How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.
How best to experience a superlative performance? Sit on your hands. Because it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.
On the anniversary of Frédéric Chopin’s birth (March 1, 1810), Yundi Li plays the Ballade No. 4 in F minor. Too bad about the premature applause. The performance is dramatic, elegant, and altogether something special. If people would only listen…
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll begin the mercurial month of March with an hour of animated music. Tune in for a sampling of the artistry of cartoon luminaries Carl Stalling (Merrie Melodies, Looney Tunes, Silly Symphonies) and Scott Bradley (Tom and Jerry, Droopy Dog, Barney Bear), alongside contributions from perhaps an unexpected source – Dmitri Shostakovich.
Shostakovich was about 27 years-old in 1933, when he was hired by experimental animator Mikhail Tsekhanovsky to supply the manic underscore for “The Priest and His Hired Worker Balda.” Visionary though he was, Tsekhanovsky probably didn’t count on just how manic Shostakovich could be. The composer’s inspiration flowed like water down the Neva, and Tsekhanovsky struggled to keep up, all the while pushing himself to create images worthy of his collaborator.
Then, in 1936, following the debut of the opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” Shostakovich was condemned by the Soviet authorities in an infamous “Muddle Instead of Music” denunciation in Pravda, and the composer decided he had better cool his jets. The potentially inflammatory Symphony No. 4 went into a drawer, and he halted work on the film, which he had already been involved with, on and off, for nearly three years. When the denunciation came, he was in the process of wholly reorchestrating the existing music, at the studio’s request, for smaller forces.
While the feature would remain unfinished, Tsekhanovsky compiled what he had – some 40 minutes in all – and the work was put into storage at the Lenfilm archives. Unfortunately, nearly all of it would be destroyed by fire during the Nazi siege of Leningrad in 1941.
Only the bizarre bazaar scene survives. I’m willing to bet this clip will haunt the rest of your day.
We’ll hear selections from Shostakovich’s score, shorn of the nightmare carnival imagery. We’ll also hear music he composed for the 1940 short “The Tale of the Silly Little Mouse.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETGWHc2-ziI
The hour will conclude with excerpts from Disney’s groundbreaking “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” featuring songs by Frank Churchill & Larry Morley and underscore by Paul J. Smith and Leigh Harline.
Aaa-OOOGAH!! That’s an hour of music from the golden age of animation on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EST)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)
Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!
Cuban master Leo Brouwer is 85 today. This week, the Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo performed a recital of his works at Schwob School of Music in Columbus, GA, including several pieces composed specifically for them. You’ll find more information and videos of Newman & Oltman’s commercially-released Brouwer recordings at the first link. Then, at the second, an archived video of the actual concert. Thanks, Laura and Michael, and happy birthday, Leo Brouwer!
Info and recordings:
Brouwer concert:
Anyone else plan to be in attendance when Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Tuba Concerto is performed in Princeton this weekend?
The work will appear on two concerts by the Princeton University Orchestra, on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Wesley Sanders (’26) will be the soloist. Also on the program will be Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto, with Kaivalya Kulkami (’26), and Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, with Daniel Lee (’27). Michael Pratt will conduct.
Looking ahead, there’s more English music in the offing for the spring, when Edward Elgar’s milestone oratorio “The Dream of Gerontius” will be performed on April 19 & 20.
All concerts will be held at Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall on the campus of Princeton University. I last heard the students play “Ein Heldenleben” there last season and was suitably impressed.
View the rehearsal clips on the Princeton University Orchestra Facebook page. Then, for tickets and information, visit music.princeton.edu/events/
PHOTO: Vaughan Williams, looking as miserable as you would imagine, being serenaded by the tuba. The composer wrote the first ever concerto for the instrument in 1954. A late and unusual work, the piece was dedicated to Philip Catelinet, principal tubist of the London Symphony Orchestra. “Glorious John” Barbirolli conducted the premiere. These are the forces heard on the work’s first recording. Give a listen, and I’ll see you at Richardson.
Happy birthday to classical music’s most renowned “leap baby,” Gioachino Rossini, born on this date in 1792. Rossini shared with young Frederic of the “The Pirates of Penzance” the most ingenious paradox of celebrating a birthday every four years. So, despite the fact that 232 years have passed since his natal day, if we go by actual birthday anniversaries, it’s really only been 56.
Rossini’s furiously productive operatic career spanned less than 20 years, in which he amassed 39 lucrative works for the stage. He retired a wealthy man at the age of 37. He spent his last 35 years living the good life and composing when and what he wanted, including the occasional sacred work and a fair amount of salon music – what he wryly termed his “sins of old age.”
I can tell by your furrowed brow that you’re trying to check my math. Before you quibble, you had better have a look at this, posted four years ago, because I’m certainly not going to take the trouble to explain it myself.
Happy birthday, Gioachino Rossini! You may look 232, but your music doesn’t sound a day over 56.
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