Just noticed it’s June 14. Happy Flag Day! Here’s two for the price of one. More bang for your Dudley Buck.
PHOTO: Old Glory in 1866
Sure, sure, sure. This weekend is Father’s Day. But I did movies about fathers last year.
This year, I’m broadening the focus to “entitled birds.” It allows me to program music from “To Kill a Mockingbird,” with Gregory Peck playing one of the great fathers on film, but also to diversify.
The hour will open with a suite from “The Maltese Falcon” (1941). Humphrey Bogart plays private dick Sam Spade, in John Huston’s adaptation of the Dashiell Hammett novel (not incidentally, full of avian symbols and similes). Mary Astor is the dangerous dame, and the first-rate cast supporting includes Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, and Elisha Cook, Jr.
The music is by Adolph Deutsch, who in the 1950s became associated with musicals (he won Oscars for his work on “Oklahoma,” “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” and “Annie Get Your Gun,” and was nominated for “The Band Wagon” and “Showboat”), but in the 1940s, he was as noir as that closet song-and-dance man, George Raft, some of whose crime films he scored.
.
Then it’s on to the most overt Father’s Day association of the hour and the aforementioned “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962), based on Harper Lee’s beautiful coming-of-age novel. Gregory Peck plays one of his most memorable roles – defense attorney and model father Atticus Finch (his surname yet another bird). The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. Peck won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1962. Elmer Bernstein received his only Oscar for his work on “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” of all things. “Mockingbird” remains one of his most memorable and moving scores.
“Jonathan Livingston Seagull” (1973) flies alone on the program as the only film in which the title refers to an actual bird, though the context is a fabulous one, based on Richard Bach’s bestselling parable. James Franciscus supplies a superimposed human voice. The score is by songwriter Neil Diamond, ably assisted by composer Lee Holdridge (who turned 80 on March 3). We’ll hear Holdridge’s music from the film’s “The Other World” sequence.
Finally, Errol Flynn plays Geoffrey Thorpe, captain of the “Albatross” (yet another bird), who defends England on the eve of the Spanish Armada in “The Sea Hawk” (1940). The music, perhaps the greatest pirate score ever written, is by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. If I had kids, I would be perfectly content on Father’s Day if they left me alone to watch “The Sea Hawk.” As my grandfather used to say, “You can help me by standing over there.”
I hope you’ll join me for “Entitled Birds,” on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
If you can look past the ethnic stereotypes and the white actors playing Indians, Chinese, Latinos, and just about everyone else (with the exceptions of Sammy Davis Jr. and Richard Pryor), there’s still much to enjoy in “The Wild Wild West.” Not the execrable movie from 1999, starring Will Smith, Kevin Kline, and Kenneth Branagh, but the classic television series with Robert Conrad and Ross Martin that ran for four seasons on CBS, from 1965 to 1969 – before finally being tossed under the stagecoach by the network for being “too violent.” My, how times have changed.
A canny marriage of the western, a genre which, by the mid-‘60s, was honestly approaching oversaturation, and the spy-fi craze, sparked by the success of James Bond, “The Wild Wild West” depicts the exploits and derring-do of secret service agents during the Grant administration.
Each week, James T. West (Conrad) faces off against an outlandish, Bondian villain of megalomaniacal ambition – he or she often keen to control large swathes of the United States and its territories, if not the world – and, aided by borderline implausible gadgetry fabricated by his sidekick, master-of-disguise Artemus Gordon (Martin, on their tricked-out train), brings said villain to justice, or death, as the case may be.
Roy and I will be tipping the brims of our Stetsons to the series on June 21 with a conversation as rambling as the great American West, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.
Despite its television budget, with its obviously redressed sets and frugal, but cleverly deployed, studio orchestra on the soundtrack, “The Wild Wild West” is unabashed entertainment in the old style – formulaic, with recognizable guest stars (too many to list, but I’ll single out Michael Dunn, magnetic in every scene he’s in as West’s recurring, diminutive nemesis, Miguelito Loveless – in early installments accompanied by future Bond villain Richard Kiel), and clear dramatic beats always cresting just before a commercial break. I remember watching this in reruns with my grandparents on a Sunday afternoon.
The series only got better the bolder it went, with serial thrills of a type we now associate with Indiana Jones and crazy sci-fi conceits, such as invisibility, miniaturization, and the psychic force of disembodied human brains.
I’ll be rather disembodied myself, I’m sure, when we talk about “The Wild Wild West,” on “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.” Bring your harmonicas and bass guitars to the comments section. We’ll be performing all our own stunts – shirtless too – just like Robert Conrad, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., next Friday evening, June 21, at 7:00 EDT!
https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner
Looking to bone-up on the series? All the episodes are posted for free on Pluto TV.
https://pluto.tv/us/on-demand/series/63726e731ac5b40013b79c9f/season/1
[** PLEASE NOTE: This conversation was originally scheduled to take place tomorrow night, but I just learned there is a major technical snafu that needs to be addressed, so regrettably it will have to be postponed until next Friday. I’ve edited this post to reflect this eleventh-hour, revolting development. Thank you for your patience. On the bright side, this will give you more time to watch “The Wild Wild West!” **]
Today is the birthday of Mexico’s multitalented Carlos Chávez. I just wrote about Chávez last month, in relation to a set of his complete recordings made for Columbia Records, now reissued on Sony Classical. Gringo that I am, I posted about it on Cinco de Mayo, a holiday that I understand is a much bigger deal here than it is in Mexico. Anyway, here again are my thoughts, if you’re interested. (More below.)
In posting about the set, I remark upon Chávez’s late, atonal, wholly wackadoodle, but undeniably fascinating ballet “Pirámide” (1968). But in doing so, I neglect to mention his earlier, indigenous ballet, “Los Cuatro Soles” (“The Four Suns”), from 1925. The latter treats another “primitivist” subject (all the rage after Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”), with four catastrophes ending a different epoch (symbolized by each of the four suns) in the history of the Nahua people. Listen to that drum at 10:23!
Poised somewhere between the artifice of Stravinsky and the spirit of Villa-Lobos, the work is unmistakably Chávez. It’s not going to make anybody’s hit parade, but you can tell it’s the same guy who went on to write “Sinfonía India” (1935-36).
And as I noted before, the latter work pointed the way for Aaron Copland’s western ballets. Copland was at work on “El Salón México” at the same time. Chávez would conduct the world premiere of Copland’s watershed piece in Mexico City. He also gave the first performance of Copland’s “Short Symphony,” after it was declared unplayable (because of its complexity) by Leopold Stokowski, Serge Koussevitzky, and others.
Chávez was an important musician in so many ways. Without him, art music in the United States might have developed very differently.
You’ll find links to “Sinfonía India” and ““Pirámide” at the bottom of my original post.
¡Feliz cumpleaños, Carlos Chávez!
A wager on the inconstancy of young love leads to farcical complications in Mozart’s “Così fan tutte.” The title has always been as uncomfortable to translate as the comic anguish endured by its leads. Variously known in English (if at all) as “So Do They All” and “Women Are Like That,” it’s probably best to stick with the Italian. Whatever you call it, it is generally bracketed in the composer’s top-four operas. Unsurprisingly the libretti for three of them were quilled by the flamboyant Lorenzo da Ponte, poet, priest, and profligate, friend of Casanova, and eventually professor of Italian literature at Columbia University.
The opera forms the centerpiece of this year’s The Princeton Festival. You’ll have three chances to see it, on Friday at 7 p.m., Sunday at 4 p.m., and Tuesday at 7 p.m. Performances will be held outdoors in the open-flapped, state-of-the-art performance pavilion on the grounds of historic Morven Museum & Garden, at 55 Stockton St. (Route 206).
The stage direction is by James Marvel, who, with a game cast and scenic design by Blair Mielnik, ensured last year’s production of Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” was such an imaginative romp. This year, the team promises a fresh, contemporary take on “Così,” setting it in a pastel-colored dreamhouse villa, high above the glamorous Amalfi Coast. Attired by costume designer Maria Miller, the high-styled, jet-setting characters’ loyalty to one another is tested as the plot – and hilarity – unfolds.
The opera will be sung in Italian with English subtitles. The Princeton Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by its music director, Rossen Milanov.
Two pre-performance talks, “Not So Cozy Così,” with Julian Grant (on Friday), and “Exploring Così fan tutte,” with Timothy Urban (on Tuesday), will be offered at Morven’s Stockton Education Center at 5:30 p.m.
Also coming up: the Abeo Quartet will perform chamber music by Reena Esmail, Shostakovich, and Schubert, tomorrow, Thursday, at 7 p.m., across the road at Trinity Church Princeton (33 Mercer St.).
American Repertory Ballet will bring dance to the pavilion, with choreography by Arthur Mitchell and Meredith Rainey, and Milanov conducting members of the PSO in music by Philip Glass (“Quartetsatz”), Miranda Scripp (“Intrare Forma”), Jean Sibelius (“Impromptu for Strings”), and Edvard Grieg (the “Holberg Suite”), on Saturday at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, June 19, will be a big day, with a program of Black choral music, featuring the Capital Singers of Trenton and friends, under the direction of Westminster Choir College’s Vinroy D. Brown, providing the capstone to a Juneteenth celebration. The program will include Robert Ray’s “Gospel Mass.” The concert will be held at the performance pavilion at 7 p.m.
A Juneteenth flag raising ceremony will take place next door, at the Municipality of Princeton, at 1 p.m. The festival will continue at Morven at 4 p.m., with plenty of food, reflection, and fun, leading up to the choral concert.
On Thursday, June 20, The Sebastians will return to Trinity Church Princeton for a program of Baroque favorites, with a selection of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos offered, cheek-by-jowl, with works by Telemann and Vivaldi.
The Juilliard-trained, genre-defying trio Empire Wild will electrify the pavilion with its signature mix of original music, inventive covers, and twists on the classical canon, on Friday, June 21, at 7 p.m.
Finally, on Saturday, June 22, at 7 p.m., Tony Award winning Santino Fontana, star of stage (“Tootsie,” “Cinderella”), film (Disney’s “Frozen”), and television (“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” “The Marvelous Ms. Maisel”), will bring the festival to a lively conclusion with an evening of pops, cabaret, and Broadway, accompanied by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, again under the performance pavilion at Morven.
For additional events, like Yoga in the Garden and the Juneteenth oral history project, as well as information on tickets, parking, and concessions, visit the Princeton Festival website, at princetonsymphony.org/festival.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: “Così fan tutte,” American Repertory Ballet, Empire Wild, and Santino Fontana
Aaron Copland (93) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (132) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (193) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (103) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (147) Mozart (88) Opera (206) Philadelphia Orchestra (89) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (108) Radio (88) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (268) Vaughan Williams (103) WPRB (396) WWFM (881)