On this eve of Krampus Night, ‘tis the season… for THE THING.
Roy Bjellquist and I confront Howard Hawks’ “The Thing from Another World” (1951) – with perhaps a few feints toward John Carpenter’s remake – on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.
Leave your comments, but no husky carcasses, if you please, as we live-stream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EST.
EIGHT DAYS OF SIBELIUS – DAY 4
With his 50th birthday imminent, Jean Sibelius received a commission from the Finnish government to write a brand-new symphony. The Symphony No. 5 was given its world premiere in 1915, with the composer conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic – though the original version was quite different, in many respects, from the masterwork we know today. In a remarkable feat of objectivity, Sibelius extensively revised his symphony twice, in 1916 and then again in 1919.
One of the work’s major innovations (showing the influence of Liszt, whom Sibelius greatly admired) involved the elimination of the break between the first two movements of the original four-movement structure. The demarcations are blurred so that the first movement now slips inexorably into a scherzo, and the listener is swept along, as if caught up in a powerful current, or precipitated into a sublime avalanche, to thrilling effect.
The transition has always been a challenge for conductors, since this sneaking accelerando should feel as if it’s completely organic. It has to unfurl naturally. Sibelius would further experiment with the telescoping of movements and the subversion of classical expectations in his Symphony No. 7.
Perhaps the most striking revision is in how the final movement builds to a climax of impressive grandeur, a sublime apotheosis of its ennobling “swan theme,” only to come up against a series of powerful, monolithic chords, each isolated from the next by a moment of silence. The first five serve to suspend the effect. The sixth falls, like Thor’s hammer, with an indisputable sense of finality. Truly, this is music of the gods.
The Sibelius 5th is among the noblest in the entire literature. I have long regarded it as my favorite symphony.
Herbert von Karajan conducts the 5th Symphony:
Osmo Vänskä conducts the original 1915 version!
One hundred years ago today, Erich Wolfgang Korngold achieved his greatest operatic success at the age of 23, with the double-premiere, in Cologne and Hamburg, of “Die tote Stadt” (“The Dead City”). One of music’s most astounding child prodigies, Korngold had been the talk of Vienna since the age of 11, when his ballet-pantomime “Der Schneemann” (“The Snowman”) was first performed at the Vienna Court Opera. By then, Gustav Mahler had already declared him a genius. Richard Strauss would express terror at the boy’s frightening precocity.
Undoubtedly, Korngold is much better known to movie-lovers for his contributions to the Golden Age of Hollywood, including his classic scores for the swashbucklers of Errol Flynn (“Captain Blood,” “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” and “The Sea Hawk,” among them). Sadly, fascism and war gutted the Vienna of Korngold’s youth, and avant-garde arbiters and ideologues ensured that his brand of tonal, melodic music would be pushed out of the concert halls for decades
Interestingly, the opera’s scenario bears a striking resemblance to that of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” with an overwrought protagonist falling for a free spirit, who happens to be the spitting image of his dead wife. The dysfunctional relationship quickly spirals out of control.
For 18 years after its debut, “Die tote Stadt” was the most frequently performed opera in Vienna. Then for half a century, it fell virtually silent. Performances were rare, but in recent decades, once more, it’s begun to pick up steam. “The Dead City” lives again, in the affections of opera companies and their audiences, though too many modern productions clash with the essentially Romantic nature of its music. There are psychological depths to be plumbed, for sure, but the imagery should never be aesthetically unpleasant.
I’ve been privileged to see “Die tote Stadt” twice on stage, but of course I’ve listened to it many more times on recordings. It is a melancholy masterpiece by one of my favorite composers. It’s only a pity he didn’t live to enjoy the fruits of its belatedly revived fortunes.
Carol Neblett and René Kollo perform the opera’s famous duet, “Glück, das mir verblieb” (“Joy, that near to me remained”), commonly presented in recital as “Marietta’s Lute Song” (actually just the first five minutes of this video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRrLvKVF2ME
Joyce DiDonato coaches baritone Germán Enrique Alcántara in “Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen,” Pierrot’s aria, the opera’s second best-known number:
The music is big… it’s the PICTURES that got small.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s an hour of music from television scores by composers better known for their work in film.
Bernard Herrmann began his film career right at the top, with “Citizen Kane” in 1941. He is perhaps best recognized for his scores for the films of Alfred Hitchcock, many of which have gone on to become classics, including those for “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” and especially “Psycho.”
Less well known is his work on the television series “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” which ran from 1963 to 1965. Herrmann composed music for 17 of the episodes. He was also responsible for suggesting Hitchcock’s signature tune, Charles Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette,” which appears throughout the series in Herrmann’s own arrangement.
Jerome Moross, Herrmann’s friend since childhood, had also enjoyed his share of success on the silver screen. Moross is best-remembered for having written the score for “The Big Country.” Nobody wrote western music quite like Moross. So it’s hardly surprising he would be asked to contribute to twelve episodes of “Wagon Train.”
When someone noticed that the “Wagon Train” theme bore a striking resemblance to some of Moross’ music written for the film “The Jayhawkers,” two competing studios were kind enough to look the other way.
Unlike Moross and Herrmann, who were both well-known by the time they ventured into television, John Williams was still very much on his way up. Williams, then billed as “Johnny,” was active in the movies throughout the 1960s, but his film projects at the beginning were mostly undistinguished, with titles like “Daddy-O,” “Gidget Goes to Rome,” and “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home.”
Of course, he worked as a musician on more reputable projects, appearing as pianist on the soundtracks of “The Big Country,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Charade.” He also worked as an orchestrator on “The Guns of Navarone.”
But what provided much of Williams’ bread-and-butter throughout the ‘60s was his work on television series like “Checkmate,” “Gilligan’s Island,” and – for our purposes this week – “Lost in Space.” Happily, that “Williams sound,” so beloved by fans of “Stars Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “E.T.,” was already in place.
Finally, Jerry Goldsmith may have been a little bit ahead of Williams in the ‘60s, in terms of being offered more substantial films, but he too worked in television, providing scores for “Have Gun, Will Travel,” “The Twilight Zone,” and “Dr. Kildare.” We’ll conclude the hour with a medley of familiar Goldsmith television themes, with the composer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.
You’re invited to think inside the box, as film composers write for television this week, on “Picture Perfect,” this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Santa is not the only one lurking at the North Pole.
James Arness plays a rampaging, extraterrestrial “carrot,” who feeds off U.S. scientific and military personnel at a remote Arctic outpost, in “The Thing from Another World” (1951). This knockout thriller was the first film adaptation of John W. Campbell’s durable novella, “Who Goes There?”
“The Thing” stands apart from the standard B-movie science-fiction of the era, building genuine suspense and verisimilitude through its claustrophobic setting, realistic, post-World War II military equipment, and revolutionary use of overlapping dialogue. This is one surprisingly contemporary film!
Producer Howard Hawks reportedly had a hand in every aspect of the production, doing an uncredited rewrite of the screenplay with the great Ben Hecht, and always on the set to offer his “advice” on every scene. Essentially, he directed the film himself, and it shows. Furthermore, the eerie title design and Dimitri Tiomkin’s go-for-broke, theremin-laden score are not to be undersold.
Keep watching the skies! And leave your comments, as Roy Bjellquist and I dissect “The Thing,” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, live-streamed on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EST!
https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner/timeline
What’s for Christmas? THE THING.
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