Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Warren Benson A Centennial Celebration

Bang the drum for Warren Benson. Benson was born in Detroit 100 years ago today.

At 14, he was playing timpani in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, working with conductors such as Eugene Ormandy, Fritz Reiner, Eugene Goossens, and Leonard Bernstein while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan.

He taught in Greece for two years, establishing a bi-lingual music curriculum and organizing the Anatolia College Chorale, the first scholastic co-educational choir in the country. For 14 years, he taught at Ithaca College, organizing the first touring percussion ensemble in the eastern United States. From there, he joined the faculty at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.

Benson composed over 100 works. He was especially well-regarded for his song cycles and music for percussion and winds. His most celebrated piece has been “The Leaves Are Falling,” written in the aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The piece was inspired by the poem “Herbst” (“Autumn”) by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Benson died in 2005. Donald Hunsberger, an associate at Eastman, included “The Leaves Are Falling” on a list of essential works for wind ensemble.

“The Leaves Are Falling”

Benson discusses it:

https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/2302eea8/files/uploaded/discussion_w_benson.pdf

“HERBST” (“AUTUMN”) BY RAINER MARIA RILKE

Die Blätter fallen, fallen wie von weit,
als welkten in den Himmeln ferne Gärten;
sie fallen mit verneinender Gebärde.

Und in den Nächten fällt die schwere Erde
aus allen Sternen in die Einsamkeit.

Wir alle fallen. Diese Hand da fällt.
Und sieh dir andre an: es ist in allen.

Und doch ist Einer, welcher dieses Fallen
unendlich sanft in seinen Händen hält.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY DONALD MACE WILLIAMS:

Leaves fall, they fall as from a distant place,
as if far gardens withered in the skies;
they fall with a denying attitude.

And in the nighttimes falls the heavy world
out of all stars into the solitude.

We all are falling. Falling, here, this hand.
And look at others: it is in them all.

Yet there exists One who all of this falling
forever softly holds within his hands.

January 26, 2024
Himalayan Adventures in Classic Film Scores

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we journey through the awe-inspiring landscapes of India and Tibet, even as we feel our way to the inner realms of spirit and psyche, with an hour of Himalayan adventures.

The Himalayas, in film, have frequently been the source of enlightenment; though occasionally their overwhelming influence has also led to madness. Intriguingly, the latter is the case in the Powell-Pressburger classic, “Black Narcissus” (1947). Psychological and emotional tensions abound in this tale of repressed nuns struggling to maintain their composure in a voluptuous Himalayan valley.

The stunning cinematography was by Jack Cardiff, and Brian Easdale (of “The Red Shoes” fame) wrote the music. Incredibly, the entire film was shot in England, mostly at Pinewood Studios. From a purely visual standpoint, “Black Narcissus” must be one of the most beautiful films ever made. It’s also one of the craziest, with unlikely object-of-desire Mr. Dean driving the sisters to the brink.

The Himalayas also form the backdrop to “Seven Years in Tibet” (1997), based on a memoir of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer. Harrer escapes from a British internment camp in India during the Second World War. He travels across Tibet to its capital, Lhasa, where he eventually becomes the tutor of the 14th Dalai Lama. In the film, Brad Pitt plays Harrer. John Williams wrote the music, and Yo-Yo Ma performs the cello solos.

“The Razor’s Edge” (1946) tells the story of a traumatized World War I veteran, who sets off in search of some kind of transcendent meaning to his existence. He finds it in India, at a Himalayan monastery. The 1946 adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel (which he claimed was thinly-veiled fact) features Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, and Ann Baxter. The music is by Alfred Newman, who will conduct a selection from his score.

Finally, we’ll hear a suite from the Frank Capra classic, “Lost Horizon” (1937). Based on the book by James Hilton, the film stars Ronald Colman and an outstanding supporting cast, including Jane Wyatt, Thomas Mitchell, Edward Everett Horton, H.B. Warner, and Sam Jaffe. The novel, and the film, brought the term “Shangri-La” into popular usage, a Utopian paradise hidden in a secluded Himalayan valley, a place of ageless beauty and serenity.

“Lost Horizon” provided composer Dimitri Tiomkin (a pupil of Alexander Glazunov) with his first major project. The result is one of his most colorful scores. The recording is one of the gems of RCA’s Classic Film Scores series, originally issued in the early 1970s. Made in the presence of the composer, it features 157 performers, with the chorus standing on a platform behind the conductor, Charles Gerhardt, and the various percussionists stationed in the encircling balcony.

I can’t guarantee that you’ll find enlightenment, but there will be plenty to awe and inspire in these Himalayan adventures, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station on 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/

January 26, 2024
Coma 1978 A Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Rant

Last week, Roy and I enjoyed a digression-filled discussion about Michael Crichton’s “Runaway” (1984), which starred Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons and was full of speculative tech we now take for granted. I guess this put Roy on the scent of “Coma” (1978), Crichton’s adaptation of the novel by Robin Cook, as it’s our topic for the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.

This post-Watergate hospital thriller scores points for reflecting the nation’s growing distrust of institutions and the observation that medical care has become big business. But oh, what a great film it would have been had it been directed by Alfred Hitchcock (with Judith Anderson in Elizabeth Ashley’s role)!

But everyone does a good job with what they’re given: Genevieve Bujold is a resourceful heroine, again reflective of the times – plucky and determined and alternately dismissed as hysterical or uppity by the men, even boyfriend Michael Douglas, who are clearly troubled by this “new woman.” She doesn’t want to be called “honey,” so everyone keeps telling her to relax or sending her to therapy. Of course, you know in the end it’s going to be Douglas who’s going to get credit for blowing the lid off the conspiracy. It’s what he does. (Think “The China Syndrome.”)

Rip Torn is reliably menacing (after all, this is the guy who hit Norman Mailer in the head with a hammer) and Richard Widmark is given a good role for an actor who broke into Hollywood playing sociopaths in the 1940s. Look fast for Lois Chiles, Tom Selleck, and Ed Harris (as Pathology Resident #2).

We’ll be raging against the machine, if we don’t go comatose, on the next “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.” Brace yourselves to be ripped and torn in the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., this Friday evening at 7:00 EST!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

Here’s a link to last week’s show. Every once in a while, we even talk about the movie!

January 25, 2024
GPYO Concert Princeton Music Scene

There was an awful lot to absorb and distill about Greater Princeton Youth Orchestra, which moved into its new digs on Westminster Choir College campus this past summer. Witness my struggle with information overload and learn more about the orchestra’s founder Matteo Giammario, Princeton’s protean Portia Sonnenfeld, and the history of Westminster Choir, among other things, in my whirlwind cover story in this week’s U.S. 1, out today.

https://www.communitynews.org/princetoninfo/eeditions/page-page-12/page_bf0f7eab-87ed-5a3c-aca2-e131ea201331.html

GPYO musicians will perform music by Rossini, Fauré, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, and Andrew Lloyd Webber on a concert to be held at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on Saturday, February 3, at 7 p.m.

January 24, 2024
John Williams’ 54th Oscar Nomination

This year’s Academy Awards nominees were announced this morning, and sure enough, John Williams has earned yet another nod, for his score to “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” Going into today, Williams was the most-nominated person alive. Now he’s even MORE the most-nominated (with the tally at 54). He also happens to be the second most-nominated person in Oscar history, after only Walt Disney (at 59).

The other nominees in the category of Best Original Score are Laura Karpman (“American Fiction”), Robbie Robertson (“Killers of the Flower Man”), Ludwig Göransson (“Oppenheimer”), and Jerskin Fenrix (“Poor Things”).

There’s a good possibility that whatever wins will do so for more than purely musical considerations. But that seems to be how it’s been for many years. The score for “Oppenheimer” is ludicrously overbearing.

In any case, it’s nice to see Williams handed another feather for his nest, even though his latest Indiana Jones music will not win. Or at least I hope it won’t. The film itself was godawful, and Disney has done all it can to be sure that your average consumer can’t get a hold of a physical copy of the soundtrack. A limited edition CD was made available for pre-order months in advance of the film’s release. If you didn’t know about it, you were welcome to spend hundreds of dollars for it on the collector’s market.

Merciful Disney has since decided to give everyone a second chance and make it available again as part of an expensive box set of all the Indiana Jones scores, duplicating the content of the previously-released soundtracks for all the other films. Thanks for nothing.

Williams should have automatically won for just about every year from at least 1975 to 1982. Nevertheless, he has been the recipient of five Oscars, for “Fiddler on the Roof” (adaptation of the stage musical by Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick), “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” and “Schindler’s List.” The last bestowed was in 1994.

It would be nice for him to get an honorary Oscar at some point – he’ll be 92 next month – but it wouldn’t be televised anyway, and Williams is doing just fine. Oscar needs John Williams more than John Williams needs him.

January 23, 2024

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