Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Bette Davis Film Music Rebroadcast This Weekend

PLEASE NOTE: If you are a lover of classic film music and also an early riser, tomorrow morning’s rebroadcast of “Picture Perfect” (6 ET) comes deep from within the archive. Because of the nature of tonight’s special two-hour Oscar Party, full of references to the 8:00 broadcast of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s “A Silver Screen Salute,” I’ve decided to bypass the daunting editing process and instead selected a tribute to Bette Davis from 2011.

The program will include music from “Now, Voyager” (Max Steiner), “Mr. Skeffington” (Franz Waxman), “All About Eve” (Alfred Newman) and “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (Erich Wolfgang Korngold).

Davis was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won twice, early, for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938), though she turned in solid performances for pretty much her entire career. There is little about her style which doesn’t scream “ACTING!” So it seems only an appropriate choice for this Academy Awards weekend.

Listen to it here: http://www.wwfm.org.

In fact, if you read this between 8 and 10 tonight, tune in to catch the Princeton Symphony Orchestra concert. It’s a lot of fun.

BTW – Tonight’s “Picture Perfect” Oscar Party will be archived on the WWFM website as a webcast. However, the PSO “Silver Screen Salute” will not.

February 21, 2015
Finland’s Music Takes Wing

After a week of bitter temperatures and more falling snow, it’s hardly surprising that my thoughts turn to the north (and I don’t mean Boston).

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll have a couple of pieces from Finland, both of them inspired by the region’s avian life.

Einojuhani Rautavaara wrote his “Cantus Arcticus” in 1972. He described it as a “concerto for birdsong and orchestra.” The work incorporates tape recordings made on the bogs of Liminka, near the Arctic Circle. More than just a gimmick, the piece is an inspiring triptych that manages to transcend its potentially new age conceit. The final movement takes the form of a long crescendo for orchestra, which incorporates the song of whooper swans.

Swans, of course, also played a crucial role in the creation of Jean Sibelius’ uplifting Symphony No. 5. The composer was moved to write the grand theme of the symphony’s finale after observing a flock of swans in flight over his home on the shores of Lake Tuusula in Järvenpää. The tolling French horns unfailingly generate a glow of hope and optimism. Such noble music! I don’t mind sharing that this is probably my favorite symphony.

Wait a minute – the Symphony No. 5 is standard repertoire. What’s this doing on “The Lost Chord?”

In 1995, conductor Osmo Vänskä recorded Sibelius’ first thoughts on the symphony, as it was heard at its 1915 premiere. Though the work was extremely well-received, Sibelius became increasingly dissatisfied with it, as he prepared the manuscript for publication.

In what must be one of the most amazing feats of revision ever, he crafted from the comparatively rough material the masterwork we know today. When you hear this original version, you will marvel at the composer’s clarity of purpose, his remarkable objectivity, and just how hard he worked. It’s almost like a completely different piece, one that uses the same recognizable themes, but completely rethinks the structure and, at times, the orchestration. Listening to certain passages is like strolling across familiar terrain. Then the ground shifts, and you find yourself walking down a strange path. If you haven’t heard it, definitely make a point to check it out.

If, like me, you find yourself watching the Academy Awards at 10:00 tomorrow night even as you wonder why, “The Lost Chord” will be rebroadcast Wednesday evening at 6; or you can listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Finnish music takes wing, on “Snow Birds”

February 21, 2015
Oscar Music Night Picture Perfect & PSO’s Silver Screen

If, like me, you are nutty in the nutbone for classic movie music, you might want to join me tomorrow night for a special two-hour “Picture Perfect,” as we look ahead to the 87th Academy Awards.

Beginning at 6 ET, we commence our annual Oscar party, with wall-to-wall music from Academy Award-winning films, with selections from “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” “Ben-Hur,” “The Godfather” and many others. We’ll also sample from this year’s nominees for Best Original Score.

Then at 8, I’ll introduce the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, in a broadcast of their February 7 concert, held at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, as music director Rossen Milanov takes the podium for the orchestra’s first ever “Silver Screen Salute.”

The concert will include music from “Gone with the Wind,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Star Wars,” among others. The American Boychoir will appear in John Williams’ “Empire of the Sun,” “Amistad” and “Saving Private Ryan,” as well as in “Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz.”

Milanov and Chris Collier of the Princeton Garden Theatre will join me at intermission to talk about movies and the PSO concert.

Butter up the popcorn! We’re ready for our close-up. Four hours of movie music magic, on “Picture Perfect” and the PSO’s “A Silver Screen Salute,” starting Friday evening at 6, at http://www.wwfm.org.

PLEASE NOTE: There will be no webcast for the PSO concert, so be there, or be square!

February 19, 2015
Marcel Landowski: A Centennial Forgotten Composer

Today is the 100th birthday of Marcel Landowski, an anniversary that likely won’t be widely celebrated. Which is too bad.

Landowski, the son of sculptor Paul Landowski (the creator of the statue of Christ that looks over the bay of Rio de Janeiro) and the great-grandson of violinist-composer Henri Vieuxtemps, studied at the Paris Conservatory with, among others, Philippe Gaubert (composition) and Pierre Monteux (conducting). As a child, he also studied harmony and piano with Marguerite Long.

Arthur Honegger was his greatest influence. Among his own compositions are five symphonies, a number of concertos (including one for ondes Martenot!), operas and a mass. He also composed several dozen film scores, including that for the original French version of “Gigi” (not to be confused with the Hollywood musical, which starred Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and the late Louis Jourdan).

Landowski wrote a biography of Honegger. During his tenure as music director of France’s Ministry of Culture (1964-1974), he was responsible for establishing a number of orchestras, including the Orchestre de Paris.

For him, composition had religious, or at any rate spiritual, overtones. He stated, “True art is always an expression of faith.”

He died in 1999, at the age of 84.

Bon anniversaire, Marcel Landowski.

Concerto for Ondes Martenot, Strings and Percussion (1954):
Movt. I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a4IJ3g_CLg
Movt. II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIdy22KzUR8

You can actually see it played here, if the hand-held camera and the hallucinatory, superimposed keyboard don’t make you crazy:

Symphony No. 3 “des Espaces” (1964):

PHOTO: (left to right) composer Marcel, his son, future architect Marc, and his father, sculptor Paul Landowski

February 18, 2015
I Vitelloni Fellini’s Carnival Scene

God bless the internet! Somebody posted the carnival scene from “I Vitelloni.” Although Fellini still had his feet planted firmly in reality, you could definitely tell what was coming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-rp_gadBBE

Fat Tuesday. One last blow-out before Lent (until St. Patrick’s Day).

PHOTO: Alberto Sordi and date

February 17, 2015

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