Classic Ross Amico

  • Mythological Movie Music Clash of the Titans & More

    Mythological Movie Music Clash of the Titans & More

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    Ross Amico
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    Release the Kraken!

    This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s a mythological mash-up, with music from four films inspired by classical myths.

    “Helen of Troy” (1956) is based on events recounted in Homer’s “The Iliad.” Like the more recent film, “Troy,” this version glosses over any participation by the gods. Could it be their wrath that caused this Robert Wise-directed spectacle to be plagued with difficulties?

    Reportedly three people were killed during the making of the film, extras were injured by a runaway chariot, and 80 percent of the two-acre recreation of Troy was burned to the ground by a cigarette. On the bright side, it was Bridgette Bardot’s first film made outside of France, and Rossana Podestà played Helen. A spectacle indeed! Max Steiner provided the lush, romantic score.

    “Clash of the Titans” (1981) is not to be confused with the 2010 CGI-fest. This is the real deal, with special effects by legendary stop motion maestro Ray Harryhausen.

    Just as special is its luxury casting of supporting players, including Sir Laurence Olivier as Zeus, and Claire Bloom, Maggie Smith, Sian Phillips, and Ursula Andress as fellow Olympians. Burgess Meredith is among the mortals, Flora Robson turns up in one scene as a witch, and Perseus is played by newcomer Harry Hamlin, soon to find fame on television’s “L.A. Law.”

    The composer, Laurence Rosenthal, studied at the Eastman School and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. He also wrote the music for “Raisin in the Sun,” “The Miracle Worker,” “Becket,” and the 1977 version of “The Island of Dr. Moreau.”

    “Clash of the Titans” would be Harryhausen’s final film. Despite flashes of his inimitable brilliance, in sequences like the one involving Medusa, and the creation of something of a cultural icon in the Kraken, the effects came to seem a little retro in the wake of “Star Wars” and “Superman.” Though a sequel, “Force of the Trojans,” was pitched to M-G-M, it was not to materialize. Harryhausen died in 2013, at the age of 92.

    It would be a crime against a peplum to put together a program of this sort without at least a nod to Hercules. The peplum genre originated in Italy with Maciste, a supporting character in the 1914 classic “Cabiria.” So powerful did this strongman prove that he became an industry unto himself. The Maciste craze reached its muscular peak in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. When the films arrived in the United States, in hilariously dubbed versions, the character was invariably renamed Hercules, Samson, Atlas, Goliath, or any other mythological, Biblical, or historical bodybuilder you can think of.

    A peplum revival sprang up around “Conan the Barbarian” in the early 1980s. We’ll hear a selection from “Hercules” (1983), starring Lou Ferrigno, television’s Incredible Hulk. The music was by Pino Donaggio.

    Finally, we’ll make things right again with an extensive suite from the ultimate Ray Harryhausen mythological playground, “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963). This is the one that features the climactic battle with the skeleton army. The music, by Bernard Herrmann, brilliantly suits the visuals. We’ll hear a superb re-recording of the score, on the Intrada label, with the Sinfonia of London, conducted by Bruce Broughton.

    No bones about it, you won’t want to myth it! it’s music from movies (loosely) inspired by classical mythology this week, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Elmer Bernstein a Hollywood Legend

    Elmer Bernstein a Hollywood Legend

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    Ross Amico
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    Over the course of an enviable career that spanned some 50 years, Elmer Bernstein composed music for dozens of movies, many of them still much-beloved, including “The Ten Commandments” (1956), “The Magnificent Seven” (1960), “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962), and “The Great Escape” (1963).

    In addition, he was one of the first film composers to incorporate jazz elements into his work for dramatic purposes, in movies like “The Man with the Golden Arm” (1955), “Sweet Smell of Success” (1957), and “Walk on the Wild Side” (1962).

    Coming out of the Swinging Sixties, when the industry clearly favored a more “popular” sound over purely orchestral scores (until John Williams changed everything), Bernstein kept right on working. Thanks to a generation of younger filmmakers who had grown up on his classics, he never lacked for opportunities. Suddenly he found himself much in demand as a comedy composer, providing the underscores for “Animal House” (1978), “The Blues Brothers” (1980), “Airplane!” (1980), “Stripes” (1981), and “Ghostbusters” (1984).

    For Martin Scorsese, he composed music for “The Age of Innocence” (1993), “Bringing Out the Dead” (1999), and “The Gangs of New York” (2002), though his score for the latter was ultimately rejected. He also adapted Bernard Herrmann’s music for Scorsese’s remake of “Cape Fear” (1991).

    Oh yeah, along the way, he also composed the iconic National Geographic theme – clearly by the same man who wrote “The Magnificent Seven.”

    In all, Bernstein was nominated for 14 Academy Awards, but claimed the Oscar only once, fairly early on, for his work on “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (1967), of all things. His final nomination was for his very last score, for “Far from Heaven” (2002). Elmer Bernstein died on August 18, 2004 at the age of 82.

    No relation to Leonard Bernstein (or “Bern-STINE”), Elmer pronounced his name “Bern-STEEN.” The two were sometimes further differentiated as “East Coast Bernstein” and “West Coast Bernstein.”

    In the year 2000, Elmer Bernstein composed a guitar concerto and expressed regret that he hadn’t contributed more to the concert hall. At least it was good one. David Hurwitz of classicstoday.com describes it as “incontestably the finest piece ever composed for this combination” (i.e. guitar and orchestra), going so far as to hold it up to Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez.” I don’t know if I’d take it that far, but it is pretty damn good.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOxXLDdWZF8&list=PLjRpv3cr2epHnVUvbZhp8v0de0pXaOjkY

    Happy birthday, Elmer Bernstein. You are very much missed!

  • Boheme Opera NJ Celebrates 30 Years with Aida

    Boheme Opera NJ Celebrates 30 Years with Aida

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    Ross Amico
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    Boheme Opera NJ will celebrate its 30th anniversary with two performances of Verdi’s “Aida” at The College of New Jersey, this Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.

    Joseph and Sandra Pucciatti staged their first production – a skeletal performance of “I Pagliacci” – in a Trenton parking lot, back in 1981. From this unlikely acorn sprang central New Jersey’s most enduring opera company, which gave its first main stage performance in 1989.

    Opera is a colorful business. Read all about the Pucciattis’ incredible journey, from “Hey! Let’s put on a show!” to the Radamès’ triumphal march, in my article in this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo, out today.

    https://princetoninfo.com/boheme-opera-celebrates-30-with-triumphal-march/

    PHOTO: Marsha Thompson will head the cast in this weekend’s “Aida”

  • Winds of Marlboro Music Danzi & Beethoven

    Winds of Marlboro Music Danzi & Beethoven

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    Ross Amico
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    It’s a high wind alert on the next “Music from Marlboro.” Tune in for an hour of chamber music colored by winds.

    Like many of his contemporaries, Franz Danzi had decidedly mixed feelings about the music of Beethoven. Beethoven may have only been six years Danzi’s junior, but he was a volatile force that felt no compunction about blowing over the fence posts of tradition.

    Danzi, on the other hand, was a devout classicist. As a young musician in the famed Mannheim Orchestra, he was deeply impressed by a visit from Mozart, whose own music remained his ideal.

    In addition to being a composer himself, Danzi was also a fine cellist (his father was the principal at Mannheim) and a reliable conductor. Danzi composed steadily, producing concertos, chamber music, and no less than 17 works for the stage. Much of his output has fallen into comparative neglect, with the notable exception of his woodwind quintets.

    Be that as it may, it is Danzi’s Bassoon Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 40, No. 3, that we’ll hear. It was performed at the 1975 Marlboro Music Festival by bassoonist Milan Turkovic, violinist Young Uck Kim, violist Philipp Naegele, and cellist Alain Meunier.

    Danzi’s reservations about him aside, it’s clear from Beethoven’s Quintet for Piano and Winds, Op. 16, that he too was an admirer of Mozart. The work is evidently modeled on Mozart’s earlier piece for the same instrumental combination. It’s even written in the same key (E-flat). In fact, I venture to guess, there’s little in the quintet, written when Beethoven was in his mid-20s, that would have made even Danzi squeamish.

    We’ll hear it performed by pianist – and Marlboro cofounder – Rudolf Serkin, oboist Rudolf Vrbsky, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, hornist Robert Routch, and bassoonist Alexander Heller, in a recording made in 1974.

    Everyone knows it’s windy. Catch your breath for the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

    Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

  • Marlboro Music Winds & Composer Birthdays

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    Ross Amico
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    This week on “Music from Marlboro,” we’re gone with the winds – woodwind instruments, that is. Tune in at 6 p.m. EDT for the Bassoon Quartet, Op. 40, No. 3, by Franz Danzi and the Quintet for Piano and Winds by Beethoven.

    For the remainder of the late afternoon, we’ll celebrate the birthdays today of composers Elisabetta Brusa, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Reginald De Koven, and Grigoras Dinicu, conductor Sixten Ehrling, and pianist Garrick Ohlsson.

    Hang on tight, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

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