Tonight is St. John’s Eve, the night the Slavic deity Chernobog emerges from the Bald Mountain. I just learned Bela Lugosi struck demonic poses for Disney animators for several days as a model for the climactic sequence of “Fantasia.” He was ultimately replaced by Wilfred Jackson. Still, how cool is that?
MOMMY! WHERE’S MICKEY MOUSE?!
http://www.cornel1801.com/disney/Fantasia-1940/film8.html
PHOTO: Don’t sue me Disney!
Why is it whenever man feels the urge to celebrate, his first impulse is to set things on fire? We see it today in the hot-dogging conflagrations that follow on the heels of championship sports victories. In the ancient world, bonfires were already a mainstay of any festive occasion.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we listen to music for St. John’s Eve. St. John’s Day holds a place on the Christian calendar akin to that of Christmas, in that it coincides with solstice time. Midsummer was originally a pagan festival, which was absorbed by the Church for the observance of John the Baptist’s birth, which St. Luke implies took place six months before that of Jesus.
Though the actual summer solstice may occur anytime between June 21 and June 25, it was designated that June 24 would be the Feast Day of St. John.
St. John’s Eve is a time for the harvesting of St. John’s Wort, with its miraculous healing powers. It’s a time to seek the fern flower, which can bring good fortune, wealth, and the ability to understand animal speech. It’s a time for the lighting of bonfires against evil spirits, and even dragons, which roam the earth, as the sun again pursues a southerly course. And it’s a time when witches are believed to rendezvous with powerful forces, such as the demon Chernobog, who emerges from the Bald Mountain on St. John’s Eve at the climax of Disney’s “Fantasia.”
Leaping over a bonfire was seen as a surety of prosperity and good luck. Not to light a bonfire was seen as offering up one’s own house for destruction by fire. The bigger the fire, the further at bay were kept evil spirits. The further the evil spirits, the better the guarantee of a good harvest.
We’ll have music inspired by some of these Midsummer customs, as we listen to Modest Mussorgsky’s “St. John’s Night,” an earlier, less-familiar incarnation of his popular musical picture “A Night on Bald Mountain,” as heard in his opera, “Sorochinsky Fair.”
Also featured will be Alfred Schnittke’s impish rondo, “(K)ein Sommernachtstraum.” The root of the title is German for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” but the postmodern inclusion of the “K” in parentheses modifies the meaning to “NOT a Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Indeed! Schnittke sets up the listener with a soothing notturno in the style of Mozart or Schubert, but very soon the atmosphere begins to shift.
Finally, we’ll hear selections from the ballet, “St. John’s Eve,” by the Swedish composer Gunnar de Frumerie. Not surprisingly, after a long, hard winter, the Scandinavian countries are crazy for Midsummer. The allegorical ballet features appearances by John the Baptist, Salome, the Seven Deadly Sins, Angels, and the Devil, all tied up in Swedish Midsummer traditions.
Join me for “Midsummer Night’s Fiends,” tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Thursday at 11, or catch the show as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.
PHOTO: St. John’s Eve celebration in Northern Ireland
The summer solstice took place this morning at 6:51 ET. For me, it is the saddest day of the year.
Coming as it does at the end of a week which brought with it the first seasonal heat wave (and therefore the installation of my window units) and my first summer cold, it portends three months of humidity and humanity, as every weekend, cities, parks and beaches teem with people who lack the good sense to stay home. (Of course I only know this because I wind up going to these places myself.)
The second saddest day of the year is the winter solstice, since from that time forward the days only start to get longer. The happiest day of the year is the first day of autumn. Lots to look forward to then, even though someone tried to ruin the best stretch of the year with the creation of New Year’s Eve and Day. It’s all downhill from March 1. In my heart, may it always be Hallowe’en.
That said, today appears to be as lovely a summer day as can be – under the circumstances. Perhaps I should look into buying a home in Lapland.
Here’s Wilhelm Peterson-Berger’s “Lapland Symphony.” Keep it handy for the next heat wave.
I have been completely fed up with computer-generated imagery in alleged “live action” movies for years now. Give me a miniature in a water tank or a matte painting any day.
However, I have to concede, when shelling out the clams for a big-budget movie, one stands a better chance these days of getting a quality ride if one banks on the solely computer-animated feature. Put an action hero in a computer-animated landscape, and everything looks incredibly fake. But integrate the characters by creating them in the computer as well, and the result is often much more absorbing, imaginative and even wittier than your run-of-the-mill blockbuster.
Furthermore, in a day when so many films sport scores made up of droning electronics punctuated by colorless action cues, the computer-generated feature seems to attract composers who still understand how to write music.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll sample music from four computer-generated features. We’ll hear selections from the first film in the “Ice Age” franchise, by David Newman (son of Golden Age heavy-hitter Alfred Newman, brother of Thomas Newman and cousin of Randy Newman).
We’ll also have some of John Williams’ music from “The Adventures of Tintin,” after the comic book adventurer created by artist and writer Hergé. Tintin’s popularity in Europe failed to translate into big domestic box office, comparatively speaking, but the score is Williams’ best of its kind (an exciting adventure piece full of leitmotifs and great action cues) since the first Harry Potter film.
We’ll round out the hour with two projects scored by Michael Giacchino for Pixar Animation Studios. Giacchino’s break-out success was the sly superhero satire, “The Incredibles,” for which he composed in the swinging ‘60s espionage style popularized by John Barry when writing for the Bond films.
We’ll also hear selections from Giacchino’s Academy Award-winning score to “Up.” “Up” was nominated for Best Picture at the 82nd Academy Awards, only the second animated feature ever to be included in the category.
Join me for an hour of music from computer-animated features this week, on “Picture Perfect: Music for the Movies.” You can listen to it this Friday evening at 6 ET, or later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.
We’re entering our third day of an early summer heat wave here on the East Coast. (You’d think it would have at least had the courtesy to wait for summer.)
How did America’s greatest composer keep cool? Following on the heels of yesterday’s free-spirited photo of Igor Stravinsky, here’s a candid shot of Aaron Copland enjoying an ice cream cone.
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