Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Them Giant Ants Invade Roy’s Sci-Fi Corner

What’s a picnic without ants?

This Memorial Day weekend, as the woods resonate with the eerie, UFO-like drone of Brood X cicadas, we direct our thoughts to the quintessential giant insect invasion classic – marked by equally distinctive, otherworldly calls – “Them!” (1954).

In the age of atomic anxiety, gigantic mutated ants emerge from the New Mexico desert to wreak havoc in Los Angeles. James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, and James Arness put in an order for a whole lot of RAID, and Fess Parker secures for himself the role of Davy Crockett with one short but memorable scene. You’ll have to watch fast for Leonard Nimoy, Dick York, Richard Deacon, William Schallert, and many others.

Released four months before “Godzilla,” drive-in thrills didn’t come any bigger than “Them!” The “Wilhelm scream” gets a good workout in this one. If Ridley Scott didn’t watch “Them!” before he made “Alien,” I’ll wander through the storm drains of Los Angeles with a box full of sugar cubes.

I hope you’ll join us as we flap our mandibles about “Them!,” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, this Memorial Day weekend AT A SPECIAL TIME. Leave your sweets and formic acid in the comments section, as we livestream with our flamethrowers, to the full extent that Facebook allows, this SUNDAY EVENING AT 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

May 27, 2021
Lost Sibelius Overture Rediscovered & Performed

We’re only a few hours away from the first modern performance of a long-lost work of Jean Sibelius.

News of the 2019 rediscovery of the score of this “Concert Overture” (found with the manuscript of Sibelius’ only completed opera, “The Maiden in the Tower”) somehow eluded my notice. The overture was last performed in 1900. This is not to be confused with either the Concert Overture in E (1891) or the Concert Overture in A minor (1902), both recorded by Neeme Järvi and others.

You can watch a performance of the “new” work live on the YouTube channel of the Avanti! kamariorkesteri / Avanti! Chamber Orchestra today at 12 pm EDT:

Or wait for the video to be posted on May 30. Learn more about it here:

Avanti! conducted by Tuomas Hannikainen resurrects Sibelius work dormant for 120 years

The complete concert program will feature two more Sibelius rarities – the melodrama “The Countess’ Portrait” and a suite from “Belshazzar’s Feast” – as well as André Caplet’s “Conte fantastique” for harp and string orchestra, after Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.”

News of the rediscovery in 2019:

Concert Overture by Sibelius rediscovered

The Concert Overture in E major (1891)

The Concert Overture in A minor (1902)

An earlier attempt at a grand opera, “The Building of the Boat,“ was abandoned in 1893, though much of the material was reworked by the composer into “Four Legends from the Kalevala” and the symphonic poem “The Wood Nymph.” One of his most frequently-programmed pieces, “The Swan of Tuonela,” was originally planned as the prelude to this opera.

UPDATE: Having just watched the modern premiere, here’s my assessment. The overture won’t change anyone’s fundamental understanding of Sibelius, but it is by turns evocative, dramatic, charming, exciting, and beautiful. If you’re a fan of the “Lemminkäinen” symphonic poems, I think you will enjoy this. A magical treat, and at 12 minutes, not an insignificant one. I’ll be checking back for the full concert on May 30. Just what I needed on a 90-degree day. Thank you, Avanti!

UPDATE #2: The performance of the overture is now posted.

May 26, 2021
Stranger in Paradise Hidden Classical Origin

“I’m sure you recognise this lovely melody as ‘Stranger in Paradise.’ But did you know that the original theme is from the ‘Polovtsian Dance No. 2’ by Borodin?”

There’s probably no one who was born in the United States, who is over the age of 45, who has not seen this television commercial. But did anyone actually buy the product? Bonus points if you bought it on 8-track.

According to Wikipedia, it was the longest-running nationally-seen commercial in U.S. television history, airing for 13 years, from 1971 to 1984. So basically the entire span of my development.

That’s not John Williams, the film composer, by the way, but John Williams, the actor, who worked with Hitchcock (“Dial M for Murder,” “To Catch a Thief”) and Billy Wilder (“Sabrina,” “Witness for the Prosecution”), and briefly as the other Mr. French on “Family Affair.”

“So many of the melodies of well-known popular songs were actually written by the great masters… like THESE familiar themes…”

I hope Mr. Williams made a mint in royalties. He died in 1983 at the age of 80.

May 25, 2021
Cristóbal Halffter RIP

The composer Cristóbal Halffter died yesterday at the age of 91. A major figure in Spanish contemporary music – the most highly-regarded of the co-called “Generación del 51” – he was the nephew of two other notable composers, Rodolfo and Ernesto Halffter.

Cristóbal often looked quite severe in his photos. I confess, I rarely found much to smile about in his music (though his opera, “Don Quijote,” does sound promising).

“Secuencias ” (1964)

Rostropovich plays the Cello Concerto No. 2 (1985)

From “Don Quijote” (1996-99)

An early obituary:

https://then24.com/2021/05/24/cristobal-halffter-the-composer-who-broke-the-musical-silence-of-the-franco-regime/

R.I.P.

May 24, 2021
Bob Dylan at 80: Musical Influences

Happy birthday to Bob Dylan, 80 years-old today.

Dylan sings “Blowin’ in the Wind” (television, 1963):

George Crumb’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” from his “American Songbook VI: Voices from the Morning of the Earth” (2008):

Dylan sings “Mr. Tambourine Man” (Newport Folk Festival, 1964):

John Corigliano’s “Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan” (2000):

As the title indicates, there are seven songs in all, original settings of Dylan’s verse. If you let it run too long, it will go into Corigliano’s music for “Altered States.”

Both Crumb and Corigliano are Pulitzer Prize winners. Dylan said hold my beer – in 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The times they are a-changin’.

May 24, 2021

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS