Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Jewish Film Music for the High Holy Days

This week on “Picture Perfect,” to coincide with the Jewish High Holy Days, we’ll have music from movies and television series depicting aspects of the Jewish experience.

We’ll begin with “Exodus” (1960), based on the bestselling novel by Leon Uris, about the founding of the State of Israel. The book is said to have been the biggest seller in the United States since “Gone With the Wind.” The film was directed by Otto Preminger. Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint led an all-star cast. Ernest Gold’s stirring music was recognized with an Academy Award and is probably his best-known achievement.

Barry Levinson’s semi-autobiographical “Avalon” (1990) explores the immigrant experience and, for better or worse, the assimilation of a Jewish family into American life. Alongside his work on “The Natural,” Randy Newman’s score is probably one of his best-loved.

We’ll round out the hour with music from two acclaimed television scores: for the NBC mini-series “Holocaust” (1978), written by the esteemed concert composer Morton Gould, and Emmy Award-winning music from the PBS series “Heritage: Civilization and the Jews” (1984), by John Duffy.

I hope you’ll join me as we celebrate the Jewish experience this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

September 17, 2015
Sir David Willcocks Remembered RIP

I’m sorry to share the news that Sir David Willcocks has died. He may have been the senior lion of English music. With Sir Colin Davis, Vernon Handley, and even Richard Hickox gone, I can’t think of anyone else. Of course, the big choral works were a specialty. I will honor him soon on “The Lost Chord.” R.I.P.

His obituary in The Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/17/david-willcocks

An appreciation in The Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/classical-music/sir-david-willcocks-appreciation/

September 17, 2015
Shanah Tovah Radio: Jewish Composers on WPRB

Shanah tovah!

Once again, if you’re Jewish, allow me to wish you a sweet and happy new year. If you’re not, I hope you’ll sit back and enjoy the music, as tomorrow morning on WPRB, I’ll be offering works by Jewish composers and/or on Jewish themes.

By request, I’ll continue a WPRB tradition, initiated by the great Teri Noel Towe, of airing a recording of Pablo Casals in Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei.” I also have “Kol Nidre” settings by Jacob Weinberg, Arnold Schoenberg and Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek. That’s right – he, of “Donna Diana” fame.

Not all of these composers were Jewish, of course. I’ll give the goys some poise with music on Jewish themes by Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Maurice Ravel, and John McCabe’s “Chagall Windows,” inspired by the stained glass creations that frame the synagogue of the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

And let’s not forget John Duffy’s Emmy Award-winning music for the PBS television series “Heritage: Civilization and the Jews.”

I’ve got a box full of CDs featuring works by Paul Ben-Haim, Herman Berlinski, Leonard Bernstein, Ernest Bloch, David Diamond, Matthew H. Fields, Lukas Foss, Srul Irving Glick, Alexander Krein, Paul Schoenfield, Leon Stein, David Stock, Franz Waxman, and Philadelphia natives Louis Gesensway and Amanda Harberg.

Just how much of this music I’ll actually be able to get on the air remains to be seen. Prepare to be awed by music for the Days of Awe, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com. We’re all sticky with apples and honey on Classic Ross Amico.

PHOTO: Learn the proper way to make a shofar here:

https://sites.temple.edu/historynews/2013/09/04/from-the-philadelphia-jewish-archives-shana-tova-happy-jewish-new-year/

September 16, 2015
Webern’s Last Smoke: A Tragic Tale

It was on this date in 1945 that Anton Webern, living in Allied-occupied Austria, violated curfew by stepping out onto his back porch for a cigar, so as not to disturb his sleeping grandchildren. He was shot and killed by an American soldier. The soldier was so distraught at what he had done, it drove him to alcoholism, and he died in 1955.

The moral of the story: smoking is bad for your health.

Here’s Anton Webern in an early, romantic mode – his “Langsamer Satz” from 1905, performed by the Signum Quartett (slated to appear on a Princeton Symphony Orchestra chamber concert at the Institute for Advanced Study on October 4):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LnE0s2UbkA

From only a few years later, here’s Webern’s “Six Bagatelles,” composed between 1911 and 1913:

Each bagatelle is under 140 notes, so each would qualify as a #quartweet. You can learn more about the Signum Quartett and its #quartweet project – if you happened to miss it the first time – here:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/08/classical_music_princeton_symp_2.html

PHOTO: Anton Webern: the last smoke was the best

September 15, 2015
Animals Sing Mozart Better Than You

Put in your earbuds. Classic FM has compiled video footage of “six animals who can sing Mozart’s Queen of the Night aria better than you.”

http://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/queen-of-the-night-animals/#878kVxg1bckZEybH.97

September 14, 2015

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