Though the weather is uncharacteristically lovely today in the Trenton-Princeton area, I wholly expect to be sweating it out again in front of the air conditioner sometime soon. (It will be back to 90 by the weekend.) In that glass-half-empty frame of mind, this week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have an hour of aural escapes from the grim heat of summer.
“The Snow Storm” (1964) is an adaptation of Pushkin’s “The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkan.” This year marks the centenary of the birth of the composer, Georgy Sviridov. The Waltz and Romance from “The Snow Storm” enjoyed particular popularity, bringing Sviridov two of his greatest hits.
Then Arthur Honegger will take us to higher altitudes with his music for “The Demon of the Himalayas” (1935), complete with the eerie electronic timbre of the ondes Martenot.
Ralph Vaughan Williams will guide us to the South Pole with selections from his score for “Scott of the Antarctic” (1948). The music perfectly reflects the sublime, austere beauty of a hostile environment. The score became the basis for Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 7, “Sinfonia Antarctica.”
Finally, the “Battle on the Ice” sequence from “Alexander Nevsky” (1938) provides a textbook marriage of music and film. Director Sergei Eisenstein granted the composer, Sergei Prokofiev, the unusual luxury of cutting the images to suit his music, as opposed to the usual practice, which is the other way around. The result is not only one of the great films, but also one of the great film scores.
Chill out with wintry scenes from world cinema this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music from the movies – this Friday evening at 6, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.
PHOTO: Very cool
