Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Villa-Lobos in Hollywood’s “Green Mansions”

When Heitor Villa-Lobos was contracted by M-G-M to write music for a big screen adaptation of W.H. Hudson’s novel “Green Mansions” (1959), expectations ran high on both sides. The Brazilian master began immediately, diving into the project with characteristic gusto. After all, he had been writing music inspired by the rain forest for his entire career.

Unfortunately, he had very little affinity for the practicality of the filmmaking process, turning in musical impressions of scenes from the book. The studio was befuddled. Since Villa-Lobos was unable to adapt to the customary way of doing things, he was replaced by MGM house composer Branislau Kaper, who used the Villa-Lobos material as a springboard for his own dramatic conception. The result is part Villa-Lobos, part Kaper, and all MGM gloss.

Villa-Lobos was a little embittered by his Hollywood experience. He promptly assembled a multi-movement symphonic poem, “Forest of the Amazon” (1958), some 75 minutes in length, which employed his rejected sketches. He made a recording of 45 minutes of the music in 1959, for which the soprano Bidu Sayao came out of retirement.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have selections from both versions of “Green Mansions,” as well as from the Mayan adventure “Kings of the Sun” (1963), composed by Elmer Bernstein, and “The Night of the Mayas” (1939), by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas.

I hope you’ll join me for cinematic evocations of the indigenous peoples of Latin America, tomorrow 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.

PHOTO: The project that left Villa-Lobos feeling green around the gills

August 27, 2015
Goethe’s Birthday: Schumann’s Faust & More

You want something you won’t generally hear on the radio? How about Robert Schumann’s “Scenes from Goethe’s ‘Faust’” – all blessed two hours of it, complete with vocal soloists and chorus. I’ve got a fine performance of it, all ready to go, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Faust, Elisabeth Harwood as Gretchen, and John Shirley-Quirk as Mephistopheles. The conductor? Benjamin Britten.

It may very well be the highlight of this morning’s show, which will be devoted to works inspired by Germany’s literary giant, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), on his birthday anniversary.

Here’s the thing: in order to play what I want to play, I’ll have to start Schumann’s “Faust” at 7 a.m. So brew yourself some strong coffee and leave a message for the boss that you’ve got an emergency dental appointment and you’ll be in a little late.

There will also be symphonic poems by Liszt (“Tasso, Lament and Triumph”) and Paul Dukas (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” in a vintage recording with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra), plenty of music based on melodies from Gounod’s “Faust,” Beethoven’s “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage,” some opera arias, and lieder, lieder, lieder, from Franz Schubert to Hugo Wolf.

All you have to do is sign this parchment with your blood.

I hope you’ll join me this morning, from 6 to 11 ET, as we celebrate Goethe, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com. Get your fill of the quill, on Classic Ross Amico.*

*Apparently Goethe actually preferred the pencil:

http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2013/08/goethe-and-quill-and-pencil.html

August 27, 2015
Goethe’s Birthday Music Celebration

Tomorrow marks the birthday anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), widely regarded as Germany’s greatest literary figure. Goethe’s significance in German culture cannot be overestimated.

His novel, “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” virtually initiated the Romantic movement, with its protagonist’s relentless subjectivity and precipitous despair instigating a cult of suicide. His bildungsroman, “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship,” was praised as one of the greatest novels ever written. And the influence and perpetual reinvention of his dramatic poem “Faust” would appear to be inexhaustible.

Goethe captivated the imagination of virtually every major German-language composer of the 19th century. We’ll honor him with a full program inspired by his works, including lieder, symphonic poems, symphonies, operas and oratorios.

So much Romanticism is a presentiment of fall and chill nights passed gazing up at the moon through withered leaves in a Caspar David Friedrich tricorn.

Join me tomorrow morning at 6 ET for five hours of music inspired by the writings of Goethe, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com. You don’t have to sell your soul to experience great music on Classic Ross Amico.

August 26, 2015
Remembering Lenny Bernstein Classical Music’s Lost Stars

Wow, Lenny, what happened? Almost 25 years in the grave. I remember receiving the news of your death, on October 14, 1990, only 12 days after the passing of Aaron Copland. It was a horrible one-two for American music.

The classical music scene still seemed robust when you were alive, and it was actually exciting to walk into Tower Records, pre-internet, and find one of your new releases, with the gold Deutsche Grammophon cartouche – back when Deutsche Grammophon was still Deutsche Grammophon – displayed in one of those ludicrous blister packs.

Those were the days before much of the more interesting material you recorded for Columbia had been reissued by Sony. Your earlier, fantastic Schumann cycle hadn’t even made it to CD. My adrenaline would skyrocket for a new recording of American music. Copland? Bought! A re-recording of the Roy Harris and William Schuman Symphonies No. 3? Ka-ching!

While there are so many talented performers out there today, few of them have your larger than life personality, and none of them have your media presence. Where are the Bernsteins? The Horowitzes? The Pavarottis?

Of course, a lot of the change has to do with a break of the stranglehold on the market by major record labels with major marketing budgets. Also, in a sense, the mystique of the classical superstar has been swapped for the grass roots efforts of musicians eager to reach out to the public by way of performances at bars and in pop-up concerts. Not a bad thing for the performers or the music, but the landscape is certainly different.

There was a time when opera singers and violinists would be featured on late night talk shows, or pianists and guitarists would turn up on television commercials. They were artists, but they were also celebrities. In a sense, it was what was really needed to keep classical music in the public eye, if not the public ear, so that people understood that the music was out there, and it could be big, a viable alternative to pop.

Even when you were doing something purely educational, they would put you on TV. You were that rare combination of first rate music-making and Hollywood pizzazz. Happy birthday, Lenny. You sure are missed.

Rudolf Firkušný sells sneakers for Nike:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVKWBrVqCzs

Pavarotti on “The Tonight Show”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDMrLuK24r4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC1vaeU1UQk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWNJRou4lKs

Leonard Bernstein “Young People’s Concerts”: What is Melody?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AFovpvDRCI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O09V4NQkOKI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_pPeBg3Tb8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTmrGbwmX7w

August 25, 2015
Music Feuds Why We Love Musician Rivalries

Musicians can be so bitchy sometimes – which of course is just one more reason to love them. Throughout history, especially since the 19th century, musicians have frequently been divided into opposing camps: Brahms vs. Wagner; Callas vs. Tebaldi; Elvis vs. The Beatles.

Of course, as often as not, it is the figures-in-question’s deranged followers that throw kerosene on the flames. Still, it’s affirming in some way to reflect on just how much to some people music really matters.

Stravinsky vs. Schoenberg:
http://www.laweekly.com/music/stravinsky-vs-schoenberg-who-was-more-gangsta-2405079

Elvis vs. The Beatles:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/oct/04/beatles-met-elvis-liverpool-exhibition

The War of the Romantics (Brahms vs. Wagner):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Romantics

Brahms vs. Tchaikovsky:

Brahms and Tchaikovsky

August 24, 2015

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