Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Chaplin’s Musical Genius Revealed

I missed Charlie Chaplin’s birthday by ten days, but I only just stumbled across this footage of Chaplin conducting (at the link below).

While Chaplin was musically illiterate (by which I mean, he couldn’t read sheet music), he taught himself to play piano, violin and cello as a child, which served him well in his early days in the music hall. Later, he composed, or rather worked very closely with trained musicians, to produce the original scores for all of his features and some of his shorter films.

David Raksin, best remembered for his score to “Laura” (1944), assisted Chaplin on the silent classic “Modern Times” (1936). Raksin later revealed that it was he who had essentially scored the film, with Chaplin whistling all the tunes and asking him to make them fit the action.

However, he stressed the process was more complicated than it might at first seem. Chaplin was very much involved with every aspect of his films, and oversaw the development of the music as closely as he did any of the other elements. As a result, such a collaboration could take months, and there wasn’t a note in his scores that he didn’t approve.

Emotions could run high. Raksin recalled he was actually fired once, after only a week and a half, though quickly rehired. When music director Alfred Newman stormed out of one of the recording sessions, Raksin again defied Chaplin, refusing to take up the baton, which only led to further acrimony. The rift was eventually mended and decades later Raksin recollected his work on “Modern Times” as some of the happiest days of his life.

Chaplin’s scores yielded three popular hits: “Smile” from “Modern Times,” a hit for Nat King Cole in 1954; “Terry’s Theme” from “Limelight,” popularized by Jimmy Young as “Eternally” in 1952; and “This Is My Song” from “A Countess in Hong Kong,” recorded by Petula Clark in 1967.

Through a fluke – the belated release of “Limelight” in the United States, on a single screen in Los Angeles, twenty years after it was filmed, coinciding with the disqualification of music from “The Godfather,” after it was learned that Nino Rota had recycled a theme from one of his earlier scores (for the Italian film “Fortunella” in 1958) – Chaplin walked away with his only competitive Oscar, as a composer (!), one month before his 84th birthday.

Previously, he received two honorary Academy Awards, in 1929 and 1972.

April 26, 2023
Samuel Barber Patrick Swayze Surprising Link

I’ve been remiss in not posting about it for a little while, but I’m still having a blast making my way through Howard Pollack’s 700-page Samuel Barber biography. Lots of great stuff in there, for music geeks, for anyone interested in local history (by local, I mean if you happen to live in the Pennsylvania/New Jersey/New York area or have been to Tanglewood), and more broadly, for anyone interested in the cultural and social history of 20th century America.

There are too many amusing or even startling connections to itemize, but surely one of the most surprising is that actor Patrick Swayze, who I think most people are aware was a dancer as well as an actor, once appeared in a ballet choreographed to Barber’s solo piano work “Excursions.”

Swayze, a principal with the Eliot Feld Ballet, was one of an ensemble of six who danced in the premiere of Felds’ “Excursions” at New York Public Theater in October 1975.

“Excursions” is distinguished in Barber’s output as one of his few works evidently touched by American popular idioms (“Souvenirs” is another), with the influence of blues, folk ballads, and fiddle tunes. In its breezier moments, it almost seems as if the composer had been listening to Vince Guaraldi – which couldn’t possibly be the case, since the four movements were written between 1942 and 1944. The last movement is a barn dance, which inevitably calls to mind Aaron Copland (“Rodeo” was first performed in 1942), but Barber approaches the material very differently.

The first movement was written for Jeanne Behrend, the composer’s friend and former classmate at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Then Vladimir Horowitz took an interest. He gave the debut of movements I, II and IV at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music. Subsequently, he took them to Carnegie Hall. The third movement was yet to be written. The official premiere of the complete set was given by Behrend, who performed all four movements in December 1948. Personally, I like the third movement best. It just makes me happy.

I’m not sure that Barber ever did any dirty dancing, but clearly he’s having the time of his life. Nobody puts Barber in a corner!

Listen to “Excursions” here, performed by John Browning, the pianist for whom the composer wrote his Pulitzer Prize winning Piano Concerto:

You’ll find more information about Howard Pollack’s “Samuel Barber: His Life and Legacy,” released earlier this month by University of Illinois Press, by following the link. Highly recommended, if you’re at all interested in classical music of the 20th century. (Barber lived from 1910 to 1981.) What a life, and how much the country has changed!

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=c044908&fbclid=IwAR0FtgkjO_EeSqjbfWEJB-0Wlh7eSldgHy1PqBSG200sXh_SdOBrSP5ntbQ

April 25, 2023
Harry Belafonte A Legend Remembered

Harry Belafonte was already a legend when he appeared on “The Muppet Show” in 1979 – he was about 52 years old – and now, looking back, he seems so young.

He starred in the film version of “Carmen Jones” opposite Dorothy Dandridge – his singing voice dubbed (!) by LeVern Hutcherson – but he turned down “Porgy and Bess,” which he found “racially demeaning.” Both films were directed by Otto Preminger.

I will also always remember him for a moody, post-apocalyptic film, “The World, the Flesh and the Devil,” which he co-produced.

Belafonte was never complacent in his celebrity. A disciple of Martin Luther King and Paul Robeson, he remained socially and politically engaged.

He died earlier today at the age of 96.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/25/harry-belafonte-singer-dies-actor-singer-activist

April 25, 2023
Seymour Bernstein at 95 Piano Legend

Born and raised in Newark, NJ, Seymour Bernstein has basically been teaching piano for 80 years, ever since his own teacher, Clara Husserl – herself a pupil of Theodor Leschetizky – delegated the supervision of some of her more gifted younger pupils to him when he was 15. Today, Bernstein continues to teach and enlighten, with 95 years of accumulated wit and wisdom.

Also contributing to his own education were celebrated pianists Alexander Brailowsky, Clifford Curzon, and Jan Gorbaty, legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, and master of all trades George Enescu.

As a soloist, Bernstein gave the world premiere of Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1969. Even at the height of his career as a performer, he taught, conducting master classes in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He abandoned the concert stage at the age of 50, opting instead for the quieter satisfactions of teaching and composing. He intimated to no one that his final concert, in 1977, would be his swan song.

Today, he maintains a private studio in New York City and is an adjunct professor at New York University. His books include “With Your Own Two Hands: Self-Discovery Through Music,” “20 Lessons in Keyboard Choreography,” “Monsters and Angels: Surviving a Career in Music,” and “Chopin: Interpreting His Notational Symbols.”

Warm and funny, dry, opinionated, and always full of insight, Bernstein is a larger-than-life character whose philosophy of musicmaking is always rooted in the heart. Don’t let that grandfatherly exterior lull you. Bernstein remains as sharp as C-sharp major.

In 2015, a documentary was released, “Seymour: An Introduction,” directed by Princeton’s Ethan Hawke. (If you’re a Salinger fan, you’ll doubly appreciate the title.) The film has a 100-percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. You can watch the trailer here.

A Bernstein interview at the age of 90 on “Living the Classical Life”

There are also hours of fascinating videos on the YouTube channel “tonebase PIANO.” In this one, Bernstein dismantles Glenn Gould’s Mozart.

Bernstein plays Brahms

At 19, playing Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz No. 1”

Happy 95th birthday, Seymour Bernstein!

April 24, 2023
Shakespeare’s First Folio 400th & Music

2023 marks the 400th anniversary of the so-called First Folio, a collection of Shakespeare’s plays, published seven years after the author’s death and considered to be one of the most influential books ever issued.

Although not quite on the same level of significance, this Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll devote an hour to music inspired by the Bard – a topic which, of course, could fill many years of such programs – in observation of William Shakespeare’s birthday.

First, fairy high jinks are a metaphor for the mutability and volatility of the human heart in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” We’ll hear two works inspired by Shakespeare’s pixilated comedy.

English composer Walter Leigh (1905-1942) was killed in action during the Second World War, just shy of his 37th birthday. Like Paul Hindemith, who was his teacher for two years, Leigh thrived on writing music made to order for specific occasions. His incidental music for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” first played in open air in 1936, sounds like a throwback to the Restoration period.

Italian-born composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) fled fascism in Europe to settle in California. There, he wrote concertos for Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky and Andrés Segovia. He is particularly well-regarded for his guitar music, having composed nearly 100 works for the instrument. He also worked on about 200 film scores. As a teacher, his students included André Previn, Nelson Riddle, Herman Stein, Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith, and John Williams.

Over the course of his career, Castelnuovo-Tedesco churned out an extraordinary amount of music inspired by the Bard. He composed an opera after “The Taming of the Shrew,” four dances for “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” 33 Shakespeare songs drawn from the plays, and settings of 35 of the sonnets.

Between 1930 and 1953, he wrote a number of overtures on Shakespearean themes – at least 11, enough to fill two compact discs, which have been issued on the Naxos label. His overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” dates from 1940.

Czech composer Josef Bohuslav Foerster (1859-1951) lived a very long life, during which he witnessed, firsthand, many remarkable events in music history. Born in Prague, Foerster worked as a critic in Hamburg, then moved to Vienna, where he became closely acquainted with Gustav Mahler.

Although he occasionally employed in his works musical inflections of his native land, he wasn’t truly part of the Czech nationalist school embraced by Dvořák and others. Because his music is not as overtly Czech-sounding as some, and because he spent so much of his early career in Germany and Austria, Foerster’s output and reputation were embraced only gradually by his countrymen.

He returned to Prague in 1918, with the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic, and found employment there at both the conservatory and university. Gradually, he attained the status of “grand old man” of Czech music.

He composed his symphonic suite “From Shakespeare” in 1909. Made up of four portraits of prominent female characters from Shakespeare plays, the work consists of a brief introduction, followed by musical meditations on Perdita (from “The Winter’s Tale”), Viola (from “Twelfth Night”), Lady Macbeth (from – well, you know), and finally, Katherina, Petruchio and Eros (from “The Taming of the Shrew”).

I’ll provide the whipped cream and maraschino cherries. Bring your own straws for “Great Shakes” – celebrating William Shakespeare and 400 years of the First Folio – this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

April 23, 2023

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS