Classic Ross Amico

Category: Picture Perfect

Korngold as Ghostwriter on “Picture Perfect”

Errol Flynn writes a ballet? Charles Boyer composes a tone poem? Claude Rains writes a cello concerto!

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ve got three examples from Hollywood’s Golden Age of movies about fictional composers. These, of course, required music allegedly written by the characters, and this was provided by two-time Academy Award-winner Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

Korngold is probably best known to movie buffs as the composer for Flynn swashbucklers such as “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and “The Sea Hawk,” but his filmography is more varied than one might at first suspect. No matter what the subject, Korngold could be counted on to bring that opulent fin de siècle gloss, developed in a Vienna steeped in Mahler and Strauss.

We’ll hear music from “Escape Me Never” (1947), a slightly preposterous melodrama about two composer brothers who become rivals in love; “The Constant Nymph” (1943), about a would-be romantic bond between a composer struggling to find his true voice and an admiring girl on the verge of womanhood who develops deeper feelings for him; and “Deception” (1946), about a cellist reunited with his former love, who had believed him killed during the war, and the vindictive composer who attempts to shatter his psyche through grueling rehearsals of his latest concerto.

“Deception” was Korngold’s last, wholly original score, though he was lured back to Hollywood for one final project, “Magic Fire” (1955), a biopic of the composer Richard Wagner, for which he adapted selections from Wagner’s operas. Furthermore, Korngold makes an appearance onscreen (!) as conductor Hans Richter. The film was subject to heavy cuts prior to its U.S. release and was not a success.

Hollywood seldom gets it right when it comes to portraying the process of the composer, but Korngold, true to his name, did his best to spin gold from corn, producing some appropriately grand utterances, albeit condensed to only a few minutes of screen time. Quite a task for this figure who made his greatest mark in opera.

Join me for these examples of Korngold as ghostwriter, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!

——-

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu

——-

Follow the link to hear Korngold improvise on themes from “The Flying Dutchman” (with entertaining stills):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4bNEw1nu3I

MAGIC FIRE: When the actor who was hired to play Hans Richter failed to show, Korngold was rushed into make-up (hence, the fake beard). This is the only existing footage of Korngold conducting.

August 7, 2026
Wagner Out the Wazoo on “Picture Perfect,” “Sweetness and Light,” and “The Lost Chord”

In 1876, the four operas – or music dramas (the composer’s preferred term) – of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” were performed together for the first time, from August 13 through August 17, at the inaugural Bayreuth Festival, in the Festspielhaus (a theater of the composer’s design) in Bayreuth, Germany. The Bayreuth Festival has continued as a mecca for Wagnerites down to the present day.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the “Ring,” all three of my radio shows this weekend will tie in, in one way or another, with this most grandiose and influential undertaking.

First, today on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have music from four films in which Erich Wolfgang Korngold served as ghostwriter for onscreen composers, providing a ballet for Errol Flynn’s in “Escape Me Never” (1946), a tone poem for Charles Boyer in “The Constant Nymph” (1943), and a cello concerto for Claude Rains in “Deception” (1946). More to the point, Korngold actually appears onscreen – hastily made-up when the actor hired for the purpose didn’t show – to play conductor Hans Richter in the Wagner biopic “Magic Fire,” for which he adapted selections from, yes, the Ring Cycle.

Then tomorrow morning, on “Sweetness and Light,” it will be the unlikeliest “light music” program, as we listen to piano transcriptions by Carl Tausig and Louis Brassin, the “Siegfried Idyll” (probably the sweetest thing Wagner ever wrote), humorist Anna Russell’s classic routine “The Ring of the Nibelungs (An Analysis),” and a cheeky work for piano four-hands by Gabriel Fauré & André Messager, in which they distill somber motifs from the cycle into a frivolous ballroom dance.

Finally, tomorrow afternoon/evening (depending on where you are), it will be an hour of historic recordings of “Die Walküre” – the second of the “Ring” operas (er, music dramas) – by Lawrence Tibbett, with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, in 1934, and Lotte Lehmann and Lauritz Melchior, with Bruno Walter and the Vienna Philharmonic, in 1935. Also, we’ll hear Karl Muck conducting selections from Wagner’s “Parsifal” at the actual Festspielhaus, in 1927. The recording will feature actual bells of Wagner’s design, which were later melted down for munitions by the Nazis.

Hojotoho! Get out your party hats (helmets with horns and wings, of course), as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the “Ring” this weekend, on KWAX Classical Oregon!

Stream the shows, wherever you are, at the times below:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Here’s the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu

August 7, 2026
Tyrannical Sea Captains on “Picture Perfect”

This week on “Picture Perfect,” taste the lash and prepare to be keelhauled! We’ll have music from movies featuring tyrannical sea captains.

Tyranny and sadism are common ingredients in nautical adventure films, where hard-bitten sea captains find it “Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”

At least that’s the mantra of Wolf Larsen, who does his best to uphold the philosophy of Milton’s Satan, in Jack London’s “The Sea Wolf” (1941). Larsen is a tough Norwegian sea captain who presides over his ship, the Ghost, with strength and brutality.

Edward G. Robinson plays Larsen. John Garfield is the working class seaman who opposes him. And Ida Lupino is the castaway with a past, with whom he falls in love in spite of himself. The score is by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who also provided the music for the seafaring adventures of Errol Flynn.

Captain Ahab requires little introduction. Everyone knows his ivory leg and his obsessive quest for the White Whale. Gregory Peck plays him in a film version of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (1956), which was adapted by Ray Bradbury and directed by John Huston. The score is by English composer Philip Sainton.

Humphrey Bogart was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as Lieutenant Commander Phillip Francis Queeg, in a big screen adaptation of Herman Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny” (1954). Queeg, in charge of a U.S. Navy destroyer-minesweeper, is pushed over the edge by his obsession with strawberries pilfered from the officers’ mess. Max Steiner’s upbeat, patriotic theme provides a nice counterpoint to the interpersonal turmoil aboard the Caine.

Finally, the most iconic of tyrannical sea captains, Captain Bligh, is represented by “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1962). Historical novelists Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall make hay from the 1789 insurrection aboard the HMS Bounty.

The classic film version from 1935 starred Charles Laughton as Bligh and Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian. The remake featured Trevor Howard as Bligh, with Marlon Brando, envisioning Christian as a kind of high seas dandy.

It’s said that Brando essentially directed all his own scenes himself. The film was colossal failure, earning back only $13 million of its $19 million budget. Nonetheless, it managed to inspire Bronislau Kaper to compose one of his most monumental scores.

Take a bucket of salt water with your stripes, you dog! Then join me for tyrannical sea captains on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!

——-

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu

July 31, 2026
Get Animated with “Picture Perfect”

“Music is a moral law,” wrote Plato. “It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination… and life to everything.”

That includes computer-generated imagery.

While my distaste for the overkill of CGI in alleged “live action” movies is quite well known, I have to concede that, when shelling out the clams for a big-budget movie, one stands a better chance these days of getting a quality ride if one banks on the solely computer-animated feature. Put an action hero in a computer-animated landscape, and everything looks incredibly fake. But integrate the characters, by creating them in the computer as well, and the result is often much more absorbing, imaginative, and even wittier than your run-of-the-mill Hollywood blockbuster.

Furthermore, in a day when so many movies sport scores made up of droning electronics punctuated by colorless action cues, the computer-generated feature seems to attract composers who still understand how to write music.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll listen to enlivening scores from four computer-generated films.

We’ll hear selections from the first installment in the “Ice Age” franchise, by David Newman (son of Golden Age heavy-hitter Alfred Newman, brother of Thomas Newman, and cousin of Randy Newman).

We’ll also have some of John Williams’ music from “The Adventures of Tintin,” after the comic book adventurer created by Belgian artist and writer Hergé. Tintin’s popularity in Europe failed to translate into big domestic box office, comparatively speaking, but the score is Williams’ best of its kind – an exciting adventure piece full of leitmotifs and great action cues – since the first of the Harry Potter films.

We’ll round out the hour with two projects scored by Michael Giacchino for Pixar Animation Studios. Giacchino’s break-out success was the sly superhero satire, “The Incredibles,” for which he composed in the swinging ‘60s espionage style popularized by John Barry when writing for the James Bond films.

We’ll also hear selections from Giacchino’s Academy Award-winning score to “Up.” “Up” was nominated for Best Picture at the 82nd Academy Awards, only the second animated feature ever to be included in the category.

I think we can all use a little animation, can’t we? I hope you’ll join me for an hour of selections from computer-animated adventures, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!

——-

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu See less

July 24, 2026
Classical Weekend with Classic Ross Amico

With Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” sailing into theaters today, interest in Classical mythology is renewed. I mean, I think it’s always been a fascination for school children, but thanks to that early inculcation, it remains with us for the rest of our lives – sometimes pushed to the backs of our brains, but who doesn’t remember with affection the Greek heroes, their imposing quests and impossible challenges, the fickle gods, the peculiar trysts, the triumphs and turns of fortune, and perhaps most of all, the grotesque monsters?

“The Odyssey” is an excuse for me to revisit these youthful enthusiasms, as I make Classical mythology the focus of all three of my radio shows this weekend (with air times and streaming information posted below).

First, today, on “Picture Perfect,” it’s a mythological mash-up of music from fantasy films, including selections from “Helen of Troy” (Max Steiner), “Clash of the Titans” (Laurence Rosenthal), “Hercules” (Pino Donaggio), and “Jason and the Argonauts” (Bernard Herrmann).

Then, tomorrow morning on “Sweetness and Light,” it’s an ambrosial assortment of pieces inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice, Daphnis and Chloe, Hercules, and a riot of nymphs, satyrs, and fauns, vividly evoked by Jacques Offenbach, Howard Hanson, Cécile Chaminade, George Frideric Handel, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Maurice Ravel.

Finally, indomitable Odysseus makes his belated return from the Trojan War to Ithaca on “The Lost Chord,” in works by Ernst Boehe (“Departure and Shipwreck” from the symphonic cycle “From Odysseus’ Voyages”) and Benjamin Britten (the radio play “The Rescue of Penelope,” narrated with gusto by Dame Janet Baker), on “Home Sweet Homer.”

So much for moderation. Join me for a triple helping of Classical classics. I’ll be stringing my bow and launching arrows down a gallery of axe-heads, in celebration of “The Odyssey,” on “Picture Perfect,” “Sweetness and Light,” and “The Lost Chord” – all three originating from KWAX Classical Oregon!

——–

Clip and save the start times of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

——–

IMAGE: “Odysseus and Polyphemus” (1896) by Arnold Böcklin

July 17, 2026

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS