• April in Paris & Appalachian Songs on WWFM

    April in Paris & Appalachian Songs on WWFM

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    This afternoon, it’s our last chance for April in Paris. Join me today on The Classical Network for an international salute to the City of Lights.

    It’s also the birthday of John Jacob Niles, so get ready for some settings of Appalachian mountain songs. It will be a refreshing mix of foreign and domestic from 4 to 6 p.m. EDT.

    Then stay tuned for “Picture Perfect,” beginning at 6, for music from movies inspired by comic adventurers – that is, heroes from the funny pages. I’ll be elaborating on that in just a bit.

    For now, enjoy the weather and enjoy the music. It’s baguettes and banjos all around on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.


  • Comic Book Movie Music Picture Perfect

    Comic Book Movie Music Picture Perfect

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    Get out your Silly Putty! We’ll have plenty of vibrant colors for you to enjoy this week on “Picture Perfect,” when the focus will be on comic adventurers – as in heroes from the funnies.

    We’ll hear music from “Prince Valiant” (1954), based on Hal Foster’s enduring Sunday strip about the exploits of a Viking prince at the court of King Arthur. The film stars Robert Wagner (in a page-boy haircut), Janet Leigh, James Mason, Sterling Haydn, and Victor McLaglen (as Val’s Viking pal Boltar). It also happens to feature one of Franz Waxman’s most rousing scores, clearly a prototype for the kind of music that later made John Williams a household name.

    Then Billy Zane is “The Ghost Who Walks,” in a big screen version of Lee Falk’s “The Phantom” (1996). Like Batman, The Phantom harnesses personal tragedy – in this case, the murder of his father – to a thirst for justice. He is now part of an ancient lineage of Phantoms, who don the purple suit and fight crime from a cave in a remote African country, in part through the power of a magic ring. The memorable (though somewhat monothematic) score is by David Newman, one of the sons of legendary Hollywood composer Alfred Newman.

    Warren Beatty helmed an amusing adaptation of Chester Gould’s “Dick Tracy” (1990), replete with primary color production design and meticulously applied make-up that transformed some of the most respected actors of the day (including Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and James Caan) into a live-action Rogue’s Gallery. Design and make-up were recognized with Academy Awards, as was Stephen Sondheim, for the original song “Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man),” sung in the film by Madonna. We won’t hear Sondheim’s song, but we will hear some of Danny Elfman’s underscore, which harkens back to Hollywood’s Golden Age.

    Finally, we turn from the American newspaper to the comic volumes of Belgian cartoonist Hergé, and his most famous creation, Tintin, a young journalist whose stories seem always to embroil him in globetrotting adventures. Developed for the screen by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, “The Adventures of Tintin” (2011) was shot as 3-D motion capture animation.

    After 50 years in the business, during which he wrote music for all manner of films, from across virtually every genre, John Williams finally got a crack at scoring an animated feature. The result was a double Academy Award nomination, as Williams had also written the music that year for Spielberg’s “War Horse.” Not bad for a 79 year-old composer.

    Unfortunately, “Tintin” never gained the kind of traction with the public that the filmmakers had hoped for, otherwise the score would certainly be much better known, as it is cut from the same cloth – and is of the same high quality – as those for the “Star Wars,” Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter series.

    I’ll see you in the funny pages this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.


  • Pagan Spring Music for Walpurgis Night on WPRB

    Pagan Spring Music for Walpurgis Night on WPRB

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    Nymphs and satyrs. Bacchus and the Great God Pan. Headman and Hobby Horse. Hecuba and the Goat of Mendes.

    Join me this morning on WPRB, as we partake of a pagan spring. In anticipation of Walpurgis Night and a May Day dance around the maypole, we’ll have music by Sir Arnold Bax, Arrigo Boito, Benjamin Britten, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Howard Hanson, Gustav Holst, Nikos Skalkottas, Bedrich Smetana, and more, as witches and warlocks cavort around bonfires, maenads and bassarids run riot, and Druids and wicker men scoff at Christian piety.

    We anticipate the “other Hallowe’en,” this morning from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. I’ll be meticulously applying the body paint, on Classic Ross Amico.


    IMAGE: “Departure of the Witches,” or “Faust’s Vision” (1878), by Luis Ricardo Falero


  • Walpurgis Night Music on WPRB

    Walpurgis Night Music on WPRB

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    Strap on your goat leggings! Sunday is Walpurgis Night, the eve of the feast day of 8th century abbess Saint Walpurga. It’s a great witches’ holiday – the “other” Hallowe’en – and therefore a popular celebration in Europe, where they still know how to make everything festive creepy. And more power to them. This Thursday morning on WPRB, we’ll have music in celebration of Walpurgis Night and May Day.

    Music lovers and devotees of German romantic literature, of course, already know a thing or two about Walpurgisnacht. It’s the night Mephistopheles escorts Faust to the Harz Mountains, where they encounter witches and warlocks cavorting on the Brocken. It’s also the night Faust, Mephistopheles and Homunculus travel to ancient Greece to encounter the shade of Helena (a.k.a. Helen of Troy). We’ll hear appropriate selections from Arrigo Boito’s opera, “Mefistofele.”

    Mendelssohn wrote a fairly tame cantata, “Die erste Walpurigisnacht” (“The First Walpurgis Night”), on another Goethe poem about prankish Druids freaking out some Christians. (EDIT: Sandy Steiglitz tells me she’ll be playing this piece as part of this week’s Sunday Morning Opera with Sandy. The featured work will be Franz Lehar’s “Paganini.” Tune in to WPRB to hear it this Sunday between 5:30 and 10 a.m.)

    Brahms composed a song, “Walpurgisnacht,” about a mother scaring the living daylights out of her daughter, by telling her a thunderstorm is actually the sound of witches celebrating on the Brocken; as if that isn’t enough, she tells her that she herself is a witch. Ha ha! So German.

    Among our other works will be Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Beltane Fire,” Gustav Holst’s “The Morning of the Year,” Nikos Skalkottas’ “Mayday Spell,” and Benjamin Britten’s “Spring Symphony,” a piece which climaxes in a setting of the 13th century May Day round, “Sumer is a-cumen in.” It’s all verrrry Wicker Man.

    We’ll be leaping naked over bonfires, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Keep Walpurga in Walpurgis Night, with Classic Ross Amico.


  • Classical Music Birthday Celebration Today

    Classical Music Birthday Celebration Today

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    We’ll have some French sports and divertissements this afternoon on The Classical Network, including “Rugby” by Arthur Honegger (Swiss-born, I know), “Jeux” by Claude Debussy, and “Bugler’s Dream,” the iconic Olympic fanfare by Leo Arnaud, whose birthday it is today.

    Later on, we’ll take a side trip to Scandinavia to observe the birthday of Swedish composer Erland von Koch. Then we’ll head back home, for recordings of American music with the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson, including “Adventures in the Perambulator” by John Alden Carpenter, on the anniversary of his birth.

    As always, we’ll be serving up great music for your afternoon commute, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.


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