• Odysseus’ Journey Home: Music & Adventure

    Odysseus’ Journey Home: Music & Adventure

    by 

    in
    One response

    Homesick for Homer?

    This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” it’s an hour of high adventure and satisfied bloodlust, as we listen to musical evocations of Odysseus’ homeward journey.

    We’ll hear Ernst Boehe’s symphonic poem “Departure and Shipwreck,” from his cycle “From Odysseus’ Voyages” (1903-05), and Benjamin Britten’s radio play “The Rescue of Penelope” (1943), narrated by Dame Janet Baker.

    Odysseus, of course, is one of the heroes of the Trojan War, waylaid time and again, on his return, by Poseidon and the frailties of his own men. It takes him ten years to find his way back to Ithaca. When he gets there, he finds his wife beset by boorish suitors all vying for her hand and his throne.

    What happens next pushes all the same buttons that are still pushed whenever Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger apply the camouflage, strap on the bandoliers, and sheathe the big knives. Along the way, there’s also some meaningful father-son bonding. Leave it to Homer, who always knew how to lend a little class to the classics.

    Odysseus strings his bow, for “Home Sweet Homer,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.


    “The Slaughter of the Suitors by Odysseus and Telemachus” (1812), by Louis-Vincent-Léon Pallière


  • Far Side of the Sun & Space 1999 Celebration

    by 

    There are some who seem to think I was inordinately cheery when discussing “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun” (1969), Gerry Anderson’s meditation on the existence of an alternate Earth. But what’s not to find amusing? Be forewarned, Roy and I “spoil” everything (as we generally do), though apparently gleefully so.

    Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner live-streams on Facebook every Friday and Sunday at 7 pm EDT.

    “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun” kicks off a Gerry Anderson weekend, as Roy will also host a “Space: 1999” love feast tomorrow night, Sunday, September 13 – a date fans recognize as “Breakaway Day.” (For the rest of us, that’s the day the moon is blown out of orbit.) As with last week’s “Star Trek” celebration, viewers are invited to join him via Zoom to discuss their own experiences with and impressions of the show.

    There will also be a special drawing for “Space: 1999” memorabilia – storyboards, a script, and an actual prop.

    To find out more, visit https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner/


  • Airport Movie Music on Picture Perfect

    Airport Movie Music on Picture Perfect

    by 

    This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’re ready to take flight, at our new time – Saturday at 7 pm – with music from movies about airports and airplanes.

    In the original “Airport” (1970), producer Irwin Allen established the prototype for disaster movies of all stripes by placing an all-star, aging cast in spectacular peril. Burt Lancaster! Dean Martin! George Kennedy! Jean Seberg! Jacqueline Bisset! Helen Hayes! The list goes on and on, longer than the longest runway. The bongo-laden theme is by veteran film composer Alfred Newman,” from the last of his over 200 scores.

    Another movie with something of the same feel is “The V.I.P.s” (1963), allegedly inspired by the real-life love-triangle of Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and Peter Finch. The story is set at London Heathrow Airport, where flights are delayed because of a dense fog. The film was written by Terrence Rattigan and the parts cast from another laundry list of stars, including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan, Maggie Smith, Rod Taylor, and Orson Welles, with Margaret Rutherford in an Academy Award-winning performance. The music is by Miklós Rózsa.

    By contrast, Steven Spielberg’s “The Terminal” (2004) is an (intentionally) comic take on the predicament of a hapless Eastern European who finds himself in a kind limbo, trapped in an international arrivals terminal in New York, after his country erupts into civil war, so that his passport and other documentation are no longer valid. His plight mirrors that of real-life Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian who lived for 17 years in a terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

    Tom Hanks plays the unfortunate traveler, who makes the terminal his home, and Catherine Zeta-Jones the airline attendant with whom he strikes up a relationship. The music is by regular Spielberg collaborator John Williams, and I think you’ll find it quite different from the Williams known for his work on “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones.”

    Finally, we’ll turn to the Alfred Hitchcock thriller “North by Northwest” (1959), a film in which Cary Grant encounters love and danger in, on, and from a variety of planes, trains, and automobiles. Planes are particularly significant. During the course of the film, it’s revealed that the title is in reference to a Northwest Airlines flight; Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) must do all she can to avoid getting on a plane with Phillip Vandamm (James Mason); and of course, Roger Thornhill (Grant) flees from a strafing crop duster. Bernard Herrmann’s opening fandango propels us into the adventure.

    Rush more to Rushmore. Departure time is this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.


  • 9/11 Reflection Music and Remembrance

    9/11 Reflection Music and Remembrance

    by 

    in
    2 responses

    9-11: A morning for reflection. It may have been 19 years ago today, but everything about it is still so vivid.

    When my telephone rang around 9:00 that morning, I was already at work, at home, on my computer, oblivious to the news. I picked up. A friend was on the line. She said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I imagined the Empire State Building and the B-25 accident, back in the 1940s. I’m thinking maybe a piper. Terrible in itself, but accidents do happen. Then she said one of the towers “fell over.” That was what propelled me to the TV.

    Nothing could have prepared us for the spectacle and terror of that morning. Nothing would ever be the same.

    I was one of the lucky ones. My parents happened to be in the air at that time, on the way to China. They were traveling west across Pennsylvania. At 10:03, United States Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, southeast of Pittsburgh. The phone lines were jammed. Nobody owned a cell phone. It was a long day until I learned that my parents’ flight had been grounded in Pittsburgh.

    My heart goes out to those who died senselessly, and for their survivors, for whom the day remains vivid and painful, I’m sure.

    Here’s a work of solace and consolation: Robert Moran’s “Trinity Requiem” (2011), named for Trinity Wall Street, the so-called “Ground Zero church” in Lower Manhattan, composed to mark the attacks’ tenth anniversary:

    The horror and surreality of the day are perfectly reflected in Gloria Coates’ String Quartet No. 8 (2001-02), with its eerie approximations not only of plane engines but also a kind of emotional instability. I know it gives me a sinking feeling, and that’s pretty much how it was to experience 9/11. If you’re looking for solace, do not go here:

    Kevin Puts processes expectancy, uncertainty, and hope in his Symphony No. 2 (2002):

    Dona nobis pacem.


  • Picture Perfect New Time Saturdays WWFM

    Picture Perfect New Time Saturdays WWFM

    by 

    in
    7 responses

    Hang tight! “Picture Perfect” has moved from its former Friday time slot to Saturdays at 6 pm EDT! If that time’s not the most convenient for you, don’t forget, you can always catch it later as a webcast at WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org. Select the show, and click “listen.”

    https://www.wwfm.org/programs/picture-perfect-ross-amico


Tag Cloud

Aaron Copland (93) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (145) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (195) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (104) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (160) Mozart (91) Opera (213) Philadelphia Orchestra (89) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (109) Radio (88) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (269) Vaughan Williams (105) WPRB (397) WWFM (881)

DON’T MISS A BEAT

Receive a weekly digest every Sunday at noon by signing up here


RECENT POSTS