Classic Ross Amico

Gilded Age Novels in Film: Picture Perfect

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Ross Amico

July 1, 2016

in Daily Dispatch

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“The Gilded Age” was a term coined by none other than Mark Twain to describe the era extending roughly from the end of Reconstruction (following the Civil War) to the turn of the 20th century. He didn’t mean it as a compliment. A gilded age is one which conceals serious social problems beneath a veneer of gold. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we have an hour of music from films based on novels of, or about, the period.

“The Heiress” (1949) is based on a play by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, which in turn was adapted from Henry James’ novel, “Washington Square.” Olivia De Havilland is the “plain Jane” heiress of the title, Ralph Richardson her overbearing father, and Montgomery Clift, the adventurer who may or may not be out for her fortune. De Havilland (100 years-old today!) won an Oscar for her portrayal, as did the music, by Aaron Copland.

“The Age of Innocence” (1993) is based on a novel by one-time James correspondent and close friend, Edith Wharton. The book was published in 1920, but looks back to the 1870s, its story dealing with the impending marriage of an upper class couple and the appearance of a disreputable interloper who threatens their happiness. The title is an ironic play on the outward manners of New York society, in contrast to its inward machinations. The novel earned a Pulitzer Prize, the first Pulitzer awarded to a woman.

The film, which starred Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Wynona Rider, was something of a curve ball from director Martin Scorsese. Veteran composer Elmer Bernstein provided a lovely, Brahmsian score.

“The Magnificent Ambersons” (1942) is based on another Pultizer Prize winner, this time by Booth Tarkington, from 1918. The novel is part of trilogy that tells the story of the declining fortunes of three generations of an aristocratic Midwestern family, between the end of the Civil War and the early years of the 20th century. With industrialism on the rise, the Ambersons’ “old money” wealth and prestige wane.

“Ambersons” became the basis for only the second film directed by Orson Welles. By that time, however, the fall-out from “Citizen Kane” caused the film to be removed from Welles’ control and re-cut by the studio, shaving a full hour off the original running time. It says something about the quality of the film that it yet remains in itself a magnificent achievement.

The score was by Bernard Herrmann, CBS staff composer from Welles’ radio days. Herrmann had followed Welles to Hollywood to provide the music for “Citizen Kane.” Like the film, the score was drastically edited, with half the music removed. The famously irascible Herrmann, who had just written his Academy Award winning music for “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” was so angry that he threatened legal action if his name was not removed from the credits.

The action of “Mr. Skeffington” (1944), based on a 1940 novel by Elizabeth van Arnim, begins at a point some consider the end of the Gilded Age, the eve of World War I. Bette Davis stars as a woman so enamored of her own beauty and the suitors it attracts that she fails to value the affections of the man who eventually becomes her husband. Mr. Skeffington, played by Claude Rains, is a Jewish financier, riding high in the ‘teens, but whose fortunes change when he’s caught in Europe during the rise of the Nazis.

Both Davis and Rains earned Academy Award nominations for their work. The vivid score is by Franz Waxman. Davis was going through a period of emotional turmoil during the filming, so that she was allegedly insufferable to everyone during the entire shoot. Someone finally poisoned her eyewash. When the police questioned the director, Vincent Sherman, he wished them good luck with their investigation. “If you asked everyone on the set who would have committed such a thing, everyone would raise their hand!”

Clearly all that glitters is not gold. We peel back the veneer of prosperity with “Novels of the Gilded Age,” on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network; or listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

Olivia de Havilland receives her Oscar for “The Heiress,” with the orchestra playing a few bars of Aaron Copland’s score:

#OliviaDeHavilland 100

PHOTOS: (Clockwise from left) Olivia de Havilland today; in “The Heiress;” and with her Oscar in 1950
Inocente Carreño Venezuelan Composer Dies at 96

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Ross Amico

June 30, 2016

in Daily Dispatch

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This just in from the I-Had-No-Idea-He-Was-Still-Alive Department:

Venezuelan composer Inocente Carreño has died at the age of 96. Though you have to dig deep in order to find much information about him in English, he was regarded as Venezuela’s national composer. His brother, Francisco, was a noted specialist in folklore, and the two used to play guitar with their sisters, as Inocente explored the popular forms of joropos, meringues, waltzes, rumbas, tangos, and boleros.

He attained prominence as both a composer and an educator, founding a music school and advocating for the arts. Over the course of his illustrious career, he was showered with awards, while he wrote symphonies, symphonic poems and other orchestral works, as well as vocal, chamber and instrumental music.

In 1954, he composed his most famous work, “Margariteña.” A tribute to his homeland, the main theme was inspired by the folk song “Margarita is a tear.” Other traditional melodies are woven into the work’s impressionistic tapestry, so that the piece is regarded as a classic of musical nationalism.

Carreño remained active into his 90s. Descansar bien, mi amigo.

Carreño championed by The Dude:
Bernard Herrmann Greatest Film Composer?

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Ross Amico

June 29, 2016

in Daily Dispatch

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Is Bernard Herrmann the greatest film composer who ever lived?

I can’t think of a single other composer who had a more assured sense of precisely what sound would perfectly complement a specific onscreen image. Most scores by film composers of Hollywood’s Golden Age were melody driven, and while Herrmann certainly could write a heart-rending melody with the best of them, he seemed to be more interested in timbre. What sounds could he create, no matter how outlandish, that would best convey the experience of fighting a giant crab?

Only Herrmann would resolve to score a film like “The Day the Earth Stood Still” using two theremins, two Hammond organs, a large studio electric organ, three vibraphones, two glockenspiels, marimba, tam-tam, two bass drums, three sets of timpani, two pianos, celesta, two harps, electric strings and brass. On paper and in execution, it was the height of lunacy. Yet all at once, the theremin became shorthand for 1950s science fiction.

Despite his stand-apart genius, Herrmann was honored with only a single Academy Award, in 1941 – the same year he followed Orson Welles to Hollywood to write the music for “Citizen Kane” – for “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (also known as “All That Money Can Buy”). He was nominated for his work on “Kane,” and then late in life for the music he wrote for Brian De Palma’s “Obsession” and Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” (both 1976). He died in his sleep only hours after completing the recording sessions for the latter.

Yet he left behind dozens of beloved and classic scores for films like “The Magnificent Ambersons,” “Jane Eyre,” “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad,” and “Jason and the Argonauts,” to say nothing of those from his landmark association with Alfred Hitchcock, for films like “North by Northwest,” “Vertigo” and “Psycho.” How could “Psycho” not have received an Academy Award? It wasn’t even nominated!

Almost certainly the reason for Herrmann’s neglect on the part of the establishment had less to do with his talent than with his prickly personality. He was a notorious crank. Many found him intimidating, but his acerbic behavior made for some great stories. Steven Spielberg, who had recently enjoyed his first great success with “Jaws,” met Herrmann at the recording session for “Taxi Driver.” When the young director expressed his admiration for the veteran composer’s work, the cantankerous Herrmann shot back, “Then why do you always hire John Williams?” He disagreed violently with studio executives and cab drivers alike – in fact seemed to go out of his way to do so – but many also attested to his kindness and warmth in private.

Curiously, though his concert works have their moments, they don’t grip me from start to finish in a way that certain pieces by fellow film composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Miklós Rózsa, and Jerome Moross do. His was a peculiar kind of genius. He was perhaps the greatest film composer who ever lived.

Happy birthday, Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975)!

“The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951):

“The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” (1947):

“Jason and the Argonauts” (1963):

“Psycho” (1960):
Musician Rulers Henry VIII Rousseau Birthday

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Ross Amico

June 28, 2016

in Daily Dispatch

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Today is the birthday anniversary of two able musicians who made their biggest reputations, for better or worse, in fields other than music.

When Henry VIII (1491-1547) wasn’t occupied in upgrading spouses or downgrading churches, he happened to be a skilled composer and performer. More about Henry and his music here:

http://www.classical-music.com/article/pieces-viii

One of Henry’s greatest hits:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) is best remembered as one of the great philosophers of the Enlightenment and a driving influence behind the French Revolution. But he was also a successful composer who wrote seven operas. The best-known of these is probably “Le devin de village.”

Undoubtedly less heads would have rolled had these gentlemen stuck to their music!
Mediterranean Music Escape This Sunday

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Ross Amico

June 26, 2016

in Daily Dispatch

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This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” leave all your troubles behind, as we take a musical vacation to the Mediterranean.

We’ll have a work by Charles Camilleri, Malta’s national composer – his “Mediterranean Dances” – and a guitar concerto by an apparently shoeless John McLaughlin. McLaughlin is better known as a jazz or jazz fusion artist. We’ll hear his infectious “Mediterranean Concerto,” a work of ambitious scope, about twice the length of your average guitar concerto. McLaughlin kept a home along the Mediterranean at the time of the work’s composition. We all should be so lucky! Thankfully, we can live vicariously through the music.

Join me for “Mediterranean Muse” – musical souvenirs of the Mediterranean basin – this Sunday night at 10 EDT; or listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.