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One selection I regret not including in this morning’s “April in Paris” playlist on “Sweetness and Light” is Josephine Baker’s “J’ai deux amours” (“I have two loves, my country and Paris”). Baker died 50 years ago today. Learn more about her remarkable life at the link, which includes access to an hour-long documentary.
Ruth Leon recommends… Josephine Baker: the Story of an Awakening
“J’ai deux amours”
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The Song of Songs. Attributed to King Solomon, this Biblical book contains some of the most ardent poetry ever written. Whether interpreted as the communion of man and woman, or as something of a more allegorical nature – the relationship, depending upon one’s system of belief, between God and Israel, between God and the Church, or between Christ and the human soul – over the centuries it has inspired some meltingly lovely music.
Since it is customary to read from the Song of Songs as part of the observance of Passover, this week on “The Lost Chord,” for Pesach, we’ll sample two complementary settings: one by Sir Granville Bantock – selections from his massive, 2 ½ hour oratorio – and one by Lukas Foss – a more intimate song cycle, in which divine and romantic love unite in understated metaphor.
What if I told you your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate? If you fall for that, there’s plenty more where that came from, on “King Solomon’s Lines,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
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With Passover and Easter right around the corner, we’re entering the peak season for Bible movies. This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s an hour of music from epics inspired by the Old Testament – including “Samson and Delilah” (Victor Young), “Solomon and Sheba” (Mario Nascimbene), “Sodom and Gomorrah” (Miklós Rózsa) and “The Ten Commandments” (Elmer Bernstein).
We begin and end with two Cecil B. DeMille productions. DeMille could always be counted on to give his audience a good show. Both “Samson” and “The Ten Commandments” feature sultry temptresses, violent, bare-chested men, and plenty of austere moralizing. The climactic special effects in both films are still sublime.
Tyrone Power was originally cast as Solomon in King Vidor’s “Solomon and Sheba.” However, he died of a massive heart attack during shooting (at the age of 44), paving the way for Yul Brynner to assume the role of the wise king. Brynner, of course, would later become DeMille’s pharaoh Rameses. With Gina Lollobrigida as the Queen of Sheba, you know there has to be an orgiastic dance.
Miklós Rózsa characterized “Sodom of Gomorrah” as “an intriguing subject which developed into a bad picture,” and most critics agreed. Any film that casts Stewart Granger as Lot should be taken with a pillar of salt. Rózsa determined not to score any more Biblical epics after “Sodom,” though his music is nothing to be ashamed of. It possesses that classic Rózsa epic sound, much beloved, thanks to his work on “Quo Vadis,” “Ben-Hur” and “King of Kings.”
Chariots! Tunics! Histrionic acting! It’s going to be epic, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
PHOTOS: Victor Mature’s stuffed lion vs. Charlton Heston’s cotton candy beard
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Today is the 90th birthday of Mexican-born conductor Jorge Mester.
Mester is perhaps best-known to collectors as music director of the Louisville Orchestra, where he served from 1967 to 1979 and oversaw first performances of dozens of works by composers from all over the world. These were released on the much sought-after Louisville First Editions label. Mester conducted 72 recordings of new or neglected music during his first stretch in Louisville. For all I know, some of these may now be available through digital streaming (a number of them have been posted to YouTube), but only a handful of them ever made it to compact disc – which means, for decades, the records have been Holy Grails for classical music lovers with adventurous taste.
Of course, it’s also possible you may recognize Mester for having conducted some P.D.Q. Bach concerts. The man appears to have had his lighter side.
27 years after his departure from Louisville, he returned for a second tenure, while the orchestra sought another music director, with Mester also serving on the search committee.
His other posts have included directorships with the Aspen Symphony Orchestra, the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra, and the Naples Philharmonic in Naples, Florida.
He made his conducting debut with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico in 1955. In 1998, he became music director of the Mexico City Philharmonic.
He appears to still be active, as music director of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Veracruz, an ensemble he has conducted since its founding in 2014.
Mester studied with Jean Morel at the Juilliard School (he regards Morel as “the greatest conducting teacher of them all”), with Leonard Bernstein at the Berkshire Music Center, and with Albert Wolff. He himself joined Juilliard’s conducting faculty, and for a time was head of the department. He served at Juilliard for the better part of 30 years.
Mester settled in the U.S. and became a naturalized American citizen in 1968.
I very much enjoyed getting to know him through this interview with Bruce Duffie – conducted during a layover at O’Hare Airport. He comes across as much more congenial than his flawed colleague and compatriot Enrique Bátiz, who died on March 30.
https://www.bruceduffie.com/mester.html
By coincidence, he also refers to the conductor John Nelson, one of his students, who died on March 31.
Happy birthday, Jorge Mester! Many happy returns.
From vinyl: Carlos Chávez’s ballet “Horsepower” and Enrique Granados’ symphonic poem “Dante”
Ernest Guiraud’s “The Fantastic Hunt”
Peter Mennin’s Cello Concerto with Janos Starker
An old favorite: Gian Carlo Menotti’s Piano Concerto with Earl Wild
“An Hysteric Return: P.D.Q. Bach at Carnegie Hall”
Mester speaks in 2020
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Today is the 90th birthday of Finnish master Aulis Sallinen. Sallinen is the composer of seven operas, eight symphonies, concertos for various instruments, and numerous chamber works.
Those living in the area will have a chance to check-out his rarely-heard Cello Concerto on a pair of concerts to be performed by the Allentown Symphony Orchestra. The soloist will be the orchestra’s 2024 Schadt String Competition winner, Gaeun Kim. (Kim, a Juilliard graduate, won the prize for playing this very concerto.) Hats off to the ASO for allowing her to play something other than the “Rococo Variations.”
Also on the program will be the world premiere of Clarice Assad’s “Frankenstein,” a 25-minute ASO commission, an orchestral narrative stitched together from fragments conceived for the purpose by 50 other composers; and, to send everyone home happy, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Music director Diane Wittry will conduct.
The concerts will be held at Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown, PA, on April 26 & 27, It’s a 90-minute drive from Princeton and Philadelphia, perhaps just a tad longer from NYC. For tickets and information, visit https://www.millersymphonyhall.org/
Happy birthday, Aulis Sallinen!
“Sunrise Serenade” for 2 trumpets, piano and string orchestra
String Quartet No. 3 played by the Kronos Quartet
Symphony No. 7 “The Dreams of Gandalf”
Kim playing the second movement of Sallinen’s concerto
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