When is music not Fine? When it’s by Webern, of course!
The playlist today will consist of works by birthday celebrants Irving Fine, Anton Webern, Nino Rota (both film and concert pieces), Jose Serebrier, Antonio Soler, and Paul Turok. We’ll also mark the second evening of Hanukkah.
Better pick up some more candles!
All fire codes will be flouted, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Hanukkah begins at sunset. Get ready for the eight-day Festival of Lights. This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” I hope you’ll join me for music on Jewish themes and by Jewish composers, including “Aspects of a Great Miracle” by Michael Isaacson, “Three Hassidic Dances” by Leon Stein,” and “The Klezmer Concerto” by Ofer Ben-Amots. Enjoy your fill of light and latkes, on “Pieces of Eight,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
It’s December 2, and the holidays kick into high gear. You know I am a total maniac for mid-winter celebrations, and the wackier the better. If I am missing anything – and, with so many cultures and so much history in the world, how could it not be? – please add to this year’s list in the comments below.
12/2 – Advent begins; Hanukkah begins (sunset); inauguration of the Gävle Goat (Sweden)
12/5 – Krampusnacht!
12/6 – Feast Day of Saint Nicholas
12/7 – Day of the Little Christmas (Colombia)
12/8 – Sibelius’ birthday
12/12 – Arrival of the Yule Lads (Iceland); Poinsettia Day (established 1851)
12/13 – Saint Lucia’s Day
12/17 – Saturnalia
12/21 – Winter Solstice; Yule begins
12/22 – Giant Lantern Festival (Philippines)
12/23 – Festivus!
12/24 – Christmas Eve
12/25 – Christmas Day; Establishment of the Celestial Cow (Kemetic Orthodox)
12/26 – Saint Stephen’s Day; Boxing Day; Kwanzaa begins
12/31 – New Year’s Eve; Ghambar Maidyarem (Zoroastrian)
1/1 – New Year’s Day
1/5 – Twelfth Night; La Befana! (Italy)
1/6 – Epiphany; Feast of the Three Kings
1/7 – Coptic Christmas; Eastern Orthodox Christmas
Follow the Gävle Goat on Twitter! The opening celebrations take place now. Link to live streaming here:
https://twitter.com/Gavlebocken?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
All I need is couscous, a metal plate, and a bow, and I am never bored. This video has been bouncing around the internet for a few years now, but somehow, just this week, climbed aboard the Twitter Express.
Do the holidays already have you feeling a little disoriented? This week, on “Picture Perfect,” we’re literally seeing double.
James Stewart plays Scottie Ferguson, a traumatized police detective who becomes obsessed with the woman he loves – and loses – in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” (1958). Kim Novak portrays both the enigmatic beauty and her spitting image, who Ferguson, rather creepily, attempts to mold. Bernard Herrmann wrote the hypnotic score. Not too long ago, the love theme was recycled in the Academy Award winning film, “The Artist.”
Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “La double vie de Véronique”/“The Double Life of Véronique” (1991) features parallel characters living in Poland and France who are mysteriously linked, both of them played by Irène Jacob. The performance earned Jacob an award for Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival. The music, which plays a significant role in the actual plot, is by Zbigniew Preisner. (Again, thanks to Bill Zeltman for sending me a copy of the soundtrack!)
For the second time in her career, Bette Davis gets a chance to play an evil twin in “Dead Ringer” (1964). The first was in the 1946 good twin-bad twin melodrama, “A Stolen Life.” When asked what the difference was between the two performances, Davis quipped, “About 20 years.” “Dead Ringer” was directed by her longtime friend and “Now, Voyager” co-star Paul Henreid. The music is by André Previn, whose score employs a stock-in-trade sinister harpsichord, yet when he comes to write the love theme, he manages to whip up one hell of a tribute to Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Korngold scored a number of Davis’ films in the 1940s, though he is principally remembered for his work on the swashbucklers of Errol Flynn. To capitalize on Flynn’s star-making performance in “Captain Blood,” Warner Brothers produced a big screen adaptation of Mark Twain’s Tudor switcheroo, “The Prince and the Pauper” (1937). Flynn steals the show as Miles Hendon, the devil-may-care guardian of Prince Edward and Tom Canty, Edward’s mirror image, played by real-life twins Bobby and Billy Mauch. If you’re a Korngold fan, or an enthusiast of violin concertos, you may recognize some of the music. Korngold recycled the theme for use in the last movement of his Violin Concerto in D, championed by Heifetz and others. (By coincidence, today is Twain’s birthday!)
Double your pleasure with music from movies about doppelgangers, twins, and dual identities, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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