Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Silk Road Soundtrack Adventure

Put on a comfortable pair of walking shoes. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we travel the Silk Road.

We’ll have music from “The Adventures of Marco Polo” (1938), with Gary Cooper of all people as the medieval mechant-explorer. The score was the first by Hugo Friedhofer (born in San Francisco, despite his über-German name). Freidhofer had labored as an orchestrator for bigger-named composers, such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner. He would go on to win an Academy Award for his music for “The Best Years of Our Lives.”

Then we’ll hear selections from two big screen tellings of the exploits of Genghis Khan. “Genghis Khan” (1965) had quite a multi-national cast, in the best Old Hollywood tradition: Omar Sharif, Stephen Boyd, James Mason, Robert Morley, Francoise Morleac, Telly Savalas, Eli Wallach, Woody Strode, and hordes of extras. The music was by Yugoslavian composer Dusan Radic.

“Mongol” (2007) was a joint production of Russia, Germany and Kazakhstan, which was actually shot in China. The music was by Finnish composer Tuomas Kantelinen, in the film supplemented with contributions by the Mongolian rock band Altan Urag. (We’ll stick with the orchestral stuff.)

The score is striking for its use of khöömii throat-singers, female soloists lamenting and ululating over the orchestra, as well as the unique art of “urtiin duu” – traditional Mongolian long-singing. “Mongol” received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

Finally, we’ll have selections from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), with music by Tan Dun. The film was the winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for Best Picture.

Yo-Yo Ma performs the cello solos on the soundtrack. One of the tracks is titled “Silk Road.” A couple of years earlier Ma had founded his Silk Road Ensemble.

I hope you’ll join me for 7000 miles in sensible shoes this week, as we travel the Silk Road, on “Picture Perfect,” 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 http://www.wwfm.org.

February 26, 2015
Gloria Cheng Celebrates Film Composers on Piano

Not what I was planning to post today, but I’m pressed for time. This nifty photo of Gloria Cheng, John Williams, Randy Newman and Don Davis is a promotion for Cheng’s new album, “Montage: Great Film Composers and the Piano.”

Watch a clip (also featuring Alexandre Desplat) here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52WrNa51E-0

With a write-up at filmmusicsociety.org:

http://www.filmmusicsociety.org/news_events/features/2015/020915.html

February 25, 2015
Boito’s Mefistofele A Faustian Masterpiece

Richard Strauss’ final opera, “Capriccio,” is an extended, though lighthearted debate on the relative merits of words and music. In the case of Arrigo Boito, the two never really came into conflict.

As one of the great librettists, Boito provided the texts for Verdi’s late masterpieces, “Otello” and “Falstaff.” He also worked up a revision of “Simon Boccanegra” and – under the anagram Tobia Gorrio – provided the libretto for Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda.”

But Boito himself was also a composer of merit, if not a prolific one. Although he destroyed his first opera, “Ero e Leandro,” and his last, “Nerone,” was left incomplete at the time of his death (to be finished by Arturo Toscanini and Vincenzo Tommasini), he totally nailed it with “Mefistofele.”

There may be those who look down their noses at Boito’s take on Goethe’s “Faust,” yet the work stubbornly clings to the outskirts of the standard repertoire. Audiences love it. For me it is much more entertaining than anything in Verdi (I know, them’s fightin’ words) and I personally find the melodic invention much richer than that in the more popular version by master melodist Charles Gounod.

Sure, as narrative it’s a little clunky – it’s as if Boito presents the story as a series of tableaux that are just kind of stitched together – and the most hair-raising set piece, the prologue in Heaven, comes right at the beginning. How could it not be all downhill from there? But the composer has the good sense to bring it all back at the end.

What the opera really demands is a strong personality at its core, someone who, through his magnetic stage presence and sheer force of will, can haul the circus train of wonders, boxcar after boxcar, before our astonished ears and eyes.

Feodor Chaliapin, by all accounts, was just such a force. He gained wide notoriety in the title role, for his earthy interpretation and his insistence on playing it half-naked.

In the recent past, Samuel Ramey owned the piece. He too preferred to show a fair amount of skin (though less than Chaliapin) – but really, couldn’t that be said for just about any of Ramey’s roles?

Here’s the stunning – and fun – San Francisco Opera production from 1989. The first 26 minutes will knock your socks off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AyGJyXfgFw

Happy birthday, Arrigo Boito (1842-1918)

February 24, 2015
Alexandre Desplat Finally Wins Oscar

Film composer Alexandre Desplat finally picked up an Oscar last night, after his seventh and eighth nominations, for “The Imitation Game” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” He was recognized for his quirky, disjointed and fun score for the latter, which is distinguished by its use of folk instruments such as the balalaika, mandolin and alphorn.

Of course, I can’t help but feel he coasted to victory on the coattails of the classic Mercury Living Presence recording of “Kamarinskaya,” made by the Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra, which is used during film’s end credits. It was quoted on at least one occasion last night when an award recipient approached the stage.

Still, there’s no denying Desplat worked very hard this past year, having written the scores for six films, including “The Monuments Men,” “Godzilla,” “Unbroken” and “Suffragette.” I had an inkling that he was going to win, but wondered if the double nomination would split the vote.

I can’t say I was all that impressed with most of the nominees, though Gary Yershon’s score for “Mr. Turner” does kind of stick with me, in a desolate, artsy kind of way. At any rate, any year that Hans Zimmer loses is a good year.

Congratulations, Alexandre Desplat.

Desplat’s score for “The Grand Budapest Hotel”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZM7Iz3eDNU&list=PLlq1il6oOJt0EBgxghlYV-Hk1d5YcUegJ

Gary Yershon’s music for “Mr. Turner”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZlrVf3q3Mc&list=PLZeZu8hkpymOOpWl_smRZEZXoi6NrtxEo

“Interstellar,” by The Great Satan, Hans Zimmer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXtOsmwfQXg&list=PLQmB7XebboHxEQ56JWiYGGsTPDyboZsAK

February 23, 2015
André Rieu Ben-Hur Oscar Party

André Rieu needs more brass! Here he is to conduct “The Parade of the Charioteers” from “Ben-Hur.” The Academy Award-winning music is by Miklós Rózsa.

Ordinarily, I’m not a huge fan (of Rieu, not Rózsa), but holy cow, the vulgarity is hard to resist.

Academy Awards Sunday. How can I be so in love with Oscar, and yet have so little interest in tonight’s ceremony? Of course I’ll be watching, but I’ll be thinking of Gregory Peck, Gene Hackman, George C. Scott, Sean Connery, David Niven, the streaker.

If you are looking for some background music to accompany your Oscar preparations, Friday night’s two-hour “Picture Perfect” Oscar Party is now posted as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Though its record 11 Academy Awards was later matched, unfathomably, by “Titanic” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (really?!!), “Ben-Hur” is still the all-time Oscar champ, at least in my book – epic scope, compelling story, amazing craftsmanship, outstanding music, real stunts, a cast of thousands, and no CGI anywhere.

February 22, 2015

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