Main: From the Library - Musical Comedy

Today we feature a genre of music that crosses all genres of music: Musical Comedy. Today's programme includes everything from the implicit to the (musically) explicit - from Mozart's Musical Joke KV522 to Tom Lehrer's Poisoning Pigeons in the Park; from Gerard Hoffnung (including his two Music Festivals complete and some of his spoken-word pieces for good measure), his American somewhat-equivalent PDQ Bach (aka Peter Schickele) and Victor Borge to Weird Al Yankovic (although I must admit that my Weird Al collection isn't a patch on that of my colleague Edward Pearse); and even Todd Rundgren. And that's just the beginning.

There's Steampunk (both punk and rap). There are music-hall songs. There's classical and quasi-neo-classical, including the Muffin Men Ensemble playing Frank Zappa (you can't imagine how long I've wanted to play that on gullar sahir), Apocalyptica playing Metallica on four cellos and Rondellus delivering 14th century interpretations of Black Sabbath. And of course there are Flanders and Swann and the Bonzo Bog Doo-Dah Band. And Christine Lavin. And we wouldn't want to miss the Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise, now, would we?

Although all the music today has a sense of humour, you will experience some wild and wacky transitions during the course of the programme. Keep your ears on.

Today's programme is presented by Elrik Merlin and produced by gullar sahir in conjunction with our friends at the Alexandrian Free Library Consortium of Second Life. You can listen to the programme in-world now at http://main.radioriel.org, or simply click here to start your player, if your browser is configured to do so. Listeners in the United States are encouraged to tune in using this link: http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-riel/tune_in

For more information on the Alexandrian Free Library, current exhibits and the work of Consortium members in general, please visit the Alexandrian Free Library website, or one of their branches in-world.