Classic Ross Amico

  • Restoration Cinema Beauty Patches and Film Scores

    Restoration Cinema Beauty Patches and Film Scores

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    Ross Amico
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    Beauty patches are back!

    This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s an hour of lace and licentiousness, with music from movies set during the reign of Charles II.

    “Restoration” (1995) features quite the cast, with a pre-“Iron Man” Robert Downey, Jr. as a young doctor torn between duty and debauchery. He succumbs to the latter at the court of Charles, played by Sam Neill, before finding redemption as he battles the Great Plague and braves the Fire of London. The film also stars David Thewlis, Polly Walker, Meg Ryan, Ian McKellen, and Hugh Grant.

    The main title of James Newtown Howard’s score takes its impetus from Henry Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen.” And indeed there are baroque inflections throughout.

    George Sanders plays Charles in “The King’s Thief” (1955). Edmund Purdom is a highwayman who pilfers an incriminating book from David Niven. An aristocratic schemer, Niven will stop at nothing to get it back. The swashbuckling score is by Miklós Rózsa.

    I don’t recall Charles making an appearance in “The Draughtsman’s Contract” (1982), Peter Greenaway’s saucy, though strangely aloof, Restoration opus. However, there is plenty of licentiousness and an abundance of outlandish wigs. And, it being a Greenaway film, it is certainly strange in more ways than one. Michael Nyman’s score puts a minimalist spin on baroque sources.

    Finally, “Forever Amber” (1947) is based on a then-scandalous novel by Kathleen Winsor, about an ambitious young woman’s rise through the bedchambers of the Royal Court. The film was directed by Otto Preminger. Linda Darnell is Amber. Once again, George Sanders plays Charles, eight years before reprising the role for “The King’s Thief.” Cornel Wilde, Richard Greene, and Jessica Tandy are also in the cast. Philadelphia-born composer David Raksin, he of “Laura” fame, plays fast and loose with music of the era.

    Bwoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! It’s so naughty! Everyone, giggle into your handkerchiefs and wear ribbons on your shoes. We’ll be powdering our faces and going heavy on the rouge, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Marian Anderson Florence Price Triumph

    Marian Anderson Florence Price Triumph

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    Ross Amico
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    4 responses

    On this date in 1939 – Easter Sunday, as it turns out – in a supreme demonstration of turning lemons into lemonade, Marian Anderson, barred from performing at Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, on account of her race, sang instead from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, to a diverse crowd of 750,000 people on the mall and a national radio audience estimated in the millions.

    The program concluded with the spiritual “My Soul is Anchored in the Lord,” in an arrangement by Florence Price (1887-1953). By coincidence, today also happens to be Price’s birthday. Price, born in Little Rock, Arkansas, became the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, when her Symphony in E minor was performed by the Chicago Symphony in 1933. Needless to say, in an era when White American males struggled to find acceptance on Eurocentric classical music programs, Price, as a Black American woman, faced even greater challenges

    The playing field has shifted in recent years, and interest in Price’s music has been on the rise. It’s hard to believe, for a composer of her accomplishments, that dozens of her manuscripts were rescued from her dilapidated summer home, on the outskirts of St. Anne, Illinois, only as recently as 2009.

    It’s an exciting time to be alive. Who knows what other musical riches are out there, undervalued in their time, awaiting rediscovery?

    Anderson sings “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord”

    Price’s Symphony No. 1 in E minor

  • Paul Robeson Sings Ode to Joy

    Paul Robeson Sings Ode to Joy

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    Ross Amico
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    6 responses

    On Paul Robeson’s birthday, here’s Princeton’s own, to sing Beethoven’s celebration of universal brotherhood, his setting of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.”

    At the time of this recording, his U.S. passport had been revoked.

    https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/24367

    More about Robeson’s ties to Wales and the plight of the miners:

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/02/how-paul-robeson-found-political-voice-in-welsh-valleys

    The story behind “Freedom Train,” with audio:

    https://njdigitalhighway.org/lesson/paul_robeson/freedom_train

  • Julian Grant’s “Salt” Premieres Online Free Concert

    Julian Grant’s “Salt” Premieres Online Free Concert

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    Ross Amico
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    5 responses

    Last year, I interviewed composer Julian Grant for an article in the Princeton weekly, U.S. 1, but when the related concert was cancelled, thanks to Covid, the article never ran. So now I’m saving it to be spruced up for a future date.

    In the meantime, Grant has a new piece, scheduled to receive its world premiere this evening, on a streamed concert of Boston-based Emmanuel Music, presented by the Harvard Musical Association. Grant’s “Salt” is an HMA commission.

    The composer characterizes the work as “a rollicking vocal chamber music premiere which may be masquerading as an opera, or vice versa. It could either be staged, or performed, as here, in concert.

    “Based on a Russian folk-tale, collected by Alexandr Afanas’ev (1826-71) who was Russia’s equivalent to the Brothers Grimm. I have changed the tale slightly, transforming the ne’er-do-well son into a daughter, which gives the story – which also involves a king who won’t eat, a crew of schoolboys, a spoilt princess, a rampaging giant and treacherous siblings – more of a 21st century vibe.

    “This piece, written in lockdown, is a piece of pure escapism, which is what I felt I most needed during this past, most difficult of years for us all.”

    The remainder of the program will be devoted to works by Beethoven, including selections from his Scottish and Irish folksongs, the song cycle “An die ferne Geliebte” (“To the Distant Beloved”), and the Presto movement from the Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 1.

    The concert is FREE. Watch it online, tonight, live, at 7 pm EDT, or catch it later on the HMA YouTube channel:

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC72tpsQe-XZMWrmNLWgZ0GA

    For more about Julian Grant, visit:

    http://www.juliangrant.net

    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=julian+grant+composer

  • Vera’s Story Holocaust Remembrance Day

    Vera’s Story Holocaust Remembrance Day

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    Ross Amico
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    4 responses

    On this Yom HaShoah, hear the riveting, harrowing, and ultimately inspiring story of Vera Herman Goodkin, as told in her own words.

    Goodkin was just shy of her 9th birthday when the Nazis occupied her hometown of Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia. She spent the next four years in hiding and detention. Ultimately, she was rescued and taken to freedom under the protection of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

    A sweet, articulate, and upbeat personality, Goodkin continues to speak with young people about her experiences and to warn of the dangers of hatred and mistrust.

    “Vera’s Story: A Holocaust Remembrance” will be broadcast on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org today at 3 & 11 pm EDT.

    The award-winning program will also include music by composers who fled Europe or perished during the war, as well as works written in memory of the millions of victims of the Holocaust.

    Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, also marks the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, when Jewish resistance fighters defied the Nazis and fought for freedom and dignity.

    You’ll find more information about “Vera’s Story” and a representative playlist – including works by Gideon Klein, Hans Krasa, Szymon Laks, Franz Waxman, and Eric Zeisl – here:

    https://www.wwfm.org/post/veras-story-holocaust-remembrance#stream/0

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