLE: Beethoven doesn’t need a cheering section.

BUTLER: Okay, members of the live and television audience. You know how to generate your votes. Punch them in and let’s see what’s greater music: Peter Rabbit or Beethoven. Let’s take a commercial back and we’ll be back with the results. [After the break, Butler returns.] And here are the results, ladies and gentlemen. Peter Rabbit wins by seventy-two to twenty-eight percent. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and please be here next week on PICK YOUR FAVORITE when we will let you decide: What is the greater book, Don Quixote or Fifty Shades of Grey?