Roy’s got no power. Or is it a trick of Talosian mind control? Either way, tonight’s 200th episode of Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner has been postponed to this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT!
So much for Star Trek Day. Live long and perspire!
(Of course, you can always listen to my circus show on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, tonight at 8:00 EDT, on kwax.uoregon.edu.)
One of Antonín Dvořák’s great joys – when he wasn’t busy trainspotting, that is – was keeping pigeons.
At his summer home in Vysoká, he was pretty relaxed about providing free room and board to whatever winged companion would follow him home. And while he was away, he kept up a correspondence with a local miner to whom he entrusted care of the property. This included the house, the garden, and of course the pigeons. Dvořák’s letters were full of meticulous instructions as to how best to keep his little friends healthy and contented.
Word got out about Dvořák’s enthusiasm. At a concert in England, his wife was asked by a member of the royal family what types of things Dvořák really enjoyed. This resulted in the surprise delivery, back at home, of six braces of English pigeons!
In 1896, Dvořák wrote a series of symphonic poems inspired by the grim fairy tales of Karel Jaromir Erben. These include “The Water Goblin,” “The Noon Witch,” and “The Golden Spinning Wheel.” His opera, “Rusalka,” written a few years later, also bears Erben’s influence.
I imagine his fondness for Columbidae would have made it difficult to pass up “The Wood Dove” (also translated as “The Wild Dove”). The story, from Erben’s collection of poetic ballads, “Kytice,” tells of a woman who poisons her husband and marries another man. Day after day, a dove perches on the husband’s grave and sings a mournful song, until the wife, overcome with guilt, commits suicide by hurling herself into a river.
The premiere of Dvořák’s symphonic poem was given in Brno, on March 20, 1898, under the baton of Leoš Janáček.
Hard to believe that the composer of the Serenade for Strings and the sunny Symphony No. 8 could write these lurid potboilers after Czech fairy tales, and that he could find so much depth and melancholy in simple children’s stories.
Happy birthday, Antonín Dvořák!
Light Dvořák: Symphony No. 8
Dark Dvořák: “The Wood Dove”
Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Children of all ages! May I have your attention, please?
This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s music from movies about the circus!
In 1964, George Pal produced and directed an adaptation of Charles G. Finney’s dark fantasy novel, “The Circus of Dr. Lao.” “7 Faces of Dr. Lao” was envisaged as a real showcase for its star, Tony Randall, who plays not only the mysterious proprietor of an itinerant Old West circus, but also Merlin the Magician, the great god Pan, a Serpent, the fabled monster Medusa, the blind fortune-teller Appolonius of Tyana, and the Abominable Snowman!
The unusual score is by Leigh Harline, who freshens up tropes of the American Western by applying some Eastern spice. We’ll hear selections from the film’s original elements, remastered for the Film Score Monthly label.
We’ll also have music from two Academy Award winners: Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Greatest Show on Earth,” voted Best Picture of 1952, with a score by Victor Young, and Federico Fellini’s “La Strada,” Best Foreign Language Film of 1956, with music by Nino Rota.
Malcom Arnold wrote the music for “Trapeze,” Carol Reed’s 1956 love triangle on high (with Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, and Gina Lollobrigada), and Danny Elfman understands that every day’s a circus for Paul Reubens in “Big Top Pee-Wee,” from 1988. I know you are, but what am I?
Further emphasizing the dark underbelly of the big top, we’ll hear a suite from Hammer Film Productions’ “Vampire Circus,” from 1972, in which all of the attractions, even the panther, are vampires! And you thought clowns were scary. The composer is David Whitaker, of “The Sword and the Sorcerer” cult status.
Step right up! It’s a clown car full of calliopes, as music for the circus takes center ring 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 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 EDT)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)
Stream them here!
Madeleine Dring was born 100 years ago today.
A precocious musician, she entered the junior department of the Royal College of Music on a scholarship at the age of 10. At first, violin was her primary instrument, but she also studied piano. At 14, she began composition lessons. Herbert Howells supervised her senior-level studies. She also took lessons with Ralph Vaughan Williams. She dropped the violin following the death of her teacher W.H. Reed, friend of Elgar. Reed was concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra for 23 years. She continued to study piano with Lilian Gaskell.
Dring was also very fond of the theater. She studied mime, drama, and singing, later combining her enthusiasms by supplying music for stage, radio, and television. Her dance drama, “The Fair Queen of Wu,” was broadcast on BBC TV in the 1950s. She was also involved in several other television productions, as actor and/or composer, for “Waiting for ITMA,” “ITV Television Playhouse,” and ITV Play of the Week.”
In 1947, she married Roger Lord, the London Symphony Orchestra’s principal oboist, and wrote of number of works for him. In general, she eschewed large-scale works in favor of shorter pieces. This allowed her to raise a child, and frankly, with all her interests, she was busy! She did compose a one-act opera, “Cupboard Love.”
Dring died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1977 at the age of 53. Some of her cartoons were included in a book, “Madeleine Dring: Her Music, Her Life,” published in 2000. It was partially funded by her husband to bring more attention to her music.
Dring had a vivacious spirit and brought a lot personality to everything she touched. Once, when asked to supply some biographical information for a program note, she jotted, “Madeleine Dring was born on the moon and can therefore claim to be a pure-bred lunatic. Arriving on a speck of cosmic dust she came face to face with the human race and has never really recovered.”
Happy birthday, Madeleine Dring!
Trio for Flute, Oboe and Piano
7 Shakespeare Songs: Take, O Take Those Lips Away
Italian Dance
Toccata
Caribbean Dance
In space, no one can hear you scream. Oh, wait a minute. That’s August.
Following a month’s silence, during which Roy and I went our separate ways to pursue our personal passions, or at any rate family obligations, we’ll be back to direct our screams at one another for our 200th EPISODE. What better way to celebrate “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner” than with a spirited discussion of “Star Trek?”
The point of departure will be the classic two-part episode “The Menagerie” (1966). Our special guest will be Chris Hunter, son of “King of Kings” Jeffrey Hunter, who plays Captain Christopher Pike in the “flashback” sequences – actually scenes from the original series’ unaired pilot, ingeniously interpolated.
That’s right, this is the mind-reeling episode in which we watch the cast of “Star Trek” watching an episode of “Star Trek.” You have to admire Gene Roddenberry’s chutzpah. Actually, it’s said that the “gimmick” of reusing footage from “The Cage” was formulated so that the series could keep up with an accelerated production schedule.
But I don’t want to talk it out! Tune in tomorrow, when the floodgates will be opened.
For now, scream it from the rooftops! Join us in celebrating our first 200 YEARS! I mean 200 episodes. Our veins will be standing out on our heads like a couple of Talosians on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Flash once for “yes” and twice for “no” in the comments section, as we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT!
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