Any opportunity to spend time with Aaron Copland is always a pleasure. Here’s a 28-minute interview I had not seen before, conducted by James Day in 1973. The subject at about 23 minutes in is particularly prescient and gives one pause when one considers this conversation took place 50 years ago!
JAMES DAY: It’s interesting that while we’re developing this new, highly-challenging idiom, which does require attention, concentration, a real depth of interest, we’ve also developed electronic mechanisms to feed music into our ears 24 hours a day. Where primitive man perhaps had to listen to stay alive, modern man almost has to non-listen, stop listen, unlisten, I don’t know what the word is. This must affect the performance of music, if we are being conditioned not to give our full attention.
COPLAND: Yes, I regret that very much. I wish that when people are not in the mood to listen to music that they would turn the darn thing off, because that kind of casual bathing in musical sounds without listening to it, that’s not at all the composer’s idea. If you want to really listen to what he has to say, listen. Otherwise, forget it. Don’t just let it on there like wallpaper on a wall that just is around you because it kind of makes a pleasant sound.
If Copland had lived into the age of YouTube, Spotify, and earbuds, his head would have exploded.
I hadn’t intended to watch the full interview over breakfast, but I found it most enjoyable. Not a lot new, perhaps, for Copland enthusiasts, but always worthwhile. The full conversation is available here:
Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” was released into theaters for the first time on this date in 1940.
Giddy with the success of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937), which became a surprise hit – the highest grossing feature up to that time (soon to be supplanted by “Gone with the Wind”) – and hoping to reinvigorate the popularity of house brand Mickey Mouse, Disney spared no expense in the creation of this bold, beautiful, mind-bending, slightly pretentious, occasionally kitschy experimental enterprise, engaging Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra to record the film’s soundtrack and, on its initial run, displaying it in special road show productions, featuring souped-up, “Fantasound” surround audio. This was the first feature film to be released in stereo. It ran in one venue in New York for a solid year. At a point, Disney even toyed with the idea of pumping different scents into the theater, but he must have realized it was all becoming a little too Scriabinesque.
Eventually reality caught up. “Fantasia” was a money-loser from the start. The war in Europe cut off any possibility of overseas revenue, and it became apparent that the film would have to be reissued, with cuts, in standard format, in regular theaters, if the studio hoped to make any of its money back. As it was, it didn’t turn a profit until 1969. I suspect it was the same crowd that was buzzing to “2001: A Space Odyssey” that finally pushed “Fantasia” into the black. Adjusting for inflation, it is now the 24th highest-grossing film in the United States. There aren’t any studios, and very few classical record companies, that would make that kind of investment in the future anymore.
I venture to guess most people who were lucky enough to see “Fantasia” in the cinema, back in the days before home video brought an end to its regular theatrical reissues, were charmed to see Stokowski shake hands with Mickey Mouse. Even so, this is the moment that became seared into many an impressionable memory. And I know I loved it.
Apologies for posting it in two parts, but “Fantasia” was reissued and “restored” a number of times over the years. This one I know sports Stoky’s original audio.
The soundtrack also features Princeton’s Westminster Choir (heard at the end of the second clip, cut off during the segue into Schubert’s “Ave Maria”).
There’s also at least one discarded sequence from the film that was completed, but then cut to keep the length down. It involved cranes and Debussy’s “Clair de lune.”
You may be aware, it was Disney’s original vision to swap out sequences with new material every few years. However, this was not done until 1999, with the release of “Fantasia 2000.” Regardless of what you may think of that film, with its gallery of celebrity talking heads and James Levine stepping into Leopold Stokowski’s extra-large shoes, it lacks the resonance of the 1940 original. In any case, the project having gone stagnant for six decades, I have a hard time accepting the new stuff as canon! That said, I’m thankful for anything that introduces people to classical music.
Glancing at the reissue schedule, I must have seen “Fantasia” for the first time in April 1977. I would have been ten years-old, and as I suggest, Chernabog coming out of that mountain floored me. I would have assumed that I was younger, but then I was a sensitive child. The last time I saw “Fantasia” in the theater must have been 1990.
When is the last time Disney rolled the dice on a project like this? It’s sad that the studio that gave us “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Treasure Island,” “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” and “Mary Poppins” has turned into such a pop cultural meat grinder. Now the owner of Marvel, Lucasfilm, the Jim Henson Company, and 20th Century Fox (among others), Disney is more powerful than ever. And still, it keeps feeding off the bottom of the tank. These days, I find reality far more disturbing than a demon on Bald Mountain.
The connection between music and science has been much remarked upon. In the case of Alexander Borodin, he was a doctor and chemist.
Borodin was born on this date in 1833. As a boy he had had piano lessons, but he received his formal education at the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. He then served as a surgeon in a military hospital before undertaking three years of advanced scientific study in Western Europe.
In 1862, he returned to his alma mater to teach. There, he managed to establish courses for women. In 1872, he founded a school of medicine for women. He devoted the remainder of his scientific career to research. He is co-credited with the discovery of the aldol reaction, a means of forming carbon-carbon bonds in organic chemistry.
Around the time of his return to the Academy, he met Mily Balakirev, the persuasive advocate of Russian nationalism in music, who took the chemist under his wing and supervised the composition of his Symphony No. 1. Borodin began work on his Symphony No. 2 in 1869. Since regarded as a particularly successful blend of Slavic drama and lyricism with European classical form, it was not a particular success at its premiere in 1877.
Borodin became sidetracked while working on the piece by his absorption in an opera on the subject of Prince Igor. This was to become his most significant musical contribution and one of the most important Russian historical operas. Because of his other commitments and repeated distractions, the work was left unfinished at the time of his death. It was completed by his friends and colleagues, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov.
The big show-stopper, of course, is his “Polovtsian Dances,” which has been used to sell everything from records to cleanser.
Borodin was yet another beneficiary of the exceeding generosity of Franz Liszt, whose contributions in this regard are not widely enough acknowledged. It was Liszt’s advocacy as a conductor that brought Borodin to the attention of European audiences. In gratitude, the composer dedicated “In the Steppes of Central Asia” to Liszt in 1880.
Borodin was also embraced by the French Impressionists, who admired his unusual harmonies. Of course, he achieved even greater renown when melodies from his works became the basis for the musical “Kismet” in 1953. In 1954, he was honored with a posthumous Tony Award!
Since for Borodin music was basically an avocation, something to which he devoted himself mostly during holidays or when he was otherwise unable to report to work, it became a running gag among his friends that they’d wish him poor health.
“In winter I can only compose when I am too unwell to give my lectures,” he wrote. “So my friends, reversing the usual custom, never say to me, ‘I hope you are well’ but ‘I do hope you are ill.’”
He had plenty of experience with illness. The composer survived cholera and suffered several heart attacks. He finally dropped dead during a ball at the Academy in 1887.
I’m probably the last person on the internet to congratulate John Williams for his latest Grammy nominations. It was announced on Friday that Williams received three nominations for the excellence of his work over the past year – in the categories of Best Score Soundtrack for “The Fabelmans” and Best Score Soundtrack and Best Instrumental Composition (“Helena’s Theme”) for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” Too bad the idiots at Disney only pressed something like three copies of the “Indiana Jones” CD (and that the movie was terrible).
This brings Williams’ career total to 76 nominations. He’s won 25 times. Williams’ first Grammy nomination was for “Checkmate,” 61 years ago. He is the fifth most-nominated Grammy artist. But who would be interested in owning a new John Williams’ “Indiana Jones” soundtrack, right? Nice going, Disney.
The Grammys ceremony will be held on February 4. Congratulations, John Williams!
“Helena’s Theme”
“The Fabelmans”
“Checkmate”
PHOTO: Williams at the 60th Grammy Awards, at which he was honored for “Escapades” for alto saxophone and orchestra (a concertino of sorts arranged from his score to “Catch Me If You Can) and a Trustees Award, for “individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording”
Eugene Ormandy was born Jenő Blau in Budapest in 1899. In 1927, he became a naturalized American citizen and wound up directing the Philadelphia Orchestra for 44 years.
In that capacity, he championed much contemporary music and works by his adopted countrymen – a fact eclipsed by his reputation as a superb interpreter of the 19th century classics.
In fact, for many years, much of his American legacy dropped out of print. In the late 1990s, Albany Records attempted to rectify the situation by reissuing some of Ormandy’s recordings of lesser-heard American music. The series only made it to three volumes, but each one of them is a treasure.
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear two selections from these invaluable anthologies. Both are by Pulitzer Prize winners whose music has sadly fallen out of fashion.
William Schuman was the very first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, in 1943, for his “Cantata No. 2, A Free Song.” At the height of his fame, he was also President of Lincoln Center. He was considered such an important figure in American culture, he was even brought on to “What’s My Line?” (Those were the days.)
We’ll hear Schuman’s “Credendum – Article of Faith,” composed in 1955. The work was written in response to the first ever commission by the U.S. government for a symphonic work.
Two years later, the Pulitzer was awarded to Norman Dello Joio, for his “Meditations on Ecclesiastes.” His symphonic suite “Air Power” was adapted from 22 individual scores composed for the CBS television series about the history of aviation. The series ran from November 1956 through the spring of 1957. (Dello Joio would collect his prize in April.) The individual sections were used to underscore segments on the early days of flight, with their barnstormers and daredevils, air battles and war scenes.
I hope you’ll join me for these rarely-heard recordings of American music. Ormandy flies American, on “All-American Ormandy,” 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 the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)
PLEASE NOTE: Ormandy’s recording of Dello Joio’s “Air Power Suite” will be reissued on Friday, November 17, as part of Sony Classical’s impending 88-CD box, “Eugene Ormandy/The Philadelphia Orchestra: The Columbia Stereo Collection.”
Schuman’s “Credendum” was reissued in 2021, as part of Sony’s 120-CD box (all mono), “Eugene Ormandy: The Columbia Legacy.”
