The conductor Bramwell Tovey has died. Tovey was a popular guest in Philadelphia and New York, where he often seemed to conduct programs of lighter music (holiday pops, summer concerts), though he was certainly capable of much more. I first learned of him through his hypnotic recording of Jean Cras’ “Polyphème,” on the Timpani label. The opera is about a forlorn cyclops, unlucky in love, who wanders off into the sea. Beautiful stuff. In 2005, Tovey conducted the world premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Symphony No. 8 – definitely not light music. He was also a composer, who wrote concertos for viola and cello, a work for chorus and brass band, “Requiem for a Charred Skull,” and a full-length opera, “The Inventor.” He was principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Sarasota Orchestra, and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. Prior to that, he served as music director in Winnipeg and Vancouver. As a conductor and as a person, he was much beloved. Tovey turned 69 on Monday, the day before his death. The cause was sarcoma. R.I.P.
From “Polyphème”
Conducting Beethoven with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Colorado
Introducing Léhar with the New York Philharmonic
Talking Bernstein, with rehearsal footage of Tovey, Lenny, and the London Symphony Orchestra
In 1972, Francis Ford Coppola gave us “The Godfather,” widely regarded as one of the greatest American movies ever made. The same year, he produced this television movie, starring Kim Darby and William Shatner. Join us in our incredulity, as we discuss “The People.”
Darby plays a young teacher, looking to sort out her life, who’s been summoned to an isolated farming community to instruct the strange children of severe elders. Shatner is the local doctor, who spends most of his time treating animals. Interestingly, the film, introduced as an ABC Movie of the Week, was a reunion of sorts for the two leads, who appeared together in the “Star Trek” original series episode “Miri.”
If you thought “Witness” was wacky, wait until you get a load of this. We’ll do our best to look plain, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. The comments will all be simple when we livestream on Facebook. It will be time for milking, this Friday evening at 7:30 EDT.
Not everything Per Nørgård composes is calculated to be a crowd-pleaser, but he did lighten things up a bit for portions of his score to “Babette’s Feast.” The Danish feature attained international popularity and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1988.
Nørgård has been following his idiosyncratic, often arcane muse in the concert hall for decades, from the Nordic symphonism of Sibelius and Vagn Holmboe (his teacher) to the avant garde experimentation of the 1960s and even feints into proto-minimalism.
“Voyage into the Golden Screen” (1968) employs an evolving variation technique the composer describes as an “infinity series,” a method of serializing melody, harmony, and rhythm. It’s been compared to fractal geometry. If you want to learn more about it, google “Nørgård infinity series.” Regardless of the technique, the music needs to speak for itself, and I think if you stick with it you might agree that it pays off. But maybe you have to be in the right mood. Just don’t go into it expecting Schubert!
From a later period, here’s his Violin Concerto No. 2 “Borderlines” (2002). Nørgård describes the opening movement as “endlessly questing” – much like the composer himself.
And in case you think Nørgård lacks the ability to charm, check out “Dream Play” (1975), deceptively simple at the start, but soon wandering into some unexpected places.
Finally, here’s his Symphony No. 6 “At the End of the Day” (1998-99). The composer declared this would be his last symphony – then went on to write two more!
Not the stuff to listen to for a pick-me-up, maybe, but it certainly does have its place. Happy birthday, Per Nørgård, 90 years-old today.
As a classical music radio host of many years, it’s easy to fall back on the same biographical details whenever I come to announce a given composer’s works. This is especially true when the composer’s life contains some particularly lurid or poignant detail.
But is it really fair to define someone by the manner of his or her death? After all, composers lived rounded lives like the rest of us, full of joys and sorrows. There must be some laughter even in a life weighted with misery, and tears in the make-up of any clown.
So it was with George Butterworth. If we hear anything at all in the minute or two it takes to set up the broadcast of one of his works, it’s that Butterworth was cut down by a sniper during the Battle of the Somme at the age of 31. Of course, it doesn’t help that his compositions make one’s heart ache from their exquisite beauty.
A few years ago, I was doing some quick research on Butterworth, born on this date in 1885, when I stumbled across this webpage and sat transfixed, as I viewed for the first time rare footage of him folk dancing with Cecil Sharp. It put a human face on this composer every bit as poignant as the recollection of his untimely death. It’s especially amusing to see the two men get tangled up in their choreography and then continue on their merry way.
It’s also worth mentioning, in Vaughan Williams’ sesquicentennial year, that it was Butterworth who first suggested to his friend that he tackle a purely orchestral symphony. (RVW’s first symphony, “A Sea Symphony,” had been scored for chorus and orchestra.) The result was “A London Symphony,” Vaughan Williams’ Second, which he dedicated to Butterworth before his untimely demise.
Vaughan Williams remembered, “We were talking together one day when he said in his gruff, abrupt manner: ‘You know, you ought to write a symphony.’ I answered… that I’d never written a symphony and never intended to… I suppose Butterworth’s words stung me and, anyhow, I looked out some sketches I had made for… a symphonic poem about London and decided to throw it into symphonic form… From that moment, the idea of a symphony dominated my mind. I showed the sketches to George bit by bit as they were finished, and it was then that I realised that he possessed in common with very few composers a wonderful power of criticism of other men’s work and insight into their ideas and motives. I can never feel too grateful to him for all he did for me over this work and his help did not stop short at criticism.”
RVW’s “A London Symphony”
If you’re unfamiliar with Butterworth’s own music, here are a few examples. Those inspired by the poems of A.E. Housman are especially moving.
I wonder if Monty Norman and John Barry are fist fighting in heaven? The surf guitar and swinging brass of the James Bond theme repeatedly landed composer Norman and arranger Barry in court, as they grappled for the rights to this exceptionally lucrative tune. The courts found for Norman, but Barry, who died in 2011 at the age of 77, did okay for himself, as five-time Academy Award winning composer of “Born Free” (song and score), “The Lion in Winter,” “Out of Africa,” and “Dances with Wolves.”
Admittedly, Bond has one of the coolest, catchiest themes in the history of cinema. In a bizarre twist, Norman revealed he had actually come up with the tune for an earlier project, an abandoned musical based on V.S. Naipaul’s “A House for Mr. Biswas.” See if you can imagine this as the theme for the world’s greatest superspy, or if it comes across as some sort of practical joke.
Whatever alchemy these two musicians shared, we can all be thankful. R.I.P. Monty Norman, dead at 94.
