Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

The Marx Brothers’ Lost Laughter?

Yesterday, a rainy day in Princeton, I finally got around to rewatching a Marx Brothers documentary I hadn’t seen in decades (“The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell,” 1982), kindly sent to me by a friend over Christmas. Naturally, among the clips were some from “A Night at the Opera,” which got me thinking about all the classical music used as grist for musical interludes and parody in the Marxes’ films – and soberingly, by extension, how far we’ve fallen as a culture that broader audiences today would likely not recognize some of these once indelible melodies.

Toward the end of the documentary, Dick Cavett remarks, prophetically, although perhaps not in the way he had hoped, “50 years from now, will the Marx Brothers be funny? Will the films live? I would have to say, I hope so, and I think so. Because if not, there’s something wrong with the people, not the films.”

At a time when so many are so easily offended at the first whiff of anything subversive (which, I would argue, is a substantial root of humor), and younger people such as my nephews claim never even to have heard of Groucho Marx, I’m not much encouraged to believe in the continued “life” of their films. It’s a source of amazement to me that the Marxes and the Universal monster movies of the 1930s still held such sway over all of us youngsters in the 1970s – 40 years later! I’d go further and say that Groucho Marx was one of my biggest, and perhaps least helpful, influences during my teens in the 1980s.

Hopefully, someday the pendulum will swing again – like Harpo through the painted backdrops of “Il trovatore” – but I can’t say that I think it is likely. How is it that, with everything seemingly spinning out of control, the world has become such an anodyne place? The Marxes were up against the Great Depression and World War II. Maybe a little inappropriate laughter, once in a while, would do us some good.

“I want my shirt” (“The Cocoanuts”)

“Il trovatore” (“A Night at the Opera”)

Earlier “Anvil Chorus” parody at 5:30 (“Animal Crackers”)

Rachmaninoff Prelude in C-sharp minor (“A Day at the Races”)

Harpo fantasy on Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (“A Night in Casablanca”)

Medley of Chico Marx numbers, in which he references the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, the Pizzicato from Leo Delibes’ “Sylvia,” and more.

March 3, 2024
Kapralova & Smyth: Forgotten Female Composers

This week on “The Lost Chord,” the focus will be on outstanding works by two extraordinary female composers, from comparatively early in their respective careers.

Unfortunately, in the case of Vitězslava Kápralová (1915-1940), it was not to be a long one. One of the great hopes of Czech music, Kápralová undoubtedly would be much better known had she not died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. As it stands, her reputation is only beginning to emerge from the shadow of her teacher and lover, Bohuslav Martinu.

Kápralová’s String Quartet was written while she was yet a student at the Prague Conservatory, where her teachers included Vitězslav Novák and Václav Talich. (She studied with Martinu later in Paris.) The work was completed in 1936, when Kápralová was about 21 years-old.

More about Kápralová here, in this article written to mark her centenary in 2015:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/11365848/The-tragedy-of-Europes-great-forgotten-female-composer.html?fbclid=IwAR26f65euwM_lesL-fSWvTids3argkS6dbtmz5P3ruuP9cCYKUsn1F-IXC4

Ethel Smyth (later DAME Ethel Smyth, 1858-1944) was one of the most vocal advocates of the women’s suffrage movement in England. She overcame early opposition to a career in music on the part of her father to receive the praise of George Bernard Shaw, who called her Mass “magnificent.”

However, her works were often better-appreciated abroad. Her operas, in particular, were embraced in Germany. One of them, “Der Wald,” was the only opera by a woman composer mounted by New York’s Metropolitan opera for over a century!

Smyth served time in prison for putting out the windows of politicians who opposed a woman’s right to vote. She also wrote for the cause “The March of the Women.” When Sir Thomas Beecham went to visit her in jail, he witnessed her conducting through the bars of her window with a toothbrush as her associates gathered for exercise in the courtyard.

Smyth’s “Serenade in D” – a symphony in all but name – was her first orchestral score, composed in 1890, when she was about 32 years-old. In my opinion, it’s better than just about anything composed by her contemporary, Sir Hubert Parry, and much more compelling than the symphonies of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.

More about Smyth here, in this piece put together in connection with a revival of her opera, “The Wreckers,” by the great Leon Botstein:

https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2015/07/23/410033088/one-feisty-victorian-womans-opera-revived?fbclid=IwAR0XG4Np46RjSJWuUIYwENZ9zFIdkoQYGL7vncYT7i5qFK5_sREFzI56gKw

I hope you’ll join me for music by these two extraordinary women. That’s “A Woman’s Place is in the Concert Hall” on “The Lost Chord,” 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!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

Vitězslava Kápralová honored on a postage stamp; Ethel Smyth taken into custody

March 2, 2024
Smetana’s Sweetness Light for 200th Anniversary

Sadly, even by “great composers” standards, Bedřich Smetana didn’t get to enjoy much in the way of sweetness or light. On the contrary, he suffered much tragedy and turbulence in his life – untimely deaths of family and friends, political instability, an unhappy second marriage, chronic illness, deafness, madness, and his own early demise at the age of 60.

But he is celebrated as the founder of a Czech national school in music, the composer of abundant characteristic dances and other folk-inflected pieces. So for the 200th anniversary of his birth, on March 2, 1824, we’ll honor these aspects of his legacy with an hour of his “lighter” works.

Of course, not all of Smetana’s music can characterized as sweet OR light. He was an admirer and acolyte of Franz Liszt, and there is often a substantial Wagnerian influence, in some of his operas, especially. Some of the Czech dances we’ll enjoy wed Bohemian folk tradition with knuckle-busting keyboard Romanticism. And of the operas, we have but one very brief selection, the famous polka from “The Bartered Bride” – however taken from a complete recording of the work, so we’ll get to experience it from a fresh perspective, with the rarely-heard chorus.

Interestingly, the surname Smetana is also the word for a kind of cream, frequently of the sour variety, or perhaps a crème fraîche. I assure you, the emphasis this week will be on “Sweet Cream,” for the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

It will be tragedy tomorrow, comedy today, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Enjoy it, wherever you are, here:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

IMAGE: Bedřich Smetana, babe-magnet

March 2, 2024
Chopin Yundi Li and Premature Applause

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…

March 1, 2024
Animated Music Shostakovich Disney Picture Perfect

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!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

March 1, 2024

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