Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

WWFM Quits & My Shows Find New Home on KWAX

The official line is that, as of the end of April, my weekly shows, “Picture Perfect” and “The Lost Chord” have “sunsetted” on WWFM. I’ve got documentation to the effect and announcements were made over the air. So going forward, whatever the station decides to do in terms of maintaining the illusion of my continued employment there, up to and including rebroadcasts of any of my recorded material, don’t you believe it. Barring extraordinary measures on the part of management – beginning with a little basic human kindness and ending with actually paying me again, for a change – after 28 years, WWFM and I are quits.

That said, the shows are syndicated, and I am in the process of taking over distribution from home, with the production of all-new programs. Which is great, because my hands have been tied since the pandemic broke across New Jersey in March 2020 and all part-time employees were barred from entering the WWFM studios. For over three years.

For now, I enthusiastically endorse listening to the shows on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon. They’ve got a friendly and knowledgeable crew out there, overseen by the benevolent Peter Van de Graaff, whose Beethoven Satellite Network was also dropped from WWFM some time ago, in favor of the blathering hosts and bleeding chunks of music (up to ten fragments an hour) from Classical 24, an inferior service out of Minnesota, now ladled out by WWFM for 20 hours or more of its broadcast day.

KWAX is classical radio the way it used to be, with complete symphonies and concertos, chamber and instrumental music, and choral and vocal works, presented in a respectful, intelligent, and entertaining context. What’s more, Peter is on the air much of the time, as weekday morning host (in addition, his Beethoven Satellite Network runs overnight), and since the station is on the West Coast, everything is three hours behind Trenton-Princeton, so he doesn’t go off until 3:00 in the afternoon EDT! I’m in paradise. I think you will be too.

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

To emphasize my sense of liberation, this week on “Picture Perfect,” I’ll be shaking the dust off my boots with an hour of music about prison breaks.

Indomitable Steve McQueen does hard time on Devil’s Island in “Papillon” (Jerry Goldsmith); Paul Newman sticks it to The Man in “Cool Hand Luke” (Lalo Schifrin); Tim Robbins makes good use of a Rita Hayworth poster in “The Shawshank Redemption” (Thomas Newman); and an all-star cast, led by a barbed-wire hopping McQueen, flee their Nazi captors in “The Great Escape” (Elmer Bernstein).

Let’s face it, nobody looks good in orange. Grab a shank and a file, and get yourself free. We’re bustin’ out of the joint, THIS FRIDAY AT 5:00 P.M. PACIFIC TIME (which translates to 8:00 PM EDT, a good time for listening on the East Coast) on KWAX.

Here’s the schedule at a glance. Clip it and keep it in your wallet!

PICTURE PERFECT – Fridays on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)

THE LOST CHORD – Saturdays on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)

Stream them here:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PHOTO: Gazing deeply into my backside, as I tunnel out of a bad situation

May 12, 2023
Raritan River Music Festival: May Concerts

The Raritan River Music festival will continue this weekend, with its second concert (of four) held in historic venues in West-Central New Jersey throughout the month of May.

Festival directors Michael Newman and Laura Oltman of the Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo will join the Bergamot Quartet on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Stanton Reformed Church for “Laments & Dances: Music from the Folk Traditions.”

The musicians will celebrate Philadelphia-born composer Arnold Black, who would have been 100 this year. Black, who was afflicted with cerebral palsy, nonetheless earned degrees for violin and composition from the Juilliard School and went on to perform with the NBC Symphony and as assistant concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony and National Symphony Orchestras.

As a composer, he provided music for the play “Ulysses in Nighttown,” starring Zero Mostel, and the film “Illuminata,” directed by John Torturro. For television, he scored segments for “3-2-1 Contact,” orchestrated Schubert for the Nickelodeon series “Little Bear,” and worked on the animated specials “Simple Gifts” and “A Soldier’s Tale” for R. O. Blechman.

Black’s “Laments & Dances,” based on melodies by the 17th century blind Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan, will be performed on Saturday. If you take a fancy to it, Newman & Oltman made a recording of it, which is available on the Musical Heritage Society label. Also on the program will be new works inspired by traditional music as interpreted by Ledah Finck (Irish), Anna Roberts Gevalt (Appalachian), and Princeton’s own Dan Trueman (Norwegian).

Black’s influence will continue to loom large over the remaining concerts in the series, as he also helped found western Massachusetts’ Mohawk Trail Concerts in 1970. Next week, on May 20 at 7:30 p.m., the Mohawk Trail Piano Trio will perform works by Anton Arensky and Florence Price. That concert will be held at Old Greenwich Presbyterian Church in Stewartsville.

Finally, Black’s chamber work, “Serenade for the Grand Canyon,” will be included as part of a celebratory concert inspired by the long-running Grand Canyon Music Festival. GCMF founders, flutist Clare Hofmann and harmonica virtuoso Robert Bonfiglio, will be joined by electric violist/composer Martha Mooke and the Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo.

The program will also feature “Fairy Fantasy,” a new work commissioned by Raritan River Music from venerable Cuban composer Leo Brouwer; and a new piece by Diné-American composer Raven Chacon, recipient of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Music. That concert will take place on May 27 at 7:30 p.m. at Bethlehem Presbyterian Church in Pittstown.

Last Saturday’s concert of the Four Nations Ensemble performing music by François Couperin and friends at Clinton Presbyterian Church is now posted on YouTube, for your enjoyment, at the link.

For more information about Raritan River Music concerts, visit raritanrivermusic.org.

PHOTOS (counter-clockwise from top): the Bergamot Quartet, Arnold Black, and the Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo

May 11, 2023
William Grant Still: A Long-Awaited Revival

Can it be that William Grant Still’s time has finally come?

Whereas in the past, I would be lucky ever to encounter his works outside of recordings, within the last few months, I was able to hear “Ennanga,” for piano, harp and strings, with the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, the Symphony No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic, and the “Afro-American Symphony” (the Symphony No. 1) with the New Jersey Symphony.

In October, on its first subscription concert of the 2023-24 season, The Philadelphia Orchestra will perform the Symphony No. 4. The New Jersey Symphony will open its season with Still’s “Out of the Silence.” And how appropriate that title has turned out to be.

Still is on the move. And it’s about time.

The “Afro-American Symphony” is one of my favorite American symphonies ever. And it’s been so for decades. I’ve been in love with it ever since I first heard it on record nearly 40 years ago. It’s poetic, nostalgic, celebratory, genuinely reflective, beautiful, and brimming with great tunes. It’s congenial, and in the end quite moving. Not to take anything away from the noisy wartime symphonies of Copland, Harris, Schuman, and the rest, but surely there’s room in the pantheon for other points of view.

Any discussion of Still must include a litany of “firsts.” His “Afro-American Symphony” was the first written by a black composer to be performed by a professional orchestra (the Rochester Philharmonic in 1931). He was the first black composer to be given the opportunity to conduct a major orchestra (the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 1936). His opera, “Troubled Island,” became the first to be produced by a major company (the New York City Opera in 1949). Another of his operas, “A Bayou Legend,” was the first to be performed on national television (as late as 1981). His works were performed internationally by the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, and the Tokyo Philharmonic.

Yet in nearly 40 years of attending concerts, until recently, the only times I ever encountered Still “live” were when the Westminster Community Orchestra played “Wood Notes,” in 2015, and the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra performed the Symphony No. 4, on a program with Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 1, in 2019. Both were before the death of George Floyd spurred arts organizations to get with it, already. So bravo, local orchestras!

Otherwise, all of my familiarity with Still’s work has been gleaned from recordings.

Price, in particular – the first black woman to have her music played by a major orchestra (the Chicago Symphony in 1933) – is undergoing quite a revival. It’s too bad neither she nor Still are around to see it. It’s not a matter of skin color that makes the music worthwhile, but unfortunately, it has been the case that because of it, their music was perhaps not always taken as seriously as it might have been.

We are now in the enviable position to be able to address some of the injustices of the past, in resurrecting this music, giving it the exposure it deserves, and allowing posterity to sort it out. Just because music is not played doesn’t always mean it is not worthwhile. A lot of very talented, very qualified people are finally getting their chance to be heard.

And you don’t have to be a minority to reap the rewards.

Happy birthday, William Grant Still.

PHOTO: In living color – my heart be Still!

May 11, 2023
Max Steiner & Dimitri Tiomkin Birthday Film Scores

May 10th is bursting with birthday energy! Turn down the lights for a celebration of those two silverbacks of the silver screen, Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin.

Steiner (1888-1971), the literal godson of Richard Strauss, was instrumental in transplanting the sound of fin de siècle Vienna to the realm of cinematic dreams. He composed over 300 film scores for RKO and Warner Brothers, earning 24 Academy Award nominations and winning three – for “The Informer,” “Now, Voyager” and “Since You Went Away” – though he is unquestionably better remembered today for his work on “King Kong,” “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca.”

Tiomkin (1894-1979), a pupil of Alexander Glazunov, was born in Ukraine. He settled in the United States, where he composed music for films in all genres, though in the 1950s he enjoyed particular success writing for Westerns, including the Academy Award-winning “High Noon.” When asked why this would be the case, that a composer born halfway around the world would have such a command of this distinctly American idiom, Tiomkin replied, “A steppe is a steppe is a steppe.”

Tiomkin was honored with four Academy Awards – three for Best Original Score (for “High Noon,” “The High and the Mighty” and “The Old Man and the Sea”) and one for Best Original Song (“The Ballad of High Noon”).

Here’s a transcript of his acceptance speech, delivered after being handed the Oscar for “The High and the Mighty” in 1955:

“Lady and gentlemen, because I working in this town for twenty-five years, I like to make some kind of appreciation to very important factor what make me successful to lots of my colleagues in this town. I’d like to thank Johannes Brahms, Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov. Thank you.”

You can watch it here:

Though Steiner and Tiomkin were both very well-connected in the wider musical world, comparatively speaking, neither left very much in the way of classical concert music. In 2019, Intrada Records put out a diverting 2-CD set of Tiomkin’s brightly-scored ballet music, dances composed in Paris for his wife, Albertina Rasch, in 1927-1932, prior to his work in film. It would be wonderful for afternoon drive-time – if only I had a live air shift! You can sample some of it by following the link. Already detectable is Tiomkin’s trademark snarling brass, in a number titled “Mars” (the second track in this YouTube playlist):

In 2020, Oxford University Press published a book by Steven C. Smith, “Music by Max Steiner: The Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer.” Read my impressions of this authoritative biography, unbelievably the first full-length treatment of Steiner’s life and achievements, here. Then get yourself a copy!

Also in 2020, while I was twiddling my thumbs, waiting to get back to work, I put together a Steiner-Tiomkin crossword puzzle. The clues not only allude to specifics of their respective lives and careers, but they should also be of ample interest, I hope, to classic movie buffs. So even if you’re convinced you don’t know a lot about music, do check it out if, like me, you happen to watch a lot of movies from the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s.

To fill out the puzzle, follow the link and select “solve online” at the bottom of the page. You’ll then be able to type directly into the squares. Once you feel you’ve exhausted the puzzle, you’ll find the solutions by clicking on “Answer Key PDF.”

https://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2020.05/1007/10071219.977.html?fbclid=IwAR1pIAkaVZccK4LXQ5yTMtwJ7kzNlQeOPjgyn3Fkx4X4NcAvd1Cxp52iahw

Happy birthday to Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin, two composers who enriched generations of movie lovers by keeping it “reel!”

Steiner’s “Now, Voyager”

Tiomkin’s “Land of the Pharaohs”

A great, two-part interview with Steiner:

Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQuNnzH6_g8
Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmJLTn_6UOY

The official Dimitri Tiomkin website:

Welcome to DimitriTiomkin.com

PHOTOS (counter-clockwise from top): Screen credits for their work on “Lost Horizon” (1937); Steiner conducting; Frank Capra (in coat) with Steiner and Tiomkin on the podium; Tiomkin composing

May 10, 2023
Milton Babbitt Beyond the Monster Myth

The headline read “Who Cares if You Listen?” And the notoriety was instant and long-lasting.

All at once, Milton Babbitt was a musical monster.

Babbitt, a staple at Princeton University for many years, was born in Philadelphia on this date in 1916. He received lasting blowback from angry villagers wielding torches and pitchforks for an essay he wrote for High Fidelity magazine, which bore the title stated above.

Unfortunately, the headline wasn’t Babbitt’s. It was actually an editorial decision. Babbitt’s original title had been “The Composer as Specialist” – not nearly as eye-catching or provocative. Today, we might describe it as clickbait. But it stuck like Karloff’s neck-bolts, as both a source of animation and a signal of abnormality, branding him in the eyes of the superstitious rabble as an outcast to be feared.

Also, it is kind of arrogant.

While it’s true that Babbitt frequently composed in a serial style, which might be off-putting to some coming to it for the first time, his music is often fairly lucid, without undo congestion and with a minimum of soul-crushing dissonances. On the contrary, he often achieved a paradoxical simplicity under the guise of complexity.

In the 1960s, Babbitt became interested in electronic music, apparently for its rhythmic precision, as opposed to any unusual timbral considerations. I find it endearing that he was also fond of jazz and musical theater and that late in life he enjoyed a friendship of sorts with film composer John Williams. (They bonded over Bernard Herrmann.) His one-time student, Stephen Sondheim, characterized him as “a frustrated show composer.”

Babbitt himself was a saxophonist. In 1946, he penned a musical, “Fabulous Voyage,” a retelling of Homer’s “The Odyssey.”

Yes, we all have our off-days, but the lasting impression Babbitt left on his students and colleagues seems to be that he was largely a warm and personable human being. He loved Broadway, beer, and football. Simple pleasures for someone portrayed as so lofty, he didn’t give a hang if you listened.

Babbitt was the recipient of an honorary Pulitzer Prize in 1982. He died in Princeton in 2011, at the age of 94.

Listen to “Penelope’s Night Song” from “Fabulous Voyage” and tell me if it seems to you like the product of a rampaging monster.

“Composition for Twelve Instruments” (1948):

“Reflections” (1974) for piano and synthesized tape:

Milton Babbitt on electronic music:

John Williams talks Babbitt in The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-force-is-still-strong-with-john-williams?fbclid=IwAR1gsLDyvvw7MFV_1NTP2OYNFwkYSOqHhiwBatZFtCT1FFYe4qWw6pt0Ems

If you’re interested in learning more about Princeton’s important role in the history of computer music and haven’t done so yet, do check out this podcast, produced by the Princeton University Engineering Department.

Composers & Computers, a podcast

I profiled the podcast’s creator, Aaron Nathans, in September for the Princeton weekly U.S. 1.

https://www.communitynews.org/princetoninfo/artsandentertainment/a-good-ear-for-stories-and-electronic-music-inspires-a-princeton-podcast/article_93780110-3384-11ed-93a9-1ba8b9106ed7.html?fbclid=IwAR0vF9aavdWS2hecaAE5XkVs62EOYFY9fFHcQYRVr1jReBT6_-WFPuPoyyg

A refresher on “Milton the Monster”

“Milton the Monster” Mixed Horror with Humor

Happy birthday, Milton Babbitt!

May 10, 2023

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS