August starts BIG this week, on “Picture Perfect,” as we hit the sundrenched plains and wide-open spaces, with music from outsized movies set in the American West.
On the birthday of Jerome Moross, we’ll begin with the composer’s most famous score, that for “The Big Country” (1958).
Directed by William Wyler, the film’s cast includes Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, Charles Bickford, Chuck Connors, and Burl Ives (who won an Oscar). Some big personalities! So it’s hardly surprising that not all the drama was limited to what we see on screen. The actors bristled against constant rewrites and Wyler’s ambiguous directing style. Some of them refused to talk about it, and a few of them refused to talk to each other. Ives, the exception, seemed to be above it all. He maintained he really enjoyed making the picture. In the end, Wyler had to delegate the film’s climax to his assistant, also the film’s editor, Robert Swink, as he had to leave for Rome to prepare for “Ben-Hur.”
Fortunately, the entire technical crew was first-rate and brought its A-game. It’s a Hollywood miracle that all the pieces of “The Big Country” fit together as well as they do. It really says something that, alongside the awesome scenery, more than anything, it is the music that really solidified the film’s enduring popularity. Moross’ score is right up there, alongside Elmer Bernstein’s music for “The Magnificent Seven,” at the top of the genre.
Though Moross was adept at writing music in many forms – including concert pieces (a symphony for Beecham), musical theater (the cult classic “The Golden Apple,” including the evergreen “Lazy Afternoon”), and opera (“Sorry, Wrong Number”) – unquestionably he is best known for his work in film. He spent much of his career ping-ponging back and forth between New York and Hollywood.
When “Porgy and Bess” concluded its New York run in 1935, George Gershwin invited Moross to join the show, on tour, as a pianist. It was while on a bus trip to Los Angeles to participate in “Porgy’s” west coast premiere that the 23-year-old made a stop in Albuquerque.
“[A]s we hit the Plains I got so excited,” Moross recollected. “. . . [T]he next day I got to the edge of town and then walked out onto the flat land with a marvelous feeling of being alone in the vastness, with the mountains cutting off the horizon. The whole thing was just too much for me . . . it was marvelous, and I just fell in love with it.”
This communion with the American West stayed with him. It would be 23 years before he composed his big screen magnum opus. The vitality, invention, and lyricism of “The Big Country” was recognized with an Academy Award nomination. The “Western” sound would color Moross’ subsequent film and concert works, with the energetic syncopations of his native New York City bolstering an easy lyrical gift that could easily pass for genuine American folk music.
Rounding out today’s program will be selections from “The Big Sky” (Dimitri Tiomkin), “Big Jake” (Elmer Bernstein), and “Silverado” (Bruce Broughton).
It’s all BIG. Saddle up for music by Jerome Moross and friends on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
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