Some of the artists that will be featured on tomorrow morning’s “Sweetness and Light,” complete with a couple of Princeton Record Exchange stickers (green price tags) and an Adolphus Hailstork autograph (obtained at the premiere of his Symphony No. 4)! It’s the first of two newly-recorded light music programs for Black History Month. Part 1 of “Black and Light” will air this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, with Part 2 to follow next week. It’s music calculated to charm and to cheer, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
In a career that’s spanned over 60 years, John Williams has had opportunities to score just about every kind of film. Inevitably, these would include several fictionalized accounts of the American presidents. This week on “Picture Perfect,” just in time for Presidents Day, we’ll exercise our executive power and sample music from four of them.
“JFK” (1991) is one of three collaborations between Williams and director Oliver Stone. The film has more to do with conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination than anything to do with his presidency. A controversial feature, no doubt – Walter Cronkite dressed down Roger Ebert after he gave it a positive review – still, a compelling piece of cinema. It certainly inspired an effective score.
Kevin Costner plays New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, Sissy Spacek, his wife, and Gary Oldman, Lee Harvey Oswald. Tommy Lee Jones and Joe Pesci are unforgettable as a pair of outlandish conspirators (if you ever wanted to see Jones painted gold, then this is the movie for you), and Donald Sutherland delivers a virtuoso 16-minute monologue as a government whistleblower who identifies himself only as “X.”
Williams and Stone had previously worked together on “Born on the Fourth of July.” Later, they would reunite for a second presidential collaboration, a character study of Richard Milhous Nixon – in a film called, well, “Nixon” (1995). Anthony Hopkins, as the president, leads another impressive cast, which includes Joan Allen, Powers Boothe, Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins, E.G. Marshall, David Hyde Pierce, Paul Sorvino, Mary Steenburgen, and James Woods.
Williams also wrote the music for Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad” (1997). The film, about a mutiny on a slave ship in 1839 and the resulting courtroom drama, features two American presidents: Nigel Hawthorne plays Martin van Buren, the sitting president; and again, Anthony Hopkins appears, in a memorable supporting turn, as aging former president John Quincy Adams. Adams argues the defense of the Africans who took part in the mutiny.
Finally, Daniel Day-Lewis plays the nation’s 16th president, in Spielberg’s “Lincoln” (2012). He’s lent strong support by Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Steward, and Tommy Lee Jones, this time as Thaddeus Stevens.
It’s a bold assessment, but Day-Lewis elevates “Lincoln,” the film, to greatness, with arguably one of the most amazing performances in cinematic history. Day-Lewis’ gentle but shrewd Man of Destiny would go to any lengths to hold the country together. Williams taps into America’s proud musical heritage, clearly influenced by Copland and the folksier side of Ives, to create a score of stirring nobility.
I hope you’ll join me, as the presidents take precedence this week 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!
On the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, Roy and I will welcome back actor David Frankham, who has graciously agreed to join us on the occasion of his 98th birthday.
On previous visits, Frankham regaled us with colorful anecdotes about Vincent Price, Walt Disney, Alfred Hitchcock, Barbara Stanwyck, Ernie Kovacs, his guest appearances on “Star Trek” and “The Outer Limits,” and more. His recall is enviable and his joie de vivre, even as he draws nigh to his centenary, is palpable.
As a bonus, we’ll also be joined by filmmaker Ben Wickey, who was on the team of animators responsible for the Academy Award-nominated feature, “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” (2021). Wickey directed Frankham and employs his voice talent in a stop-motion adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The House of the Seven Gables” (2018).
Not coincidentally, there are some Vincent Price tributes in the film. Price, with whom Frankham co-starred in “The Master of the World” (1961) and “Tales of Terror” (1962), appeared in an earlier adaptation of the Hawthorne classic with George Sanders.
The scenes are imaginatively executed and the production design is morbidly fun. If you enjoy the stop-motion films of Tim Burton or the Brothers Quay, you’ll definitely get a kick out of this. I think you’ll agree, it’s 30 minutes well-spent.
Also returning will be Jonathan David Dixon, who voices the role of Mr. Holgrave in the film and who provided its pitch-perfect score.
Bring your questions to the comments section, or simply enjoy the conversation. There with be plenty of gab about the Seven Gables and more, when we welcome David Frankham. Join us as we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., this Friday evening at 7:00 EST!
The most torturous piece of music ever conceived by one of the great composers… IS FOR LOVERS?
Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” has always been popular. Except with me. I hate it, and I’ve never been afraid to say so. It’s easily the most maddening piece by a composer I love. Perfect background for housecleaning, perhaps – especially when drowned out by the vacuum – but to my knowledge, it was never associated with any kind of eroticism until Blake Edwards and Bo Derek gave it a shot in the arm with “10” (1979). The spike in record sales precipitated by its use in the hit movie generated an estimated one million dollars in royalties and made Ravel the best-selling classical music composer, 40 years after his death. Another 40 years later, and it’s been calculated that “Bolero” is performed somewhere in the world once every 15 minutes.
Clearly, “Bolero” is worth big bucks, and although it’s slipped into the public domain in many areas of the world – including for the moment in France – there have been all sorts of legal sleights of hand in order to attempt to extend its copyright. EU copyright holds that a work is protected for 70 years after the death of its creator. Ravel died in 1937. However, in France, an additional 8 years and 120 days are added for musical works that may have suffered from the effects of World War II. In the case of “Bolero,” once that option was exhausted, its copyright holder played the co-author card, alleging that since the work was originally co-conceived as a ballet, credit for its creation should be shared by its choreographer, Bronislava Nijinska, and its scenarist, Alexandre Benois. Benois died in 1960. The legal claims were eventually rejected and “Bolero” remained in the public domain.
Parenthetically, Ida Rubinstein, the dancer who actually set the project in motion, also died in 1960. It was she who had asked Ravel to orchestrate six piano pieces from Isaac Albéniz’s “Iberia.” Ravel had already begun work on the assignment when he was informed that the pieces had already been orchestrated, by conductor Enrique Fernández Arbós. Ironically, copyright law prevented any other orchestrations from being made.
Now guess what? As of today, Valentine’s Day, “Bolero” is back in court.
Ravel had no children. On his death, the rights to his music passed to his brother, Édouard. Édouard, also childless, made his hairdresser, Jeanne Taverne, his universal legatee. (I’m not making this up.) When Taverne died, the copyright passed to her husband, Alexandre. Next in line was Georgette Lerga, Taverne’s manicurist (!) and second wife. When Lerca died, she bequeathed her fortune to her daughter, Évelyne Pen de Castel, who now controls 90 percent of Ravel’s copyrights. (SACEM, a company in Monaco owns the remaining 10 percent.)
Here are the opening two paragraphs, in English translation, from an article in today’s Le Figaro, reporting on the latest wrinkle.
“On Wednesday, February 14, a historic trial for classical music enthusiasts begins at the Nanterre court. The beneficiaries of Maurice Ravel, who died in 1937, will fight tooth and nail against Sacem. At stake: the millions of euros in royalties generated by ‘Boléro,’ the composer’s flagship work. Ravel’s rights holders receive their rights through a myriad of overlapping companies, changing names and tax havens.
“Holder of moral rights and sole heir of Maurice Ravel, Évelyne Pen de Castel, caught in the Panama Papers, has a lot to lose. She controls 90% of Ravel’s copyright through the Caconda company. The composer’s publishing rights are held by the Nordice and Redfield companies. Who is behind it? Their lawyer won’t tell us. At the forefront of the fight, we also discover Jean-Manuel Mobillion, known as Jean Manuel de Scarano. With the fortune accumulated thanks to the disco group Santa Esmeralda (“Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”)…”
The rest of the article is paywalled. But you’ll find more here:
Ravel once described “Bolero” as a piece for orchestra without music.
He elaborated, “It constitutes an experiment in a very special and limited direction, and should not be suspected of aiming at achieving anything different from, or anything more than, it actually does achieve. Before its first performance, I issued a warning to the effect that what I had written was a piece lasting seventeen minutes and consisting wholly of ‘orchestral tissue without music’ – of one very long, gradual crescendo. There are no contrasts, and practically no invention except the plan and the manner of execution.”
The piece is like an inexorable automaton that finally blows a gasket.
At its first performance at the Paris Opera on November 20, 1928, over the shouts, stamps, and cheers of the audience, one woman was heard to shout, “Au fou! Au fou!” (“The madman! The madman!”). When Ravel was told, he is said to have replied, “That lady… she understood.”
If the court finds that “Bolero” is indeed a collaborative work, it could return to copyright through at least 2039!
In the United States, it remains protected until January 1, 2025, as it was first published here with a prescribed copyright notice in 1929.
Wring out your dead! Whether it be Maurice Ravel or St. Valentine, there’s gold in them thar hills.
Happy Valentine’s Day à la Maurice Ravel!
On a related note, it was on Valentine’s Day 40 years ago that Torvill and Dean were awarded an Olympic gold medal and became the highest-scoring figure skaters of all time for a single program – with a rating of twelve perfect 6.0s and six 5.9s – for their artistic interpretation of “Bolero.” (The couple went on to achieve an even higher score at the 1984 World Championships.)
For their routine, it was necessary to abridge Ravel’s original piece, which in the composer’s own recording lasts over 16 minutes. They couldn’t get it down to any shorter than 4 minutes and 28 seconds. So a loophole was exploited in which they engaged in 18 seconds of preludial kneeling and swaying to the music, before the clock officially started when their skates touched the ice for their “4 minute, 10 second” routine.
When other couples began to follow suit, either kneeling or lying on the ice, the rules were changed. I suppose otherwise what would be to keep someone from attempting a routine set to Satie’s “Vexations” (which in performance can span anywhere from 14 to 24 hours)?
Mon Dieu!
The Philadelphia Orchestra performs “Bolero”
Ravel conducts (some say it’s really Albert Wolff)
Fat Tuesday! I braved the snows this morning to secure a King Cake – complete with the traditional choking hazard of a tiny plastic baby boy – but I fear this year’s quest for the Holy Grail of Fasnachts has been called due to inclement weather.
If I’ve ever had a wholly satisfying fasnacht since my grandmother died, I don’t recall it. When I was a kid, I’d blow in one day after school, an oblivious whirlwind, to find the air heavy with the scent of freshly-made doughnuts. I never knew when it would happen or understood the significance. All I knew is that I’d come home one afternoon and my grandmother would be serving up heaven from an electric fryer.
A fasnacht – which you’ll also see spelled fastnacht, faschnaut, or faschnacht (and which we always pronounced “fosh-knot”) – is a fried doughnut made on Shrove Tuesday – or Fat Tuesday, if you prefer – the last day before Lent. Traditionally, the making of doughnuts was a way to clear out all the tasties a Christian is not supposed to eat again until Easter. In any case, one could use a good fast after consuming so much fried lard!
Now THOSE were doughnuts. The closest I’ve been able to find out in the real world are Italian zeppoli. Not quite the same, but they share a similar, unhealthy, fried, powdered-sugary goodness. However, zeppoli, like fasnachts, can vary. A light and puffy zeppola would bear little resemblance to my grandmother’s fasnachts, which were always cakey.
I miss those doughnuts. My grandmother was an undistinguished cook, but boy could she make fasnachts.
I would be appalled by some “authentic” Pennsylvania Dutch fasnachts, which look too soft and are served with butter and maple syrup. I need an austere fistful of claggy dough that I can enjoy with a cup of coffee.
At any rate, it’s all doughnuts, alcohol, and orgies today, as tomorrow the streets will be strewn with bottles and bodies for the start of Lent.
For now, indulge in a Classic Ross Amico Carnival/Mardis Gras playlist and laissez les bons temps rouler!
“Mardi Gras” by Edward Joseph Collins
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Prelude and Carnival from “Violanta”
Niccolò Paganini, “Variations on ‘Carnival of Venice’”
Sviatoslav Richter plays Robert Schumann, “Faschingsschwank aus Wien” (“Carnival Jest from Vienna”)
Nelson Freire plays Heitor Villa-Lobos, “Mômoprecóce” (“Carnival of the Brazilian Children”) – hold your nose through the BBC intro
Luiz Bonfá, “Manhã de Carnaval” on a Yamaha Silent Guitar
Igor Stravinsky, “Petrouchka,” set at a Shrovetide fair
